'I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to igure out who they are and what they want and where they're going. Sometimes I even go o the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?'
'What?'
'People don't talk about anything.'
'Oh, they must!'
'No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the joke-boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only colour and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people.'
Written in 1954 about a futuristic society. Pictures that say something hey?
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