Infinite Jest (194 page)

11.
An involved Arab women’s game involving little shells and a quilted gameboard—rather
like mah jongg without rules, by the diplomatic and medical husbands’ estimate.

12.
Meperedine hydrochloride and pentazocine hydrochloride, Schedule C-II and C-IV
^a
narcotic analgesics, respectively, both from the good folks over at Sanofi Winthrop
Pharm-Labs, Inc.

^a.
Following the Continental Controlled Substance Act of Y.T.M.P., O.N.A.N.D.E.A.’s
hierarchy of analgesics/antipyretics/anxiolytics establishes drug-classes of Category-II
through Category-VI, with C-II’s (e.g. Dilaudid, Demerol) being judged the heaviest
w/r/t dependence and possible abuse, down to C-VI’s that are about as potent as a
kiss on the forehead from Mom.

13.
Though masked in the evidentiary photo and never once given up or named by Gately
to anyone, this can be presumed to have been one Trent (‘Quo Vadis’) Kite, Gately’s
old and once-gifted friend from his Beverly MA childhood.

14.
This A.D.A.’s little personal trademark was that he always wore an anachronistic
but quality Stetson-brand businessman’s hat with a decorative feather in the band,
and frequently touched or played with the hat in tense situations.

15.
The Bureau of Alcohol/Tobacco/Firearms, at that time under the temporary aegis of
the United States Office of Unspecified Services.

16.
Extremely unpleasant Québecois-insurgents-and-cartridge-related subsequent developments
make it clear that this was (again) Trent (‘Quo Vadis’) Kite.

17.
The codeineless kind, though—almost the first physical datum Gately took in in the
nasty flashbulb-flash shock of the occupied bedroom’s light coming on, to give you
an idea of an oral-narcotics man’s depth of psychic investment.

18.
On top of the seascape safe’s more negotiable contents, themselves on top of an unplugged
and head-parked and absolutely top-hole genuine InterLace state-of-the-art TP/viewer
ensemble in a multishelved hardwood rollable like entertainment-system-console thing,
with a cartridge-dock and double-head drive in a compartment underneath with doors
with classy little brass maple-leaf knob things and several shelves crammed tight
with upscale arty-looking film cartridges, which latter Don Gately’s colleague just
about drooled all over the parquet flooring at the potential discriminating-type-fence-value
of, potentially, if they were rare or celluloid-transferred or not available on the
InterLace Dissemination Grid.

19.
‘
Une Personne de l’Importance Terrible,
’ presumably.

20.
Fluorescence has been banned in Québec, as have computerized telephone solicitations,
the little ad-cards that fall out of magazines and have to be looked at to be picked
up and thrown in the trash, and the mention of any religious holiday whatsoever to
sell any sort of product or service, is just one reason why his volunteering to come
live down here was selfless.

21.
Q.v. Note 211
sub
.

22.
Trade name of terfenadine, Marion Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the tactical nuclear
weapon of nondrowsy antihistamines and mucoidal desiccators.

23.
Office of Naval Research, U.S.D.D.

24.

JAMES O. INCANDENZA: A FILMOGRAPHY
^a

The following listing is as complete as we are able to make it. Because the twelve
years of Incandenza’s directorial activity also coincided with large shifts in film
venue—from public art cinemas, to VCR-capable magnetic recordings, to InterLace TelEntertainment
laser dissemination and reviewable storage disk laser cartridges—and because Incandenza’s
output itself comprises industrial, documentary, conceptual, advertorial, technical,
parodic, dramatic noncommercial, nondramatic (‘anti-confluential’) noncommercial,
nondramatic commercial, and dramatic commercial works, this filmmaker’s career presents
substantive archival challenges. These challenges are also compounded by the facts
that, first, for conceptual reasons, Incandenza eschewed both L. of C. registration
and formal dating until the advent of Subsidized Time, secondly, that his output increased
steadily until during the last years of his life Incandenza often had several works
in production at the same time, thirdly, that his production company was privately
owned and underwent at least four different changes of corporate name, and lastly
that certain of his high-conceptual projects’ agendas required that they be titled
and subjected to critique but never filmed, making their status as film subject to
controversy.

Accordingly, though the works are here listed in what is considered by archivists
to be their probable order of completion, we wish to say that the list’s order and
completeness are, at this point in time, not definitive.

