Posthuman Blues

Finished Norman Spinrad's "Agent of Chaos." Not his best work, but quietly impressive and even thoughtful. Aside from "Bug Jack Barron" (which someone should reissue), my favorite Spinrad novel is "Songs from the Stars." The title sounds sort of quaint and childish; the book isn't.

I read the first chapter of China Mieville's award-winning "Perdido Street Station." Mieville appears to be the real thing -- not another William Burroughs wannabe. "Station" is dense, the prose almost Dickensian, and bursting with weird imagery. It's one of those books that pains me as I read it because he's beaten me to so many gnarly concepts and presented them with actual literary flair. I expect this book to occupy quite a bit of my time over the next few weeks.

I stayed home from work today to give my "deep tissue" wound some time to heal. It still hurts, but I like to think that I've experienced the wost of it. It's not as if I'm old and feeble; I can only suffer so many aftershocks before the pain starts receding.

I was walking along the sidewalk near Restoration Hardware when -- totally out of nowhere -- I was accosted by this tall, slutty looking girl and a silent, dark-haired guy who must have been her boyfriend. She immediately lauched into an aimless spiel about restaurants and cars, prefacing her monologue with "I don't mean to be rude . . ." I didn't know where this was leading. At one point she played with her top as if considering removing it; I suppose this was supposed to be wildly endearing. Finally she concluded with a lame request for money so she could buy gasoline for her car. Right. I relunctantly gave her a quarter for her effort.