Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 2:02 pm
more from scanner darkly:
"It was Barris who suggested this to me
one day, confidentially; I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, because he's putting it in his book."
"What book? Common Household Dope and--"
"No. Simple Ways to Smuggle Objects into the U.S. and out, Depending on Which Way
You're Going. You smuggle it in with a shipment of dope. Like with heroin. The microdots are down
inside the packets. Nobody'd notice, they're so small. They won't--"
"But then some junkie'd shoot up a hit of half smack and half microdots."
"Well, then, he'd be the fuckingest educated junkie you ever did see."
"Depending on what was on the microdots."
"Barris had his other way to smuggle dope across the border. You know how the customs guys,
they ask you to declare what you have? And you can't say dope because--"
"Okay, how?"
"Well, see, you take a huge block of hash and carve it in the shape of a man. Then you hollow out
a section and put a wind-up motor like a clockworks in it, and a little cassette tape, and you stand in
line with it, and then just before it goes through customs you wind up the key and it walks up to the
customs man, who says to it, 'Do you have anything to declare?' and the block of hash says, 'No, I
don't,' and keeps on walking. Until it runs down on the other side of the border."
"You could put a solar-type battery in it instead of a spring and it could keep walking for years.
Forever."
"What's the use of that? It'd finally reach either the Pacific or the Atlantic. In fact, it'd walk off the
edge of the Earth, like--"
"Imagine an Eskimo village, and a six-foot-high block of hash worth about--how much would that
be worth?"
"About a billion dollars."
"More. Two billion."
"These Eskimos are chewing hides and carving bone spears, and this block of hash worth two
billion dollars comes walking through the snow saying over and over, 'No, I don't.'"
"They'd wonder what it meant by that."
"They'd be puzzled forever. There'd be legends."
"Can you imagine telling your grandkids, 'I saw with my own eyes the six-foot-high block of hash
appear out of the blinding fog and walk past, that way, worth two billion dollars, saying, "No, I
don't." 'His grandchildren would have him committed."
"No, see, legends build. After a few centuries they'd be saying, 'In my forefathers' time one day a
ninety-foot-high block of extremely good quality Afghanistan hash worth eight trillion dollars came at
us dripping fire and screaming, "Die, Eskimo dogs!" and we fought and fought with it, using our
spears, and finally killed it.'
"The kids wouldn't believe that either."
"Kids never believe anything any more."
"It's a downer to tell anything to a kid. I once had a kid ask me, 'What was it like to see the first
automobile?' Shit, man, I was born in 1962."
"It was Barris who suggested this to me
one day, confidentially; I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, because he's putting it in his book."
"What book? Common Household Dope and--"
"No. Simple Ways to Smuggle Objects into the U.S. and out, Depending on Which Way
You're Going. You smuggle it in with a shipment of dope. Like with heroin. The microdots are down
inside the packets. Nobody'd notice, they're so small. They won't--"
"But then some junkie'd shoot up a hit of half smack and half microdots."
"Well, then, he'd be the fuckingest educated junkie you ever did see."
"Depending on what was on the microdots."
"Barris had his other way to smuggle dope across the border. You know how the customs guys,
they ask you to declare what you have? And you can't say dope because--"
"Okay, how?"
"Well, see, you take a huge block of hash and carve it in the shape of a man. Then you hollow out
a section and put a wind-up motor like a clockworks in it, and a little cassette tape, and you stand in
line with it, and then just before it goes through customs you wind up the key and it walks up to the
customs man, who says to it, 'Do you have anything to declare?' and the block of hash says, 'No, I
don't,' and keeps on walking. Until it runs down on the other side of the border."
"You could put a solar-type battery in it instead of a spring and it could keep walking for years.
Forever."
"What's the use of that? It'd finally reach either the Pacific or the Atlantic. In fact, it'd walk off the
edge of the Earth, like--"
"Imagine an Eskimo village, and a six-foot-high block of hash worth about--how much would that
be worth?"
"About a billion dollars."
"More. Two billion."
"These Eskimos are chewing hides and carving bone spears, and this block of hash worth two
billion dollars comes walking through the snow saying over and over, 'No, I don't.'"
"They'd wonder what it meant by that."
"They'd be puzzled forever. There'd be legends."
"Can you imagine telling your grandkids, 'I saw with my own eyes the six-foot-high block of hash
appear out of the blinding fog and walk past, that way, worth two billion dollars, saying, "No, I
don't." 'His grandchildren would have him committed."
"No, see, legends build. After a few centuries they'd be saying, 'In my forefathers' time one day a
ninety-foot-high block of extremely good quality Afghanistan hash worth eight trillion dollars came at
us dripping fire and screaming, "Die, Eskimo dogs!" and we fought and fought with it, using our
spears, and finally killed it.'
"The kids wouldn't believe that either."
"Kids never believe anything any more."
"It's a downer to tell anything to a kid. I once had a kid ask me, 'What was it like to see the first
automobile?' Shit, man, I was born in 1962."