（外文电子版资料）Norman Spinrad - A Thing of Beauty.pdf

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Norman%20Spinrad%20-%20A%20Thing%20of%20Beauty.txt NORMAN SPINRAD A Thing of Beauty I once showed some native hunters, who were as keen sighted as hawks, magazine pictures in which any of our children would have instantly recognized human figures. But my hunters turned the pictures round and round until one of them, tracing the outlines with his finger, finally exclaimed: These are white men. It was hailed by all as a great discovery (C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul). We can make no greater mistake than to believe what we see is seen by everyone else. Theres a gentleman by the name of Mr. Shiburo Ito to see you, my intercom said. He is interested in the purchase of an historic artifact of some significance. While I waited for him to enter my private office, I had computer central display his specs on the screen discreetly built into the back of my desk. My Mr. Ito was none other than Ito of Ito Freight Boosters of Osaka; there was no need to purchase a readout from Dun Bradstreets private banks. 1f Shiburo Ito of Ito, Boosters wrote a check for anything short of the national debt, it could be relied upon not to bounce. The slight, balding man who glided into my office wore a red silk kimono with a richly brocaded black obi, Mendocino needlepoint by the look of it. No doubt back in the miasmic smog of Osaka, he bonged the peons with the latest skins from Savile Row. Everything about him was just so; he purchased confidently on that razor edge between class and ostentation that only the Japanese can handle with such grace, and then only when they have millions of hard yen to back them up. Mr. Ito would be no sucker. He would want whatever he wanted for precise reasons all his own, and would not be budgeable from the center of his desires. The typical heavyweight Japanese businessman, a prime example of the breed thats pushed us out of the center of the international arena. Mr. Ito bowed a