IJ study archive

Joelle cleaning; the Incandenza Thanksgiving — "After his second trip to the…"

quote

After his second trip to the kitchen, Dr. Incandenza molded his twice-baked potatoes into an intricate futuristic cityscape and suddenly started to discourse animatedly on the 1946 breakup of Hollywood’s monolithic Studio system and the subsequent rise of the Method actors Brando, Dean, Clift et al., arguing for a causal connection.

Context

The only animation the Thanksgiving table gets out of him is film history with a thesis (industry structure causing acting style) — delivered between kitchen trips to "freshen his drink," until the trip he never comes back from. The scene's Jim is drink plus film-discourse and nothing else; even the potatoes become a set.

In anthology