"Stanislaw Lem - One Human Minute" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

First Harvest edition 1986

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Contents
 One Human Minute
The Upside-down Evolution
The World as Cataclysm



One Human Minute
J. JOHNSON AND S. JOHNSON
MOON PUBLISHERS
London -- Mare Imbrium -- New York, 1988



I

This book presents what all the people in the world are doing, at the same time, in the
course of one minute. So says the Introduction. That no one thought of it sooner is surprising. It
was simply begging to be written after The First Three Minutes, The Cosmologist's Second, and
the Guinness Book of World Records, especially since they were best sellers (nothing excites
publishers and authors today more than a book no one has to read but everyone needs to have).
After those books, the idea was ready and waiting, lying in the street, needing only to be picked
up. It would be interesting to know if "J. Johnson and S. Johnson" are man and wife, brothers, or
just a pseudonym. I would like to see a photograph of these Johnsons. It is hard to explain why,
but sometimes an author's appearance provides a key to a book. For me, at least, that has
happened more than once. If a text is unconventional, reading it requires that one take a special
approach. An author's face can then shed much light. My guess, though, is that the Johnsons do
not exist, and that the "S." in front of the second Johnson is an allusion to Samuel Johnson. But,
then again, perhaps that is not important.
Publishers, as everyone knows, fear nothing so much as the publication of a book, since,
according to Lem's Law, "No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he
understands, he immediately forgets" -- owing to general lack of time, the oversupply of books,
and the perfection of advertising. The ad as the New Utopia is currently a cult phenomenon. We
watch the dreadful or boring things on television, because (as public-opinion research has shown)
after the sight of prattling politicians, bloody corpses strewn about various parts of the globe for
various reasons, and dramatizations in which one cannot tell what is going on because they are
never-ending serials (not only do we forget what we read, we also forget what we see), the
commercials are a blessed relief. Only in them does paradise still exist. There are beautiful
women, handsome men -- all mature -- and happy children, and the elderly have intelligence in
their eyes and generally wear glasses. To be kept in constant delight they need only pudding in a
new container, lemonade made from real water, a foot antiperspirant, violet-scented toilet paper,
or a kitchen cabinet about which nothing is extraordinary but the price. The joy in the eyes of the
stylish beauty as she beholds a roll of toilet paper or opens a cupboard like a treasure chest is