Every time I watch an old movie, or read an old book, I feel like we’ve all been ripped off big time—because there ain’t no real people no more, not many anyway, and it really did seem like there used to be a whole lot more.

What happened?

Advertising, I guess. The ubiquity of . . . whatever this is.

They got real good at crunching those numbers.

Jesus. I’m going to sleep.