This & Ballard's "Atrocity Exhibition" were the peak of his psychopathology of urban living novels. When Cronenberg was making his movie version in Toronto in 1995, I had an acquaintance who was an actor auditioning for the main role ask the casting folks if an obscure composer (myself) wd be considered for the soundtrack. Nope, Howard Shore was always the man. I'd wanted to record samples of all machine noises & substitute them for &/or underlay them w/ all human sounds. Anyway, when the movie came out, I HATED it. For that matter, I hated his version of "Naked Lunch" too (although I at least like the way he emphasizes the importance of Burroughs' utterly stupid shooting of his wife). I wonder: Wd I like it more now? Ballard's characters always struck me as lunatic fringe roughnecks & Cronenberg kindof turned them into soft-porn fashion models. Or so it seemed to me at the time. Now, though, it almost seems like C's take is even more critical than B's. As if his movie of "Crash" is like an anti-car ad. Something we cd certainly use. C's version is like a parody of a rich car dealer's sex fantasy.