Infinite Cast Part 83: Marlon Bain dishes on Orin's past — commentary segment (~18 min): the virtue-philanthropy passage as proto-virtue-posting, cartoonish violence as tempo design, and a pinned theory that JOI was killed by Charles Tavis

TL;DR

The Marlon Bain correspondence session — Bain's answers to the disguised Steeply, with their portrait of Avril the philanthropist and Orin the philanthropic lover. The hosts' liveliest reading maps Bain's anthropologist-of-virtue passage (the philanthropist who "clearly needs privation and suffering to continue, since it is his own virtue he prizes" — n. 269, print-verified) straight onto online outrage-posting, with 2020 as the practice's climax and a memorable koan: every tweet's true audience is its own author. Two more keepers: a craft reading of the book's cartoonish violence (the dog nubbin, Bain's absurdly killed parents) as blunt horrific interruptions engineered to whack the reader out of the verbose and heady register — paired against the creeping dread that is the real enemy — and, teased out Socratically at the page-666 mark, a pinned theory that James was not a suicide at all but was killed by Charles Tavis, on pure Hamlet logic (the title, Prince Hal — it's all just Hamlet). The Orin/Avril thread from earlier sessions is touched and deliberately shelved: definitely a thing, perhaps fixation rather than outright abuse. ASR transcript: paraphrase only.

Key claims

• Digestion scope: commentary only (trim at 35:12 of 53:02; the read-aloud half is print, not digested; the trim buffer caught the final read-aloud beat — the close of Bain's letter warning Ms. Bainbridge about Orin the magnificently generous lover: print's "vision of Orin imitating his dear Moms as philanthropist: a person closing in, arms open wide, smiling" — n. 269, print-verified). Coverage: pp. 662–666, the Saprogenic Greetings correspondence plus Bain's long answers in the attached endnote; next session starts at p. 666 (page ref ASR-heard; greeted on-air with Hail Satan). [00:01]
• The virtue-anthropology reading (see THEORY): Bain's closing passage read as a diagnosis of displaying-virtue-about-yourself, applied to online outrage culture. [00:01–00:05]
• The hosts' partial defense of the impulse: wanting to be seen helping is a natural urge, not automatically cynical — people do go into nonprofit work to actually help — online, though, the effect is comically legible, nothing visible but the tiny words themselves. [00:02–00:03]
• The Chad-philanthropist corollary: the anonymous donor as the only clean version — no plaque, no flush of happy chemicals — capped with the verdict that giving pursued for the giving itself works on the giver like one more drug. [00:04–00:05]
• On Bain's neurotic-children material: parenting aimed at making kids successful (job, good school, money) is a fool's errand; unconditional love is among the best things you can give a person, and most people who believe they give it are attaching conditions without realizing — love should not be a coupon you redeem. [00:05–00:07]
• The violence inventory: the dog nubbin (leash, collar, nubbin) filed under the casually gross things the book needs to pull out about every 60 pages; Bain's parents' deaths recalled as absurdist cartoon violence — Looney Tunes stuff (the hosts' recalled details differ from print; see Accuracy notes). [00:07–00:08]
• The situation savored for sheer density: an agoraphobic former tennis partner of an Incandenza, interrogated by a CIA-level operative posing as a voluptuous journalist, his parents dead in a freak crash, carrying traumatic memories of Avril — there's just so much going on. [00:09]
• A floated question, unanswered: Bain describes deadly-serious hallucinogen use while still young — was DMZ among the substances? The hosts recall the book's large circulating pharmacopoeia (the early long drug-list endnote; happy patches coveted) and leave it open. [00:09–00:10]
• Marijuana-thinking recalled from the early book: weed users not lazy but paralyzed by weed thoughts until the cycle is broken by the desire to eat. [00:10]
• Feral-hamsters check-in: a listener sent a news item about genetically modified large, hyperaggressive hamsters; the hosts correct each other toward the book's version (feral herds, big because radioactive) and admire the drop-it-and-never-return worldbuilding — the Concavity you shouldn't be in anyway, the cult worshipping the irradiated baby, color a lesser writer would have built the whole book around. [00:10–00:12]
• The subtext exchange that tees the session's theory: Wallace read as verbose but usually spelling out exactly what's going on — then amended: subtext exists, but at a bulk and awkwardness that leaves surfacing it to the reader. [00:12–00:13]
• The Hamlet chain and the Tavis pin (see THEORY), with the three-reads admission and a self-deprecating aside about needing things spelled out. [00:13–00:15]
• The Orin/Avril thread shelved on-air: the earlier-session possibility of mother-son sexual abuse acknowledged as definitely a thing but not deeply addressed in this stretch and not something to talk about every week; perhaps not even directly abuse so much as fixation — something to stick a pin in. [00:16–00:17]
• Color: gag-headstone riffs, the Northman as Hamlet (kill uncle, save mother, avenge father), Garth Marenghi's subtext-is-for-cowards bit, and an outro riffing on Saprogenic's printed slogan "WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH TO LET A PROFESSIONAL SAY IT FOR YOU" (p. 664, print-verified; also the n. 269 letterhead). [00:12–00:18]

