Haunted, the Companion Album to House of Leaves

Music and literature have an enormous influence on each other.  In March 2000, Mark Z. Danielewski released the famous (and excellent) House of Leaves.  In October of the same year, Poe released her album, Haunted, with many songs based on or in reference to House of Leaves.  What may seem stranger is that House of Leaves also references Haunted, with Johnny Truant finding a band playing a song titled "5 & 1/2 minute Hallway" including the line "I live at the end of a five and a half minute hallway," the first line of the song.

Now the immediate assumption would be that Poe incorporated this into the album, except she began recording the album in 1999, before the book was released.  This is easily explained: Poe is the stage name of Ann Danielewski, Mark Danielewski's sister. In fact, in the 2001 remix of her song Hey Pretty, Mark provided a voice-over at the beginning, reading directly from House of Leaves.

 

If the existence of a companion album to House of Leaves wasn't enough to get you to listen to it, I should say that it's a really good album.

 

 

The Danielewski Code

     If you’re unfamiliar with the name Mark Danielewski, then you’re missing out.  Author of the incredible House of Leaves, Danielewski is nothing if not inventive and challenging.  And his newest challenge seems to be on his Twitter page.  
     Throughout last December, most of Danielewski’s tweets began with the phrase “As a darkness nears,” or “As a darkness gathers,” or “As a darkness falls.”  On January 1^st, he tweeted the following:

It contained a link to this image:

On January 17, and every two weeks since then, he has posted what I have to assume is a code of some kind.  He has posted nothing else.

Attached to each is a photo of pitch black square:

Either symbolism for the emptiness of human life or
he forgot to remove the lens cap 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help crack the Danielewski Code.  Good look, and try not to get lost.