Joelle walks to Notkin's party

The theme's philosophical center, spoken by its clearest instrument. Watching Notkin's party from the filmmaker's-chair, Joelle sees all disguise as recursive — "the disguises and whiskers are simply veiled veils" — asks "[h]ow many sub-rosa twins are there, out there, really?", and resolves the world into paired opposites that turn out to be one act seen two ways: "[t]he hidden and the blindingly open. The performer and the audience. No Zen-type One, always rather Two, one upside-down in a convex lens." Concealment and exposure aren't opposites; they're the same gesture. To veil is to perform; to hide is to be blindingly open; the veil is a one-way instrument that conceals and displays in the same motion. This is the "openly hide" thesis the entire surveillance-disguise theme rests on — the veiled woman naming the paradox that Marathe, Steeply, and the whole apparatus live inside.