Arslanian blindfolded
You’ve seen the coprolite plaque in Tavis’s office. This is from the A.E.C., for the Incster’s Da’s, like, lasting contribution to the energy of waste.
Context
Buried in Pemulis's blindfold-side physics lecture is the frame's Claudius image in miniature: the dead founder's federal honor — an Atomic Energy Commission plaque for Himself's annulation work — hangs on the wall of the successor's office. The dead king's honors decorate the usurper's room. Pemulis reaches the founder through a chain of relations that is itself the whole family map in one breath — "our own glorious optical Founder, Inc's ex-Da, Mrs. Inc's poor cuc—" (cuckold, cut off) — before catching himself; and then locates the man's monument not in his widow's house or his son's but in Charles Tavis's office, where the plaque for "the energy of waste" presides over the administration that replaced him. The heir to the dead man's institution keeps the dead man's trophy on display, and the students grow up walking past it.