Kurt Vonnegut - Dead at 84I saw him speak once and remember he spent most of the time recounting how he witnessed the bombing of Dresden.The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be."
That's Sad. My Favorite Of All Times. Rip Kilgore Trout
'Breakfast of Champions' was a particular favourite. I read it at 18. Didn't understand a word. Does that make him a genius?
Vale, Kurt.
I sleep in the daytime, I
Work in the night time, I
Might not ever get home
He had a touch of the Mark Twain in his writing, although certainly more mad then him.Originally Posted by WilliamBlake
His stuff under Kilgores name was quite good as well, "Venus on the Half Shell" I really liked.
"We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts."
PFC J. Winger
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I read Slaughterhouse Five and Hi-Ho. Interesting.
"My name is Yon Yonson
I live in Wisconsin
I work in a lumber mill there.
All the people I meet
when I walk down the street
say "Hello, what's your name?" and I say:
My name is Yon Yonson
I live in Wisconsin..."
Fantastic writer: Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions were my favorites.
There was also that movie with Rodney Dangerfield where he hired Kurt Vonegut to write his essay on Kurt Vonnegut; The prof. graded a 0 I think.
Right behind the glass lays a real blade of grass.
Be careful as you pass, move along move along.
Only read him for the first time last year. Slaughterhouse 5.
He's on my list of authors to buy.
Loved the time line structures in Slaughterhouse, how they gradually come closer together as the story arcs reach their conclusions.
We could all sit outside on banana lounges discussing the best way to rebuild a 4WD transmission and agree, through shared stories of conquests supporting our assertions, that there is no basis to the proposition that those least assured of their persuasions are the first to condemn others for theirs.
"Whoever did write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut."
I read Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and Mother Night off the top of my head.
In A Man Without a Country, he wrote that "George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography." He did not regard the 2004 election with much optimism; speaking of Bush and John Kerry, he said that "no matter which one wins, we will have a Skull and Bones President at a time when entire vertebrate species, because of how we have poisoned the topsoil, the waters and the atmosphere, are becoming, hey presto, nothing but skulls and bones."
I like this quote, referring to Allan Ginsberg's "Howl" ('the best minds of my generation'):
True dat!No offense intended, but it would never occur to me to look for the best minds in any generation in an undergraduate English department anywhere. I would certainly try the physics department or the music department first -- and after that biochemistry. Everybody knows that the dumbest people in any American university are in the education department, and English after that."
Kurt's obit in The Nation
I'd give a nut for a copy. He never admitted to writing Venus I understand. Monkey House and Dead-eye Dick were my favorites. One of the stories in MH was titled, George Harrington (I think). About a future where all people were equal. This is my fav tale of all I've ever read .. by any author.
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. - Kurt Vonnegut
That is what friendship means. Sharing the prejudice of experience.” Charles Bukowski
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