SOUNDTRACK: BOREDOMS (various).
Boredoms are an experimental noisy band from Japan. I am completely unqualified to talk about them as I only know snippets of their output. But I have always been intrigued by them. Lead dude Yamataka Eye has been the main impetus behind the band. And it seems like exactly the kind of noise/music one might play if one were horribly bored.
Yoshimi P-We is the longest serving drummer with the Boredoms. She is the “Yoshimi” in the title of The Flaming Lips’ album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
Over the years they have gone from outright nose (listen to the track “Bubblebop Shot” from Soul Discharge or “We Never Sleep” from Onanie Bomb Meets the Sex Pistols which is mostly screams and drums) to a more ambient (but still noisy) style. They performed a live show with 77 drummers on 7/7/07.
They’ve even changed their name to V∞redoms.
Here’s an interesting clip of the band from All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2012, being a lot less noisy but still pretty weird.
[READ: August 11, 2014] Pale Summer Week 5 (§27-§34)
There were a few things in this week’s reading that seemed to contradict other things in the reading. This is not surprising as Pietsch says that there were things that he knew DFW would eventually change. The notes at the back of the book (yes, I peeked, bit no spoiler here) say that there were different possible plotlines for some of the characters and even a duplication of a weird character trait. But it’s funny to see it evolving in front of you.
In §27, Sylvanshine seems to be able to control his Random Fact Inference somewhat–and he seems to be using it rather than being inflicted by it. This is either a big change or a cool development in Claude’s life.
There is also what I think is an actual mistake: two people have the same number: 907313433 (see §30).
In another “unfinished” issue, the surveillance in §29 is one of those situations that would certainly have been explained in greater detail (or had another scene about it). I initially assumed they were doing surveillance for deadbeat companies (maybe for new vehicles), but there are indications (in later sections) that perhaps something else is going on, maybe to do with the Glendenning/Lehrl issue that Reynolds and Sylvanshine are talking about in §30.
One thing that I hadn’t explicitly noticed earlier, but which comes out in Cusk’s section below is the idea that “more information is not better.” While this seems to be very true for their job, it can certainly be a debilitating world view and I wonder if that is at play as well.
§27
This is a description of the Rotes orientation room. In which David Cusk (the sweaty fellow from §13 and §24) is with fourteen new examiners in a room that could seat 108. He sat way in the back to avoid anyone seeing him sweat.
We learn that Cusk joined the Service when he answered a recruiting ad in Today’s Accountant magazine, which he happened to see when he was working in the local library.
Their orientation was run by a Compliance Training Officer (female) and assisted by one of the Post’s Personnel men, the two took turns talking which only seemed to confuse Cusk and angered the CTO when he interrupted her flow with redundancies.
There was an acronym SHEAM which has yet to be defined.
The Orientation is mostly about the Service in general since details about their specific jobs will be given by their respective group supervisors. So we learn that in 1984 the Service processed over 60 million 1040a and their specific Post had 786,400. We learn how money is (was) removed from envelopes and that there are 1040s and Fats which are 1040s which have schedules beyond A B and C (and they haven’t even talked about Martinsburg’s processing yet). The examiners are divided into Rotes and Fats. 6-11% of average 1040s contain some basic arithmetical error, but most aren’t worth auditing. Their job is to decide what is worth auditing, “not to catchy every last little error and discrepancy and forward the 1040 for audit” (327).
Cusk tries to avoid sweating by focusing intently on what people say and by writing down every word. But then someone comes in and sits behind him. She is a woman (he can smell her perfume) and he imagines over the course of the chapter than she must be devastatingly beauteous (she isn’t–“she was about as exotic as a fire hydrant and roughly the same shape” (339)). Indeed, we ultimately learn that she is Toni Ware. Ware is wearing glasses and at five-minute intervals “a gurgling noise of her glasses spraying auto-lubricant int her eyes” can be heard (344).
About half way through this section we learn that Claude Sylvanshine is also in this room, three rows up and four seats to the left of Cusk.
He seems to still be getting random data on everyone; however “what was odd was that there was no data incursions for Sylvanshine on the mysterious child that Dr. Lehrl traveled with and kept near him at all times but never seemed to talk to.” Sylvanshine knew that it was not Dr. Lehrl’s child but that was only because Reynolds had told him so. [Does this mean the he now has control over his RFI?]. Also, Sylvanshine had forgotten to wash the shampoo from his hair.
This made me laugh: “‘each file you examine in Rotes will constitute a plethora of information,’ the Personnel aide said, stressing the second syllable of plethora in a way that made Sylvanshine’s eyelids flutter” (340). And this theory seems to be pretty constant “You must get rid of the layman’s idea that information is good. That the more information the better” (342).
