On page 901 the text reas, "The wedding photo was available for inspection, of course, and confirmed Mrs. Tavis as huge-headed and wildly short." Mario too is described as having a huge head and being the shortest member of a tall family. Also we read the part about "the first birth of the second Incandenza son." Maybe, when Mario's birth is described as a "surrprise birth" it also refers to the fact that Mario is CT's biological son. Remember too that CT avoids Mario at all costs.

Gately keeps having these dreams, or rather, nightmares, about Orientals (begins on page 809) while he's lying in the hospital bed. In his dream he is robbing an Oriental man and he tries to blindfold him using twine (which is clearly too thin) and so the Oriental keeps looking back at him, "blink inscrutably." When I read this I kept thinking, "Why is he using twine?" but that maybe it was supposed to be because Gately had the idea that Asian eyes were so small that they could be covered with twine. He also mentions that the Oriental was wearing "a silk robe and scary sandals, and had no hair on its legs." First of all, why is the Oriental sexless? Why does Gately use the word "it" to describe the Oriental? I guess the biggest question I have is why is Gately apparently so afraid of Asians? I thought maybe it was supposed to represent the pervasive ethnocentricity that Americans believe in.

Page 761, "...in an extreme corner are fleur-de-lis pennons on tall sharp polished sticks. C.T.'s office has an O.N.A.N. flag and a 49-star U.S.A. flag."

50 states - New Hampshire- Maine - Rhode Island - Vermont...
49??????? any ideas anyone

I found the section around page 500 about James (Jim) Incandenza as a child interacting with his father very interesting. Did anyone else notice that Jim speaks similar to the way Hal speaks? I think that it is the matter-of-factness with which they both express their ideas. Looking at the way Hal speaks to Orin, responding with what seems like no emotion, it reminds me of this passage on page 499 where Jim is speaking to his father: "But I said I'd definitely hgeard and could confirm the prescence of a squeak when he'd pressed on the mattress, and could verify that the squeak was no one's

On page 433 it says that Mario had insisted that he be the one to clean up the mess that was the result of Clipperton "blowing his brains out" inside a room in the ETA. I was wondering if anyone knew/had an idea about why Mario insisted on this. Do you think it had something to do with the fact he was the only one able to connect with Clipperton?

On page 298, Orin is describing how enjoyable he finds watching the clips of him punting footballs. "He saw something different each time he rewound, something more. The him in ways he could never have engineered. He sat rapt. It only hapened when he watched them alone. Sometimes he got an erection. He never masturbated." This reminded me of course of Gravity's Rainbow. These male characters are aroused by non traditional stimuli. Orin is dating the P.G.O.A.T. and yet he's turned on by images of himself?

I thought it was really interesting that Himself commits suicide on April 1st. I feel like this has to have some significance. Killing yourself on a day of practical jokes? Was it meant to be the biggest joke of all time? Or maybe he felt he was a joke? I'm not sure.

In class we've talked a lot about things that are defined solely by the abscence of something else. I suggested that J Edgar Hoover likes his white room because he knows that black exists, which only makes his room whiter in comparison--that white only exists because black exists. On page 699, Rosemary is speaking about what it was like when Jimmy left the family. "The trick was, the thing was he was not the center of the family when he was here. She was the center, the still center, the strength. Now that he was gone, she could no longer make herself feel still, or especially central. Jimmy was central now.

On page 806, Nick describes the way that Matty's kids felt at their Grandmother's funeral when they saw their dad for the first time as a brother and as a child. This same logic seems to apply to other characters. There's Nick the guy who has two kids and a wife and a job, but hidden beneath that there is Nick the murderer who his wife doesn't know. I think it's really interesting to think about the way that Nick may be a father and a husband to the world, but he will always be the murderer in his heart.

On page 666 Albert remarks, "How children adapt, using brick walls and lampposts and fire hydrants. He watched a girl tying one end of her jump rope to a window grille and getting her little brother to turn the other end. Then she stood in the middle and jumped. No history, no future."

First I wondered if this ability to adapt was something that children had--that they are so single-minded that they have a problem and then they look for a solution. But then I thought that there are a lot of other characters that are adapting similarly. Marian is not feeling wanted by her husband so she looks outside her marraige so that she will be desired.