Theories & evidence

THEORY: Bain's virtue-philanthropist passage anticipates online virtue-signaling — outrage-posting as self-directed virtue display

• Crux: media-prescience
• Stance: advances
• Evidence:
  • [text] The premise passage (caught in the trim buffer, print terrain): the philanthropist who treats the objects of his charity as exercise equipment for developing and demonstrating his own virtue, and so needs privation and suffering to continue — Bain's warning that Orin imitates his moms in exactly this mode. [00:00–00:01]
  • [inference] The mapping: people depicting their own outrage online are always doing equal parts actual outrage and virtue display — look at me, caring — with the post-Trump era and summer 2020 as the practice finding its limit. [00:01–00:02]
  • [inference] The koan offered as the general law: posting soothes because a tweet's one true audience is the person who wrote it — you are always talking to yourself, and everyone else's posts should be read the same way. [00:03–00:04]
  • [inference] The corollary that closes the loop back to Bain's terms: charity done for charity's own sake functions as one more drug — the plaque and the flush of happy chemicals vs the anonymous donor. [00:04–00:05]
• Notes: The hosts soften Bain on-record: the urge to find personal meaning in being seen as someone who helps is called natural and not negative or cynical in general — the pathology is in the display economy, not the helping. The Avril-specific application (it is her portrait Bain is painting) is left mostly implicit; the discussion runs on the general human case.

THEORY: The book's cartoonish violence is tempo design — blunt horrific interruptions that whack the reader out of the verbose register, set against creeping dread as the real enemy

• Crux: prose-tempo-design
• Stance: advances
• Evidence:
  • [text] The instances as discussed: the S. Johnson nubbin (leash, collar, nubbin — really horrific, casually gross), and Bain's parents' freak deaths, recalled by the hosts as Looney-Tunes absurd. [00:07–00:08]
  • [inference] The periodicity claim: the book needs to pull out one of these casually gross things about every 60 pages to remind you. [00:07]
  • [inference] The design reading: for something so purposely verbose, heady, and intellectual, it is literarily a good strategy to periodically deploy something simple, blunt, and horrific — a hammer blow to the back of the skull. [00:08–00:09]
  • [inference] The pairing thesis: so much cartoonish, senseless violence set against the slow-creeping dread the hosts call the human spirit's real enemy — the dread bred by over-consumption of television and advertising. [00:08]
• Notes: A This-Is-Us-style comparison rides the same beat (the tragedy-drama that flatters the viewer's life by comparison, since not every second person has terminal cancer, when actually you should expect more of your life than the worst not happening) — offered as what the book is NOT doing with its absurd tragedy.

THEORY: Orin's generosity is Avril's philanthropy inherited — the closing-in embrace, and love that claims to be unconditional but carries terms

• Crux: avril-orin
• Stance: entertains
• Evidence:
  • [text] Bain's warning as read (trim buffer, print terrain): if Orin strikes you as a magnificently generous, empathic lover who derives his best pleasure from giving pleasure, print's counsel is to reflect soberly on the "vision of Orin imitating his dear Moms as philanthropist: a person closing in, arms open wide, smiling" (n. 269, print-verified). [00:00–00:01]
  • [inference] The hosts' generalized restatement over Bain's parenting material: many people believe they are giving unconditional love while unknowingly attaching conditions — terms and conditions may apply; love should not be redeeming a coupon. [00:06–00:07]
  • [inference] The Bain-credibility frame: the correspondence situation inventoried with visible relish (traumatic moments with Avril among Bain's baggage), taking his testimony as loaded but substantive. [00:09]
• Notes: The hosts engage the structure of Bain's charge (conditional love wearing unconditional dress) more than its Avril-specific application; nobody on-air disputes Bain, but nobody presses the portrait onto Avril by name either. Bain's own hedge in the covered material — multileveled and indictment-proof, nothing univocal — is part of the print terrain the hosts are reacting to.

