Changing My Mind

Hello All,

Sorry this is late!

What are "occasional essays"? In the forward, Smith writes that she must recognize her "ideological inconsistencies". As I read through this book, I saw what I think Smith was writing about when referencing "ideological inconsistencies" but I don't agree with the terms. I think Smiths manic, spastic, seeming inconsistencies are in fact all a part of who she is both as a reader and writer, but also as a dynamic person. From the first chapter, "Her Eyes Were Watching God: What Does Soulful Mean?" the book allows her to explore her relationship between her and her mother in a gently critical light; the book also allowed her to address her struggles with reading, "I disliked the idea of "identifying with the fiction I read: I wanted to like Hurston because she represented "good writing," not because she represented me" (8). I Thought this quote so beautifully set up the rest of the book, the egocentric aspect of it, the way the the reader is forced to think critically and examine themselves by reading Smith's book.

Writing about reading only to have me write about Smith writing about her reading after I have read (wheew) forced me to identify myself in chapter 7, "That Crafty Feeling", originally I read the title as "That Crazy Feeling" speed reading gets you like that sometimes. I actually liked my title because sometimes I find myself dealing with the conflux and often contradictory Micro Planner versus Micro Manager dichotomy. Is anyone ever just one of these? I too am a lover of sticky notes and Moleskins. I never realized that it is the "structural security that gives him a great deal of freedom of movement". I always just thought I had a bad memory and was using those tools as a crutch to cling to the sparks of intelligence that I occasionally see in myself.

Smith's book, was yet another reminder about how much I miss reading and writing for pleasure. I wrote down so many of the books and movies that she references. I wonder if that was her intent at all? Showing off her past reading?

In Short

            In studying the short form it seems pertinent to dissect how short stories, (that weren’t written for books necessarily, but instead written to stand alone) can come together in a compilation successfully.  What first caught my eye in In Short was the thread between stories. I didn’t notice it right away. It was the Scottish connection between Judith Kitchen’s Culloden(62), and Emily Hiestand’s Afternoon Tea(65) that I spotted first. I kept noticing a string that tied one story to the next like this; another example is the hunting connection between Decoy (110) and Growing Up Game. When going back to do my close read I read the preface by Bernard Cooper and saw that he noted this by saying “Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones have arranged their anthology into thematic patterns” (20). I liked his use of the word pattern; it seemed in to imply the existence of a rhythm. This book definitely had a heartbeat to it, which seems fitting since this book is made up of themes that make up life. Initially I thought that these thematic connections between stories were too obvious to write about; like it wasn’t any big deal to notice. Then, I thought about its purpose and effect on the reader and decided it is worth mentioning.

            What drew my attention more specifically regarding these shared themes were the different perspectives being represented. I want to zero in on a specific stretch of the book starting on page 183 with Museum Piece, and ending with Modern Times on 194. In Museum Piece the author chooses to have a narrator that speaks to an anonymous “you” about Vermeer paintings. What’s curious here is that “you” as a character doesn’t actually exist, which gives the feeling that either the narrator is speaking to the reader (or maybe themselves?).  So, the perspective being represented could be said to be this “you” through the lens of the narrator.

            In “An End to the Still Lifes” we have a 1^st person narration of a childhood memory of taking art lessons. I’d say this piece shares a similar perspective to the previous one based on this sentence: “Art was to capture and make something pretty” (187).  I base this on the description by the previous author of Vermeer’s painting “A Lady Writing”, where he describes how the artist captured a oment. The subject matter is still art but the is more weight on the artist this time; giving the reader coverage of the subject of art from another side. The narrator’s perspective on art helps us transition into the next subject: WWII. The perspective presented on WWII is one of someone who has some distance from the war, but is still affected by it (the narrator has brothers in the war, and gets art lessons from someone who had to flee Europe due to the war (185, 187)). 

            WWII is what ties “An End to the Still Lifes” and “Three Fragments”. This piece offers a perspective of the war from someone who experienced it closer to home; close enough to stumble upon two dead German soldiers one day. Again the narration is in the 1^st person, and they paint a picture of the war, with bombs exploding regularly, as part of everyday life.

            In the next story, “Inheritance”, the subject matter is still war, but an entirely different one. In this one page story the narrator shares the story of their mother visiting a great-uncle who tells a tale of seeing Napoleon with his own eyes.  Here we get the perspective of someone who was actually in a war as a soldier through the lens of a couple family generations. This is also when we begin to transition into a new theme: Nostalgia, or yearning for/ remembering things past.

