Infinite Jest Part 57

Pemulis has used one foot to clear a path through laundry and diskettes and books and gear to the west window, where he's making broad involved gestures with a person or persons outside down on the grounds whom the window's big sill keeps Hal from being able to see. Hal's underwear is at a diagonal across his pelvis. Orin on the phone is saying: 'Picture this and see what you think. Imagine this. The F.L.Q. and other various Separatist cells all suddenly divert their terror's energies away from Canada and suddenly start mounting an insurgent campaign of U.S. and Mexican hara.s.sment. But the thing is they make a big deal of terroristically insurging against O.N.A.N. on the behalf of all all of Canada. They even find a way to bring the Albertan ultra-rightists in on it, plus other provincial fringes, so it looks to O.N.A.N. like maybe all of Canada as a whole is in on the insurging.' of Canada. They even find a way to bring the Albertan ultra-rightists in on it, plus other provincial fringes, so it looks to O.N.A.N. like maybe all of Canada as a whole is in on the insurging.'

'I don't have to picture it. It's what's going on. The C.P.C.P. l l makes incursions against Montana like clockwork. There was that horrific jamming of InterLace pulses and subst.i.tution of p.o.r.n-films for children's programming around Duluth in June traced to that psycho quintet in southwest Ontario. The Interstates north of Saratoga are still supposed to be undrivable after sunset.' makes incursions against Montana like clockwork. There was that horrific jamming of InterLace pulses and subst.i.tution of p.o.r.n-films for children's programming around Duluth in June traced to that psycho quintet in southwest Ontario. The Interstates north of Saratoga are still supposed to be undrivable after sunset.'

'Exactly.'

'So some point for me to ponder needs to emerge really fast, here, Orin.'

'The point is I was rhetorically invited by the Subject to entertain the picture of it all really being the Nucks. The pan-Canadian thing being a dodge. The Separatists all some-how united and orchestrating the anti-O.N.A.N.ism. The rhetorical question becomes to imagine this and ask: Why would they do this?'

'We're wearing a groove in the same track again, O. It's because the Concavity impacts mainly Quebec.'

'No, I mean she meant why would they make such a noise about insurging on behalf of all of Canada Canada and go to such lengths to orchestrate the appearance of pan- and go to such lengths to orchestrate the appearance of pan-Canadian anti-O.N.A.N.ism.' anti-O.N.A.N.ism.'

'And then judging by precedent the Subject gave a hypothetical answer to her own question. Have you gotten to get a word in edgewise throughout this series of interviews, O.?'

'What if it's that the Nuck Separatists know totally well that if the O.N.A.N. administration sees Canada as a big enough roach in the ointment, Gentle and Unspecified Services' boys in white can get together with Mexico's Vichified puppet-state and make things like really unpleasant indeed indeed for Ottawa. They could make Canada the sort of black scapegoat of all of O.N.A.N. There's little you can picture that might be worse than being the one country in a three-country continental Anschluss that the other two countries are ganging up on and making things unpleasant for.' for Ottawa. They could make Canada the sort of black scapegoat of all of O.N.A.N. There's little you can picture that might be worse than being the one country in a three-country continental Anschluss that the other two countries are ganging up on and making things unpleasant for.'

'Vichified? Anschluss? This doesn't sound like any Orin I know. These are rabidly political catchwords. What kind of heartbreaking Rubensian This doesn't sound like any Orin I know. These are rabidly political catchwords. What kind of heartbreaking Rubensian Moment Moment -type fluff-journalist is this you're so determined to -?' -type fluff-journalist is this you're so determined to -?'

'The unpleasantness is pretty easy to imagine a picture of. The E.W.D. vectors could easily be recalibrated further north, Gentle could tell them. Our waste-resources are extensive. At the mildest, he could say, good-sized chunks of Canada could be Concavitized.'

'I have to go. Pemulis is slumped back against the wall with his hands over his stomach and is slumping all the way down the wall looking wobbly and pale.'

'Ponder the picture of the parliament's nails bitten all the way down to the ragged pink pulpy stuff as the Nucks orchestrate the terrorism so it looks more and more like Canada versus O.N.A.N.'

Hal's in slacks and one street-sock and one athletic sock and picking different s.h.i.+rts up off the floor, trying to smell a clean one. 'But this is all -'

'Kyaaaa!' Pemulis vaults a corner of Hal's bed and tries to claw at the transparent phone's antenna like he's going to break it off. Hal turns to protect the phone with a shoulder, whipping at Pemulis with a sweats.h.i.+rt.

Orin is saying 'What I'm asking is for you to ponder could it maybe end up that Quebec, after wreaking various mayhi down here and making it look like it's all of Canada, the P.Q.s or somebody respectable gets wigged up and go to Ottawa and offers this deal: Parliament gets the P.M. and the government to get the other provinces to let Quebec go, Separate, aller, partir aller, partir - and in return Quebec'll step up the anti-O.N.A.N. hara.s.sment and insurgency while - and in return Quebec'll step up the anti-O.N.A.N. hara.s.sment and insurgency while dropping dropping the pretense of other provinces being involved and all of Canada insurging and make it publicly clear that it's Quebec and Quebec alone that's O.N.A.N.'s real nemesis. They tell Ottawa they'll offer the contiguousness of the Concavity as their reason and send absolutely everything they've got in terms of terrorism at O.N.A.N. and Gentle, taking full credit each time. Offering themselves as the culprit and de-Reconfiguration as the objective.' the pretense of other provinces being involved and all of Canada insurging and make it publicly clear that it's Quebec and Quebec alone that's O.N.A.N.'s real nemesis. They tell Ottawa they'll offer the contiguousness of the Concavity as their reason and send absolutely everything they've got in terms of terrorism at O.N.A.N. and Gentle, taking full credit each time. Offering themselves as the culprit and de-Reconfiguration as the objective.'

'So your multilevelled journalist's hypothesizing a kind of meta-extortion.' Hal can hear Pemulis's whistle-lipped breathing. 'Separation is still the Quebecer insurgents' real goal, and their anti-O.N.A.N. insurgency is not what it appears.' Hal's in the dark under the desk that the fold-out TP and drives and phone console and modem are stacked on one corner of, surrounded by nests of wires, trying to find his other street-shoe. 'It's supposedly just been a ruse to arouse O.N.A.N.'s ire at Canada so the Quebecers can use the U.S. and Mexico as levers on Ottawa.'

'Trying to engineer it so that Canada'll be more than happy to disa.s.sociate from them,' Orin says. 'And I'm saying I don't have the background or lobes to even know whether she might be putting me on, testing my depth.'

'You've always had a special dread of depth-testing.'

'How about why don't you just toss me the Bob and Axhandle and me'll go down and get things ready and wait for you,' Pemulis stage-whispers to Hal's slacks' bottom, which is pretty much all that's visible from under the desk. Hal's hand comes up out of the leg-s.p.a.ce under the desk and raises one finger and shakes it a little for emphasis. Pemulis is standing next to the small TP viewer - which is propped up like a large photo with a b.u.t.tressy thing that folds out of its back - and the TP's disk- and cartridge-drive, which takes up less than a quarter of the desktop and has the phone's console and power unit bolted into a receptacle on the drive's side.

