Kurt Vonnegut Dead
musicismylife78
Posts: 6,116
Kurt Vonnegut died today.
Probably what he wanted, I remember reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone this past summer, and he was saying that he felt humans were useless and that we had screwed up the world and that we had wasted this precious thing called life. It was stunning to read that, as during the summer you had Tool, and Pearl Jam, basically saying the same things. Kurt said he was ashamed for us all.
RIP KURT VONNEGUT!
Probably what he wanted, I remember reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone this past summer, and he was saying that he felt humans were useless and that we had screwed up the world and that we had wasted this precious thing called life. It was stunning to read that, as during the summer you had Tool, and Pearl Jam, basically saying the same things. Kurt said he was ashamed for us all.
RIP KURT VONNEGUT!
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Best two days of my life: Oasis at MSG and Pearl Jam at the Gorge.
"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. "
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. "
"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. "
"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? "
naděje umírá poslední
Slaughterhouse 5 was the first novel that really made me think about how we perceive our presence here.
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“One time,” said Castle, “when I as about fifteen, there was a mutiny near here on a Greek ship bound from Hong Kong to Havana with a load of wicker furniture. The mutineers got control of the ship, didn’t know how to run her, and smashed her up on the rocks near ‘Papa’ Monzano’s castle. Everybody drowned but the rats. The rats and the wicker furniture came ashore.”
That seemed to be the end of the story, but I couldn’t be sure. “So?”
“So some people got free furniture, and some people got bubonic plague. At Father’s hospital, we had fourteen hundred deaths inside of ten days. Have you ever seen anyone die of bubonic plague?”
“That unhappiness has not been mine.”
“The lymph glands in the groin and the armpits swell to the size of grapefruit.”
“I can well believe it.”
“After death, the body turns black—coals to Newcastle in the case of San Lorenzo. When the plague was having every thing its own way, the House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle looked like Auschwitz or Buchenwald. We had stacks of dead so deep and wide that a bulldozer actually stalled trying to shove them toward a common grave. Father worked without sleep for days, worked not only without sleep but without saving many lives, either... One sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.
“And Father started giggling,” Castle continued.
“He couldn’t stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head, and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?” asked Castle.
“Nope.”
“Son,’ my father said to me, ‘someday this will all be yours.’”
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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You will be missed.
RIP, Kurt. Brilliant man.
And Kenny, do read Slaughterhouse 5. His very best in my opinion.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
The only Vonnegut book that I've read was Breakfast of Champions.... After reading that I have been wanting to read more, and Slaughterhouse and Cat's Cradle have been on my Amazon wishlist for a couple of years. I really do have to read those.
While it's a sad day for his friends and family, his words and thoughts will live on for generations in his books.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
RIP Kurt.
BOS-9/28/04,9/29/04,6/28/08,6/30/08, 9/5/16, 9/7/16, 9/2/18
MTL-9/15/05, OTT-9/16/05
PHL-5/27/06,5/28/06,10/30/09,10/31/09
CHI-8/2/07,8/5/07,8/23/09,8/24/09
HTFD-6/27/08
ATX-10/4/09, 10/12/14
KC-5/3/2010,STL-5/4/2010
Bridge School-10/23/2010,10/24/2010
PJ20-9/3/2011,9/4/2011
OKC-11/16/13
SEA-12/6/13
TUL-10/8/14
"Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of." - Vonnegut
"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
~Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
Is that the one where the charactors met their creater at the bar?
I wonder if Kurt is sitting at a bar somewhere talking to the author of his book.
the other foot in the gutter
sweet smell that they adore
I think I'd rather smother
-The Replacements-
yes. kilgore trout, meets his maker.
"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved"
KV
and, as always,
So it goes
so it goes
Welcome to the Monkey House, a collection of short stories, has always been my favorite.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
¡¡¡Descansa en paz!!! Man, he'll have the best conversations ever with Julio Cortazar...
I own a rare copy of "Canary in a Cathouse". All but one of the stories that appeared in "Welcome to the Monkeyhouse" originated in "Canary in a Cathouse". Good stuff, indeed!
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
A favorite? Ok, let me try. "Sirens of Titan" will always have a special place because it was my first. It was the first book I ever read voluntarily.
I think my fondest memory is probably of Slapstick... (that was the "autobiography" right?) That may have been the most fun to read.
This thread is making me want to re-read a bunch of his stuff. It's been quite a while since I've read anything of his other than interviews. Have Visa, will travel .... Amazon here I come!
Oh wait, that was Palm Sunday... Slapstick had the micorscopic Chinese..
nah, I don't have a favorite.. They all blend into one for me
Me too! I'm frantically trying to locate my treasured copy of "Canary in a Cathouse" I was obsessed with the book, "Slaughterhouse-Five" as a kid!
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
Collin and I dug up the rest of the eight rules. Here they are:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
So strange, I just read these not 10 minutes ago.........I particularly liked the step you highlighted in bold print.
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein