Urine day (pp. 155–156)
Orin, Mario, and Hal’s late father was revered as a genius in his original profession without anybody ever realizing what he really turned out to be a genius at, even he himself, at least not while he was alive, which is perhaps bona-fidely tragic but also, as far as Mario’s concerned, ultimately all right, if that’s the way things unfolded.
Context
The scene's quiet verdict on the optics/film double career: revered for the "original profession" (optics), while what he "really turned out to be a genius at" is deliberately left unnamed — filmmaking is the natural reading in a scene built around his labs and lenses, but the sentence withholds the word, and even JOI never knew it "while he was alive." Quoted as written, ambiguity intact: the withholding is the point, and Mario's closing absolution ("ultimately all right") is the only judgment the text allows.