the 1960 Tucson scene's design
This asks how to read the 1960 Tucson scene between young JOI and his own father, and what it reveals about the roots of his detachment. It is contested because the scene's importance is widely agreed on while the precise psychology a reader draws out of it rests on a single extended interpretation.
Scenes
Adjudication
This crux has an adversarial ledger: James O. Incandenza's Death. The per-reading verdicts are below.
Theories on this crux
| Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|
| joi-father-scene — the 1960 Tucson scene enacts JOI's | open |
Discussed in
- IJ Book Club Ep. 06: Potential May Be Worse Than None, Jim — anti-ONAN list, videophony worked at length, Pemulis's urine economy, the 1960 garage monologue (pp. ~144–172)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 07: Who's There? — the chapter-one catch-up session (pp. 3–32 + the garage postscript): I-am vs who's-there, the conversationalist as reverse interrogation, Brando in the family tree
- IJ Book Club Ep. 08: When does routine become ritual? — the Feral Prodigy film, the Ennet House drop-in transcripts, and the Madame Psychosis broadcast scene (pp. ~170–193, archive-derived)
- Infinite Cast Part 22: JOI Sr.'s tennis lesson — commentary segment (~17 min): the monologue as the Incandenza transmission engine, the mother-horror aphorism, a GameStop-videophony rhyme
- Mapping the Zone Ep. 06: Il ne faut plus qu'on pursuive le bonheur — pp. 410–503 (Marathe/Steeply, Clipperton, Gately's routine, the Antitois, the mattress)
- The Great Concavity Ep. 32: Shazia Ramji — guiding three IJ group reads (Poor Yorick Summer, Sacred Jest, Ennet House), poetry and Wallace, and Gravity's Rainbow parallels (recorded ~fall 2017)