"Victor Pelevin. Babylon (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

book called Inspired Latin Sayings:
MEDIIS TEMPESTATIBUS PLACIDUS CALM IN THE MIDST OF STORMS LEFORTOVO
CONFECTIONERY COMBINE
In Draft Podium they reacted to Tatarsky's scenario with horror.
'Technically it's not complicated,' said Sergei. 'Rip off the
image-sequence from a few old films, touch it up a bit, stretch it out. But
it's totally off the wall. Even funny in a way.'
'So it's off the wall/ Tatarsky agreed. 'And funny. But you tell me
what it is you want. A prize at Cannes or the order?'
A couple of days later Lena took the client several versions of a
scenario written by somebody else. They involved a black Mercedes, a
suitcase stuffed full of dollars and other archetypes of the collective
unconscious. The client turned them all down without explaining why. In
despair Lena showed him the scenario written by Tatarsky.
She came back to the studio with a contract for thirty-five thousand,
with twenty to be paid in advance. It was a record. She said that when he
read the scenario the client started behaving like a rat from Hamlin who'd
heard an entire wind orchestra.
'I could have taken him for forty grand/ she said. 'I was just too slow
on the uptake.'
The money arrived in their account five days later, and Tatarsky
received his honestly earned two thousand. Sergei and his team were already
planning to go to Yalta to film a suitable cliff, on which the bun carved in
granite was supposed to appear in the final frames, when the client was
found dead in his office. Someone had strangled him with a telephone cord.
The traditional electric-iron marks were discovered on the body, and some
merciless hand had stopped the victim's mouth with a Nocturne cake (sponge
soaked in liqueur, bitter chocolate in a distinctly minor key, lightly
sprinkled with a tragic hoar-frosting of coconut).
'One generation passeth away and another generation cometh/ Tatarsky
thought philosophically, 'but thou lookest out always for number one.'
And so Tatarsky became a copywriter. He didn't bother to explain
himself to any of his old bosses; he simply left the keys of the kiosk on
the porch of the trailer where Hussein hung out: there were rumours that the
Chechens demanded serious compensation when anyone left one of their
businesses.
It didn't take him long to acquire new acquaintances and he started
working for several studios at the same time. Big breaks like the one with
Lefortovo's calm-amid-storms Confectionery Combine didn't come very often,
unfortunately.
Tatarsky soon realised that if one in ten projects worked out well,
that was already serious success. He didn't earn a really large amount of
money, but even so it was more than he'd made in the retail trade. He would
recall his first advertising job with dissatisfaction, discerning in it a
certain hasty, shamefaced willingness to sell cheap everything that was most
exalted in his soul. When the orders began coming in one after another, he
realised that in this particular business it's always a mistake to be in a
hurry, because that way you bring the price way down, and that's stupid:
everything that is most sacred and exalted should only be sold for the
highest price possible, because afterwards there'll be nothing left to trade