W

W., Bill
833; founder of AA; Bill Wilson (1895-1971)

Wagenknecht, Stephen
119; younger ETA student; 1017

Waite, Mrs.
447; neighbor of Gately's as a child; about, 847; suicide, 848

Wall, The
571

Wardine
37

Ward and June

93; progenitors of feral hamsters; (presumably named after Ward and June Cleaver, parents of Wally and The Beaver in 1957 - 1963 b/w feel-goody sitcom "Leave It To Beaver.")

Ward-and-Wally
931; father and son in 50s TV sitcom "Leave It To Beaver" (See Ward and June, above)

Watson, Tex
98; ETA prorector; 306; teaches "energy in models of resource-scarcity and resource-plenty [...] fossil fuels all the way up to annular fusion/fission cycles" 569; [Note: Tex Watson is the name of one of the members of Charles Manson's clan that slaughtered Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and four house guests in August, 1969.]

Watt, Cosgrove
Hal: "I think very briefly of the late" 16; 941; inAccomplice!; "one of the very few professional actors Himself ever used" 944; lived with his mother and her cats in Glen Riddle PA, 944; "Himself had actually put Watt, mother, and cats up in a contiguous suite of what later became prorectors' rooms off the main E.T.A. tunnel, the Moms [...] instructing Orin, Mario, and [Hal] never ever to remain in a room alone with Watt" 944; in Himself's Various Small Flames, fn.24/988; plays CEO father in Himself's Low-Temperature Physics, fn.24/991

Watteau-era
68; rococo style; (Jean-Antoine Watteau. French Rococo Era Painter, 1684-1721)

Watts, Dr. Allan
170; writer of popular books on Zen Buddhism & Eastern philosophy

Wayne something
856; 19-year-old-who-looked 40 who Joelle saw at St. Columbkill meeting; had a 10-year blackout; deep diagonal furrow in face "the Flaw"

Wayne, John ("No Relation")
"standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and [Hal] dig up [Hal's] father's head" 16; 17-year-old Canadian student and best tennis player at ETA; dinners at HmH w/Incandenzas, 192; from Montcerf, Québec ("an asbestos-mining town"), 259; his tennis game ("an automatic beauty"), 260-63; hangs out with other morose "Nucks" 263; w/Avril, 552; 681; WETA incident, 899; "had been involved with the Moms sexually since roughly the second month after his arrival" (according to Hal), 957; "Troeltsch's got Wayne on the air and Wayne's lost his mind" fn.324/1072; "jury-rigged the Duke into candid sharing for the WETA broadcast" fn.332/1073; imitation of C.T. asking a cheerleader out, fn.332/1074; "public castigations of his various peers and instructors" fn.332/1074

Wayne, Bernard
fn.304/1060; asbestos miner's son, the sole participant in le Jeu who did not jump

Weaver stance
609; (two-handed shooting stance with the weapon arms slightly bent to absorb recoil. Seen in countless movies where police have time to set up (e.g., outside a suspect's hotel door). Supposedly named after one Jack Weaver, though — also supposedly — Weaver did not invent it.)

Welch, Raquel
371; phenomenally voluptuous 1970s American actress

Weld
815; former president of I.B.E.W. during whose administration Ewell's father lost the I.B.E.W. account

Wellesley Hills Skating Club
716; where Kate Gompert played crack the whip as a child during "Wee Blades' Toddler Skating Hour" 716

Weltschmerz
694; German: world-weariness

Weston
10; suburb of Tucson AZ, where the Incandenzas lived when Hal ate the mold; aka "Volvoland" fn.234/1041

wet work
130; involving bloodshed

Whale, Carl ("Mobes")
119; 13-year-old ETA student; 568; rooms w/"Beak" and "Virgilio" 757

WhataBurger Southwest Junior Invitational
4; 14-16; held during Thanksgiving week at Randolph Tennis Center in Tucson AZ, 217

Whatever's Beyond Eidetic
317; "on the Mnemonic Verbal Inventory" Hal tested on, eidetic meaning extraordinarily detailed and vivid visual recall.