            In “Modern Times” we again get the perspective of someone who was a soldier in a war, but this time it’s a first hand account (“On the ground, the carnage of war, the gore, the frantically desperate attempts at rescue, the bitterly expiring hopes – they’re all the same as they ever been” (194)). Additionally the opinion that history repeats itself is expressed; a theme I think is repeated throughout the book. In contrast to the earlier story of the person on the ground who wasn’t a soldier but had to live with the war, the narrator in this story is up in those planes, bombing the people down below, and they share with us how being up in a plane can make you feel removed from the carnage below.

            One last note worthy thing to mention is that these themes don’t just transition from one to the next to the next in a linear flow, but instead we see subjects get brought back up to give us a new perspective. For instance, WWII gets bought back up in “Sanctuary” (244). This backs-up that idea of this book having a beat to it.

            Again all of this works toward the idea of showing one subject from many perspectives. Even though these stories were written at different times, with no knowledge of each other, the fit together nicely. Also, the juxtaposition of each makes readers think of new ideas they may not have otherwise thought of.

Shorts

First off I have to say I absolutely love this style of non-fiction. I loved reading it, and I really love writing Shorts. In the introduction, Kitchen and Jones give us some insight on why this interesting and unique genre is so appealing to writers, “…short give us the opportunity to discover new voices – or in some cases, to discover the prose nonfiction voices of writers whose precious work has been in other genres.”

Gibbons writes in “All-Out Effort “ alluding to things from the very beginning, he prepares. He washes, takes out trash, sets out clothing, which leaves the reader wondering, why all the mystery? “To prepare myself, I brought back to mind the useable green of a meadow where we stood at night one time, where we could see the reassuring lights and sounds of a crowded lit room, and no one could see us: the moment, ad others like it” (32) Ambiguous sentences such as this, allow the reader to create their own reasons for the protagonist’s preparations. I wondered if it was suicide? A marriage proposal? The details become so central to the readers understanding (if you can even call it that). Maybe shorts are not about defined understanding of the narrative, but instead, about our own interactions with the text, our own dealings with the vague in contrast with the details, and the themes and tones that might be there, or that we as readers might be concocting out of desperation.

Cofer takes us down a different path were her short story “Volar”, she weaves two parts of her childhood identity together in three pages, an imagines Supergirl, capable of anything, and the little girl that still needs to be woken up by her mother. Some of the lines allude to the grader theme of inadequacy that are present, the desire to be something else. On page 34 Cofer paints the picture of a reoccurring dream, a supernatural picture of a twelve year old transforming into a heroine as she climbs the stairs, as a Superwoman she is capable, “…I could see everything…” and she plays tricks on corrupt landlords (34).  As Supergirl, she is capable; as her twelve year old self she is powerless in her ability to give her mother the trip to Puerto Rico, or to increase her father’s earnings. The story ends with her mother saying “ay si yo pudiera volar” (36) which means “Oh if I could only fly”. Cofer’s choice to include this line prompts the reader to come full circle within the story, and wonder if Cofer is in fact in love with the idea of Superwoman in some way, because of her mother, and her mother exposing her to the challenges that life forces us to deal with, challenges that could only be tackled by Supergirl. Or perhaps Cofer is forcing us to see that her mother is Supergirl, because she accepts what can’t be changed, arguably a very difficult challenge.

Harbour

I was immediately drawn to the story Harbour because I have spent all of my life around one. I can identify with the word itself. The beauty of this piece is that it says so much in a few words. The few words used mimics how large of a character the harbour is for the author.  Yes, the reader is forced to interpret the language, but the author is showing a vast experience.

Every time I read the story, something new appeared to me. It became more beautiful and unique. The harbour is a place of memory and love. I picked up on this beauty in the use of the language; as every word carries a mass of weight in short form. The words love and dance appear twice. He seems to be dancing in his memories.

I see dance in two ways when it comes to memory. It could either mean his dancing through memories is unclear, or he is extremely happy. Nonetheless, the word dance gives the impression the experience was positive. But if you think further, it’s probably both. I love the way the story mimics the word dance. It dances through scenery and his memories. “Magic words” carry the story on its journey.