THEORY: James was not a suicide — Charles Tavis killed him, because the book is Hamlet and Hamlet's king was murdered

• Crux: joi-death (frame: hamlet-frame)
• Stance: entertains
• Evidence:
  • [inference] The Socratic chain run on-air: where does the title come from — Hamlet; what is the youngest boy's name — Hal, Prince Hal; it's all just Hamlet — so perhaps J.O.I. was not suicided but was killed by Charles Tavis. Pinned, not argued. [00:13–00:14]
  • [inference] The tee-up: Wallace's subtext is so large and unwieldy that surfacing it is the reader's job — offered immediately before the chain as the license for the reading. [00:12–00:13]
• Notes: Explicitly a pin-in-it teaser: the proposing voice notes it took 666 pages to see, the other host that it took three reads; the exchange ends in self-deprecation (needing things spelled out), not commitment. The Claudius mapping (Tavis as the uncle who displaced the father) is implied by the Hamlet frame but never spelled out on-air — recorded exactly as far as the hosts took it.

THEORY: The Orin–Avril relationship may be sexual abuse — or, the hosts' softer variant, fixation rather than abuse

• Crux: orin-avril-abuse
• Stance: entertains
• Evidence:
  • [inference] The thread acknowledged from an earlier session (the possibility of mother-son sexual abuse raised when last discussing Orin and the moms), judged definitely a thing but not deeply addressed in this stretch of text. [00:16–00:17]
  • [inference] The live hedge: perhaps not even directly abuse so much as fixation — who knows; something to stick a pin in. [00:17]
• Notes: No evidence offered beyond the above — the hosts decline to develop it (not something to talk about every week). The reluctance is itself the datum: the reading stays open on their table across sessions without either host committing. Bain's own definitional assault on the word abuse (the ambiguity of the abuse becomes part of the abuse) is in the covered endnote's print terrain but is not brought into this exchange on-air.

THEORY: The Concavity's feral hamsters and infant-cult are drop-and-never-revisit worldbuilding — color, not plot

• Crux: great-concavity
• Stance: mentions
• Evidence:
  • [inference] The recall: feral herds of hamsters, big because radioactive, in a Concavity you really shouldn't be in to begin with; the cult that goes into the woods to worship the irradiated baby; none of it mentioned for hundreds of pages and probably not much again. [00:10–00:12]
  • [inference] The craft gloss: that restraint is why he's the boss — a lesser writer would make the entire book about the feral hamsters; the hosts avow a weakness for speculative worldbuilding you don't revisit. [00:11–00:12]
• Notes: Prompted by listener-sent news of genetically modified large aggressive hamsters — the book's bestiary arriving in the real world, enjoyed as such.

Themes

Virtue and its display (philanthropy as self-regard, outrage as performance); family and conditional love (the coupon-love verdict, Avril's terms); violence and tone (cartoon carnage vs creeping dread); Hamlet and the family plot (the title chain, the Tavis pin); the Concavity's ecology (hamsters, the infant cult); drugs (Bain's hallucinogens, marijuana thinking).

Cross-references

• ic-part81 — two sessions earlier; its fandom-normalization reading and this session's virtue-posting reading are the run's paired internet-culture mappings.
• ic-part104 — the later session that reads out the Hamlet gravedigger exchange behind the title; the Tavis pin planted here is the run's earlier, darker use of the same frame.
• ic-part94 — the Joelle-recollection session; the Ms. Bainbridge addressed in Bain's letter is its subject, and the Orin-and-the-moms material shelved here resurfaces there in the Thanksgiving terrain.
• ic-part62 — the earlier session whose smiley-face motif work pairs with this session's violence-tempo reading as the run's two craft-mechanics arguments.

Accuracy notes

The hosts' recall of the Bain-parents story diverges from print: they describe the mother decapitated by a helicopter blade in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue and the father turned to aspic on the Jamaica service road. In the text, both parents die together on the Jamaica Way in the freak crash of a radio traffic-report helicopter; the crushed-into-aspic image belongs to Bain's thinly-veiled hypothetical about his handy father; and Commonwealth Avenue is where the dog S. Johnson died. The conflation is the hosts', not the novel's.