Year Of The Orange Ceramic Bong

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At least my title makes a modicum of sense.

I was going to start by saying I miss Hal already, but that’s not actually true. While I was annoyed by the sudden divergence to a brand new character who was equally infatuated with detailed description yet otherwise completely unconnected in any obvious way with our previous narrator, it did not take me long to warm to Erdedy.

Despite the 3-page-long paragraphs, Erdedy is actually easier to follow along with than Hal. I mean, you might not have read the book in twenty years, and are just here brushing up on some Infinite Jest trivia in case it comes up on your date tonight, since your potential lover listed DFW as her favorite author on her Tinder profile, and yet all I have to do is mention the name Erdedy and, despite most of your recollection being nothing more than a hazy fog of frustration and confusion, that’s all it takes for you to instantly recall exactly what his motivation was. He really wanted to score some weed. (Or has he continually refers to it, dope.)

And that’s what I like about this episode. It may be long, and it may be one basically uninterrupted stream of consciousness, but it’s easy to follow along with. Erdady really can’t wait for this lady to show up with his weed, so he can get started on a serious smoke-a-thon, though it’s also super important to him that it all seems casual.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this episode is one of the best encapsulations of addiction that’s ever been committed to page. It doesn’t matter what your addiction is, it could be drugs, or alcohol, or sex, or gambling, or food, or Saved By The Bell, Erdady’s combination of shame, and bargaining, and single-minded need are very easy to identify with.

Also, I think you could lift this ten pages out of the novel and publish it as a short story, and it would be something we’d all at least heard of. Especially considering how up in arms the Christian right would be about all the drugs and masturbation talk.

But seriously, what’s with the title?

And what the hell is a teleputer?

Vocab Word: Teleputer The word ‘Teleputer’ was coined by Michael Aldrich to describe a multi-functional home computer/television/networked computer terminal that he invented in 1980.

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