For me, a harbor is life in so many ways. It can be the loss of friend at sea, or an exciting excursion trembling at hand. Michael seems to see excitement in these two. The thrill of life explodes. 

Let's eat(,) Grandma!

So far my favorite piece has been "In Praise of the Humble Comma" by Pico Iyer. It's so clever! Look at the third sentence: "Add it to the present clause, and, of a sudden, the mind is, quite literally, given pause to think; take it out if you wish or forget it and the mind is deprived of a resting place." See what he did just there?? So brilliant. And then look at this part: "A world that has only periods is a world without inflections. It is a world without shade. It has a music without sharps and flats. It is a martial music. It has a jackboot rhythm. Words cannot bend and curve. A comma, by comparison, catches the gentle drift of the mind in through, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling and returning along the course of its own sweet river music' while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table." (81) So clever! "Carol and Jim, and Susan and David" is so much clearer than "Carol and Jim and Susan and David."

What makes this piece successful is that the author takes a witty tone while writing about a profoundly boring and misunderstood topic. Grammar is very difficult to teach because it is so boring. It is so boring because it never seems to apply to one's writing. In schools it's reduced to worksheets with sentences that no one would ever say. But this piece shows the effects of commas. In one of my education classes, the professor suggested that we have reading materials about our subject, so that students can explore it outside of the curriculum. Like having articles about recently archaeological findings in your history class, in addition to textbooks and such. This would be a great article to have in an English class so students could learn about the study of English without having to read Charles Dickens.

Inheritance

            Denise Levertov’s piece, “Inheritance,” explores the gifts of past generations. The story begins with an overly specific detailing of setting: “In 1980, when my mother was five years old, staying with her grandmother in Caernarvon, North Wales, she was taken on a day’s visit to an ancient great-uncle who lived alone by the sea” (193). The particularity of the location and relationships described creates the notion of an extension of lineage throughout both place and time. Additionally, the text, though just barely more than half of a page in length, is occupied by specific description of Levertov’s mother’s great-uncle. Despite his living alone, the attention to detail allows the reader to be witness to the richness of his life. Levertov writes, “[h]is tiny whitewashed cottage had only one room, but that room was clean and neat and a kettle steamed on the hob. The floor was of earth, compacted, and decorated each day with patterns made by squeezing green juice from certain leaves” (193). Though Levertov takes care to mention that the great-uncle lives alone, she emphasizes details that show the reader how he lived with care. Thus, in this way, the ‘inheritance’ is not family, but being able to make the best out of a modest lifestyle. The repetition of the word ‘and’ reveals that though his dwelling was spare, it was full of life. The specific details also express a closeness to and knowledge of the earth, from the great-uncle’s earthen floor, to his inside knowledge of which leaves to use for making patterns, and how to catch his own meals from the sea with “his fishing nets on the strand” (193). The collection of these details, along with the mentioning of relatives by their relationships (as opposed to their given names) emphasizes that the way people live and their connections to each other are more important than themselves as individuals. The form reflects the notion of connectivity; the whole story is one long, connected paragraph. Additionally, the length of the sentences at the end of the story increases, expressing the notion of relations, memories, and ways of living (all that is ‘inherited’) as transcendent through time. This closeness to past generations is indicated when Levertov writes, “[s]o I, living in the age of jets and nukes, am separated only by the life span of one person, my mother, from looking into the eyes of a relative…whose mode of life differed in few respects from that of some ancestor of his (and mine) long before the Norman conquest” (193). 

I like imagery

I'm choosing to write about August Wilson's story, Joe Turner's Come and Gone: The Play because the powerful use of imagery he gives the reader in less than 2 pages of text amazed me. "The sun falls out of heaven like a stone." (p.90) BAM! It is hot, the heat is heavy. What a great way to enter into a scene. This short piece is full of "nuggets", the mixture of short and long sentences give the piece a steady pace that doesn't feel rushed. Wilson puts the reader into the experience of being Pitsburgh, we see how alive the city is as it "flexes its muscles...Men throw countless bridges across the rivers..." (p.90) Without effort the reader understands hoe busy, how industrious, how hardworking this city, and these citizens are.

