"C M Kornbluth - Everybody Knows Joe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

There's a line on the slip where you put down reason for consulting files (please be specific). It's a shame
to cramp Joe's style to just one line after you pitch him an essay-type question like that. He squeezed in,
Preparation of article on year in biochemistry for Griffin Pr.Encyc . 1952Yrbk., and handed it with a
flourish to the librarian.



The librarian, a nice old man, was polite to him, which is usually a mistake with Joe. After he finished
telling the librarian how his microfilm files ought to be organized and how they ought to switch from
microfilm tomicrocard and how in spite of everything the New York Public Library wasn't such a bad
place to research, he got down to work.



He's pretty harmless when he's workingтАФit's one of the things thatkeeps me from cutting his throat. With
anoonbreak for apple pie and coffee he transcribed about a hundred entries onto his cards, mopping up
the year in biochemistry nicely. He swaggered down the library steps, feeling like Herman Melville after
finishing Moby Dick.



"Don't be so smug," I told him. "You still have to write the piece. And they still have to buy it"
"A detail," he said grandly."Just journalism. I can do it with my eyes shut."



Just journalism.Somehow his three months of running copy for the A.P. before the war has made him an
Ed Leahy.



"When are you going to do it with your eyes . . . ?" I began but it wasn't any use. He began telling me
about howGautama Buddha didn't break with the world until he was 29 and Mohammed didn't announce
that he was a prophet until he was 30, so why couldn't he one of these days suddenly bust loose with a
new revelation or something and set the world on its ear? What it boiled down to was he didn't think he'd
write the article tonight



He postponedbis break with the world long enough to have



aham and cheese on rye and more coffee at an automat and then phoned Maggie. She was available as
usual. She said as usual, "Well then, why don't you just drop by and we'll spend a quiet evening with
some records?"