For The Heavenly Fire No Longer Strikes

... The Age Of Simulation Thus Begins With A Liquidation Of All Referentials - Worse: By Their Artificial Resurrection In Systems Of Signs, A More Ductile Material Than Meaning... It Is No Longer A Question Of Imitation, Nor Of Reduplication, Nor Even Of Parody. It Is Rather A Question Of Substituting Signs Of The Real For The Real Itself.

The Sumptuous Age Of Stars And Images Is Reduced To A Few Artificial Tornado Effects, Pathetic Fake Buildings, And Childish Tricks Which The Crowd Pretends To Be Taken In By To Avoid Feeling Too Disappointed. Ghost Towns, Ghost People. The Whole Place Has The Same Air Of Obsolescence About It As Sunset Or Hollywood Boulevard.

It Is In Love With Its Limitless Horizontality, As New York May Be With Its Verticality.

Deep Down, No One Really Believes They Have A Right To Live. But This Death Sentence Generally Stays Tucked Away, Hidden Beneath The Difficulty Of Living. If That Difficulty Is Removed From Time To Time, Death Is Suddenly There, Unintelligibly.

The Yuppies Are Not Defectors From Revolt, They Are A New Race, Assured, Amnestied, Exculpated, Moving With Ease In The World Of Performance, Mentally Indifferent To Any Objective Other Than That Of Change And Advertising.