Hal's voice is m.u.f.fled and has the strained pitch of someone trying to clear nests of dust-bunnied wire to find something. 'Except Orin I don't see a great deal of pondering required here. The total anti-U.S. insurgency so far's been too hapless and small-potato for her theory to work. The odd pie- and guano-bombardment, stretching mirrors across lonely roads, even demapping officials and botulizing the occasional peanut jar. None of this is exactly bringing anyone to his knees. None of this is making Canada or Quebec look like any kind of serious threat.'

Michael Pemulis, his jaunty cap pushed back and his lips pursed as if whistling, but not whistling, is very casually brus.h.i.+ng his hand over the drive and console's power unit, as if killing time by casually dusting. His other hand's jingling pocket-change. There's the sound of Hal clunking his head on something under the desk. His bottom is bony and his belt has missed two loops. The power unit's toggle's next to a little red jewel of a power-light that blinks at the same rate as a smoke alarm when the toggle's on ON.

Hal sneezes twice. Pemulis taps his fingers in a little anapestic gallop over the unit's top. Orin sounds like he's sitting up straight. 'Hallie kid now you're right with me, this is where your pondering lobes come in, because that was just my response, that there was nothing sufficiently more than just an annoying gnat-like annoyance about the insurgencies, which is where she moved beyond my depth back into 1(a), if you remember, when she raised this samizdat samizdat -word in connec-' -word in connec-' (back to text) (back to text) 111. Hal's term, actually an Incandenza-family term, actually not inappropriate here because like most Incandenza-family terms put into family usage by Avril, who's an expatriate Quebecer, whinge whinge is some east-Canadian idiom for vigorous high-pitched complaining, almost like whining except with a semantic tinge of legitimacy to the complaint. is some east-Canadian idiom for vigorous high-pitched complaining, almost like whining except with a semantic tinge of legitimacy to the complaint. (back to text) (back to text) 112. The soon to be all-too-well-known and dread-inspiring a.s.sa.s.sins des Fauteuils Roll-ents a.s.sa.s.sins des Fauteuils Roll-ents of the E.W.D.-receptacle-festooned Papineau region of southwestern Quebec. of the E.W.D.-receptacle-festooned Papineau region of southwestern Quebec. (back to text) (back to text) 113. Which sinewy stuff is described by the OB-GYN specialist in his DictaChart as 'neural-gray.' (back to text) (back to text) 114. B.S. MCMLXII, The Glad Flaccid Receptacle Corporation, Zanesville OH, sponsor of the very last year of O.N.A.N.ite Subsidized Time (q.v. Note 78). All Rights Reserved. (back to text) (back to text) 115. Volkmann's contracture's some kind of severe serpentine deformation of the arms following a fracture that hadn't been set right or splinted or where the arm's been allowed to stay all woundedly bent in as it heals; bradyauxesis bradyauxesis refers to some part(s) of the body not growing as fast as the other parts of the body - Himself and the Moms got plenty familiar with these sorts of congenital-challenge terms and many more, re Mario, particularly the variations on the medical root refers to some part(s) of the body not growing as fast as the other parts of the body - Himself and the Moms got plenty familiar with these sorts of congenital-challenge terms and many more, re Mario, particularly the variations on the medical root brady, brady, from the Greek from the Greek bradys bradys meaning slow, such as bradylexia (w/r/t reading), bradyphenia (practical-problem-solving-type thinking), nocturnal bradypnea (dangerously slow breathing during sleep sometimes, which is why Mario uses four pillows minimum), bradypedestrianism (obvious), and especially bradykinesia, an almost gerontologic lentissimo about most of Mario's movements, an exaggerated slowness that both resembles and permits extremely close slow attention to whatever's being done. meaning slow, such as bradylexia (w/r/t reading), bradyphenia (practical-problem-solving-type thinking), nocturnal bradypnea (dangerously slow breathing during sleep sometimes, which is why Mario uses four pillows minimum), bradypedestrianism (obvious), and especially bradykinesia, an almost gerontologic lentissimo about most of Mario's movements, an exaggerated slowness that both resembles and permits extremely close slow attention to whatever's being done. (back to text) (back to text) 116. Pretty much the BMW of 16mm. digital-cartridge recorders, brought out in limited numbers by Paillard Cinematique of Sherbrooke, Quebec, CAN, just weeks before its manufacturing facilities were annularly hyperfloriated and the company went belly-up. (back to text) (back to text) 117. ... overshot the place to mention that Mario's head - in perverse contradistinction to the arm-trouble - is hyper hyper auxetic, and two to three times the size of your more average elf-to-jockey-sized head and facies. auxetic, and two to three times the size of your more average elf-to-jockey-sized head and facies. (back to text) (back to text) 118. You'd somehow think that Mario would be thick as thieves with the blue-collar custodial and kitchen and physical plant/grounds staff, but it's odd, he and they never have much to say to each other, and with rare exceptions none of the E.T.A.s including Mario has anything interpersonal to do with the nine-month part-time halfway-house rehabilitating workers, who mostly mow and mop and empty trash and load dishes into the dining hall's steamer, and who radiate a kind of slitty-eyed reserve that seems far more sullen and ungrateful than shy. (back to text) (back to text) 119. ... also overshot the spot to include that Mario's a h.o.m.odont: all his teeth are bicuspids and identical, front and back, not unlike a porpoise; it's a source of unending struggle for Ted Schacht, who tends to avoid Mario because whenever he's around him he has to fight the urge to have him open up and submit to scrutiny, which Schacht can well imagine would hurt his feelings: n.o.body wants to be an object of clinical interest like that. (back to text) (back to text) 120. This basic phenomenon being what more abstraction-capable post-Hegelian adults call 'Historical Consciousness.' (back to text) (back to text) 121. Eschaton's pre- and post-procedures are convolved enough so that an actual game gets gotten up every like month or so at most, almost always on Sunday, but even then not all twelve of a year's kids can get the hours off to play, which is why the lat.i.tude and surplus in game-personnel. (back to text) (back to text) 122. O.N.A.N.ite Cla.s.sroom Cartographic Series W5205002686W9W9W 14W4, B.S. 1994, Rand McNally & Company. (back to text) (back to text) 123. Pemulis here, dictating to Inc, who can just sit there making a steeple out of his fingers and pressing it to his lip and not take notes and wait and like inscribe [sic ] it anytime in the next week and get it verbatim, the smug t.u.r.d. Using the Mean-Value formula for dividing available megatonnage among Combatants whose GNP/Military // Military/Nuke ratios vary from Eschaton to Eschaton keeps you from needing to crunch out a new ratio for each Combatant each time, plus lets you multi-regress the results so Combatants get rewarded for past thermonuclear largesse [occasional verbal flourishes Hal's - HJI]. The formula's also provable by the Extreme Value Theorem, which the EV Theorem itself has a proof that's just about the biggest Unit-twisting b.i.t.c.h in the whole of applied differentiation, but I see Hal grimacing, so we'll keep it compact, even though this whole thing is real interesting if you're interested and whatnot. ] it anytime in the next week and get it verbatim, the smug t.u.r.d. Using the Mean-Value formula for dividing available megatonnage among Combatants whose GNP/Military // Military/Nuke ratios vary from Eschaton to Eschaton keeps you from needing to crunch out a new ratio for each Combatant each time, plus lets you multi-regress the results so Combatants get rewarded for past thermonuclear largesse [occasional verbal flourishes Hal's - HJI]. The formula's also provable by the Extreme Value Theorem, which the EV Theorem itself has a proof that's just about the biggest Unit-twisting b.i.t.c.h in the whole of applied differentiation, but I see Hal grimacing, so we'll keep it compact, even though this whole thing is real interesting if you're interested and whatnot.