Each work’s title is followed: by either its year of completion, or by ‘B.S.,’ designating
undated completion before Subsidization; by the production company; by the major players,
if credited; by the storage medium’s (‘film’ ’s) gauge or gauges; by the length of
the work to the nearest minute; by an indication of whether the work is in black and
white or color or both; by an indication of whether the film is silent or in sound
or both; by (if possible) a brief synopsis or critical overview; and by an indication
of whether the work is mediated by celluloid film, magnetic video, InterLace Spontaneous
Dissemination, TP-compatible InterLace cartridge, or privately distributed by Incandenza’s
own company(ies). The designation UNRELEASED is used for those works which never saw
distribution and are now publicly unavailable or lost.

Cage.
^b
Dated only ‘Before Subsidization.’ Meniscus Films, Ltd. Uncredited cast; 16 mm.;
.5 minutes; black and white; sound. Soliloquized parody of a broadcast-television
advertisement for shampoo, utilizing four convex mirrors, two planar mirrors, and
one actress. UNRELEASED

Kinds of Light.
B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. No cast; 16 mm.; 3 minutes; color; silent. 4,444 individual
frames, each of which photo depicts lights of different source, wavelength, and candle
power, each reflected off the same unpolished tin plate and rendered disorienting
at normal projection speeds by the hyperretinal speed at which they pass. CELLULOID,
LIMITED METROPOLITAN BOSTON RELEASE, REQUIRES PROJECTION AT .25 NORMAL SPROCKET DRIVE

Dark Logics.
B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. Players uncredited; 35 mm.; 21 minutes; color; silent w/
deafening Wagner/Sousa soundtrack. Griffith tribute, Iimura parody. Child-sized but
severely palsied hand turns pages of incunabular manuscripts in mathematics, alchemy,
religion, and bogus political autobiography, each page comprising some articulation
or defense of intolerance and hatred. Film’s dedication to D. W. Griffith and Taka
Iimura. UNRELEASED

Tennis, Everyone?
B.S. Heliotrope Films, Ltd./U.S.T.A. Films. Documentary cast w/ narrator Judith Fukuoka-Hearn;
35 mm.; 26 minutes; color; sound. Public relations/advertorial production for United
States Tennis Association in conjunction with Wilson Sporting Goods, Inc. MAGNETIC
VIDEO

‘There Are No Losers Here.’
B.S. Heliotrope Films, Ltd./ U.S.T.A. Films. Documentary cast w/ narrator P. A. Heaven;
35 mm.; color; sound. Documentary on B.S. 1997 U.S.T.A. National Junior Tennis Championships,
Kalamazoo MI and Miami FL, in conjunction with United States Tennis Association and
Wilson Sporting Goods. MAGNETIC VIDEO

Flux in a Box.
B.S. Heliotrope Films, Ltd./Wilson Inc. Documentary cast w/ narrator Judith Fukuoka-Hearn;
35 mm.; 52 minutes; black and white/color; sound. Documentary history of box, platform,
lawn, and court tennis from the 17th-century Court of the Dauphin to the present.
MAGNETIC VIDEO

Infinite Jest (I).
B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. Judith Fukuoka-Hearn; 16/35 mm.; 90(?) minutes; black and
white; silent. Incandenza’s unfinished and unseen first attempt at commercial entertainment.
UNRELEASED

Annular Fusion Is Our Friend.
B.S. Heliotrope Films, Ltd./Sunstrand Power & Light Co. Documentary cast w/ narrator
C. N. Reilly; Sign-Interpreted for the Deaf; 78 mm.; 45 minutes; color; sound. Public
relations/advertorial production for New England’s Sunstrand Power and Light utility,
a nontechnical explanation of the processes of DT-cycle lithiumized annular fusion
and its applications in domestic energy production. CELLULOID, MAGNETIC VIDEO

Annular Amplified Light: Some Reflections.
B.S. Heliotrope Films/Sunstrand Power & Light Co. Documentary cast w/ narrator C.
N. Reilly; Sign-Interpreted for the Deaf; 78 mm.; 45 minutes; color; sound. Second
infomercial for Sunstrand Co., a nontechnical explanation of the applications of cooled-photon
lasers in DT-cycle lithiumized annular fusion. CELLULOID, MAGNETIC VIDEO

Union of Nurses in Berkeley.
B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. Documentary cast; 35 mm.; 26 minutes; color; silent. Documentary
and closed-caption interviews with hearing-impaired RNs and LPNs during Bay Area health
care reform riots of 1996. MAGNETIC VIDEO, PRIVATELY RELEASED BY MENISCUS FILMS, LTD.