Countering this high energy tone in the first paragraph, the pace slows (just a little) as we begin to see the "...newly freed African slaves wander into the city. Isolated, cut off from memory..." (p.90). These people don't seem to belong in the fast paced city but they are looking for a new home. Wilson contrasts the "fresh, hard, gleaming steel" (p.90) to a softer, more human image, "...they arrive carrying Bibles and guitars, their pockets lined with dust and fresh hope..." (p.90). These are people with out a home, on a journey to an already industrious center, will the city slow down and welcome these newcomers? No, they would need to squeeze into the system; Wilson describes this as "...shaping the malleable parts of themselves into a new identity as free men of definite and sincere worth." (p.90).

Wilson ends this piece with a tinge of hope, but mostly as a fog;  who knows what lies ahead for these travelers? "...they search for ways to reconnect, to reassemble, to give clear and luminous meaning to the song which is both a wail and a whelp of joy." (p.91) These people seem lost in an identity crisis, lost within themselves and lost within the greater community. Wilson exposes these nameless characters inner struggle for acceptance and understanding through the strong images he paints for his readers.

Interesting sidenote: Before I wrote this blog I didn't know that Wilson also wrote the play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone. The play is about realizing false promises of jobs and of how great life would be in the North for freed slaves.

Flashes of Insight

Reading In Short was a really neat way to wrap up or readings in the class because it was so clear to me how these pieces used many of the strategies we’ve been discussing all semester about the nonfiction short form. The good ones, the ones that pulled me in, had such intention, such a deliberate delineation of scope and description that led to the nuggets that make a piece of writing like this so satisfying. I began reading In Short over winter break, and in returning to it, I realized that one vignette had stayed with me in the back of my mind this whole time—“Volar” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. I felt this piece really worked to create a series of comparisons of dualities in order to describe Cofer’s family dynamics. There is the duality of child versus adult, how Cofer is perceiving the world and how she perceives her parents in the adult world. The duality of fantasy versus reality, which is also freedom versus constraint: how her dreams of becoming a comic book hero and flying around the neighborhood shape the reality she wishes to experience juxtaposed with the harsher light of reality where her parents are afraid of the landlord and have to constantly worry about things like money. Finally there is Home versus America. Here is where I think the piece really creates an emotional poignancy, in the way Cofer is able to show the reader the complex emotions her parents are feeling and how she as a child perceives them, without really using any of the cliché, obvious adjectives like “my mother was sad and a little wistful.” Instead we get clues, just as Cofer did as a child, that help us interpret the scene: “Mi vida, please understand…And I knew that soon she would rise from the table. Not abruptly” (35). Here, it is clear that her parents are unhappy but not at each other. They enjoy their time alone in the morning, use terms of endearment, and her father speaks “patiently” and “gently” to her mother, showing that they have a strong and loving relationship (35). The addition of “Not abruptly” here I felt was really beautiful: the speaker’s mother is not angry at the father for saying that they cannot go to Puerto Rico; she knows the there are constraints beyond either of their control; she knows they have chosen an American life and homesickness is a part of that.  

Another of my favorite vignettes, not surprisingly, was “White Men Can’t Drum” by Sherman Alexi. With usual Alexi deftness, the author is able to take humor, sadness, and anger, perfectly balance them and make it look easy. While being memoire-esque in nature, this piece really reveals so much about American culture. Alexi as the speaker remains the storyteller who tells us of our own blind faults and in that way reveals that these concerns are deeply important to himself. He begins with the contradictory stereotype of Native Americans in American history as either savage or noble, barbaric or deeply spiritual. He then goes on to tie this contradictory construction to the historical appropriation of other cultures by white men. The men’s movement “blindly pursues Native solutions to European problem but completely neglects to provide European solutions to Native problems” (154). Here Alexi points out the cruel irony that while white cultures decimated Native American culture, they are now taking an interest in it NOT out of an effort to honor it, make amends, or help Native Americans themselves but to steal it to apply to their own problems for a “cure.” Such an appropriation is arrogant and makes little spiritual sense. Instead of ranting, though, or having an entirely bitter attitude full of hatred for these men, Alexi exposes the true problem lying at the heart of what he sees: an anxiety in America, across races, around masculine identity. And he is ale to look at these white men with compassion as well as irritation at their injustice because it is a kind of anxiety that Native American men have been going through for hundreds of years.    

Changing My Mind 2

I think Chapters 10 and 13 of Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind compliment each other very nicely. In 10 we get 2 portraits of actresses from “the Golden Age of Hollywood”, and in 13 we get a portrait of the dismal present Hollywood. I want to focus on Chapter 13 and what critical argument Smith is making and how she makes it. I wanted to mention chapter 10 though because in some ways it sets up the argument being made in “Ten Notes On Oscar Weekend”.