Say you've got a Combatant and a record of his past GNP/Military // Military/Nuke ratios. We want to give the Combatant the like exact average of all the past megatonnages he's gotten in the past. The exact average is called the 'Mean Value,' which ought to give us a bit of a giggle, given the hostility of the context here.

So then but let A stand for the Mean Value of a Combatant's constantly fluctuating ratio and so constantly fluctuating initial megatonnage. We want to find A and give the Combatant exactly A megatons. How to do it's pretty elegant, and all you need for it is two pieces of data: the most his ratio's ever been and the least it's ever been. These two datums [sic ] are called the Extreme Values of the cn-n function for which A's the Mean Value, by the way. ] are called the Extreme Values of the cn-n function for which A's the Mean Value, by the way.

So then but so let be a continuous non-negative function (meaning the ratio) on the interval [a, b] (meaning the difference between the least the ratio's ever been and the most it's ever been and whatnot). Are these little explanations aggravating [sic ]? Inc's looking at me like b.u.t.ter would freeze. It's hard to know what to a.s.sume v. what to explain. I'm trying to be as clear as I can be [ ]? Inc's looking at me like b.u.t.ter would freeze. It's hard to know what to a.s.sume v. what to explain. I'm trying to be as clear as I can be [sic ]. And now he's looking at me like I'm digressing. Why don't you just pa.s.s that certain item back on over here, Inculator. But so we've got and we've got [a, b]. And let r and R be the smallest and biggest values of the function (x) on the interval [a, b]. So now check out the rectangles of height r and height R over the interval [a, b] in the diagram marked let's go ahead and mark it say PEEMSTER: ]. And now he's looking at me like I'm digressing. Why don't you just pa.s.s that certain item back on over here, Inculator. But so we've got and we've got [a, b]. And let r and R be the smallest and biggest values of the function (x) on the interval [a, b]. So now check out the rectangles of height r and height R over the interval [a, b] in the diagram marked let's go ahead and mark it say PEEMSTER:

The Mean Value we're after, A, can now be expressed integrally as the Area of some intermediate-type rectangle whose height is taller [sic ] than r but shorter [ ] than r but shorter [sic ] than R. From here on it's just t.i.t. We need a constant. You always need a constant. Inc's nodding his head sarcastically like I think I'm saying something sage. Let d be any constant, for computational reasons the closer to 1 the better, so like let d be the size of Hal's Unit. ] than R. From here on it's just t.i.t. We need a constant. You always need a constant. Inc's nodding his head sarcastically like I think I'm saying something sage. Let d be any constant, for computational reasons the closer to 1 the better, so like let d be the size of Hal's Unit.

Hal Incandenza's Addendum: In meters.

Michael Pemulis's Resumption: Very funny. So now, just looking at the wicked-illuminating PEEMSTER diagram above, you can see that this Area we want:

is going to be bigger than the area of the rectangle with height r and but also smaller than the area of the rectangle with height R. Pure mental reason [sic] compels, compels, then, that [ then, that [sic ] somewhere in there between r and R there's an exact height, ] somewhere in there between r and R there's an exact height, f f (x;), such that (I have to say that every demonstration of a stats theorem has (x;), such that (I have to say that every demonstration of a stats theorem has Let Let and and such that such that in them, mostly I think because they're so wicked much fun to say) such that the rectangle of this height in them, mostly I think because they're so wicked much fun to say) such that the rectangle of this height f f (x;) over the whole interval [a, b] has (x;) over the whole interval [a, b] has exactly exactly the Area we want, the Mean Value of all the historic [ the Area we want, the Mean Value of all the historic [sic ] expenditure-ratios; in other words in abstracted form: ] expenditure-ratios; in other words in abstracted form: f (x)dx = (x)dx = f f (x')(b a) (x')(b a) where (b a) is just the size of the interval. And so have a look at the revealing diagram labeled HALSAd.i.c.k:

This f.u.c.king works works. You don't have to crunch out a whole new ratio each time for each Combatant to dole out the ordnance. You just skim the highest and lowest ratios off the Eschaton records the Beanie-man keeps on each time. This is wicked wicked. This is f.u.c.king elegant elegant. Note that (Note that's another like compulsitory [sic ] term) note that the Combatant's Mean-Value megatonnage will change, slightly, from Eschaton to Eschaton, exactly the way a like hitter's season average will alter just a bit from at-bat to at-bat, depending integrally on what he delivered on his last trip to the plate and whatnot. Note also that you can use this Mean-Value time-saver with anything that varies within a ( ] term) note that the Combatant's Mean-Value megatonnage will change, slightly, from Eschaton to Eschaton, exactly the way a like hitter's season average will alter just a bit from at-bat to at-bat, depending integrally on what he delivered on his last trip to the plate and whatnot. Note also that you can use this Mean-Value time-saver with anything that varies within a (definable) set of boundaries and whatnot - like any line, or a tennis court's boundaries, or like maybe say a certain drug's urine-level range between Clean and Royally Pinched. As a like exercise, if you're interested, play three hours of high-level compet.i.tive jr. top-level [sic ] tennis and then calculate the Mean Value of the ratios of first serves to appearances at net and appearances at net to points won; for a serve-and-volleyer, this is how to tell how serve-dependent his match-performance is. DeLint does this kind of exercise every morning sitting on the can. It's going to be interesting to see if [ ] tennis and then calculate the Mean Value of the ratios of first serves to appearances at net and appearances at net to points won; for a serve-and-volleyer, this is how to tell how serve-dependent his match-performance is. DeLint does this kind of exercise every morning sitting on the can. It's going to be interesting to see if [sic ] Hal, who thinks he's just too sly trying to outline Eschaton in the 3rd-person tense [ ] Hal, who thinks he's just too sly trying to outline Eschaton in the 3rd-person tense [sic ] like some jowly old Eschatologist with leather patches on his elbows [ ] like some jowly old Eschatologist with leather patches on his elbows [sic ], if Inc can transpose [ ], if Inc can transpose [sic? ] the math here without help from his Mumster. Later. ] the math here without help from his Mumster. Later.

P.S. Allston Rules. (back to text) (back to text) 124. Both EndStat and Mathpak are registered trademarks of Aapps Inc., itself now a division of InterLace TelEntertainment. (back to text) (back to text) 125. Plastic-mesh laundry baskets take two hands to carry and keep you from being able to dribble up more b.a.l.l.s with your stick's face; the cast-off janitorial buckets are the size of like a middle-size wastebasket, but they have a st.u.r.dy steel pail-type handle, and their hard-polymer composition makes for lasting wear. It was into just such a bucket that Pemulis threw up before his kind of suspicious V.D. down at Port Was.h.i.+ngton. (back to text) (back to text) (Various gear-companies sell various specially designed ball receptacles with names like 'Ball-Hopper' and 'Ball-Bank' - the general Academy consensus is these are for dilettantes and p.u.s.s.ies.) 126. It being well-nigh impossible to keep the present from infecting even a playful and childlike Historical Consciousness, Canadians often end up playing picayune but villainous roles in Eschatonic TRIGSITs. (back to text) (back to text) 127. A lot of these little toss-ins and embellishments are Inc amusing himself, not Otis's TRIGSIT, which is 100% all biz. (back to text) (back to text) P.S. Wolf-Spiders Ruleth the Land.

