A Thanksgiving Tidbit:
I am sure that many readers of TOOL have been enjoying the opportunity
provided by the note cares of gaining a glimpse into VN’s creative
laboratory. Those readers will have observed that there are certain blank
spaces between words (see, e.g., p. 93). Presumably VN left the space blank
until he had found the appropriate word for the setting. One place where a
trace of an erased word is still visible (but noted in the transcript below)
is on page 199. It appears that VN had originally put down the word "lyric"
as a modifier for "body," but then erased it. The entire phrase displays an
iambic rhythm: "he SAW her [LYRic] BACK, her HIP beTWEEN his HANDS." One
wonders what adjective VN might eventually have come up with to replace
"lyric." Presumably it would have the same metrical rhythm.
Julian Connolly