Week Three

I read this section so quickly, as it just filled me with absolute glee. A few of my favourite bits are in this week’s reading and the pace is fast and furious.  We are also intoduced to Wallace’s increasingly-agitated use of ALLCAPS HEADLINES to really add some flavour to the narratives. This will be a long recap because so many disparate things have happened!

Recap

1. We spend a good amount of time at Ennet house, and learn so much about its history, location and residents including:

• A brief history of the founder – Guy Who Didn’t Even Use His First Name, who encourages feldspar-munching as a sign of total surrender (p. 137)
• Brief Interviews with Recovering Addicts – the selected transcripts of (mostly) unnamed residents as they talk to Pat Montesian. I love these small character studies. We now know that Bruce Green, former roomie of harelipped Tommy Doocey, is in Ennet , and that Mildred Bonk and Harriet Bonk-Green have hit the road. (p. 176-181).
• A detailed description of the layout of the Enfield Marine Public Health Hospital grounds, including the neighboring units for  veterans, Alzheimer’s patients and The Shed, home to the ‘objay darts.’ (p. 193-198)
• Don Gately – he of the unfortunate break-in that caused the medical attache’s death – has moved from resident to staffer at Ennet.
• A moving description of ‘exotic new facts’ about various issues that arise with substance abusers (endnote 70 speaks to being able to become so ‘escapeless’ that one becomes no more than a ‘fine dusting of off-white ashy stuff’ – a contrast to the ‘escaping’ results of the Entertainment), and Tiny Ewell’s tattoo investigations, which are a great way to further introduce the Ennet residents. (p. 200-211)

2. These back-to-back vignettes that take place outside of the general actions of the month of November YDAU:

• The hilarious story of Dwayne R. Glynn and the barrel of bricks – told through an email exchange. Poor guy. (p. 138-140)
• Hal’s essay about Hill St Blues and Hawaii 5-0, written at age 12, predicting a ‘catatonic hero.’ (p. 140-142)
• “Helen” Steeply’s article for Moment Magazine (p. 137) – as DFW does often, more information is divulged in the cheeky ALLCAPS title of this section (we now know that Steeply is undercover as a lady to interview Orin, and that James Incandenza committed SUICIDE BY MICROWAVE OVEN). Now we are reminded of Orin’s comments to Hal in the last section in Week Two when mentions he has met ‘a possibly very special somebody” and wants to learn more about Separatism. (p. 142). In the article, the description of the purse snatcher sounds a lot like ol’ Poor Tony. (p. 142-144)
• a helpful description of the Canadian Anti-O.N.A.N. groups – Love the Calgarian Pro-Canadian Phalanx – especially now in these days of separatist talk. Maybe I’ll start this group! (p. 144)
• And one of my favourite pieces – the rise and fall of videophony. As someone who HATES facetime, this describes exactly why. Though I also apprecaite that in this instance you actually had to play back the video call to see your face. If Wallace only knew the horrors of having to watch yourself WHILE YOU ARE TALKING like we have to. (p. 144-151)
• A description of the new O.N.A.N. flag “a snarling full-front eagle with a broom and a can of disenfectant in one claw and a Maple Leaf in the other and wearing a sombrero” (p. 153)

3. Over at E.T.A:

• Urine tests are being held, and Pemulis has it all figured out. We now know that he is the one Kate Gompert mentioned who insists you ask him to “please commit a crime” when buying drugs. (p. 151-156)
• We are introduced to the incredibly potent DMZ, which is also referred to on the Boston streets as Madame Psychosis. (p. 169-171)
• A fair amount of (mostly sad) info about Michael Pemulis, our local drug dealer. Who is the “kid” from Ennet House who has sold him the DMZ?  It was heartbreaking that his mother wanted to be paid up front for any of his future earnings as a tennis pro (p. 154)
• Tennis and the Feral Prodigy – obviously NOT written by Mario – agreed? (p. 172-176)

