"Barry N Malzberg - Ready When You Are" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

Barry N Malzberg - Ready When You Are

The world in his works

Finzie, the big producer, biggest guy in the industry now, hovered over
the lush blonde, his limbs poised for long, cool, detached entrance but Ч
knowing better the insistent demands of collusion Ч gave into it with a
sigh, sighed and gave into it, penetrated his partner, the most desirable
and successful romantic star in the Western world, an absolute top star,
feeling the shock of uncoiling, the gathering as if from his most distant
places of a soft and baleful scream. What a deal this whole thing was,
what a wonder! Ч and in his mind the film unreeled, slow dissolve to
close-in shot, the heaving and thrashing of the bodies. Soft-core only, no
detail shots, the genitalia discreetly covered. From the corner of one
eye, in diminished perspective, Finzie caught a slash of Mediterranean, a
slash of sun passing through clouds in this beaming and pleasant
landscape. Oh boy, oh boy the big producer, a real hero thought, if only I
could send a memo back to Flatbush Avenue, to that thirteen-year-old
pounding himself in the familial bed, trying to put his strokes where they
would make the least noise and do the most good. Made it, made it, made
it! Finzie advised his thirteen-year-old self and pan shot into the
blonde, Dorothea Harkins from Easton, Pennsylvania, transmogrified by the
star system and clever agents to Eve Harlow and all his, his, his property
now in this equipment room of the most exquisite furniture and design.
And later, later then: Eve Harlow was sent to her room to lie in
diaphanous, dreaming splendor and Finzie took a stroll through the garden
of Cannes, surrounded by cameras and reporters, sycophants and jury, the
troops trembling with their divergent and physical needs as he strode to
the judging panel where he would make the long-anticipated announcement:
Finzie was going global. Astonishing Productions would link with Italian
financiers, Japanese bankers, ancient French money, British quick-hit
money, the substance of the secret governments worldwide for a long-term
contract which would carry the Finzie vision in eighteen languages and
thirty-seven separate versions to all of the corridors and pockets of the
world. In Zaire, voices dubbed in Swahili would articulate the political
subtext; in Sweden, actors with heavy American accents would put dour
Scandinavian words to the Finzie vision of compassion transcendent.
Premier filmmaker to the world, orphan king of the 21st century, he feels
the spectacular glow of close-in lights heating his features to ruddy and
tumescent glory.

So Finzie, superhero, once tormented film-struck kid in the Flatlands of
Brooklyn but now creator, producer, and director of a dozen increasingly
important films limning the alienation and splendor of post-industrial
circumstance, modestly accepts the laurel of the Leaf of Gold from the
chairman of the jury, bows to the convulsion of applause which storms
through the auditorium, then holds the microphone to make a brief speech
which will be translated simultaneously into twenty languages and
broadcast throughout the world. Hot stuff for the kid from Brooklyn. Eve
Harlow stares adoringly from the audience, doubtless recalling their