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“Still, I had a new surge of energy when I stood at last at the light. I started up the access road to see what I’d find there. I didn’t feel hopeful; I was perfectly prepared to believe that the freight office was another five miles ahead. Nor did I have any faith that, if I found it, the cat would be waiting for me. But I did feel a slight, mysterious, but undeniable satisfaction. Maybe it was only that I’d accomplished a grand and useless stunt. But it was almost as though I had struck a blow for those of us who don’t drive: I had secretly recaptured a bit of territory from the dictatorship of the internal combustion engine.”
In other words, it’s written for a tiny subset of the potential audience, and I suspect, but can’t prove, that’s why the medium is dying off (alternately, a great explanatory work about the subject, like Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise, can still do brisk sales). By which I mean: this is how it’s done:
