He was a Humanist in the best sense of the word and movement.
]]>Vonnegut idolized Mark Twain. Is it unreasonable to think that, in some senses at least, Vonnegut may become Twain’s logical successor?
(Aside: I miss Douglas Adams terribly. No creative person should ever die that young.)
]]>He did good.
]]>Years ago, around late 1969 or early 1970, my wife and I were invited to his Barnstable home for a visit. Vonnegut had just returned from the Biafra civil massacre on a special assignment for Life Magazine. His then-wife and a few family members were on hand, seated here and there in the cozy living room.
Vonnegut was still visibly upset at the carnage he had seen. (Over a million killed or starved). It was, he said, beyond anything he could have imagined. At times, he became even tearful.
What most impressed me at the time was how he was at all times the committed writer as much as a warm-hearted humanist. Repeatedly, he would sit for a time and recount the horrors he had witnessed. Then, sometimes in mid-sentence, he would suddenly stand up (he was so tall his head cleared the low ceiling only by inches, or so it seemed), and duck into a back room where he did his writing presumably to jot down a thought. In his absence, his wife or someone else would try to change the topic to something more mundane, but Vonnegut always returned in a minute or two and resumed the Biafran stories as if he’d never left.
]]>— Badtux the Vonnegut-readin’ Penguin
]]>(Rented a tent… a tent… a tent…)
]]>Dammit.
FUCK.
FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK.
First Hunter, then Molly, now Kurt.
FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yet, Tom Wolfe will never fucking die.
(Despite the fact that he outlived his usefulness by 1980.)
Danielle Steele will live forever. mAnn Coulter, Patron Saint Of The Codpiece, STILL gets published. JONAH MOTHERFUCKING GOLDBERG GETS A FUCKING PUBLISHING DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are, as a consciousness and as a conscience, ROYALLY FUCKED.
Welcome to the monkeyhouse, Kurt. You will always be with us.
But it is going to SUCK without you on this mortal plane.
]]>