IJ study archive

The Orin–Steeply interview

quote

His expression is very serious even despite that his lower lip is having a sort of little epileptic fit, which means he’s getting ready to bawl. That’s with a w.

Context

Deep inside the Rototiller anecdote, Orin pauses to disambiguate his own spoken homophone for the interviewer — "That's with a w." (bawl, not ball) — the family reflex for lexical precision firing even at the story's most charged moment. Same tic a few lines later: "Underline big and old."

In anthology