In Cities No One Notices Specific Dying.

Only A Catastrophe Gets Our Attention. We Want Them, We Depend On Them. As Long As They Happen Somewhere Else. This Is Where California Comes In. Mud Slides, Brush Fires, Coastal Erosion, Mass Killings, Et Cetera. We Can Relax And Enjoy These Disasters Because In Our Hearts We Feel That California Deserves Whatever It Gets. Californians Invented The Concept Of Life-style. This Alone Warrants Their Doom.

Time Is A Corporate Asset Now. It Belongs To The Free Market System. The Present Is Harder To Find... The Future Becomes Insistent.

Before Pop Art, There Was Such A Thing As Bad Taste. Now There's Kitsch, Schlock, Camp, And Porn.

All Who Have Their Reward On Earth, The Fruits Of Painful Superstition And Blind Zeal, Naught Seeking But The Praise Of Men, Here Find Fit Retribution, Empty As Their Deeds.

I Am Not Particularly Distressed By The State Of Fiction Or The Role Of The Writer. The More Marginal, Perhaps Ultimately The More Trenchant And Observant And Finally Necessary He'll Become.