greater postmodern theoretical issues the book addresses. He suggests that a second televised narrative is embedded within the narrative of the novel's plot through constant references to television's interjections. The world of White Noise is so saturated by television shows and other media messages that "it becomes increasingly difficult to separate primary actions from imitations of actions." Thoughts and actions are replaced by programmed responses, which have been learned. Indeed, it is a world that seems determined by simulation which, according to Jean Baudrillard, is "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal." This is illustrated, in the eyes of Haidar Eid of Rand Afrikaans University, by much of the imagery used to convey the incomprehensible reality of the Toxic Cloud and is explicitly thematized through Jack's conversation with the intake clerk from SIMUVAC which concludes Part 2 of the novel. Here Jack is told that even though the evacuation taking place is real, the SIMUVAC team is treating it "as a model" to be used to perfect the protocol they will use in future disaster simulations. In effect, the reality of "The Airborne Toxic Event" has been displaced by their performance in something like street theater. Such an ironic reversal of reader expectations is reinforced when the Simuvac Man further acknowledges that using "the real event in order to rehearse the simulation" has inherent difficulties and that "You have to make allowances for the fact that everything we see tonight is real." In Baudrillard's words, "It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself." That is why the Simuvac Man concludes his remarks by conceding that "There's a lot of polishing we still have to do. But that's what this exercise is all about." Such a substitution of the sign for the reality is what Baudrillard calls a simulacrum, and in White Noise this is emblematically represented by "the most photographed barn in America" which, according to Peter Knight, "has perhaps become the 'Most Discussed Scene in Postmodern Fiction'." Such a postmodern understanding is expressed by Murray when he declares that "No one sees the barn," for "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." Created by photography and tourism, the barn is "a packaged perception,