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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "John L. Micek" <jlmicek@comcast.net> |
| Subject | Re: Kurt Vonnegut R.I.P. |
| Date | Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:53:38 -0400 |
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Paul:
That's a touching tribute.
I was lucky enough to meet Vonnegut for half-an-instant back in 1990 when he
did a book-signing at Blackwell's bookstore in Oxford. Whatever we talked
about has been lost to the sands of time, but I remember his warmth and
openness most of all.
john micek
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Myers" <pulmyears@gmail.com>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 1:22 PM
Subject: Kurt Vonnegut R.I.P.
> When I saw the headline about Kurt Vonnegut's death at the top of my
> browser
> last night, I started to cry a little.
> I realized, though, that I wasn't crying about an old man of letters dying
> (sad as that is), but these were tears of happiness and gratitude.
> I was actually blown away by how much joy and luck I've had just to have
> been exposed to the intellectual and emotional universe of Mr. Vonnegut.
> He was like that one cool teacher you had in high school (again, if you're
> lucky) who pointed out a few things you need to know and helped you learn
> how to actually read the world.
>
> He was punk rock wrapped in a Mark Twain tweed jacket.
>
> I am certain that he helped me to learn to think for myself, challenge
> conventions, thumb my nose at unearned authority and above all to remember
> the human side of politics. He reminded me that you've got to be kind,
> dammit. He was zen, in his own Hal Holbrookish way, in that it's hard to
> separate the self from others, we are all joined by being human. And most
> often humans fuck up -- themselves and their planet. Man are we ever dumb
> apes. But there was a strange optimism permeating his work, as if to say
> "here it is, it's pretty bleak, but if we acknowledge it and work through
> it
> -- evolution is possible."
>
> Kurt Vonnegut constantly reached out to that part of our underdeveloped
> limbic brains and said, more or less, "Hey, this life is weird huh? Keep
> going, if you want."
>
> He left us some characters that will live forever (he even wrote himself
> into Breakfast of Champions).
>
> Poor Old Edgar Derby.
> Billy Pilgrim.
> Eliot Rosewater.
> Howard W Campbell.
> Montana Wildhack.
> Dwayne Hoover.
> Luke Lubbock.
> Paul Proteus.
> And last but not least, Kilgore Trout.
>
> These people are real to me.
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