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Show Anting Alone pa g e 206 and Stream. Dr. Abraham was probably on a magazine run even today. That's why Professors A, B and C figured it was safe to declare open season on Sam. But Sam wasn't scared, just mildly curious as to what goods they might have on him this time. So he went along to late-luncheon with them. Bouncy was going to have to wait for a few minutes. The private club they went to was unremarkable in every respect. Brown or pastel, enameled cinderbrick or speckled linoleum or gold-striped mahogany - it didn't matter. Because there was Muzak: chilling, overproduced Muzak. It gave Sam a shrill, nightmarish feeling to imagine these dozens of truly expert "studio cats" all lounging around in a million-dollar sixteen-track recording studio, churning out this spine-chillingly complacent lovely-lovely- lovely music, lightly flicking or rubbing or puffing on their expensive instruments, all swaying together like a bevy of old ladies in turquoise or orange rinses breathing barbiturate breath around a small canasta table in the mint-and-pastel Sunday afternoon. . . Muzak made the whole world, the whole universe seem like an English department. At some invisible signal, right as the wine arrived, Professors A, B and C all simultaneously reached into their briefcases and pulled out some pieces of paper. Sam recognized these pieces of paper immediately. They were xerox copies of one of the two or three freshman themes he'd |