At the same time David Wallace was not in their orientation. He was in a room with other GS-13s on a presentation of Minimum Tax on Preferences (he didn’t know what preferences meant–[Congresses clever way of reducing a certain income group tax burden without lower its tax rate] (335). He had no idea what was going on, indeed “it would be embarrassing to state outright how long it took David Wallace to figure this out, even after several days of ostensibly examining files” (335). This description of him also made me laugh: “His youth and corduroy suit (which was the IRS equivalent of a Speedo and floppy clown shoes)” (338).
Meanwhile, Cush has survived his freakout about the girl behind him and got his sweating under control and he is now feeling very cocky–enough to almost turn around and size up the girl behind him–he now wanted people’s attention. Until he learns that there will be a break.
§28
10 Laws of IRS personnel
Basically, everyone wants to move up expect those who have too much power and would like to be examiners again–alone at a desk with no one to bother you.
§29
This is a section about shit. There is a conversation among several men on surveillance. “Why shit?” “We’re repelled but fascinated.” When we were young, the kid who steps in dog shit is ostracized and yet powerful. This narrator was playing and fell hands first into a steamer of a pile. He chased the other kids around wielding power but also being afraid (he can still smell it).
Agent Gestine Hurd (the new one) was aware of everyone’s idiosyncrasies. Agent Lumm would peel skin from his lip absently. Gaines blinked slowly in a stony mindless way. Todd Miller bunches and unbunches his sleeves Bondurant stared at a point between his shoes as if hit were as chasm. Yet no one smoked.
This leads to the story of Fat Marcus the Moneylender who would sit on people’s faces. It was a prank to hold the guy down and sit on his face until he almost couldn’t breathe. It is told by Bondurant. Gaines wants to know how he can pull up his pants while running away. This incident (which is rather funny) led to Bondurant getting expelled and being “in the war. In The Nam” to which he replies, “I was a G-2 bookkeeper in Saigon, dickhead, that’s not ‘The Nam'” (352). They were caught when he tried to sit on Diablo, the Left Handed Surrealist, a Puerto Rican mural painter. When Fat Marcus the Moneylneder sat on him, Diablo bit and wouldn’t let go until blood was “arterially shooting in all directions” (354).
The surveillance is not mentioned in any significant way, could it have anything to do with the next section?
§30
Claude Sylvanshine is talking to Reynolds on the phone. We finally learn that his name is Reynolds’ full name is Reynolds Hensen Jr. Watching him try to maneuver politically “was like watching a lumberjack dance, Harold Adny‘s said” (364). But Sylvanshine has been “here a week and am under terrific duress from the primitiveness of the field-quarters” (369).
Their conversation is primarily about reconnaissance that Sylvanshine has for Reynolds. He says that the Deputy DD’s (who I assume is Sheehan) a man of the people type but is totally Glendenning’s boy. Sheehan is number 907313433 (but this doesn’t work because a few paragraphs later Eugene R. Rosebury has the same number). Sheehan is a GS-13 nine years in. Despite the man-of-the-people attitude, he is Glendenning’s hatchet man and is not well liked. Some of Glendenning’s other Group Manager support includes Rosebury and Danmeyer in Exams and Quarterlies (not sure if this support is sincere of political).
Rosebury is Eugene E. Rosebury GS-13 907313433 (same as Sheehan’s), ADD for Exams. Not a private bad word about Glendenning. Julia Drutt Chaney GS-10 952678315, Administrative Supervisor for 047B and has a photo of herself and Glendenning on her wall. Second AD is Gary NMI Yeagle a “Just call me Gary type.” Seems insecure, a potential weak link. He’s shy and nervous but tries to be brusk and loud.
All of this is in aid of reporting to Mel Lehrl–getting the scoop on the competition. Sylvanshine hasn’t gotten to see Glendenning yet. Reynolds is being kind of mean to Claude criticizing what he is telling him (details about what Glendenning looks like for instance are mocked as useless).
Glendenning’s Secretary Carolyn or Caroline Oooley, a crisp, dry, tight faced woman. But formidable –she may dominate him. She sent a memo that Reynolds is interetsed in. He wants to know if it says they heard good things from Bill Henzke, Bill, or just Henzke? Claude says it says “just Henzke.” (Damn). (363).
Rosebury’s secretary is Bernays (she looks the like the ghost of a draft horse).
