Long before I moved here, I saw Los Angeles as pretense. To an extent, I still do. Everyone projects a false image; this one hides behind Gucci shades and sips her nonfat soy latte; he wears an Armani and drives a BMW (and racks up the debt); this other guy wears jeans like a big sack hanging from below his ass, waddles like a penguin, and thumps his chest like a silverback gorilla. Each of us is isolated from the other. We spend our days in cars, give conversational priority to the person farthest away by answering our cell phones at dinner, and watch movies and reality shows to keep up on the only news that seems relevant—entertainment news. To top it off, the multiculturalism we exalt in Southern California appears to be more of a self-imposed segregation. I never really need to go beyond my neighborhood, nor would I want to during traffic, and I can easily limit my interaction with other ethnicities to a few point-of-sale transactions. Maybe it is the grand melting pot some say it is, but I think even the city’s self-image is a false projection. The real L.A. is hiding behind the curtain.