[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
transformed into something rich and strange a metaphysical play-
ground, a fantastic space station at the bottom of a black hole where all
the light and color goes. Light and color everywhere, and not a single
shadow the fluorescence is like some eye that sees every inch of you from
every angle. She feels giddily powerful, nauseatingly vulnerable: the para-
doxical sensation of vertigo.
All right. Next lesson, Chas says. Listen. What do you hear?
62 Al ex Shakar
Muzak, she says, trying to concentrate. They are pushing their cart
through yet another aisle. She wants to ask him about every product she
sees. What s the paradessence of a mayonnaise substitute? What s the
paradessence of pinto beans? But his demeanor doesn t invite questions.
He walks next to her tensely. He doesn t seem to be comfortable here.
When he s not speaking, she can see his jaw working, grinding his molars
to dust.
Muzak. He nods. What s it for?
To make people shop more?
Good guess. How?
I don t know. I guess it s kind of happy and upbeat. It probably makes
people feel more at ease, not in such a rush, makes them look around
more, count their pennies a bit less?
That s the prevailing theory, Chas says. The dissenting opinion is
that it makes people shop more because it makes them more anxious.
Either way, it works better than silence, better than any other kind of
sound that s been experimented with yet. I could show you a hundred
studies.
He pauses, his eyes moving uneasily along the shelves. Then he goes on,
his voice rapid and terse:
To really understand why it works, you ve got to think about what
Muzak is. Pop music is all about the time it s composed in. It becomes a
way we measure our decades here on Earth. A way we distinguish one era
from another. Muzak, conversely, is all about timelessness. It takes pop
tunes out of time. Cans them, pickles them, preserves them for eternity.
This is the paradessence of Muzak: eternal transience. Different people
react to this contradiction in different ways. Some find it comfort-
ing, because it reaffirms a fatuous hope that every insignificant event in
their piddling little lives is actually important, is actually being recorded in
some cosmic database somewhere. Muzak-likers are immortal souls travel-
ing through a material wonderland, and so what the hell, why not buy
anything pretty that catches their eye? Muzak-haters, on the other hand,
are terrorized by the stuff, because it turns everything unique about every
era into the same homogeneous mush, and moreover does so with ease,
thus reinforcing their suspicions that there s essentially nothing unique
about their era or themselves; that their cherished individuality is nothing
but a merchandised illusion begrudgingly maintained for them by mar-
keters; that when you get right down to it, it s all the same crapola.
Chas stops talking, as though he d lost his train of thought. Eventually
it becomes clear he isn t planning to add anything further.
The Savage Gi r l 63
But how could that feeling make people want to shop more? she asks.
He shrugs. Nihilists make for fairly avid consumers. Plenty of studies
on that one, too.
But aren t there people out there who Muzak makes so anxious that
they end up shopping less?
Statistically insignificant. Besides, nowadays we ve got medications for
people like that. He smiles grimly. She s not sure, but she thinks he s just
made a joke. The smile vanishes instantly, his face newly impenetrable,
jaw bulging, molars gnashing as before.
Chas, all this stuff about products and marketing how exactly does it
help you spot trends?
Same principle. A trend is like a big product. A metaproduct. You wanna
understand War and Peace, you learn the alphabet first. He waves his
hand in a tight arc. This is your alphabet, Ursula. Consumer-motivation
research. Spend a month here in the supermarket and you can pick up a
lot, if you can keep from slitting your wrists in the process. Think you
could make it? He looks around, exhaling heavily through his nostrils. I
did. Spent a whole goddamned month of my life in a Key Food just like
this one, back when I was a lowly market-research assistant. Every day,
open to close. Wore a stockboy jacket. Followed people around. Charted
their paths. Watched their eye motions. Mounted hidden cameras in the
freezers. Put NOW FAT-FREE stickers on boxes of laundry detergent
and watched the fat ladies pick them up and toss them in their carts.
The whole bit. I vowed never to set foot in a supermarket again, have my
food delivered, etcetera. But no, I came back. Too much at stake not to.
Besides, I had to train Javier. Trained him in these very aisles. I remember
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]