Their laughter was like the stridulation of the ghosts of grasshoppers.
Walking into a bookshop is a depressing thing. It__ not the pretentious twats, browsing books as part of their desirable lifestyle. It__ not the scrubby members of staff serving at the counter: the pseudo-hippies and fucking misfits. It__ not the stink of coffee wafting out from somewhere in the building, a concession to the cult of the coffee bean. No, it__ the books. I could ignore the other shit, decide that maybe it didn__ matter too much, that when consumerism meets culture, the result is always going to attract wankers and everything that goes with them. But the books, no, they__e what make your stomach sink and that feeling of dark syrup on the brain descend. Look around you, look at the shelves upon shelves of books _ for years, the vessels of all knowledge. We__e part of the new world now, but books persist. Cheap biographies, pulp fiction; glossy covers hiding inadequate sentiments. Walk in and you__e surrounded by this shit _ to every side a reminder that we don__ want stimulation anymore, we want sedation. Fight your way through the celebrity memoirs, pornographic cook books, and cheap thrills that satisfy most and you get to the second wave of vomit-inducing product: offerings for the inspired and arty. Matte poetry books, classics, the finest culture can provide packaged and wedged into trendy coverings, kidding you that you__e buying a fashion accessory, not a book. But hey, if you can stomach a trip further into the shop, you hit on the meatier stuff _ history, science, economics _ provided they can stick __op._ in front of it, they__l stock it. Pop. psychology, pop. art, pop. life. It__ the new world _ we don__ want serious anymore, we want nuggets of almost-useful information. Books are the past, they__e on the out. Information is digital now; bookshops, they__e somewhere between gallery and museum.
****: The Anatomy of Melancholy
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Walking into a bookshop is a depressing thing. It__ not the pretentious twats, browsing books as part of their desirable lifestyle. It__ not the scrubby members of staff serving at the counter: the pseudo-hippies and fucking misfits. It__ not the stink of coffee wafting out from somewhere in the building, a concession to the cult of the coffee bean. No, it__ the books. I could ignore the other shit, decide that maybe it didn__ matter too much, that when consumerism meets culture, the result is always going to attract wankers and everything that goes with them. But the books, no, they__e what make your stomach sink and that feeling of dark syrup on the brain descend. Look around you, look at the shelves upon shelves of books _ for years, the vessels of all knowledge. We__e part of the new world now, but books persist. Cheap biographies, pulp fiction; glossy covers hiding inadequate sentiments. Walk in and you__e surrounded by this shit _ to every side a reminder that we don__ want stimulation anymore, we want sedation. Fight your way through the celebrity memoirs, pornographic cook books, and cheap thrills that satisfy most and you get to the second wave of vomit-inducing product: offerings for the inspired and arty. Matte poetry books, classics, the finest culture can provide packaged and wedged into trendy coverings, kidding you that you__e buying a fashion accessory, not a book. But hey, if you can stomach a trip further into the shop, you hit on the meatier stuff _ history, science, economics _ provided they can stick __op._ in front of it, they__l stock it. Pop. psychology, pop. art, pop. life. It__ the new world _ we don__ want serious anymore, we want nuggets of almost-useful information. Books are the past, they__e on the out. Information is digital now; bookshops, they__e somewhere between gallery and museum.
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Just behind his jaw bones a tiny movement was perceptible, like the movement of gills in a fish.
Franklin Fletcher dreamed of luxury in the form of tiger-skins and beautiful women. He was prepared, at a pinch, to forgo the tiger-skins. Unfortunately the beautiful women seemed equally rare and inaccessible. At his office and at his boarding-house the girls were mere mice, or cattish, or kittenish, or had insufficiently read the advertisements.
How happy I might be, if only she was less greedy, better tempered, not addicted to raking up old grudges, more affectionate, with slightly yellower hair, slimmer, and about twenty years younger! But what is the good of expecting such a woman to reform?
There are some young almond tress, which ordinarily look as if drawn by a childish hand. Now, as the wind sets their weak branches gibbering, they seem like shamanistic scratches on the white bone of the brittle bright night.