The subject of ch13 could be Oscars weekend, but I think it more accurate to say that Oscars weekend is the vehicle Smith is using to talk about Hollywood. She breaks the weekend up into 10 sections and it seems each section contains a nugget that advances her argument.

The first hint of what Smith sees as the problem appears in the section 1 when she says “over Oscars weekend, an automatic journalism rehashes these eternal ideas, the accounts in newspapers precisely matching the tall tales of the cab driver who brings you in from the airport” (212).  Also in this section is the description of the dress that was picked out for her by a shopkeeper who knew she’d be going to the Oscars in it. I can’t help but feel this dress is a metaphor for Smith’s argument. The shopkeeper, like us (Hollywood outsiders), has a distorted view of Hollywood not really based in reality, and so she picks out this over-the-top dress. Then, when Ms Smith is getting ready for the Oscars she shares her makeup artists opinion: “Here is his assessment of my dress: “If you were collecting the all-time queen of Hollywood lifetime achievement award, you would be overdressed.” A cocktail dress is substituted” (219).  This cocktail dress is the more realistic version of Hollywood.

So who is creating this false reality of Hollywood? I think Smith’s opinion is that it’s a joint effort. From the actors, to the writers, to the audience, to journalist, to the studios – we’re all building Hollywood into something it’s not. It is now that I think of chapter 10, and how Hepburn was so sure of who she was, and so steadfast in making sure she believed in her characters, that there was never room for fantasizing about her – making her into something she wasn’t. The author put it this way: “It was never a question of Hepburn changing to suit Hollywood; Hollywood had to change to suit Hepburn”(152). Garbo handled the limelight in a way that created mystique, but not sensationalist accounts of who she was. Both of these personas seemed to be more in touch with the actors, whereas in the present day that Smith is talking about the actors seem to not be able to control their personas.

This brings me to another influence of the fantastical version of Hollywood: studios. In chapter 10 Smith shares this anecdote from Hepburn’s life:

“They had been spun a red-haired, east-coast, high-society goddess by the studios and so were somewhat surprised to find a makeup-free woman striding around between takes in a pair of dungarees. The RKO publicity department asked her to stop wearing them. She refused. The next day, when she found them vanished from her dressing-room she walked around set in her knickers until they were returned to her“ (155).

 In Chapter 13 it seems that the studios and PR departments are “winning”; that actors are letting their personas be created by someone other themselves, and this is definitely part of the problem.

The creation of an actor’s persona is important because this persona gets confused with the actor in the audience’s mind. Smith gives us the evidence of this is in section 5 when she says: “The actors, caught midway through conversations about their families, their dogs, a book they’ve read, a good restaurant in New York, now have to put their game face back on and become whoever it is the waiter thinks they are” (215). Here she is describing waiters who have confused the actor for the personas they portray on screen or stage.

This confusion isn’t helped by media who doesn’t just encourage the idea of the actor’s personas as real, but does this with the persona of Hollywood itself too. Smith describes media’s coverage of Hollywood as “detailed and alienating” (217). I think the Mandarin hotel serves as a physical manifestation of medias portrayal of Hollywood. A portrayal, Smith point out, that is false. Even actors think it’s over the top “Actors screw up their faces in displeasure at the mention of the Mondrian: “It’s a little bit too… much somehow””(214). Smith gets clever when she contrasts this image of Hollywood with the image of the party she goes to:

“plain white stone…simple stone vases…everyone is cold…people gather under heat lamps and squeeze four to a bench, keeping close for warmth. It is an effort to be continually amazed; these are humans, after all, and in a celebrity party without any press, the celebrity aspect fades, having nothing to contrast with” (215).

At the Mandarin we get the image of Hollywood we are spun, and at the party we see that Hollywood is just made up of regular-ol-people.

I thought it very witty to share her demystifying strategy of not naming any actors/actresses in this article. When I was doing my close read I noticed she didn’t save this strategy for actors alone. Everyone in this essay is put on an even playing field by being introduced to us by description alone. Smith offers a hopeful scene on page 217, at Canter’s Diner, where famous actors and teenage girls coexisted without a fuss. This is Smith’s endgame; this scenario where fantasy is stripped away. In the last line of the article she calls on all of us to make this happen: “But the fantasies of fame cannot be dislodged by anyone’s pen. It’ll have to be a collective effort; we’ll have to wake from this dream together. It’ll be darling”(221).

