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… (3c) I cannot help you too much with the facts surrounding Dr. Incandenza’s suicide. I know that he erased his own cartography in a grisly way. I was told that in the year leading up to his death Dr. Incandenza was abusing ethyl alcohol on a daily basis and was working on a whole new genre of film-cartridge that Orin at the time claimed was driving Dr. Inc insane.

… (3e) The supposed cause of their separation is that Dr. Incandenza began using her in his work more and more extensively and eventually asked her to perform in the prenominate completely radical new type of filmed entertainment that supposedly was driving him to a breakdown. They supposedly became close, James and Jo-Ellen, though Orin in my judgment is not a reliable source of information about their relationship.

The only other apposite fact I have — and I have this not from Orin but from an innocent female relative of mine who was (briefly) in a position to interface with our punter in an intimate and unguarded way impossible between hetero males — is that some incident occurred in the Incandenzas’ Volvo involving one of the windows and a word — all I am given is that O. reports that in the days prior to Dr. Incandenza’s felo de se, a so-called “word” appeared on a “fogged” “window” of Mrs. Inc’s pale yellow Volvo, and the word cast a conjugal pall in all sorts of directions. This is it.

… (5) The “vailed warning” (typo?) you refer to in my postal response to you is simply that you have to take what Orin says in a fairly high-sodium way. I am not sure I would stand and point at Orin as an example of a classic pathological liar, but you have only to watch him in certain kinds of action to see that there can be such a thing as sincerity with a motive. I have no idea what your relationship with Orin is or what your feelings are — and if Orin wishes it I am afraid I can predict your feelings for him will be strong — so I shall just tell you that for instance at E.T.A. I saw Orin in bars or at post-tournament dances go up to a young lady he would like to pick up and use this fail-safe cross-sectional pick-up Strategy that involved an opening like “Tell me what sort of man you prefer, and then I’ll affect the demeanor of that man.” Which in a way of course is being almost pathologically open and sincere about the whole picking-up enterprise, but also has this quality of Look-At-Me-Being-So-Totally-Open-And-Sincere-I-Rise-Above-The-Whole-Disingenuous-Posing-Process-Of-Attracting-Someone-,-And — I-Transcend-The-Common-Disingenuity-In-A-Bar-Herd-In-A-Particularly-Hip-And-Witty-Self-Aware-Way-,-And-If-You-Will-Let-Me-Pick-You-Up-I-Will-Not-Only-Keep — Being — This — Wittily, — Transcendently — Open — , - But — Will — Bring-You — Into — This — World-Of-Social-Falsehood-Transcendence, which of course he cannot do because the whole openness-demeanor thing is itself a purposive social falsehood; it is a pose of poselessness; Orin Incandenza is the least open man I know. Spend a little time with Orin’s Uncle Charles a.k.a. “Gretel the Cross-Sectioned Dairy Cow” Tavis if you want to see real openness in motion, and you will see that genuine pathological openness is about as seductive as Tourette’s syndrome.