LaMont and me, we are alot alike...

KEEP AN EYE OPEN FOR WAGNERS NEXT SHOW (Lamont didnt get it but Mike knew what Lyle was talking about)


‘You burn to have your photograph in a magazine.’ ‘I’m afraid so.’ … ‘You feel these men with their photographs in magazines care deeply about having their photographs in magazines. Derive immense meaning.’ ‘I do. They must. I would. Else why would I burn like this to feel as they feel?’ ‘The meaning they feel, you mean. From the fame.’ ‘Lyle, don’t they?’ … ‘Perhaps the first time: enjoyment. After that, do you trust me, trust me: they do not feel what you burn for. After the first surge, they care only that their photographs seem awkward or unflattering, or untrue, or that their privacy, this thing you burn to escape, what they call their privacy is being violated. Something changes. After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are.’ ‘Is this supposed to be good news? This is awful news.’ ‘LaMont, are you willing to listen to a Remark about what is true?’ ‘Okey-dokey.’ ‘The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.

LaMont Chu is an eleven year-old student at the Enfield Tennis Academy. Chu has dreams of going to the professional Show, and his bedroom door is "completely covered with magazines' action-shots of matches" (757).GT criticizes Chu because he ceases "'to seem to give total effort of self since you began with the clipping pictures of great professional figures for your adhesive tape and walls'" .

LaMont Chu recognizes that his obsession with the Show is hurting his playing; he states that "he wants to get in the Show so bad it feels like it's eating him alive" (388). In a discussion with Lyle, Chu says that he "won't take risks in tournament matches even when risks are OK or even called for, because he finds he's too scared of losing and hurting his chances for the Show and hype and fame" . To this, Lyle notes that "'After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are" (389). When Chu acknowledges that he is trapped, Lyle states that he "might consider how escape from a cage must surely require, foremost, awareness of the fact of the cage", which Chu does not fully understand.