Joelle cleaning; the Incandenza Thanksgiving — "the introductory supper with Orin and…"
the introductory supper with Orin and Himself at Legal Seafood up in Brookline betrayed nothing much at all, save that the director seemed more than able to resist ‘using’ Joelle in any capacity—she saw the tall man slump and cringe when Orin told him the P.G.O.A.T. majored in F&C —Jim’d told her later she’d seemed too conventionally, commercially pretty to consider using in any of that period’s Work, part of whose theoretical project was to militate against received U.S. commercial-prettiness-conventions
Context
Casting as theory: that period's Work is defined by its project ("militate against received U.S. commercial-prettiness-conventions"), so the most beautiful applicant is disqualified by beauty. The cringe at "majored in F&C" (n.310 glosses the jargon — Film/Cartridge Studies) is the auteur meeting the academy that studies him. That he later reverses completely — Madame Psychosis as the last films' whole visual subject — is the career's hinge, present here only in the fence-post "that period's."