Wheelchair Assassins of Southern Québec
89; "remote embryonic disseminatory Ops base in AZ", 106; "of the E.W.D.-receptacle-festooned Papineau region of southwestern Québec", 1022; "penchant for showing off", 419; and the Antitoi brothers, 484-88; "suicidal Nuck cult [...] that worshipped a form of Russian Roulette that involved jumping in front of trains", 560; at Antitois, 719; intentions, 722, fn.304/1057; about, fn.304/1055-62; "To hear the squeak", fn.304/1057

WHINERS
1050; (see Wounded, Hurting, Inadequately Nurtured but Ever-Recovering Survivors)

whinge
441; "east-Canadian idiom for vigorous high-pitched complaining, almost like whining except with a semantic tinge of legitimacy to the complaint"

whippet
Whippet was a brand name for an approximately one-inhalation dose of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Its intended purpose was to make whipping cream. The actual Whippet brand contained a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (dinitrous monoxide). Most modern similar cartridges are charged with 100% dinitrous monoxide. A modern brand with a similar name is detailed here.

White, Coach Kirk
4; Univ. of Arizona varsity tennis coach

White Flag
209, a Boston AA group; "old guys with suspendered bellies and white crew cuts and geologic amounts of sober time, the Crocodiles", 278; meet at Provident Nursing Home on Hanneman Street, a couple blocks from ETA, 343; 354

Wichardson, Wonnie
181; "petwoleum jelly salesman outta of Bwookline"; USMC flier who always comes to Nickerson Stadium to give away petroleum-jelly samples, 295

Wilander, Mats
757; Swedish tennis pro; b. 1964, appeared in eleven grand slam finals from from 1982 - 1988, winning seven (3 Australian Opens, 3 French Opens, 1 US Open)

William
37; lives with Wardine (brother?)

Williams, Venus
17; famous tennis pro? Power-game tradition; 1012; (b. 17June80. As I'm keying this in--on 6/24/02-- Venus has won four grand slams and her sister Serena has won two. They are currently ranked 1 and 2 in the world respectively.) [Note the question mark, which should date the initial version of this index rather nicely. Also note that Venus won her first professional tennis match in October of 1994 but did not win her first major until July of 2000. And finally, note that Wallace wrote Infinite Jest from 1993 - 1996. Hell of a guess, eh?)

Willis, Dick
647; "empty of intent"

Willis, Yolanda

508; Ennet House resident "on the I/O nightshift" at B.S.S.; 565; being sexually harassed by Lenz, 565; 601; during Gately/Nuck fight, 614; spiked her heel through Nuck's eye and killed him, 827

Wingo, Amy
fn.209/1035; ETA student

Winkler, Henry
415; "hairless and sugar-addicted in La Honda CA" in 1999; (as implied in the text, Winkler played the astronomically popular character of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the 1970s TV sitcom Happy Days)

Winter Hill Special School
188; in Cambridgeport, MA; Mario's school until 3 years before Y.D.A.U.

Wo, Dr.
131; Chinese high-priced-dope dealer in Hung Toy's Cold Tea Emporium in Chinatown; 300; where Facklemann purchases bulk Dilaudid, 931

WODS
589; station Mario listens to: "narcotizing orchestral arrangements of old Carpenters songs" 589

Woman with Big Breast
16; giganticism

Words to Live By
"evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil", 202; "you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do", 203

works
129; hypodermic needle, spoon, tie, i.e., a junkie's hardware

w/r/t
with respect to

Wounded, Hurting, Inadequately Nurtured but Ever-Recovering Survivors
372; 12-step program for incest and child-abuse survivors, to which Joelle belongs

WYYY
170; FM-109; "Largest Whole Prime On The FM Band", out of MIT in Cambridge, MA; "Those Were the Legends That Formerly Were" 181-82; 450; 726; 769; "doing its weather-report via mimesis, broadcasting raw static" 949

Infinite Jest Alpha Guide
A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·XYZ top of page ·A-Z
Personal tools