Hal's admissions interview (p. 5)
C.T. looks to me, his look horribly mild. I do the safe thing, relaxing every muscle in my face, emptying out all expression. I stare carefully into the Kekuléan knot of the middle Dean's necktie.
Context
The novel's opening scene (p. 5). Hal, cornered in the Year of Glad interview and going deliberately blank, picks a spot to stare at — and DFW makes the spot a necktie knot named for Kekulé, the chemist who supposedly discovered the benzene ring after dreaming of a snake swallowing its own tail. A ring planted in the book's opening scene, at the exact moment Hal seals himself in.