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“Just ask me how to get bloodstains out of a fur coat. No, really, go ahead. Ask me. The secret is cornmeal and brushing the fur the wrong way. The tricky part is keeping your mouth shut. To get blood off of piano keys, polish them with talcum powder or powdered milk. This isn’t the most marketable job skill, but to get bloodstains out of wallpaper, put on a paste of cornstarch and cold water. This will work just as well to get blood out of a mattress or a davenport. The trick is to forget how fast these things can happen. Suicides. Accidents. Crimes of passion. Just concentrate on the stain until your memory is completely erased. Practice really does make perfect. If you could call it that. Ignore how it feels when the only real talent you have is for hiding the truth. You have a God-given knack for committing a terrible sin. It’s your calling. You have a natural gift for denial. A blessing. If you could call it that. Even after sixteen years of cleaning people’s houses, I want to think the world is getting better and better, but really I know it’s not. You want there to be some improvement in people, but there won’t be. And you want to think there’s something you can get done. Cleaning this same house every day, all that gets better is my skill at denying what’s wrong. God forbid I should ever meet who I work for in person. Please don’t get the idea I don’t like my employers. The caseworker has gotten me lots worse postings. I don’t hate them. I don’t love them, but I don’t hate them. I’ve worked for lots worse. Just ask me how to get urine stains out of drapes and a tablecloth. Ask me what’s the fastest way to hide bullet holes in a living-room wall. The answer is toothpaste. For larger calibers, mix a paste of equal parts starch and salt. Call me the voice of experience.”
― Survivor
― Survivor
“You burn to have your photograph in a tennis magazine.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why again exactly, now?”
“I guess to be felt about as I feel about those players with their pictures in magazines.”
“Why?”
“Why? I guess to give my life some sort of meaning, Lyle.”
“And how would this do this again?”
“Lyle, I don’t know. I do not know. It just does. Would. Why else would I burn like this, clip secret pictures, not take risks, not sleep or pee?”
“You feel these men with their photographs in magazines care deeply about having their photographs in magazines. Derive immense meaning.”
“I do. They must. I would. Else why would I burn like this to feel as they feel?”
“The meaning they feel, you mean. From the fame.”
“Lyle, don’t they?”
“LaMont, perhaps they did at first. The first photograph, the first magazine, the gratified surge, the seeing themselves as others see them, the hagiography of image, perhaps. Perhaps the first time: enjoyment. After that, do you trust me, trust me: they do not feel what you burn for. After the first surge, they care only that their photographs seem awkward or unflattering, or untrue, or that their privacy, this thing you burn to escape, what they call their privacy is being violated. Something changes. After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are.”
“Is this supposed to be good news? This is awful news.”
“LaMont, are you willing to listen to a Remark about what is true?”
“Okey-dokey.”
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
“Maybe I ought to be getting back.”
“LaMont, the world is very old. You have been snared by something untrue. You are deluded. But this is good news. You have been snared by the delusion that envy has a reciprocal. You assume that there is a flip-side to your painful envy of Michael Chang: namely Michael Chang’s enjoyable feeling of being-envied-by-LaMont-Chu. No such animal.”
“Animal?”
“You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.”
“This is good news?”
“It is the truth. To be envied, admired, is not a feeling. Nor is fame a feeling. There are feelings associated with fame, but few of them are any more enjoyable than the feelings associated with envy of fame.”
“The burning doesn’t go away?”
“What fire dies when you feed it? It is not fame itself they wish to deny you here. Trust them. There is much fear in fame. Terrible and heavy fear to be pulled and held, carried. Perhaps they want only to keep it off you until you weigh enough to pull toward yourself.”
“Would I sound ungrateful if I said this doesn’t make me feel very much better at all?”
“LaMont, the truth is that the world is incredibly, incredibly, unbelievably old. You suffer with the stunted desire caused by one of its oldest lies. Do not believe the photographs. Fame is not the exit from any cage.”
“So I’m stuck in the cage from either side. Fame or tortured envy of fame. There’s no way out.”
“You might consider how escape from a cage must surely require, foremost, awareness of the fact of the cage.”
― Infinite Jest
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why again exactly, now?”
“I guess to be felt about as I feel about those players with their pictures in magazines.”
“Why?”
“Why? I guess to give my life some sort of meaning, Lyle.”
“And how would this do this again?”
“Lyle, I don’t know. I do not know. It just does. Would. Why else would I burn like this, clip secret pictures, not take risks, not sleep or pee?”
“You feel these men with their photographs in magazines care deeply about having their photographs in magazines. Derive immense meaning.”
“I do. They must. I would. Else why would I burn like this to feel as they feel?”
“The meaning they feel, you mean. From the fame.”
“Lyle, don’t they?”
“LaMont, perhaps they did at first. The first photograph, the first magazine, the gratified surge, the seeing themselves as others see them, the hagiography of image, perhaps. Perhaps the first time: enjoyment. After that, do you trust me, trust me: they do not feel what you burn for. After the first surge, they care only that their photographs seem awkward or unflattering, or untrue, or that their privacy, this thing you burn to escape, what they call their privacy is being violated. Something changes. After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are.”
“Is this supposed to be good news? This is awful news.”
“LaMont, are you willing to listen to a Remark about what is true?”
“Okey-dokey.”
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
“Maybe I ought to be getting back.”
“LaMont, the world is very old. You have been snared by something untrue. You are deluded. But this is good news. You have been snared by the delusion that envy has a reciprocal. You assume that there is a flip-side to your painful envy of Michael Chang: namely Michael Chang’s enjoyable feeling of being-envied-by-LaMont-Chu. No such animal.”
“Animal?”
“You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.”
“This is good news?”
“It is the truth. To be envied, admired, is not a feeling. Nor is fame a feeling. There are feelings associated with fame, but few of them are any more enjoyable than the feelings associated with envy of fame.”
“The burning doesn’t go away?”
“What fire dies when you feed it? It is not fame itself they wish to deny you here. Trust them. There is much fear in fame. Terrible and heavy fear to be pulled and held, carried. Perhaps they want only to keep it off you until you weigh enough to pull toward yourself.”
“Would I sound ungrateful if I said this doesn’t make me feel very much better at all?”
“LaMont, the truth is that the world is incredibly, incredibly, unbelievably old. You suffer with the stunted desire caused by one of its oldest lies. Do not believe the photographs. Fame is not the exit from any cage.”
“So I’m stuck in the cage from either side. Fame or tortured envy of fame. There’s no way out.”
“You might consider how escape from a cage must surely require, foremost, awareness of the fact of the cage.”
― Infinite Jest
adam reines’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at adam reines’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
730 books
|
74 friends
49 books
|
5 friends
727 books
|
55 friends
53 books
|
48 friends
218 books
|
17 friends
6 books
|
39 friends
282 books
|
33 friends
0 books
|
33 friends
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