"Peter Watts - Bulk Food" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

This story has that certain verissimilitude that speaks of first-hand experience.
During my brief tenure as a credentialed whore at UBC's Marine Mammal Unit,
I interacted extensively with aquarium apologists, animal rights activists, and
behind-the-scenes grunts in their natural habitats. I observed them. I took
notes. I resisted the temptation to toss them cookies as a reward for their
performances, as I resisted the (somewhat stronger) temptation to break their
fucking skulls over the endless political bullshit that kept me from doing any
real biology.

What I couldn't resist was the temptation to write this story. I had a lot of help
from my collaboratorтАФnot so much on the biology perhaps, but definitely on
the funny bits. "Bulk Food" first appeared in On Spec in 1999; the illustration
that ran with it is on display in the Gallery.

The scienceтАФthe resident/transient stuff, the infant-mortality rates, all the
chrome that predates The BreakthroughтАФis pretty much legit. Race Rocks is a
real marine mammal hangout. Those familiar with the layout of the Vancouver
Public Aquarium might experience a certain sense of deja vu as they follow
Doug Largha on his adventures. The characters themselves are, sadly, more
real than you'd like to believe; in fact, even the names bear a certain (but utterly
nonprosecutable) similarity to actual public figures on both sides of the whales-
in-captivity debate.

God help me, looking back I almost miss those duplicitous scumbags.




Bulk Food
Peter Watts & Laurie Channer


Anna Marie Hamilton, Animal Rights Microstar, bastes in the
media spotlight just outside the aquarium gates. Her followers
hang on every movement, their placards rising and falling like
cardboard whitecaps to the rhythm of their chant: two, four, six,
eight, Transients are what we hate--
One whale-hugger, bedecked in a sandwich board reading Eat
the Transients, shouts over the din at a nearby reporter: "Naw, it's
not about the homeless--it's a whale thing, manтАж"
The reporter isn't really listening. Anna Marie has just opened
her mouth. The chanting dies instantly. It's always interesting to
hear what Anna Marie Hamilton says. It changes so often, these
2 Peter Watts

days. Back before the Breakthrough, she was actually trying to
free the whales. She was going around calling them prisoners, and
hostages, for Christ's sake.
"Save the whalesтАж" she begins.
The reporter grunts, disappointed. That againтАж