128. Most Valuable Lobber. (back to text) (back to text) 129. M. Pemulis is, in the best Allston MA tradition, a good friend and a bad-news enemy, and even E.T.A.s who don't like him are careful not to do or even say anything that might call for score-settling, because Pemulis is a thoroughgoing chilled-revenge gourmet, and is not one bit above dosing someone's water-jug or voltaging their door-k.n.o.b or encoding something horrid in your E.T.A. med-files or d.i.c.kying with the mirror over the bureau in the little recessed part of your subdorm room so that when you look in the mirror in the A.M. to comb or tend to a blackhead or something you see something staring back at you that you'll never entirely get over, which is what took over two years to finally happen to M. H. Penn, who afterward wouldn't say what he'd seen but stopped shaving altogether and, it's agreed, has never been quite himself since. (back to text) (back to text) 130. Pemulis doesn't actually literally say 'breath and bread.' (back to text) (back to text) 131. Before Boston Groups' regular speaker meetings there are often closed, half-hour Beginners' Discussion Meetings, where newcomers can share their cluelessness, weakness, and despair in a warm supportive private atmosphere. (back to text) (back to text) 132. The word Group Group in in AA Group AA Group is always capitalized because Boston AA places enormous emphasis on joining a Group and identifying yourself as a member of this larger thing, the Group. Likewise caps in like is always capitalized because Boston AA places enormous emphasis on joining a Group and identifying yourself as a member of this larger thing, the Group. Likewise caps in like Commitment, Giving It Away, Commitment, Giving It Away, and c. and c. (back to text) (back to text) 133. Gately's little bedroom in the damp Ennet House bas.e.m.e.nt is plastered all over every part of every wall that's dry enough to take tape with cutout Scotch-taped photos of all sorts of variegated and esoteric celebrities past and present, which are varied as residents throw magazines into the E.M.P.H.H. dumpsters and are frequently selected because the celebrities are somehow grotesque; it's a kind of compulsive habit held over from Gately's fairly dysfunctional North Sh.o.r.e childhood, when he'd been a clipping and taping fiend. (back to text) (back to text) 134. And if you're brand-new, as in like your first three days, and so on mandatory nonpunitive House Restriction - like veiled Joelle van Dyne, who entered the House just today, 11/8, Interdependence Day, after the E.R. physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital who last night had pumped her full of Inderal a a and nitro had looked upon her unveiled face and been deeply affected, and had taken a special interest, a consequence of which after Joelle regained consciousness and speech had involved placing a call to Pat Montesian, whose paralyzying alcoholic stroke the physician had treated in this very same E.R. almost seven years before, and in whose case he'd also taken a special interest and had followed, such that he was now a personal friend of the sober Pat M.'s and sat honorarily on Ennet House's Board of Directors, so that his call to Pat's home on Sat.u.r.day night had gotten Joelle into the House on the spot, as of Interdependence Day A.M.'s discharge from B&W, leap-frogging literally dozens of waiting-list people and putting Joelle into Ennet House's intensive program of residential treatment literally before she even knew what was happening, which in retrospect might have been lucky - if you're this new you're actually not supposed ever to leave the Staffer's sight, though in practice this rule gets suspended when you have to go to the ladies' room and the Staffer's male, or vice versa. and nitro had looked upon her unveiled face and been deeply affected, and had taken a special interest, a consequence of which after Joelle regained consciousness and speech had involved placing a call to Pat Montesian, whose paralyzying alcoholic stroke the physician had treated in this very same E.R. almost seven years before, and in whose case he'd also taken a special interest and had followed, such that he was now a personal friend of the sober Pat M.'s and sat honorarily on Ennet House's Board of Directors, so that his call to Pat's home on Sat.u.r.day night had gotten Joelle into the House on the spot, as of Interdependence Day A.M.'s discharge from B&W, leap-frogging literally dozens of waiting-list people and putting Joelle into Ennet House's intensive program of residential treatment literally before she even knew what was happening, which in retrospect might have been lucky - if you're this new you're actually not supposed ever to leave the Staffer's sight, though in practice this rule gets suspended when you have to go to the ladies' room and the Staffer's male, or vice versa. (back to text) (back to text) 135. A conviction common to all who Hang In with AA, after a while, and abstracted in the slogan 'My Best Thinking Got Me Here.' (back to text) (back to text) 136. Trade-name Fastin, SmithKline Beecham Inc., a low-level 'drine not unlike Tenuate, though w/ more a.s.sociated tooth-grinding. (back to text) (back to text) 137. None of these are Don Gately's terms. (back to text) (back to text) 138. In e.g. Boston: join Group, get Active, get phone #s, get sponsor, audio-call sponsor daily, hit meetings daily, pray like fiend for release from Disease, don't kid self that you can still buy rodneys in liquor stores or date your dealer's niece or think for a second you can still hang out in bars playing darts and just drinking Millennial Fizzies or vanilla Yoo-Hoos, etc. (back to text) (back to text) 139. Volunteer Counselor Eugenio ('Gene') M. favors entomologic tropes and a.n.a.logies, which is especially effective with brand-new residents fresh from subjective safaris through the Kingdom of Bugs. (back to text) (back to text) 140. Don G.'s North Sh.o.r.e's vulgate signifier for trite/ba.n.a.l is: limp limp. (back to text) (back to text) 141. Likewise that his private term for blacks is n.i.g.g.e.rs, n.i.g.g.e.rs, which is unfortunately still all he knows. which is unfortunately still all he knows. (back to text) (back to text) 142. The speaker doesn't actually use the terms thereon, most a.s.suredly, thereon, most a.s.suredly, or or operant limbic system, operant limbic system, though she really had, before, said though she really had, before, said chordate phylum chordate phylum. (back to text) (back to text) 143. Sic. Sic. (back to text) (back to text) 144. E.g. see Ursula Emrich-Levine (University of California-Irvine), 'Watching Gra.s.s Grow While Being Hit Repeatedly Over the Head With a Blunt Object: Fragmentation and Stasis in James O. Incandenza's Widower, Fun with Teeth, Zero-Gravity Tea Ceremony, Widower, Fun with Teeth, Zero-Gravity Tea Ceremony, and and Pre-Nuptial Agreement of Heaven and h.e.l.l, Pre-Nuptial Agreement of Heaven and h.e.l.l,' Art Cartridge Quarterly, Art Cartridge Quarterly, vol. III, nos. 13, Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken. vol. III, nos. 13, Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken. (back to text) (back to text) 145.

TRANSCRIPT-FRAGMENT FROM INTERVIEW SERIES FOR PUTATIVE MOMENT MOMENT MAGAZINE SOFT PROFILE ON PHOENIX CARDINAL PROFESSIONAL PUNTER O. J. INCANDENZA, BY PUTATIVE MAGAZINE SOFT PROFILE ON PHOENIX CARDINAL PROFESSIONAL PUNTER O. J. INCANDENZA, BY PUTATIVE MOMENT MOMENT MAGAZINE SOFT-PROFILE-WRITER HELEN STEEPLY, 3 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. MAGAZINE SOFT-PROFILE-WRITER HELEN STEEPLY, 3 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U.

