"Jack Vance - Assault on a City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

tonight they're doing Oxtot's Generation of Fundamental Pain, with five
music machines."
"I'm not really all that interested in music," said Alice. "I just don't care
to sit still that long, wondering why someone saw fit to perform this or
that particular set of notes."
"My word," said Waldo in astonishment. "Isn't there any music on
Rampold?"
"There's music enough, I suppose. People sing or whistle when the
mood strikes them. Out on the stations there's always someone with a
banjo."
"That's not quite what I mean," said Waldo. "Music, and in fact, art in
general, is the process of consciously communicating an emotional
judgment or point of view in terms of abstract symbology. I don't believe
whistling a jig fits this definition."
"I'm sure you're right," said Alice. "I know it's never occurred to me
when I'm whistling. When I was very little we had a school-teacher from
EarthтАФan elderly lady who was dreadfully afraid of everything. She tried
to teach us subjectivity; she played us plaque after plaque of music
without effect; all of us enjoyed our own emotions more than someone
else's."
"What a little barbarian you are, for a fact!"
Alice only laughed. "Poor old Miss Burch! She was so upset with us! The
only name I remember is Bargle, or Bangle, or something like that, who
always ended his pieces with a great deal of pounding and fanfares."
" 'Bargle'? 'Bangle'? Was it possibly Baraungelo?"
"Why, yes, I'm sure that's the name! How clever of you!"
Waldo laughed ruefully. "One of the greatest composers of the last
century. WellтАФyou don't want to go to concerts or exhibitions, or to the
Perceptory," said Waldo plaintively. "What are you doing? Making more
notes?"
"I have a bad memory," said Alice. "When an idea arrives, I've got to
record it."
"Oh," said Waldo flatly. "WellтАФwhat do you suggest we do?"
Alice tried to soothe Waldo's feelings. "I'm a very impatient person. I
just don't care for subjectivizing, or vicarious experience . . . Oh, my, I've
done it again, and made it even worse. I'm sorry."
Waldo was dazed by the whirl of ideas. "Sorry for what?"
 "Perhaps you didn't notice, which is just as well."
"Oh, come now. It couldn't have been all that bad. Tell me!"
"It's not important," said Alice. "Where do spacemen go for
amusement?"
Waldo responded in a measured voice. "They drink in saloons, or escort
fancy ladies to the High Style Restaurant, or prowl Jillyville, or gamble in
the Epidrome."
"What is Jillyville?"
"It's the old market plaza, and I suppose it's sometimes amusing. The
Alien Quarter is just down Light-year Road; the jeeks and wam-poons and
tinkos all have shops along the Parade. There are little bistros and
drunken spacemen, mystics, charlatans and inverts, gunkers and gunk
peddlers and all sorts of furtive desperate people. It's more than a trifle