"Victor Pelevin. Babylon (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

has to do with advertising.'
'That's where we come to the most important part. When there's still
about half the Smimoff or Absolut left, the jeep's still on the road and
death seems a distant and abstract prospect, a highly specific chemical
reaction occurs inside the head of the guy who created the whole mess. He
develops this totally boundless megalomania and orders himself an
advertising clip. He insists his clip has to blow away all the other
cretins' clips. The psychology of it's easy enough to understand. The guy's
opened up some little company called Everest and he's so desperate to see
his logo on Channel One, somewhere between BMW and Coca-Cola, that he could
top himself. So just as soon as this reaction takes place in the client's
head, we pop out of the bushes.'
Tatarsky liked the sound of that 'we' very much.
"The situation's like this/ Morkovin went on. 'There are only a few
studios that make the videos, and they're desperate for writers with nous,
because these days everything depends on the writer. The job itself works
like this: the people from the studio find a client who wants to get himself
on TV. You take a look at him. He tells you something. You listen to what he
wants to say. Then you write the scenario. It's usually about a page long,
because the clips are short. It might only take you a couple of minutes, but
you don't go back to him for at least a week - he has to think you've spent
all that time dashing backwards and forwards across your room, tearing your
hair out and thinking, thinking, thinking. He reads what you've written and,
depending on whether he likes the scenario or not, he orders a video from
your people or gets in touch with someone else. That's why, as far as the
studio you work for is concerned, you're the top man. The order depends on
you. And if you can hypnotise the client, you take ten per cent of the total
price of the video.'
'And how much does a video cost?'
'Usually from fifteen to thirty grand. Say twenty on average.'
'What?' Tatarsky asked in disbelief.
'0 God, not roubles. Dollars.'
In a split second Tatarsky had calculated what ten per cent of twenty
thousand would be. He swallowed hard and stared at Morkovin with dog-like
eyes.
'Of course, it's not going to last,' said Morkovin. 'In a year or two,
everything's going to look entirely different. Instead of all these
pot-bellied nobodies taking loans for their petty little businesses,
there'll be guys borrowing millions of bucks at a time. Instead of jeeps for
crashing into lamp-posts there'll be castles in France and islands in the
Pacific. Instead of five hundred grammes the former party secretaries will
be demanding five hundred grand. But basically what's going on in this
country of ours won't be any different, which means that the basic principle
of our work will never change.'
'My God,' said Tatarsky. 'Money like that. . . It's kind of
frightening.'
'Ifs Dostoievsky's old eternal question/ Morkovin said, laughing. 'Am I
a timid cowering creature or have I got moral rights?'
'Seems to me you've already answered that question.'
'Yes,' said Morkovin, 'I reckon I have.'