'Q.'

'Well, there are odd sorts of consolations in having somebody go progressively bats in front of your eyes, such as for example sometimes The Mad Stork would go off on things in sort of a funny way. We always thought he was funny a good bit of the time.

'You've got to remember he came at entertainment more from an interest in lenses and light. Most arty directors I think get more abstract as they go on. With him it was the opposite. A lot of his funniest stuff was very abstract. Are those earrings real copper? Can you wear real copper?'

'Q.'

'You've got to remember that he came out of all these old artish directors that were really "ne pas a la mode" anymore by the time he broke in, not just Lang and Bresson and Deren but the antiNew Wave abstracters like Frampton, wacko Nucks like G.o.dbout, anticonfluential directors like d.i.c.k and the Snows who not only really belonged in a quiet pink room somewhere but were also self-consciously behind the times, making all sorts of heavy art-gesture films about film and consciousness and isness and diffraction and stasis et cetera. Most extremely beautiful women I've ever met complain of getting a sort of itchy green crust when they wear real copper. So the tenure-jockeys and critics who were hailing this millennial new Orthochromatic Neorealism thing as the real new avant-garde thing were getting tenure by blasting d.i.c.k and G.o.dbout and the flying Snow Brothers and The Stork for trying to be avant-garde, when really they were self-consciously trying to be more like apres apres -garde. I never did get straight on what -garde. I never did get straight on what Orthochromatic Orthochromatic means, but it was very trendy. But The Mad Stork talked a lot about intentional atavism and retrogradism and stasis. Plus the academics who hated him hated the artificial sets and the chiaroscuro lighting, which the Stork had a total fetish for weird lenses and chiaroscuro. means, but it was very trendy. But The Mad Stork talked a lot about intentional atavism and retrogradism and stasis. Plus the academics who hated him hated the artificial sets and the chiaroscuro lighting, which the Stork had a total fetish for weird lenses and chiaroscuro.

'After the thing about the Medusa and the Odalisque came out, and The Joke, The Joke, and the film-establishment theory-queers were holding their noses and saying Incandenza's still mired in this late-century self-referencing unentertaining formalism and unrealistic abstraction, after a while Himself, The Stork, in his own progressively bats way, decided to get revenge. He planned a lot of it out at McLean Hospital, which's out in Belmont, which is where Himself had almost his own private reserved room, by then. He made up a genre that he considered the ultimate Neorealism and got some film-journals to run some proclamatory edictish things he wrote about it, and he got Duquette at M.I.T. and a couple other younger tenure-jockeys who were in on it to start referring and writing little articles in journals and quarterlies about it and talking at art openings and avant-garde theater and film openings, feeding it into the grapevine, hailing some new movement they called Found Drama, this supposedly ultimate Neorealism thing that they all declared was like the future of drama and cinematic art, etc. and the film-establishment theory-queers were holding their noses and saying Incandenza's still mired in this late-century self-referencing unentertaining formalism and unrealistic abstraction, after a while Himself, The Stork, in his own progressively bats way, decided to get revenge. He planned a lot of it out at McLean Hospital, which's out in Belmont, which is where Himself had almost his own private reserved room, by then. He made up a genre that he considered the ultimate Neorealism and got some film-journals to run some proclamatory edictish things he wrote about it, and he got Duquette at M.I.T. and a couple other younger tenure-jockeys who were in on it to start referring and writing little articles in journals and quarterlies about it and talking at art openings and avant-garde theater and film openings, feeding it into the grapevine, hailing some new movement they called Found Drama, this supposedly ultimate Neorealism thing that they all declared was like the future of drama and cinematic art, etc.

'Because I'm thinking if you like copper stuff and little Aztec suns there's a small place down in Tempe where I know the owner and he has some incredible little copper pieces we could parp down and have you look at. My own theory is it takes an incredible natural complexion to be able to wear the baser metals, though it might just be an allergy-thing, the way some women react and some don't.'

'Q.'

'What Found Drama was - and you've got to keep in mind that Duquette and a Brandeis critic named like Posener who was in on the revenge each got a mammoth grant for this, and The Mad Stork got two smaller ones somewhere, grants, to go cross-country to graduate film programs giving turgid theoretical deadly-serious lectures on this Found Drama, and then they'd come back up home to Boston and The Stork and the couple critics would lay up drunk and invent new Found-Drama theoretical lectures and chortle and laugh till there was evidence it was time for Himself to go back to detox again.'

'Q.'

'Like a family nickname. Hal and I either called him Himself or The Sad Stork. The Moms was the first to say Himself, Himself, which I think is a Canadian thing. Hal mostly said Himself. G.o.d knows what Mario used to call him. Who knows. I said which I think is a Canadian thing. Hal mostly said Himself. G.o.d knows what Mario used to call him. Who knows. I said Mad, Mad, The Mad Stork.' The Mad Stork.'

'Q.'

'No see there weren't weren't any real cartridges or pieces of Found Drama. This was the joke. All it was was you and a couple cronies like Leith or Duquette got out a metro Boston phone book and tore a White Pages page out at random and thumbtacked it to the wall and then The Stork would throw a dart at it from across the room. At the page. And the name it hit becomes the subject of the Found Drama. And whatever happens to the protagonist with the name you hit with the dart for like the next hour and a half is the Drama. And when the hour and a half is up, you go out and have drinks with critics who like chortlingly congratulate you on the ultimate in Neorealism.' any real cartridges or pieces of Found Drama. This was the joke. All it was was you and a couple cronies like Leith or Duquette got out a metro Boston phone book and tore a White Pages page out at random and thumbtacked it to the wall and then The Stork would throw a dart at it from across the room. At the page. And the name it hit becomes the subject of the Found Drama. And whatever happens to the protagonist with the name you hit with the dart for like the next hour and a half is the Drama. And when the hour and a half is up, you go out and have drinks with critics who like chortlingly congratulate you on the ultimate in Neorealism.'

'Q.'

'You do whatever you want during the Drama. You're not there. n.o.body knows what the name in the phone book's doing.'

'Q.'

'The joke's theory was there's no audience and no director and no stage or set because, The Mad Stork and his cronies argued, in Reality there are none of these things. And the protagonist doesn't know he's the protagonist in a Found Drama because in Reality n.o.body thinks they're in any sort of Drama.'

'Q.'

'Almost n.o.body. That's a very good point. Almost n.o.body. I'm going to take a chance and just tell you I'm a little bit intimidated here.'

'Q.'

'I'm worried this might sound s.e.xist or offensive. I've been around very, very beautiful women before, but I'm not accustomed to them being really acute and sharp and politically savvy and penetrating and multilevelled and intimidatingly intelligent. I'm sorry if that sounds s.e.xist. It's simply been my experience. I'll go ahead and simply tell you the truth and take the chance that you might think I'm some kind of stereotypical Neanderthal athlete or s.e.xist clown.'

'Q.'

