Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

Do not underestimate objects, he advises Stice. Do not leave objects out of account. The world, after all, which is radically old, is made up mostly of objects. Lyle leans in, waves Stice up even closer, and consents to tell Stice the story of this one man he once knew of. This man earned his living by going to various public sites where people congregated and were bored and impatient and cynical, he’d go in and bet people that he could stand on any chair in the place and then lift that chair up off the ground while standing on it. A bootstrap-type scenario. His M.O. is he climbs up on a chair and stands there and says publicly Hey, I can lift this chair I stand on. A bystander holds the bets. The idle bus-depot or DMV-waiting-area or hospital-lobby crowd is dumbstruck. They gaze up at a man who is standing 100% on top of a chair he has grabbed the back of and raised several m. off the ground. There is vigorous speculation about how the trick’s done, which gives rise to side-bet action. A devoutly religious experimental oncologist dying of his own inoperable colorectal neoplastis moans Why oh why Lord do You give this man this idiotic picayune power and I no power over my own ravening colorectal cells. There are numerous silent variations on this sort of meditation in the crowd. The bet won, the $ finally forked over and handed up to him, the man Lyle says he once knew of now jumps back down to the floor, incidental change spraying from his pockets on impact, straightens h...