Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Throve is a funny word.

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

So I've started re-reading Sewer, Gas & Electric. Some choice snippets:
Alligators, small boys and at least one horse have accidentally swam in the sewers of New York. The boys and the horse seem not to have enjoyed the experience, but the alligators throve on it.
- - - - -
A new age: English was the mother tongue now, a mother tongue that had already been fractured into a thousand dialects, only to thrive and grow stronger. Humankind had stormed heaven in homegrown chariots of fire and returned to tell the tale. And as far as God was concerned, if He weren't already an American at heart, ready and willing to root for American achievement - well, by the time Harry Gant and the Department of Public Opinion were finished with Him, He would be.
- - - - -
She pushed a pair of what looked like plastic dog tags across the desktop: "Make sure you wear these at all times when you're working."

"What for?"

"Information aid. In case you become eligible for early retirement in a way that makes you hard to identify."
- - - - -
"Oh," said Eddie, who didn't know, actually. "So if her ma was a queer nun and her husband was a billionaire, what's she doing working in the sewers?"

"Penance."
More to come.

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