'Absolutely no, no, nothing got recorded or filmed. Reality being camera-free, being the joke I'll again underline. n.o.body even knew what the guy in the phone book had been doing, n.o.body knew what the Drama had been. Although they liked to speculate when they'd go out after the time was up to have drinks and pretend to review how the Drama went. Himself usually imagined the guy was sitting there watching cartridges, or counting some pattern in his wallpaper, or looking out the window. It wasn't impossible maybe even the name you hit with the dart was somebody dead in the last year and the phone book hadn't caught up, and here was this guy who was dead and just a random name in a phone book and the subject of what people for a few months - until Himself couldn't keep a straight face anymore or had had enough revenge on the critics, because the critics were hailing - not just the critics in on the joke, but actual tenure-jockeys who were getting tenure to a.s.sess and dismiss and hail - they were hailing this as the ultimate in avant-garde Neorealism, and saying maybe The Stork deserved reappraisal, for a Drama with no audience and oblivious actors who might have moved away or died. A certain Mad Stork got two grants out of it and later made a lot of enemies because he refused to give them back after the hoax was like unveiled. The whole thing was kind of bats. He spread the grant money for Found Drama around a couple of local improvisation companies. It's not like he kept the money. It's not like he needed it. I think he especially liked the idea that the star of the show might have already moved away or recently died and there was no way to know.' (back to text) (back to text) 146. See for example Incandenza's first narrative collaboration w/ Infernatron-Canada, the animated Pre-Nuptial Agreement of Heaven and h.e.l.l, Pre-Nuptial Agreement of Heaven and h.e.l.l, made at the acknowledged height of his anticonfluential period - B.S. Private Release, L.M.P. made at the acknowledged height of his anticonfluential period - B.S. Private Release, L.M.P. (back to text) (back to text) 147. The festivity here being due largely to the fact that both he and Gerhardt Scht.i.tt returned from putting on little E.T.A. presentations at various tennis clubs too late to have been informed about the degenerative Eschaton free-for-all and serious Lord-, Ingersoll-, and Penn-injuries, both trainer Barry Loach and prorector Rik Dunkel having told Avril, and Scht.i.tt to be told by whichever of Nw.a.n.gi and deLint first works up the pluck, and the issue of telling Tavis being as would be S.O.P. left up to Avril, who will - because Tavis has already lost a certain amount of sleep preparing emotionally and rhetorically for the impending arrival of putative Moment Moment journalist 'Helen' Steeply, whom he's been convinced to let onto the grounds by Avril's argument that the journalist 'Helen' Steeply, whom he's been convinced to let onto the grounds by Avril's argument that the Moment Moment office promises the profile's subject and inevitable hype involve only an E.T.A. alumnus (Avril neglected to tell Tavis she was pretty sure it was Orin) and that a certain amount of soft-news-publicity for E.T.A.-qua-inst.i.tution couldn't hurt in either the fundraising- or the recruiting-goodwill department - who will almost certainly wait and tell Tavis (who's in far too festive a mood to notice three or four younger kids ominously absent from the supper and gala) in the morning, if the poor man's to have a chance at any real sleep at all (also giving Avril time to figure out how uppercla.s.s heads can roll, as of course they must, given chaos and season-ending injuries under the direct gaze of designated Big Buddies, without those heads including that of Hal, who - unlike, thank G.o.d, John - was identified at the scene with that Pemulis person). Hal can tell just by the dining hall's emotional gestalt that neither Scht.i.tt nor Tavis knows about the Eschaton, but the Moms is next to impossible to read, and Hal won't know whether she's been told of the debacle until he is able to pry Mario away from Anton ('The Boogerman') Doucette and get the Moms-skinny right from b.o.o.boo direct, after the film. office promises the profile's subject and inevitable hype involve only an E.T.A. alumnus (Avril neglected to tell Tavis she was pretty sure it was Orin) and that a certain amount of soft-news-publicity for E.T.A.-qua-inst.i.tution couldn't hurt in either the fundraising- or the recruiting-goodwill department - who will almost certainly wait and tell Tavis (who's in far too festive a mood to notice three or four younger kids ominously absent from the supper and gala) in the morning, if the poor man's to have a chance at any real sleep at all (also giving Avril time to figure out how uppercla.s.s heads can roll, as of course they must, given chaos and season-ending injuries under the direct gaze of designated Big Buddies, without those heads including that of Hal, who - unlike, thank G.o.d, John - was identified at the scene with that Pemulis person). Hal can tell just by the dining hall's emotional gestalt that neither Scht.i.tt nor Tavis knows about the Eschaton, but the Moms is next to impossible to read, and Hal won't know whether she's been told of the debacle until he is able to pry Mario away from Anton ('The Boogerman') Doucette and get the Moms-skinny right from b.o.o.boo direct, after the film. (back to text) (back to text) 148. Troeltsch wears an InterLace Sports baseball cap, and Keith Freer a two-horned operatic Viking helmet along with his leather vest, and Fran Unwin a fez, and fierce little Josh Gopnik the white beanie with the dirty cart-wheel-track across it from this afternoon's debacle. Tex Watson wears a tan Stetson with a really high crown, and little Tina Echt an outlandishly large plaid beret that covers half her little head, the Vaught twins a freakish bowler with two domes and one brim, Stephan Wagenknecht a plastic sallet - this is just scanning at random; the headwear goes on and on, a whole topography of hats - and Carol Spodek a painter's cap with the name of a paint company, and Bernadette Longley a calpac that obstructs the view of people behind her. Duncan van Slack in a harquebus w/ buckle. Should probably also mention Avril's wearing a f.u.koama microfiltration mask, it being way too early in the day for supper for her anyway. Ortho Stice wears a calotte and the U.S.S. Millicent Kent a slanted noir-style fedora and Tall Paul Shaw, way in back, a conquistadorial helmet and escudo, and Mary Esther Thode a plain piece of cardboard propped on her head that says HAT. Idris Arslanian's spectacular bearskin shako is held in place with a chinstrap. (back to text) (back to text) 149. (I.e. silk-suited Vocalists snapping their fingers and telling their casino audiences they were beautiful human beings and but when it comes time to actually start crooning the Vocalists' lips move but nothing Velvety emerges, all sound withheld, a Job Action, rendered even more chilling by the skill with which the Frankies and Tonies lip-synch to utter silence - and the way the beautiful casino audiences, hit someplace they lived, somehow, clearly, responded with near-psychotic feelings of deprivation and abandonment, became a mob, almost tore lounges down, upended little round tables, threw free ice-intensive drinks, audiences in their well-heeled majority behaving like dysfunctional or inadequately nurtured children.) (back to text) (back to text) 150. The years right around the millennium being a terrible U.S. time for waste, then, ozone-wise and landfill-wise and shoddily-disposed-of-dioxins-wise, w/ DT-cycle annular fusion at the stage where they had the generating-ma.s.sive-amounts-of-high-R-waste part down a lot more pat than the consuming-the-waste-in-a-nuclear-process-whose-own-waste-was-the-fuel-for-the-first-waste-intensive-phase-of-the-circle-of-reactions part. (back to text) (back to text) 151. Actual term employed is downer-type downer-type. (back to text) (back to text) 152. A lightless and eye-averted late-night weight room being not exactly a last-name type of place. (back to text) (back to text) 153. Sometimes it's as straightforward as directing someone to give her fiance the roundhouse forehand slap she's been secretly aching to give him ever since he'd once teased her about putting some Band-Aids on those insect bites on her chest. (back to text) (back to text) 154. = the anticonfluental Cage III - Free Show; Cage III - Free Show; q.v. Note 24 q.v. Note 24 supra supra. (back to text) (back to text) 155. The Medusa wears a kind of chain-mail backless evening gown and h.e.l.lenic sandals, the Odalisque a Merry Widow. (back to text) (back to text) 156. Mario's speculative puppet-show comes down maybe a little hard on the implication that former O.C.D.