Union of Theoretical Grammarians in Cambridge.
B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. Documentary cast; 35 mm.; 26 minutes; color; silent w/
heavy use of computerized distortion in facial close-ups. Documentary and closed-caption
interviews with participants in the public Steven Pinker–Avril M. Incandenza debate
on the political implications of prescriptive grammar during the infamous Militant
Grammarians of Massachusetts convention credited with helping incite the M.I.T. language
riots of B.S. 1997. UNRELEASED DUE TO LITIGATION

Widower.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Ross Reat; 35 mm.; 34 minutes;
black and white; sound. Shot on location in Tucson AZ, parody of broadcast television
domestic comedies, a cocaine-addicted father (Watt) leads his son (Reat) around their
desert property immolating poisonous spiders. CELLULOID; INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE
RERELEASE #357–75–00 (Y.P.W.)

Cage II.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Disney Leith; 35 mm.; 120 minutes;
black and white; sound. Sadistic penal authorities place a blind convict (Watt) and
a deaf-mute convict (Leith) together in ‘solitary confinement,’ and the two men attempt
to devise ways of communicating with each other. LIMITED CELLULOID RUN; RERELEASED
ON MAGNETIC VIDEO

Death in Scarsdale.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Marlon R. Bain; 78 mm.; 39 minutes;
color; silent w/ closed-caption subtitles. Mann/Allen parody, a world-famous dermatological
endocrinologist (Watt) becomes platonically obsessed with a boy (Bain) he is treating
for excessive perspiration, and begins himself to suffer from excessive perspiration.
UNRELEASED

Fun with Teeth.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Herbert G. Birch, Billy Tolan, Pam Heath; 35
mm.; 73 minutes; black and white; silent w/ non-human screams and howls. Kosinski/Updike/Peckinpah
parody, a dentist (Birch) performs sixteen unanesthetized root-canal procedures on
an academic (Tolan) he suspects of involvement with his wife (Heath). MAGNETIC VIDEO,
PRIVATELY RELEASED BY LATRODECTUS MACTANS PROD.

Infinite Jest (II).
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Pam Heath; 35/78 mm.; 90(?) minutes; black
and white; silent. Unfinished, unseen attempt at remake of
Infinite Jest (I).
UNRELEASED

Immanent Domain.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Judith Fukuoka-Hearn, Pam Heath,
Pamela-Sue Voorheis, Herbert G. Birch; 35 mm.; 88 minutes; black and white w/ microphotography;
sound. Three memory-neurons (Fukuoka-Hearn, Heath, Voorheis (w/ polyurethane costumes))
in the Inferior frontal gyrus of a man’s (Watt’s) brain fight heroically to prevent
their displacement by new memory-neurons as the man undergoes intensive psychoanalysis.
CELLULOID; INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE RERELEASE #340–03–70 (Y.P.W.)

Kinds of Pain.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Anonymous cast; 35/78 mm.; 6 minutes; color;
silent. 2,222 still-frame close-ups of middle-aged white males suffering from almost
every conceivable type of pain, from an ingrown toenail to cranio-facial neuralgia
to inoperable colo-rectal neoplastis. CELLULOID, LIMITED METRO BOSTON RELEASE, REQUIRES
PROJECTION AT .25 NORMAL SPROCKET-DRIVE

Various Small Flames.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Pam Heath, Ken N. Johnson; 16
mm.; 25 minutes w/ recursive loop for automatic replay; color; silent w/ sounds of
human coitus appropriated from and credited to Caballero Control Corp. adult videos.
Parody of neoconceptual structuralist films of Godbout and Vodriard, n-frame images
of myriad varieties of small household flames, from lighters and birthday candles
to stovetop gas rings and grass clippings ignited by sunlight through a magnifying
glass, alternated with anti-narrative sequences of a man (Watt) sitting in a dark
bedroom drinking bourbon while his wife (Heath) and an Amway representative (Johnson)
have acrobatic coitus in the background’s lit hallway. UNRELEASED DUE TO LITIGATION
BY 1960s US CONCEPTUAL DIRECTOR OF
VARIOUS SMALL FIRES
ED RUSCHA—INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE RERELEASE #330–54–94 (Y.T.-S.D.B.)

Cage III—Free Show.
B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions/Infernatron Animation Concepts, Canada. Cosgrove
Watt, P. A. Heaven, Everard Maynell, Pam Heath; partial animation; 35 mm.; 65 minutes;
black and white; sound. The figure of Death (Heath) presides over the front entrance
of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations
so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until
the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while
on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life (Heaven) uses a megaphone
to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo
unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic
eyeballs. INTERLACE TELENT FEATURE CARTRIDGE #357–65–65