Endnote 324: the best mirror in the Academy
You can take your time dressing, flex in front of the big plate mirror over the sink; the mirror has projecting side-mirrors so you can check out the old biceps from either side, see the jawline in profile, practice expressions, try to look all natural and uncomposed so you can try to see what you really might normally look like to other people. […] It’s the best mirror in the Academy, intricately lit from all perspectives. Dr. J. O. Incandenza knew his adolescents.
Context
The note side of the archive's Mirrors sighting for scene 159 — the scene's own raw holds no mirror text, so the catalogued row lands on this note instead. The founder's optics applied to the physical plant: a big plate mirror with "projecting side-mirrors" and engineered illumination, "intricately lit from all perspectives" — multi-angle coverage plus set lighting, a camera setup with no camera in it — and the design credit is explicit: "Dr. J. O. Incandenza knew his adolescents." What the rig serves is the book's recurring mirror problem: using your reflection to "try to see what you really might normally look like to other people," i.e. to catch yourself unposed by posing, which is exactly the trap the apparatus is intricately lit to bait. Cross-refs: 047's appearance-checks "no more resistible than a mirror"; Hal's expression-checks at mirrors (167/170).