Using wit, comparing and contrasting the reality of Hollywood versus the persona of Hollywood, evening the playing field with detailed descriptions, and pointing directly to the problems she sees with this fantasy Hollywood Zadie Smith makes a compelling argument for waking up from this obsession with a false world. This chapter is actually extremely clever. There are many layers to her argument, and this blog is really just a beginning in the discussion of the responsibility everyone has in creating personas, and the result of that.

"celebrity is as celebrity does"

First Zadie Smith writes about the Hollywood starlets she idolized in "Hepburn and Garbo." Then she writes about how idolizing celebrities is a bunch of fluff in "10 Notes on Oscar Weekend." Surely this is an example of Smith "changing her mind."

When reading "10 Notes on Oscar Weekend," I wondered who Smith's intended audience was. Was she writing for people who like the Oscars? Because I doubt they would like reading about the Oscars without hearing any celebrity gossip. Was she writing for people who don't like the Oscars? Because people who don't like the Oscars probably wouldn't want to read an essay about them. I think her intended audience is her fans. I think people who like reading Zadie Smith would like to read this article. I have a mental picture of Zadie typing at her computer and a thought bubble above her head that says: "NOW they'll love me!" or "They're gonna LOVE me!" or even "This will keep people loving me, right?" Perhaps this is unfair, but I think she even writes about this phenomenon of writers writing to be loved/admired/understood elsewhere in the book.

Don't get me wrong, this is a delightful essay and Smith is clearly a talented writer. My 5th grade teacher always said "Show, don't tell," and Smith does an excellent job taking us on a tour of the quite banal Oscars, instead of just saying "Celebrities are normal people and the Oscars are hyped up." Her tone is very tongue-in-cheek without being sarcastic, and it's refreshing to read about the Oscars without the usual awe. (Though I've never actually read about the Oscars.)

sidenote: zadie means grandpa in Yiddish.
truly irrelevant sidenote: Every time I read the word "celebrity" in here I thought of the advice Gilderoy Lockhart gives to Harry Potter: "Celebrity is as celebrity does. You remember that."

Katharine Hepburn 

Inverse Relation

In ‘Ten Notes on Oscar Weekend’, Zadie Smith  explores the “inverse relation” between societal expectations of Hollywood and what Hollywood actors and actresses are actually like (213). In the beginning paragraph, Smith introduces the notion over-the-top fantasies of Hollywood by describing it as “La La Land! Red carpets; semisacred actors in an exclusive Valhalla” (212). There are differing notions, even within these exaggerated descriptions: “La La Land” connotes a fantasy world that, though pleasant, only exists in people’s minds (212). However, relating Hollywood to “Valhalla”, a place in Norse mythology that existed for warriors who had died, implies that being an actor or actress is equivalent to dying. Smith also states that “[t]he nominees are, by now, battle-scarred companions” (215).  The notion that being a Hollywood actor or actress is similar to being dead indicates that they are enslaved by their image to other people; the dead have no ability to change the minds of the living, and must instead be subject to the way in which the living choose to envision them.

A few times throughout the text, Smith refers to Hollywood stars as “human beings”, simultaneously reducing them and elevating them (217). To a person who isn’t in the movie industry, calling Hollywood stars “human beings” takes them from their pedestal of being an icon. Conversely, there is a section in which Smith describes the actors in a way that implies normalcy that is only interrupted by the public’s desire to hold them to their fantasies: “The actors, caught midway through conversations about their families, their dogs, a book they’ve read, a good restaurant in New York, now have to put their game face back on and become whoever it is the waiter thinks they are” (216). The actors are imprisoned by their own fame and the public’s expectations, and yet, as implied by their conversation, which includes everyday, normal people topics, they are actually just “human beings” who are interested in and wish to hold ‘normal’ lives (217). The “inverse relation” is that the bigger of a Hollywood star one is, the farther he/she is from being the person that the public believes them to be. Sections three and four, the first of which describes the Mondrian Hotel and the “hot girls” that occupy it and the latter of which describes a private party for the Oscar nominees, are facing each other, expressing the conflicting yet intrinsic relationship between public expectations and the reality of what Hollywood really is.