Infinite Jest

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment Outcropping Northwest of Tucson, AZ, U.S.A., Still (Pre-Dawn, May 1)

Marathe and Steeply talk about the Entertainment. Steeply discusses what makes the Entertainment so particularly captivating and so deadly, crediting James Incandenza’s skill with lenses and optics. He discusses the Office of Unspecified Services’ attempts to define the film’s captivating and deadly qualities. The film appears so real that it becomes irresistible. Marathe does not care why the film is so effective and powerful, but he memorizes Steeply’s words.

Winter B.S. (1963, Sepulveda, CA)

Switching to a first-person perspective, this chapter is an essay titled “The Awakening of My Interest in Annular Systems” (1034). As is slowly revealed, the essay is written by James Incandenza. James helps his father James Senior fix a squeaking mattress while James’s mother watches, smoking endlessly. James Senior works for the GLAD corporation. He acts in their commercials and is still wearing his commercial costume when he returns home, determined to fix the squeaky bed. They remove the mattress, and James Senior complains about the filthy space beneath the bed. He vomits—a common occurrence—and then faints on the naked bedframe.