-support-group-sponsor and later Clean U.S. Party campaign manager and now O.U.S. Chief Rodney P. Tine is the real dark force behind Reconfiguration and New England's de-mapping and the transfer of the Great Concavity, that Johnny Gentle, Famous Crooner was and remains a slightly unbent but basically genial and befuddled figurehead, content mostly to twirl his mike and immolate his epidermis so long as his office is clean and his food's pre-tasted, and that it's actually been Tine behind C.U.S.P.'s geopolitical a.n.a.lity and Experialism, and that Tine was essentially pulling Gentle's strings all through the Concavity Cabinet and subsequent Reconfiguration and ma.s.s relocation. This is, in point of fact, simply one theory and direction for finger-pointing, and tends to founder on the unexplained issue of just what would motivate Tine to undertake all this anyway, since his own O.C.D. has been doc.u.mented to be ruminative rather than hygienic, not to mention the fact that he's hopelessly smitten with the Quebecer Luria P--. J. O. Incandenza's own ONANtiad, ONANtiad, being an adult production, was considerably more restrained and ambiguous on the whole Tine-as-dark-force issue. being an adult production, was considerably more restrained and ambiguous on the whole Tine-as-dark-force issue. (back to text) (back to text) 157. An oblique little in-tribute from Mario to the Moms, at which line every year Avril at the Headmaster's Table takes off the witch's hat and holds it by the brim and whips it around in an enthused circle three times over her head. (back to text) (back to text) 158. The umpires on the U.S. junior tour tend to be retired high-school princ.i.p.als whose only renumeration is the chance to exercise again some slight authority over the young. (back to text) (back to text) 159. Clipperton eventually perfecting the toss-with-the-same-hand-you-serve-with maneuver pioneered by South African doubles specialist Colin van der Hingle after a hideous turbo-prop-charter-aircraft-propeller accident took off his right arm, ear, and sideburn in only the second year of his Show career, in Durban. (back to text) (back to text) 160. Certain other and doubtless really disturbing footage of Clipperton's suicide still exists, having - with perhaps half a dozen other emotionally or professionally sensitive cartridge-Masters - been designated Unviewable by testatory codicil and, as far as either Hal or Orin knows, enclosed in some sort of vault-apparatus that only Himself's attorneys and maybe Avril have access to. As far as can be determined, only those lawyers, Avril, Disney Leith, and perhaps Mario know that the cartridges were, in fact, along with his case of special lenses, interred right there with J. O. Incandenza's dead body a a - yickily enough - there having been room in the bronze casket only because Incandenza's extreme height dictated a casket-size that his thin physique didn't nearly fill the width and depth of. - yickily enough - there having been room in the bronze casket only because Incandenza's extreme height dictated a casket-size that his thin physique didn't nearly fill the width and depth of. (back to text) (back to text) 161. The other having been that predictive call for the catatonic hero, also for Ogilvie's Entertainment 2-termer. (back to text) (back to text) 162. Every Nielsen respondent seemed to respond with especial neural repulsion to one or another particular portrait. There was one of a woman with every carpenter's tool known to G.o.d exiting her face. One of a young male with a spear of scarlet light through the right temple and coming clear out the other side. A woman with her crown between the incisors of some sort of shark so huge it pa.s.ses from view past the frame. A grand-motherly type with roses, human hands, a pencil, and other lush-type flora all coming serpentine out of her open skull's top. A head coming out in a long string from a throttled tube of paste; a Talmudic scholar bearded in needles; a Baconian pope with his hat on fire. Three or four dental ones that sent people scrambling to the bathroom to floss themselves b.l.o.o.d.y. The painting that had particularly nailed nine-year-old Hal and had had him popping Nunhagen compulsively until his ears started ringing and didn't stop for almost a week had been of a deeply parlor-tanned and vaguely familiar upscale male, a disembodied fist yanking a handful of brains out of the guy's left ear while the guy's overhealthy face, like most of the ad's faces, wears a queer look of intense unhappy concentration, one more of like brooding than conventionally expressive of pain. (back to text) (back to text) 163. NoCoat Inc. ended up occupying the #346 spot vacated by Hoechst's CBS, Hal noted with surprisingly little irony. (back to text) (back to text) 164. Granted that this stuff is all grossly simplified in Hal's ephebic account; Lace-Forche and Veals are in fact transcendent geniuses of a particularly complex right-time-and-place sort, and their appeals to an American ideology committed to the appearance of freedom appearance of freedom almost una.n.a.lyzably compelling. almost una.n.a.lyzably compelling. (back to text) (back to text) 165. Granted, pace pace critics, this was partly to forestall A.C.D.C.'s apellate-court claims that InterLace was basically hopping up and down on the B.S. 1890 Sherman Act with spike heels. critics, this was partly to forestall A.C.D.C.'s apellate-court claims that InterLace was basically hopping up and down on the B.S. 1890 Sherman Act with spike heels. (back to text) (back to text) 166. 'Reduced Instruct-Set Computers,' descendents of the IBM/Apple 'Power PCs,' with mainframe-caliber response-time and .25 terabytes of DRAM and numerous expansion-slots for various killer apps. (back to text) (back to text) 167. A couple of Incandenza's more accessible early doc.u.mentaries were bought by Inter-Lace on a distribution-factored contingency basis, but except for a flat PBS-ish one on the lay priciples of DT-annulation they never brought Meniscus/Latrodectus more than a fraction of the interest on the interest from Himself's rearview-mirror fortune. InterLace ended up optioning rights to only a couple of his higherbrow productions for its 'Howls from the Margin' low-volume-expectation product-line during Himself's lifetime; the bulk of his stuff didn't make any ILT menus until after his untimely death. (back to text) (back to text) 168. It didn't do J. Gentle F.C.'s original gra.s.s-roots-intensive campaign a whole lot of good around ultra-liberal Enfield that one of his earliest sign-carrying faithful had been E.T.A.'s own Gerhardt Scht.i.tt, who politically listed so far to starboard that even people without watches looked at their watches and referred vaguely to just-recalled appointments whenever Scht.i.tt's eyes got a certain particular navy-blue cast and he uttered any one of such terms as America, decadence, State, America, decadence, State, or or Law; Law; but Mario I. was pretty much the only one clued in to the fact that Scht.i.tt's attraction to Gentle had more to do with Scht.i.tt's take on tennis than anything else: the Coach was swept away with the athleto-Wagnerian implications of Gentle's proposals for waste, this business of sending from yourself what you hope will not return. but Mario I. was pretty much the only one clued in to the fact that Scht.i.tt's attraction to Gentle had more to do with Scht.i.tt's take on tennis than anything else: the Coach was swept away with the athleto-Wagnerian implications of Gentle's proposals for waste, this business of sending from yourself what you hope will not return. (back to text) (back to text) 169. Triaminotetralin, a synthesized hallucinogen whose high transdermal bioavailability makes it a popular ingredient in the 'Happy Patches' so prevalent in the American West and Southwest of Subsidized Time - Pharmochemical Quarterly Pharmochemical Quarterly 17, 18 (Spring, Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar) provides a detailed account of the synthesis and transdermal physiochemistry of aminotetralins in general. 17, 18 (Spring, Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar) provides a detailed account of the synthesis and transdermal physiochemistry of aminotetralins in general. (back to text) (back to text) 170. Quebecois French: 'working up steam.' (back to text) (back to text) 171. 'Homestyle. Ready to Serve.' (back to text) (back to text) 172. 'Pursuit of happiness.' (back to text) (back to text) 173. Q.v. Note 304 sub sub. (back to text) (back to text) 174. 'Absolutely no bonking,' presumably. (back to text) (back to text) 175. The both-hands-full logistics of which are hard to envision, but realism wasn't really the point of the image for the bitter Brigade boys. (back to text) (back to text)

