'it's about a dystopian california... which is... where I already live'

bookpilled has come face to face with the full horror of his situation. condemned to fund his existence (in a dystopian california) by running a youtube channel where he mooches round thrift stores and library sales buying unwanted SF books and is then forced to read them by some sort of evil randomiser program in his phone.

 'it's about a dystopian california... which is...  where I already live' (virtual light william gibson)

he doesn't even have shelves - he is condemned to stack them up above the fireplace (you see how to read that psychologically don't you). 

semiotic ghosts from the gernsback continuum appear at the lunch counter and shake their heads at him.  his clothes are in plastic storage boxes with sealed lids (to stop the nanobots creeping in and surveilling him -  a flea cleaning service gone rogue).  his only friend and ally is the outlaw bookseller in far off bath. 

or perhaps he's not trapped in a philip k. dick sci-fi novel? perhaps it's one of PKD's non-SF novels. 

maybe he's more like john fahey in oregon taking the rare classical records from the thrift store to the second hand record shop like a dutiful robot sorting through the kipple and the ruins attempting to rebuild the world of culture again. 

and meanwhile the outlaw bookseller (and swansea steve) seem to be retired and having a whale of a time. outlaw takes the train from bath to cardiff (so rich) and then up to castell coch and then further up the taff trail (the old railway lines) to where he used to live as a child half way between caerphilly and pontypridd. the industry is gone leaving only rust stains and so are the views as the vegetation has grown over everything. the houses are all done up and very nice but the roads are narrow (no fun when you are walking back into town) and there's no public transport. 

(there used to be a railway line between caerphilly and barry - that would have been handy).

horsemouth is impressed with outlaw bookseller and bookpilled they have parlayed their interest in SF into a kind of economic activity. horsemouth should get into the habit of reselling his books (he has rather a lot of them). 

meanwhile there's always uncle vanya on 42nd street frozen in time(s) - 42nd street/ new york as it was and then the superfluous men and women of tsarist russia living recognisable lives of quiet desperation. and there's a parallel being drawn between the theatre buffs and chekov's provincial bourgeoisie. julianna moore is just amazing as the too young wife of the magistrate, and then there's uncle vanya and the doctor eating out their souls in rural isolation in the absence of events and attempting to stay cheerful with the aid of vodka. 

horsemouth is a big fan of worker and parasite a cartoon series from the former eastern europe (from a country that no longer exists the description tells us) that briefly made its way onto US television during the writers strike on teh itchy and scratchy show. it has spawned a number of later tributes and parodies. clearly it was itself descended from tom and jerry. 

elsewhere we learn that 1.3 million call handlers were employed during the covid epidemic (that's a full 4% of the uk workforce). 

meanwhile in paris in the 1790ies there are the sans-culottes who are not yet the working class. (their moment is yet to come). 

today another beautiful day out. this afternoon horsemouth goes through the sunfried streets to attempt to meet howard.  he's not sure what he's up to for the rest of the day.