"Norman Spinrad - Age Of Invention" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

"Well, you know old Aardvark? He can't hunt either. So what he does is he makes spearheads and
trades them for bears. Maybe you could . . . ?"

"Go into business?" Roach cried. "Become bourgeois? Please! am an Artist. Besides," he added
lamely, "I don't know how to make spearheads."

"Mmmmm . . . '

"Mmmmm . . . '


"I know!" I cried. "You could trade your paintings!"

"Cool, baby!" exclaimed Roach. "Er . . . only why would anyone want to trade food for a painting?"

"Why because . . . er . . . ah . . ."

"I guess I'll just have to starve."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Er . . . if I can get someone to trade food for your paintings, will you
give me some of the food, say . . . oh, one bear out of every ten?"

"Sure," said Roach. "What've I got to lose?"

"It's a deal then?"

"Deal, baby!"

I had just invented the Ten-Percenter.

So I went to see Peacock. Peacock lived in the weirdest cave on the mountain-all filled up with
stuff like mooseskins dyed pink, stuffed armadillos and walls covered with withered morning
glories. For some 'reason which I have not yet been able to fathom, the women of the more
henpecked men on the mountain give Peacock bears to make the same kind of messes in their caves.

Peacock is pretty weird himself. He was dressed in a skintight sabertooth skin dyed bright violet.


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"Hello, sweets," Peacock said, as I entered his perfumed cave.

"Hello, Peacock," I said uneasily. "Heard about Roach?"

"Roach?" shrilled Peacock. "That dirty, dirty man? That beatnik with the positively unspeakable
cave?"