The rest of this conversation is about how Sheehan “won’t fight it, but he won’t help.” Glendenning has a crew of 24 to 26. They are stupefied, glazed. The average has been here three years. Glendenning’s first big move was the “elimination of first years on Exams” (365) (the most brutal and unpopular assignment). This is important although they’re not sure exactly why. Then Claude explains that Glendenning’s group’s statistics are statistically average a .42 repeating 6. “As if Glendenning and Rosebury and/or this Yeagle character were somehow cooking the Output books to produce an output so totally average that no one would ever suspect them of cooking the Output books” (367).
So it seems that Glendenning could wave his hand and his numbers would go up. Note that his team “is not an elite force.” They have tics spasms, eccentricities. One “has a Doberman hand puppet on his hand without the rubber which he talks to” (368). Some look catatonic. If he can get any throughput out of this crew…” He’s letting them personalize their desks…get this: a couple of them chew tobacco at their desks” (368).
There’s a brief moment where Claude says “And what if I said I miss you?” (368). Later, Reynolds replies, “I miss you, too, Claude. Happy now?” (369).
The section ends with Claude saying that next week he’ll be in Records with a flashlight probing Glendenning’s No-First-Year Implementation and getting a sense of Martinsburg.
§31
Shinn had a long body and light blond hair. He lived in Angler’s Cove too. They are in a van and he is listening to some people talk. It suddenly occurred to him that birds whose songs sound so pretty may actually be yelling at other birds: “Get away” or ‘This branch is mine.” This thought came from nowhere and made his spirits dip for some reason” (372).
§32
Russel Nugent convinces his live-in sister Julie to do the girl’s voice from The Exorcist over the speaker phone. Listening are Jon Soane, Steve Mead, Steve Dalhart, Jane Brown and Likourgos Vassiliou. Julie is embarrassed but then does an awesome impression. Steve Mead visibly started. Then Dale Satine and Alice Pihl look over the cube. It is a very funny section, bringing much levity to a dull job (and quite vulgar too!)
§33
This section was published in the New Yorker as “Wiggle Room.” Lane Dean is also in the Rotes Group’s wiggle room. It is 17 May 1985. He is supremely bored. There is some great writing about boredom here. He is watching the clock tick by, imagining anything he can to make the clock go faster. But as a rule, the more you look at the clock, the slower time went. He goes to a winter beach, he clenches his buttocks, but nothing helps. “It was boredom beyond an boredom he’d ever felt” (377). “Unbidden came ways to kill himself” (380). He sees that there are prints of teeth in his blotter. He even wondered what he “had or did in his spare time to make up for these soul-murdering eight daily hours” (381).
He felt in a position to say he knew now that hell had nothing to do with fires or frozen troops. Lock a fellow in a windowless room to perform rote tasks just tricky enough to make him have to think, but still rote, tasks involving numbers that connected to nothing he’d ever see or care about, a stack of tasks that never went down, and nail a clock to the wall where he can see it, and just leave the man there to his mind’s own devices (379).
He thinks about The Exorcist (can he hear the speaker phone? wouldn’t that end his boredom?) and how no one in either congregation saw it because it was against Catholic dogma. We learn that he is now married to Sheri and they have their son together.
Dean thinks about Atkins who claimed that after a year he could examine and crosscheck two files at once. He can also whistle one song and hum another one. We later see that Atkins is ambidextrous and can fill out different forms with each hand.
And then a voice talks to Dean. It is a ghost, the one who moves his body around (so presumably it is Garrity from the mirror job). The ghost is talking to him about the word boredom, but Dean isn’t even sure if there is ghost or if he is asleep, and at first he’s not even sure what the ghost is talking about. Dean is worried about what’s happening and looks around, where he sees Mr. Wax’s hair
The brief history of bore says that it appears first in 1766, typically conjoined to French (the boring Frenchman). He says that the words seems to invent itself. Because the word interesting appears two years after bore.
§34
IRM §781(d) AMT Formula for Corporations
A very literal transcription, which I founded largely meaningless.
§ § § § § § § § § § § §
There is clearly something at work here. Between Sylvanshine and the surveillance team, we know that Glendenning is a target, and that Lehrl is presumably the intended usurper. But we don’t really know anything else, and we don’t even really know what Glendenning is doing that is so bad (he seems to be a pretty decent guy) or what they are trying to find out about him.
There seems to be a constant influx of new characters, although most of them are just faces (or names) in the crowd.
The sections on boredom are pretty staggering. It’s easy to imagine, but hard to believe that anything can be more boring than the most boring thing you have ever experienced, and yet this job certainly seems like it would be. The simple paragraph of text of §34 is enough to convince me of the boredom involved.
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