The Unfortunate Case of Me

Probably because I read the first few pages right after we talked about addiction and its symptoms, Mario's mention of "periodic" to describe his desire to do something (p 190) leapt out as being part of this resounding theme. By the way, what does Mario look like? I mean I get that he's abnormal, but I really don't understand how he's different (police lock, huh?) even though it should be obvious. On that same page Madame Psychosis says, quoting the circular from the Union for the Hideously and Improbably Deformed, "Medusas and odaliques both..." which coincidentally (but not, because we decided that everything means something) is also very close to the name of one of JOI's movies.
I still don't understand the connection between JOI's movies and the book, but going back and reading them again has given me that same feeling I got when I started reading the book for the first time: there are all these little bits of information and connections that sort of want to come together, but nothing really locks into place to give a firm answer. Madame Psychosis has quite a few roles in his movies which is interesting, and appears in "Infinite Jest" which nags at my curiosity even more, but doesn't tell me much. It also mentions the Continental Reconfiguration a few times, which sounds like it has something to do with the Great Concavity/Convexity, which still hasn't been explained.
I like where Cory was going in his blog about ETA being higher than EH literally, and would just
like to add that Gately's description on page 197 - "the weird sodium light that spills down from
the snooty tennis prep school overhead on its hill" evokes a sort of "light on the hill" imagery
that makes me think of it being metaphorically "higher" too.