The Hal-Stice match under observation: Steeply watches, Tavis blocks, Hal's dissociated affect visible

texture · 11 Nov YDAU, afternoon

• When: 11 Nov YDAU, afternoon, Show Court #6
• What: Schtitt inexplicably orders the Hal-Stice exhibition; it draws a crowd, and Moment's Helen Steeply sits through the whole thing — the soft-profiler "who allegedly came to see Hal only about Orin but whom Charles Tavis won't let see Hal yet," Tavis's reasons for the reticence pointedly obscure. Mario films from Schtitt's transom. Hal's play is affectless and verging on collapse, yet capable of anti-book brilliance: an inside-out wrong-footing pass that is "One of very few total inspired points from Incandenza," while "There was no indication Hal even saw" the ink-black transom shadow bearing down. From Steeply's observing eye (scene 127) the dissociation is plainly visible: Hal pale and thoroughly unchildlike, gaze extending only half a meter, impassive, wiping his nose on his sleeve; Stice breaks him to go up 6-5 in the first on a second serve mishit off the frame. Threads the Steeply/Orin surveillance apparatus toward Hal while Tavis walls him off. [MERGED: agent-b #29 + agent-c #1 — one match, two attestations.]