The endnote system itself was invented in April 1994 as a length-management device, pitched with a five-point rationale Wallace vowed to "fight w/all 20 claws…

This concerns the book's apparatus (its title, endnote system, or text-state) rather than a single scene.

In the published book. This concerns the book as a whole rather than a single scene.

Evidence. Independently corroborated. Documented by D.T. Max's 2009 New Yorker profile; D.T. Max's biography of Wallace (fuller: Pietsch came around Dec 1994, floated packaging with a bookmark); the capitulation letter itself now primary-held Michael Pietsch's December 1994 second-read letter: "You're right that notes should go at the end." + "Maybe we'll package it with a bookmark to help readers keep their place.".

Bears on. This difference bears on the following open questions: the macro-shape: ring, gasket, thematic chapters, dead-center design.

Further notes. rationale, in Wallace's words: "allow a discursive, authorial intrusive style w/o Finneganizing the story," "mimic the information-flood and data-triage" of future US life, make the reader "go literally physically 'back and forth'"; "I pray this is nothing like hypertext."