4. We flash back to Arizona, 1960:

• This sprawling one-sided conversation (p. 157-69) between father and son is the fleshed out story hinted at back on p. 63 describing how James’ father “decided to go down to his Raid-sprayed basement workshop an build a promising junior athelete the way other fatheres might restore vintage autos…” and was also the basis of the film As of Yore  “A middle-aged tennis instructor, preparing to instruct his son in tennis, becomes intoxicated in the family’s garage and subjects his son to a rambling monologue while the son weeps and perspires.”
• We now have almost all of the info to figure out when subsidied time started. In the story of James Incandenza and his father, it is 1960, and James is 10, so he died in 2004 in our calendar year, which is the Year of the Trial Sized Dove Bar. We just need to know when YTSDB is situated in subsidized time, and it will be revealed! There have been clues about when each year takes place, but we will see the full list next week…
• The description of the father’s knees against the tennis court….ugh.

5. A new location and character – WYYY station and Madame Psychosis (it’s October 22, YDAU):

• Madame Psychosis has many many mentions in JOI’s filmography, and has her first role in Infinite Jest (IV).
• The station is in M.I.T’s new Student Union building, which is literally shaped like a giant head. With eyeballs hanging out. Gross.
• Mario loves listening to her program, and it seems he really wants to get Hal’s attention while she is reading the pamphlet for the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed. I looked up so many of these diseases and deformities. Between this and the descriptions of the layout of the MIT bldg it was like taking an advanced biology class.  (p. 181-193)

Illustration by Cam Peters

Reflections

This section seems chaotic and disparate, but there are a few pieces that really vibe together. I am thinking specifically of “Tennis and the Feral Prodigy,” the conversation with James and his father, and the section on what spending time at Ennet house can teach you about addiction.  These three pieces all pulse with the same intention – dispensing advice in a repetitive, meditative way.  A companion to this is the list of maladies and deformities Madame Psychosis is reading on the air from the pamphlet from the UHID (Union of the Hideous and Improbably Deformed).

What are we taking from these sections?
Mario’s short film is a “how-to” of excellence in sport, but rather than being a hype-piece, it oozes exhaustion. We aren’t privvy to the visuals of this film, but can assume what we are reading is narration (by Hal) describing the scenes the viewer is seeing.  There is also an unreliability in it as a literary device, as the film is claimed to be written by Mario, but the language choices and interior descriptions seem very much more coded to Hal.

The senior Incandenza, who James also called “Himself,” goes on and on and on for twelve pages trying to instruct his gangly, nerdy son on how to take control of his body, while the father slowly loses control of his own faculties as the flask is drained dry. The one-sided nature of this conversation reminds us of the challenges James had communicating with his own son.  I loved the humor that was mined from this at the beginning as we only see James through his father’s exasperation (we can imagine how he’s trying to lift the garage door, and how he drops his book on the floor). His cadence reminded me of Foghorn Leghorn teaching the little chicken hawk.  It is again intended to be a “how-to” of excellence in sport, but falls so very short.

And the Ennet house’s “exotic new facts” are not just observations, but instructions on how to survive the vagaries of living in a recovery house, and what to expect from removing substances from your life.  The repetive start of each section with “That..” (Ducks, Newburyport anyone?) is a companion to the “This is..” and “Here is…” of Mario’s film.  These assertions give this info a gravitas in juxtaposition to the rambling lack of paragraphs in Jim’s dad’s words.

Collectively, these sections say to me Its hard. Everything is hard. We have no answers, even when we think we do. But I’m a pessimist 🙂

Standout phrases here include:

“Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke. This can be tricky” (p.175)

“Here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd or quite a jock. Be no one. It’s easier than you think” (p. 175)

“Madame Psychosis is one of only two people Mario would love to talk to but would be scared to try” (p. 190). Who would the other person be?

DMZ – a very bad thing.
We are given a brief outline of a drug Pemulis has recently copped and tucked away in the lining of his boating cap. The “incredibly potent” DMZ (aka Madame Psychosis) is synthesized using an obscure mold (mold!). The side effects are noted as “temporal” with reports of a radical change in perception of time (e. 57).

Bodies and Heads
Repeating themes of bodies and heads persist. There is the emphasis James’ father put on insisting that the head is the body, and that thoughts are just the sound of your body. The Brain of the MIT building and the Lungs of Enfield. 

And if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this post, I will ask you…what do you call three Canadians copulating on a snowmobile??