176. It's also where Mario's most derivative of Himself, whose own ONANtiad ONANtiad was more centrally concerned with doomed high-office claymation romance than with political comment, though the love thing in Incandenza Sr.'s film had concerned not Tine and a Quebecois fatale but an alleged doomed and unconsummated affair between President J. Gentle and the equally hygiene-and-germ-obsessed wife of Canada's 'Minister of Environment and Resource-Development Enterprises,' the affair presented as doomed and unconsummated because the Minister hires a malevolent young Canadian was more centrally concerned with doomed high-office claymation romance than with political comment, though the love thing in Incandenza Sr.'s film had concerned not Tine and a Quebecois fatale but an alleged doomed and unconsummated affair between President J. Gentle and the equally hygiene-and-germ-obsessed wife of Canada's 'Minister of Environment and Resource-Development Enterprises,' the affair presented as doomed and unconsummated because the Minister hires a malevolent young Canadian Candida albicans Candida albicans specialist to induce in his wife a severe and more or less permanent yeast infection, driving both wife and Gentle to ardent-desire-v.-hygienic-neurosis breakdowns during which the wife throws herself across the tracks in front of a Quebecois bullet-train and Gentle decides to exact his revenge on a macrocartographic scale. The specialist to induce in his wife a severe and more or less permanent yeast infection, driving both wife and Gentle to ardent-desire-v.-hygienic-neurosis breakdowns during which the wife throws herself across the tracks in front of a Quebecois bullet-train and Gentle decides to exact his revenge on a macrocartographic scale. The ONANtiad ONANtiad was not Himself's strongest effort by a long shot, and pretty much everybody around E.T.A. agrees that Mario's own Reconfiguration-explanation-parody is funnier and more accessible than Himself's, if also a bit heavier-handed. was not Himself's strongest effort by a long shot, and pretty much everybody around E.T.A. agrees that Mario's own Reconfiguration-explanation-parody is funnier and more accessible than Himself's, if also a bit heavier-handed. (back to text) (back to text) 177. The officially spun term for making Canada take U.S. terrain and letting us dump pretty much everything we don't want onto it is Territorial Reconfiguration. Great Concavity Territorial Reconfiguration. Great Concavity and and Grand Convexite Grand Convexite are more like U.S./Canadian street argot that got adopted and genericized by the media. are more like U.S./Canadian street argot that got adopted and genericized by the media. (back to text) (back to text) 178. A more abstract but truer epigram that White Flaggers with a lot of sober time sometimes change this to goes something like: 'Don't worry about getting in touch with your feelings, they'll get in touch with you.' (back to text) (back to text) 179. Presumably North Sh.o.r.e AA meetings, but Gately never recollects hearing the word AA; AA; all he remembers from the time is just 'Meetings' and a Diagnosis he'd construed as chivalric. all he remembers from the time is just 'Meetings' and a Diagnosis he'd construed as chivalric. (back to text) (back to text) 180. But Avril had gotten former M.I.T. #1 Men's Singles Corbett Thorp to drive Mario down to V.F. Rickey's cerebral Student Union thing, where Thorp used his old student I.D. (thumb over expiration date) to get them past the Security lady at the Rectus Bulbi and down to the YYY studio's freezing pink bas.e.m.e.nt, where the only person who didn't talk like an angry cartoon character, a severely carbuncular man at the engineer's board, would by way of comment point only at a tripart.i.te onionskin screen that stood folded beneath a handless wall-clock, possibly signifying that no hiatus could be all that long if the absent party hadn't taken her trusty screen. Mario hadn't had any idea M.P.'d used a screen, on-air. That's when he'd gotten agitated. (back to text) (back to text) 181. Corbett Thorp's sobriquet among the less kind kids is 'Th-th-th-th.' (back to text) (back to text) 182. Known also sometimes as 'Pukers.' (back to text) (back to text) 183. The dull-metal Kenkle & Brandt kind, not the white plastic industrial-solvent buckets a.s.sociated with Eschaton and yesterday's debacle. (back to text) (back to text) 184. Moving fast in one direction and having the ball hit someplace behind you and having to try to stop and reverse direction very quickly is known also as a 'wrong-foot' or 'contre-pied,' and it results in a fair number of injuries to junior knees and ankles; ironically enough it's Hal, since the explosion, who's known as the real E.T.A. master of placement and opponent-yanking-around and the old contre-pied contre-pied. Also a quick insertion that Dennis van der Meer, father of Side-to-Sides, was a Dutch immigrant low-level pro who became a major pro coach and tennis-education-theory guru, on the same level with like a Harry Hopman or Vic Braden. (back to text) (back to text) 185. Stice's legendarily dysfunctional parents are in Kansas, but he's got two vaguely lesbianic maiden aunts or great-aunts or something up in Chelsea who keep bringing him foods the staff won't let him eat. (back to text) (back to text) 186. Serious juniors never pick up tennis b.a.l.l.s with their hands. Males tend to bend down and dribble the b.a.l.l.s up with the face of their stick; there are various little substyles of this. Females and some younger males less into bending stand and trap the ball between their shoe and racquet and bring their foot up in a quick little twitch, the stick bringing the ball up with it. Males who do this trap the ball against the inside of the shoe, while females trap the ball against the outside of the shoe, which looks a bit more feminine. Reverse-sn.o.bbism at E.T.A. has never reached the point of people bending way down and picking b.a.l.l.s up manually, which, like wearing a visor, is regarded as the true sign of the novice or hack. (back to text) (back to text) 187. N.b.: Europeans and Australians refer to overheads as 'overhands,' while South Africans sometimes also call them 'pointers.' (back to text) (back to text) 188. The budget doesn't allow for communal suppers on weekends, and the weekly menu has below SATR and SUND the word forage, forage, which with a certain percentage of this fall's residents ends up being literal. which with a certain percentage of this fall's residents ends up being literal. (back to text) (back to text) 189. Expanding where appropriate on Note 12: Demerol is meperidine hydrochloride, a Schedule C-II synthetic narcotic, available from Sanofi Winthrop Laboratories in banana-flavored syrup; 25, 50, 75, and 100 mg./ml. cartridge-needle units; and (most popular w/ D.W.G.) the 50 and 100 mg. tablets known up on the Sh.o.r.e as Pebbles and Bam-Bam, respectively. (D&D of course means Drunk and Disorderly, and P.D. and P.O. respectively mean Public Defender and Probation Officer or 'Probie,' by the way.) (back to text) (back to text) 190. If somebody di