Endnote 145 — Orin, Steeply, and Found Drama

A long transcript fragment from "Helen" Steeply's interview with Orin, dated 3 November Y.D.A.U., that doubles as the fullest account of James Incandenza's "Found Drama" (p. 1027) hoax. Interleaved with Orin's flirty patter about copper jewelry, he explains how his father (whom the family called "Himself" or "The Sad Stork," and whom Orin himself dubs "The Mad Stork," p. 1027) took revenge on dismissive critics by inventing a fake avant-garde genre: you tear a random page from the phone book, throw a dart at it, and whatever the named stranger does for the next ninety minutes "is the Drama" (p. 1028) — no audience, no recording, and possibly a subject already moved away or dead. Critics hailed it as "the ultimate in Neorealism" (p. 1028) until Himself finally dropped the joke.