p 87-127

this section in 11 parts

p 87-92
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

This section introduces the characters Remy Marathe and M. Hugh Steeply, who meet in the desert outside Tucson AZ,presumably in secret. Steeply is a transvestite operative for the [USA] Office of Unspecified Services,or BSS as the Quebecois separatists refer to it. He is a large man, who seems to appear rather absurd in drag, and has trouble controlling his giant prosthetic breasts and his wig. Marathe is a member of the AFR --'Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents' [wheelchair assassins]. Even though Steeply's Quebecois is better than Marathe's English, they usually converse in English, because Marathe has chosen to betray the AFR in order to secure medical treatment for his wife, back in Quebec. Plus, he now pretends to his superiors that he's pretending to feed info to the BSS, but Steeply apparently knows about this false double-double-agent status, which gives Steeply the upper hand-- ergo they converse in English. Steeply asks how he got up there [in a wheelchair] and Marathe dodges the question. Steeply asks if he has heard about the incident in which the cartridge [referred to as 'the Entertainment'] was delivered to the medical attache, with connections to the Saudi ministry of Entertainment, by postal routes that track back to the Phoenix area, apparently implicating Marathe's organization. Steeply explains around 20 people were done in by the incident including police, and also that the attache had diplomatic status and connections to the royal family and plus he was a compatriot of Marathe's. Marathe responds that they have no such names on the AFR list [which Steeply has seen,] that they have 'larger seafood to cook.' Marathe sniffs his nose a lot, they face the same direction as they speak. Steeply points out that the attache was Ottowan [much hated by Marathe] and that he was possibly connected to the widow of the 'auteur we both know was responsible for the Entertainment.' The wife was teaching at Brandeis where the victim did his residency, and she was known to sleep with 'just about everything with a pulse... particularly a Canadian pulse.' Marathe denies knowledge, saying that 'civilians as individual warnings to ONAN are not out desire. Steeply says he was asked to seek personal verification. Marathe asks if he was asked by Rodney [Rod the God] Tine, chief of Unspecified Services and 'acknowledged architect of ONAN and continental Reconfiguration' who by the way shared a personal stenographer [and love interest]-- Luria Perec--with M. DuPlessis former assistant coordinator of the pan-Canadian Resistance. And there's the question of whether Tine was doubling or possibly tripling [only pretending to divulge secrets].


p 93
presumably YDAU [2009]?
place [what used to be] Vermont
narrated in third person [as if a public service announcement]

synopsis:

A herd of feral hamsters is thundering across the southern part of the Great Concavity [in former Vermont], creating a cloud which is visible as far away as boston and Montreal. the herd is descended from two domestic hamsters set free 'at the beginning of Experialist Migration' in Year of the Whopper [2002]. the herd is relentlessly crossing the denuded terrain toward the forests of what used to be Maine. All these territories are now property of Canada. People are advised to steer clear of the hamsters, and the southwest Concavity for that matter. Americans are advised to head south toward a metropolis or the points between where the giant ATHSCME fans blow the toxic clouds back toward Canada.

p 93-95
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Back to Steeply and Marathe. Steeply is trying to light a cigarette, and not being able to do so in a lady-like fashion. Marathe has his wheelchair's brakes locked and his hand on the grip of his machine-pistol. Steeply asks if Marathe will report the incident back to Fortier, and Marathe answers 'bien sur' [of course]. Steeply says that he must be tripling or quadrupling since he knows that Fortier and the AFR know that Marathe is here. Marathe asks but do they know that you know this. In a footnote it's explained that the important thing is that Marathe's superiors seem to believe that he is only pretending to betray them [to get medical technology for his wife] but in reality is betraying them by pretending to pretend. Steeply says it's not personal, it's just obsessive caution. He says that DuPlessis always suspected Tine 'tried to hold back on the information he passed sexually to Luria.' And Marathe says that DuPlessis is now dead under 'circumstances of almost ridiculous suspicion... an inept burglary and grippe.' Marathe says that if 'Tine's betrayal were incomplete, we of Quebec would be aware,' because of Luria.


p 95-97
YDAU [2009] Nov 3
place ETA
narrated in third person [partly as if a diary entry]

synopsis:

The section starts with a day in the life of ETA student, with all the drills classes etc, ending with him slumped on the locker room floor with the other players. '...to even realize what they're sitting there feeling is unhappiness?' Which turns out to be a question about the exam the boys have just taken. Hal answers that the exam was asking about Tolstoy's syntax, not about real unhappy families. The cast of characters includes John (N.R.) Wayne, Troelsch, Pemulis, Schacht, Ortho Stice and others. They discuss a possible test question on Disney R.Leith's [prof of History of Entertainment I & II] pop quiz--the most crucial difference between historical broadcast TV and cartridge-capable TP. Troelsch then quizzes the others to define 'acutance' which Hal does without trouble. The rest of the boys tease him and say they'll be vying for seats next to him for the quiz.

p 97
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Back to Marathe and Steeply. This odd little section contains no dialog. It describes dusk in the desert--the violet sky and the rustling of things about to emerge for the night. Steeply examines a scratch on his arm.

p 97-105
YDAU [2009] Nov 3
place ETA
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Back to the locker room. Everyone has a white towel around his waist, except for Stice with his trademark black towel. The big Buddy system is described-- each 18 & under has a group of 14 & unders assigned to him. Beak, Blott and [the ethnically vague, but non-causcasian] Arslanian are all in Hal's group, plus effectively Ingersoll, whom he traded for Possalthwaite. Axford was supposed tobe Ingersoll's Buddy, but inexplicably despised the kid and begged Hal to make the trade. Big Buddies are there to show the little kids the rope and act as liaison between the kids and the prorectors, but also to keep the prorectors informed on who seems on shaky ground. Hal also feels the strange urge to be cruel to Ingersoll, but resists. He likes being a Big Buddy. Back in the locker room-- other than Hal 'who's atavistically dark-complected,' the players have either weirdly piebald suntans or they spray themselves with Lemon Pledge which acts as the world's most effective sunscreen, if you can stand the smell. Stice says he's tired [pronounced 'tard'] and the boys all chime in with hyperbolic and 'hyperbolicker' words describing their fatigue. Stice request only black form the companies that give him clothes/gear,and has the nickname 'The Darkness.' The kids tease Hal some more about being freakishly smart, he flips them offby the method of using the left hand to slowly crank up the right's middle finger. Hal takes after Himself in appearing slightly ethnic, while Orin 'got the Moms's Anglo-Nordo-Canadian phenotype,' and Mario resembles no one they know. Most days Hal sneaks away from the locker room to get high. The boys talk about how it would be a more pleasant exhaustion if only they could...[get high, get laid etc]. Ingersoll interjects that they get Saturday off for Interdependence Day. It's revealed that Schacht, who is in one of the toilet stalls has Crohn's disease [inflammation of the ileum]. The boys come to a consensus that they had 5 hours of continuous exertion. John Wayne has said nothing the whole time. He buttons his shirt all the way as if he were going to put on a tie. The others argue whether it's Tavis or Schtitt who's more responsible for their personal pain. A jocular fight ensues.

p 105-109
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Back to Marathe and Steeply. The sun has set and Tucson begins to twinkle below them. Steeply says that the love of Rod Tine for Luria was great and timeless, the kind that is sung about, the kind people die for,and then rattles off pairs of star-crossed lovers, notably mistakenly pairing Agamemnon and Helen. Marathe corrects him-- Paris and Helen--and decries his ignorance. Steeply recalls the anonymous gift that was not a gift, brought to the door. Marathe scoffs that Paris and Helen were the *excuse* for the war, that the real reasons for the war were political. He says that Steeply likes to believe that the love of one woman could do this. Steeply counters that those around Rod The God say he would die twice for Luria, which is why he still has the presidents ear, divided loyalties or no-- 'if he does it for love-- well then you've got a kind of tragic element that transcends the political.' Marathe sniffs scornfully,and says that Tines love is only a fanatical attachment, a temple at which he worships, and that the problem with those from the USA is that they do not choose attachments carefully. He says dying for one person is craziness, but your nation and your cause outlive you. He asks 'you would die without thinking for what?' Steeply knows that the AFR file on him makes reference to his recent divorce and to the fact that on assignment he had to drive a green sedan with an aspirin advertisement on it. Steeply counters that sometimes there is no choice what to love, and Marathe answers that in that case you become a slave, not even tragic. Tucson appears ghostly white below, and Black Widows' spider webs are on the outcroppings just below them. Marathe 'thought of his victory over the train that had taken his legs,' [here there is a lengthy footnote,see below] and began singing the 'Star Spangled Banner' out of tune. The cold desert night was coming on, but they themselves were not chilled because their proximity created a 'form-fitting astral spacesuit of warmth.' Marathe thinks that AFR Ops base here is like the surface of the moon.

p 109-121
YDAU [2009] Nov 3
place ETA
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Hal is conducting his Big Buddy group with a hypnotic cartridge in the TP of Stan Smith hitting one perfect forehand [and later backhand] after another. He tells them that the end of the day fighting is part of Schtitt and deLint's plan. The kids are struggling with how anyone can put up with the day in/day out difficulty of the academy for years. One suggests it's because they want the Show [the ATP tour with fame & fortune etc] another suggests that it's for scholarships. Hal dismisses all of this. He tells them to consider that they're all sitting around bitching and moaning *together* even though the system has 'inequality as an axiom.' Everyone knows where they're ranked [ John Wayne> Hal> Struck, Shaw>Troeltsch>Freer>Schacht>Pemulis] and they're all in one another's food chain. What they share is this aloneness. 'The suffering unites us' he tells them, and Schtitt and deLint set it up this way on purpose. it's not the bodies they're working on here, it's the heads. They purposely give them unstructured time after the most grueling workout, so that they'll get together and complain. Hal realizes that Ingersoll is so repellant to Hal because he sees in things about himself that he can't or won't accept. Hal broods on why he gets off on the secrecy of getting high more than the getting high itself. If he doesn't get high by dinnertime, his eyes water and his mouth fills with spit, and he feels sick to his stomach and can't eat, and so when he gets high later he overeats later and wakes before dawn with awful indigestion.
Down the hall John Wayne conducts his Big Buddy group [LaMont Chu, 'Sleepy TP' Peterson, Kieran McKenna, Brian van Vleck]. The mood in Wayne's group is quite different, essentially pedagogical. Chu acts as Wayne's mouthpiece, explaining to the others what Wayne thinks: that you proceed toward mastery through a series of plateaus [plateuax, corrects Wayne] and that the ones who don't hang in there are three. [1] the despairing type who can't stand the stall of improvement when he hits the plateau, and gives up in frustration [2] the obsessive type who when he hits the plateau tries to will himself upward by force and ends up injured [3] the complacent type who just accepts it when he hits the plateau and little by little his rank slides as others get better. Van Vleck asks wayne for verification that this is not just Chu palming his advice disguised as Wayne's. Wayne says he's said all he has to say [nothing]. Due to his continental #2 ranking [possibly #1 after the WhataBurger] he is the most sought after Big Buddy.
Pemulis plays poker [?] with his group [which includes Todd Posalthwaite (wasn't he traded to Axford?), Otis P. Lord and 2 others], Schacht gives his 5 kids a demonstration on flossing on a dental mock-up. Troeltsch tells his group that until they're 15 it's all about repetition until the mechanics are hardwired in, and then they really come after you with the 'concentration and character shit.'
Struck leads a Q&A with his kids. Traub asks if he should reciprocate when his opponent is kertwanging [presumably an obnoxious and only semi-legal act], Struck answers no, but if you lose, you can spike the opponents water after the match. 'Violently cross-eyed Carl Whale asks what if you have to fart, but there's the possibility that you might actually need to defecate. Struck answers that you resist: 'nothing leaves my bottom during play.' Stice lectures his boys [on Schtitt, presumably] telling them that he says it's about more than tennis, it's about sacrifice and suffering to get at the parts of yourself you didn't know were there. he says he'd 'chew fiberglass for that old man.' With dinner about to begin Hal contemplates getting high, as he spits he feels a twinge in a tooth on the left side of his mouth.

p 121-126
YDAU [2009] mid October
place ETA
narrated in third person

synopsis:

This section has a title 'Mario Incandenza's first and only even remotely romantic experience, thus far.' After he drifts away from during a stroll together [sensing that Hal needs some alone time] Mario is confronted the USS Millicent Kent, 16 year old, 400 lb girl, ranked #1, who can take on any of the guys at the bench press. The USSMK takes Mario on a hunt for a Husky VI telescoping tripod that she says is hidden in the thickets. She grabs Mario's 'claw' and proceeds to drag him to show him. Millicent reveals that she has always thought Mario had the 'prettiest lashes of any boy on two continents.' She also reveals that even though she's a great tennis player, her true love is modern interpretive dance, and that when she was a kid she would spend hours in her leotard before the mirror. She also reveals that after her mother ran off with the ConEdison repair man,that she came in to find her very obese father dressed in her leotard posing before the mirror. Mario tries to tell a joke about inbreeding in West Virginia. As fate would have it she was recruited by ETA that same day. She also asks if Mario has ever seen a girls 'yin-yang' and reveals that her sister also had a similar experience with the father, for which she was seeing a counselor at the Ice Capades, where she's a skater. She then smashes Mario's head against her stomach and confesses that his eyelashes drive her 'right around the bend with sensual feeling.'When she eventually gets her hands inside his elaborate outfit and starts 'rooting around for a penis' he becomes so ticklish that he bursts into laughter, allowing Hal to find him. On the way back, they find the tripod in the middle of a not very tall or thick thicket at all.

