Along with this excerpt, I am also including some representative quotations from the book:
"I dial my ipod to John Mellencamp and sing about little pink houses while rolling past a main street café decorated with American flags. I yearn to stop for a hot cup of coffee and some friendly banter and cherry pie. But tonight I will sleep within a maze of office parks with tinted glass, a culture colored beige. I will dream scenes from Office Space and rise the next morning without remembering where I am" (p. 6).
"One is not "in" LA while passing through LAX any more than one gets wet while "surfing" the Internet. In a major airport like LAX, you never get the sense that 'at last, I see what Los Angelinos are like.' There are no real Angelinos in LAX. No Californians or Americans, either" (p. 93).
"Pumping round after round into paper zombies, pushing them further and further downrange, I look beyond West Edmonton Mall, squinting my eye to imagine cinematic cities filled with lurching zombies. Shell casings explode from the HK, clanging onto the floor, and I think about the popularity of Dawn of the Dead and its unspeakable fantasy of shooting regular people" (p. 147).
"Within the enclave, we find safety but only for a time. We search for continuity, but we tire of it soon enough. Eventually, omnitopia confronts a relentless frontier and a final reminder. Omnitopia is only a desire; it is not a place" (p. 203).
