"Альфред Бестер. The Flowered Thundermug (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

of national heroes.

"His office on the twentieth floor of a towering skyscraper
is decorated in the characteristic style of the mid-twentieth
century. He has a roll-top desk, a Null-G, or Free Fall chair
and a brass spittoon. Illumination is by Optical Maser light
pumps. Large fans suspended from the ceiling cool him in the
summer, and an infrared Franklin stove warms him in the winter.

"The walls are decorated with rare pictures executed by
such famous painters as Michelangelo, Renoir and Sunday.
Alongside the desk is a tape recorder, which he uses for
dictation. His words are later written down by a secretary
using a pen and carbon ink. (It has, by now, been clearly
demonstrated that the typewriting machine was not developed
until the onset of the Computer Age at the end of the twentieth
century.)

"Mr. Jukes's work involves the creation of the spiritual
slogans that uplift the consumer half of the nation. A few of
these have come down to us in more or less fragmentary
condition, and those of you who have taken Professor Rex
Harrison's course, Linguistics 916, know the extraordinary
difficulties we are encountering in our attempts to interpret:
`Good to the Last Drop' (for `good' read `God'?); `Does She or
Doesn't She?' (what?); and `I Dreamed I Went to the Circus in
My Maidenform Bra' (incomprehensible).

"At midday, Mr. Jukes takes a second meal, usually a
community affair with thousands of others in a giant stadium.
He returns to his office and resumes work, but you must
understand that conditions were not ideal for concentration,
which is why he was forced to labor as much as four and six
hours a day. In those deplorable times there was a constant
uproar of highway robberies, hijackings, gang wars and other
brutalities. The air was filled with falling bodies as
despairing brokers leaped from their office windows.

"Consequently it is only natural for Mr. Jukes to seek
spiritual peace at the end of the day. This he finds at a
ritual called a `cocktail party.' He and many other believers
stand close-packed in a small room, praying aloud, and filling
the air with the sacred residues of marijuana and mescaline.
The women worshipers often wear vestments called `cocktail
dresses,' otherwise known as `basic black.'

"Afterward, Mr. Jukes may take his last meal of the day in
a night club, an underground place of entertainment where rare
shows are presented. He is often accompanied by his `expense
account,' a phrase difficult to interpret. Dr. David Niven