"Tennis and the Feral Prodigy": Hal's formation under Himself

pivotal · childhood formation, B.S.-YTSDB; the film Apr YYTMRCYTPC (2007)

• When: narrates Hal's whole childhood/adolescent tennis formation under the living JOI (i.e. pre-1 Apr YTSDB); the cartridge itself dated April YYTMRCYTPC (2007), "almost exactly three years after Dr. James O. Incandenza passed" — ordered here by content, see Dating notes
• What: Hal narrates Mario's award-winning 11.5-min cartridge — a second-person how-to that is really Hal's autobiography of being made into a "feral prodigy." Key beats: dawn solo serving to no one while Himself "sits and advises with his flask"; the keys-scoop drill so ingrained that "years after the man's death, [Hal] cannot keep [his] keys anywhere but on the floor"; JOI relaying his own father's teaching that "talent is sort of a dark gift… either lived up to or lost"; the perpetually torn "blue ankle"; the bow tie and sitting through JOI's pretentious art-film openings; and the survival creed "be no one" and "never tell anyone where you are." The definitive account of Hal's father-shaped self-erasing formation.