-the idea of omens/objects instead of the person or thing is a problematic occurrence that happens when people fall in love with the idea of something rather than the person —> like when older rich men marry "trophy wives" or vice versa, when young women marry old me and end up w/ their own t.v. show. while "we" scorn the idea of those kinds of relationships, many times we have similar relationships, which don't have to be limited to romantic. for example, if a friend and fellow student fails or drops out of miami, do they remain our friend? to what is the extent that we objectify others w/o necessarily wanting to? how much did their status as a miami student have to do w/ our positive feelings towards that person? how much do we consider our friends as objects vs. subjects or people?
-in on beauty, how is beauty defined? is it blurred images w/ lines, juxtapositions and light? or is it more conventional, in terms of thinness, starvation, etc.? kiki, howard's wife, was conventionally beautiful at the time of their marriage. according to their eldest daughter, zora, kiki "let herself go." regardless, it's true that kiki has put on a lot of weight since being married. the concept of this is rehearsed over and over in kiki's head, as her body is anatomized over and over again
-later in the novel, when jerome convinces the family to go to a mozart concert, howard is facetious and an asshole throughout the entire concert. he makes fun of mozart, kiki, her "lower" class and jerome's passion. jerome was so moved, he cried during the performance. howard, an archetypal multiculturalist and leftist, parodies everything about "genius" and mocks kiki's appreciation of mozart —> later on, the part of "requiem" that kiki identified as genius, was in fact composed by sussmayr after the fact, effectively disproving her argument that this song or movement HAD to have been written by a "genius." "great man" theory is plaguing us (arguments over who wrote what, or who composed what or who painted what). this problem of the arts is therefore also a gendered problem. no one is interested in whether or not virginia wolff wrote everything under her name, for example
-on pg. 116, kiki finds out that howard didn't have a one-night stand at a conference in michigan. instead, she discovers he had a 3-week long affair w/ claire, the couple's family friend, whose now-husband warren is also friends w/ howard and kiki. claire's body is the exact antithesis of kiki's very womanly body. this makes howard's decision to cheat on claire slightly understandable (but not justified) in terms of satisfying his curiosity of another type of body
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