Let me see if I can get into the spirit of this topic which is all about addiction and obsession. It will not be easy, maybe not even remotely possible because I, Pandora Pox, am a mature, responsible woman who has all of her personal shit all together in one huge pile. Certainly nothing at all like James O. Incandenza (Himself) or Joelle van Dyne (Mme Psychosis). Certainly not.
First a bit of a refresher or background, depending on whether or not you've read Infinite Jest (and yes, this post contains many a spoiler in case you have not yet read or understood the book, if so you're not alone so don't feel bad but for godsake DO read the book). We are told that James O. Incandenza, famous filmographer (1) and creator of the elusive & deadly entertainment cartridges serially called 'Infinite Jest' aka samizdat among his many other 'objay darts' and accomplishments, such as founding ETA (Enfield Tennis Academy) and siring at least 2 sons Orin and Hal probably for sure - so it would seem to an outsider anyway - and having given a modicum of respectability to the doubtfully sired middle son Mario who bears his surname, which is perhaps a topic for another blog post if Darius agrees. We readers are led to imagine that James and Joelle , the PGOAT (DFW's acronym for 'prettiest girl of all time'), surreptiously enjoyed an obsessive, addictive and torrid affair because they spent so much time together making films, but that was basically refuted in the book, if Footnote 80 is to be believed (2).
Well, I don't believe it for one minute.
Let's look at the facts. Himself was odd, which is putting it mildly, maybe it would be more like rather damaged and increasingly deranged since helping his own father move a bed in his parents' bedroom as a youth. I mean, as 'childhood chores' go....ick! Events like that can scar a kid, don't think they can't! Just ask Dr. PoP! (3) Himself met and must have immediately fallen hard for the gorgeous Joelle when his son Orin was having an affair with her which all things considered should have been the match of the century and then turned into shit when Joelle suffered a facial disfigurement one Thanksgiving when her own mother, the envious malevolent bitch, tossed a vile vial of acid in Joelle's face. Joelle henceforth could never be Orin's lady and PGOAT anymore owing to the disfigurement which should have been Orin's and not hers. Quel dommage! (4) Of course the narcissistic Orin soon dumped Joelle, which led to her joining U.H.I.D. (5 ) and permanently donning a veil to hide her badly scarred and previously perfect face.
The U.H.I.D. veil, contrary to what readers may believe, is nothing akin to what the Muslim men require their women to wear. Actually many Muslim women readily don the disgusting head to toe black covering (the burqa) even in the hottest climate on earth simply ostensibly to keep Muslim men (other than their spouses) from raping them on sight. (Doesn't say much for Muslim men's self- control, methinks, if the sight of a woman's hair could wreak such unholy havoc. Eh. Whatever!)
In actuality, the U.H.I.D. veil became a blessed necessity (camouflage) since more and more O.N.A.N. citizens who lived near and especially north of the Great Concavity were becoming disfigured owing to the toxic wastes that were responsible for everything from minor birth defects to babies being born without a skull, as Marathe's wife was (6). It was a veritable badge of courage to wear the veil, and no one would ever dare to lift or remove one under penalty of immediate personal fright.
So now we have a damaged Joelle and a damaged James, Himself in the mix. What better dynamics than for the two of them to join forces and make crazy passionate trans-generational love to each other? What woman does not covet her lover's father, and what man able to resist his son's hot recently discarded squeeze? Perhaps the affair went something like this, off cartridge, off teleputer, though possibly in the cut pile of 500 or so pages which is who knows where but wouldn't we love to get our hands on that much more IJ material. I know I would.
Joelle is rejected by Orin, bereft and alone, facially scarred, worthless on the sexual rebound market to any suitor of good name and no surprise, she becomes a drug addict. She is approached by Himself who offers her a job and a new mission in life. She becomes a well-known radio personality (Madame Psychosis) on WYYY, where she sits, veiled, sometimes making remarks and sometimes just breathing. But mainly she stars in various entertainments created by Himself, whose kinkiness and quirkiness is evident even if the only thing you ever read about him is his filmography (I refer you again to FN 1 below).
That Joelle gravitated to Orin's father, Himself, makes perfect sense. It hardly mattered to her that Himself was a married man who rated his marriage to Avril a C+ which of course would have resulted in a major conjugal backlash had Avril, as I suspect happened behind the scenes, gotten wind of this insulting assessment of her net worth.
But Himself, even though incredibly creative and probably still quite virile, was an older man and as I have mentioned, damaged in ways we cannot really fathom. Perhaps he suffered from erotic desuetude, who knows. When Joelle entered his life he could think of nothing but her previous beauty now permanently locked away, to so speak, behind her veil. The memory and the illusion of her beauty was all Himself required, for he was a master of illusion and making people feel that what they were viewing on his many entertainment cartridges was more compelling than real life could ever be.
In too many cases he was spot on, wasn't he?
Over the course of several years (7) Joelle tantalized James and made herself available to Himself as many film stars are wont to do with producers and other film executives, but her increasing sexual demands upon his aging flesh, decimated by alcohol and perversion, caused a great disparity to arise between the pair. Joelle became more and more huffy with Himself when he couldn't perform all the while expecting her to perform impeccably in his films, Joelle. She retaliated by sending anonymous notes to Avril, wife of her current lover, and estranged mother of her former lover. If she couldn't have Himself, no one else would, either.
And that of course is what drove James O. Incandenza to nuke his own huge, narcissistic egomaniacal head in the household microwave oven one day, leaving behind a legacy of various intellectual and biodegradable material for family, colleagues, and enemies to forever seek and sometimes discover. (8) Double ick.
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(1) IJ, Footnote 24 (pp. 985-993)
(2 )IJ, Footnote 80, (pp. 999-1000)
(3) William James, MD, author of Principles of Psychology
(4) French phrase that means 'more's the pity'
(5) UHID- Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed for the purpose of 'afford(ing) the scopophobic empathic fellowship and the genesis of sturdy inner resources through shame-free and unconstrained concealment' IJ p. 226
(6) Marathe is the double+ agent and member of the Wheelchair Assasins group of the Quebecois separatists who confers now and then with ONAN agent Steeply. (It's complicated.)
(7) I believe likely starting with 'The Medusa v. the Odalisque', B.S. and continuing through 'Infinite Jest V' in the Year of the Trial Size Dove Bar.
(8) I realize that this post did not exactly fulfill the expectations you and I had for it. It was supposed to be an example of obsession and addiction and instead it has become a sort of editorial-pop-pyschology-yellow journalistic piece of crap. Sort of like my dead brains all over the computer screen. Mine. Himself's. But Himself, as you must surely agree, had it coming. (An Obsession piece is coming, trust me...)
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