Nearing the end of Day Two of the long drive to Los Angeles. Getting a little hairy out here in Amarillo, Texas. I’m sitting at an IHOP. Haven’t been to one of these in a long time. Probably near a decade. Say, they’re not all bad. Clean. Well lit. Decent watery coffee.
*argh* My brain’s a little fuzzy. You’ll have to bear with me.
I just finished listening to a recorded reading of Douglas Coupland’s new novel, “J-Pod”. Wow. It’s amazing. I highly recommend it; a lovely, Coupland-esque portrait of our modern world in all it’s dystopian glory on the brink of the apocalypse. He even throws himself into his own novel to act like some kind of shamanistic capitalist destruction shaman. Brilliant. Twisted.
The one strangely ironic thing… this was a book on tape… was the guy who read the novel. Clearly a master. No doubt about that. However, I think the guys other job is being the voice of the dreaded Voice Mail Robot. You know the one. The machine who asks you questions so that the phone seems more “human”. Says he’s going to listen to your answers and find you the right solutions. Well, that robot guy always says, “okay” in this particularly annoying, reassuring kind of way that only a robot can. And in the reading of “J-Pods” he does says it a million times. Very distracting. Yet appropriate.
(I was just interrupted by my 17-year-old IHOP waitress who asked me kinda sheepishly, “What ya doin’? Homework or somethin’?”
“I’m blogging.”
“Wha?”
“Blogging.”
“Oh. What’s that? You’re not from Amarillo, are you?”
I showed her the above post. She smiled and walked away, somewhat befuddled. I’m struck once again at the VAST differences in culture from middle America to the crazy urban life most of my friends and I live… but that’s a post for when I have more time… gotta hit the road again… a lot more driving to be done tonight.)
Technorati Tags: magdalenus, douglascoupland, jpod, povertyjetset, books, amarillo, IHOP
Browse Timeline
-
magdalenus
-
amy tee
-
stephanie
-
joshua
-
Mick Gordon