p 126-127
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

Back to Steeply and Marathe. Steeply says he thinks they chose Boston as the Ops center because it's the 'place of the supposed Entertainment's origin.' Marathe counters simply that it's the closest USA city to the Convexity, and Quebec. Steeply says they're not sure that they have copies, and asks if the supposed 'anti-Entertainment' [which counters the lethality of the cartridge] even exists. Marathe answers that they have no evidence except rumors. Marathe asks why they never send Steeply into the field as himself, last time it was as a negro. Steeply corrects him--a Haitian. A coyote howls a car horn sounds repeatedly, and the cold wind gives Steeply's bare arms a 'plucked-chicken look.' Marathe can't remember Steeply removing his sunglasses but considers this detail unimportant to his report of 'every word and gesture' to M. Fortier [an AFR comrade] who considers Marathe to have near perfect recall of details.


p 127
YDAU [2009] Apr 30
place Tucson
narrated in third person

synopsis:

This one sentence section says that Marathe has several times called the USA 'your walled nation' or your 'murated nation' \


on p 108 is footnote 45 which in turn refers us to footnote 304:


p 1055-1062 [footnote 304]
YDAU[2009] Nov 11
place ETA
narrated in third person

synopsis

Struck is working on a term paper for his 'History of Canadian Unpleasantness Course thing.' He is basically plagiarizing an article about the AFR from an article on something like the internet [BPL ArchFax database]. The article he is plagiarizing says that unlike the 'massive feral infants formed by toxicity' which are 'essentially passive icons of the Experialist gestalt' the legless wheelchair assassins have wreaked havoc disrupting 'Empire Waste Displacement's launch and reception facilities' and most infamously assassinating certain Canadian officials who have a passive position on 'Sudetenlandization' which seems to be essestially the foisting of contaminated land and waste in the northern US onto Canada. The AFR are feared and mythologized in Canadian culture. Apparently they are very stealthy and you only get 'to hear the squeak' when it's too late. And they leave a signature set of tracks in a double S pattern. While most of the separatist groups simply call for Quebec's secession, the AFR call for returning all 'Reconfigured territories' to USA and the cessation of all waste disposal and 'ATHSCME rotary air mass displacement activity.' The AFR formed in the wake of the 'nearly simultaneous inaugurations of ONAN-ite governance, continental Interdependence, and the commercial subsidization of a lunar ONAN calendar.' Struck struggles to taylor his plagiarism to avoid sounding unlike a student. The AFR has it's roots in a cult of 'Le Jeu du Prochain Train' which is a game where players try to be the last of the six to jump across the tracks in front of a speeding train [and live]. It's also noted that to not jump at all is unimaginable, the only known non jumper was Bernard Wayne, who was disgraced and later drowned [this fails to set off any light bulbs in Struck's head.] There is little doubt that the legless assassins of the AFR came up through the ranks of cult of Prochain train.






notes

The introduction of Marathe and Steeply begins the third thread of the book in earnest, and on my second reading of the book, I was struck by just how blatantly DFW spells things out here. All the reviewers who claimed that the threads never come together must have snoozed through this section [and the book's opening]--because it's all here plain as day. Here we learn that the mysterious cartridge 'the Entertainment' was in fact made by Himself [and is presumably his final film, 'Infinite Jest (V?)'] and that Marathe's organization is at least suspected of having sent the tape to the attache, and also that DuPlessis, the unfortunate victim of Gately's robbery was connected to Marathe's organization [as well as, we have already learned, the Incadenzas], suggesting the connection to the Gately thread of the novel. We're also seeing the concepts of identity and self emerge time and again, and in this thread they are flagrantly parodied, with Steeply's ridiculous drag get-up, and Marathe's double, triple, quadruple-crossing, and pretending to pretend to be pretending.
The ETA scenes in this chapter are hilariously sad in a special DFW way. We definitely get some more character insight into the tennis players--something sure is strange about John Wayne, he seems to have no sense of humor or anything else personality-trait-wise for that matter. I thought for sure that I would find the hypnotic Stan Smith cartridge listed in the filmography, but I have yet to. I also thought it a curious coincidence that Hal and Marathe share DFW's eidetic abilities.

The OED defines murated as 'walled or encompassed with walls' not as mutated as some have suggested. But why two ways to say 'walled'?
The OED contains no entry for kertwanging, I have a feeling it's simply onomatopoeic.