Waking Up to Kurt Vonnegut

 .

 .

Kurt Vonnegut visited me in a dream last night. It was a vivid dream, one in color and set in the not too distant future when I'll be in Michigan (just a few weeks away) to visit my nearly 106 year-old grandma.

In the dream, I had invited Vonnegut to visit me at my grandma's home, and I'll be damned if he didn't show-up on the doorstep just after 11:00 PM on Friday night, what will soon be the 28th of this month. He was tired and moved slow. He was dressed in a dapper dark suit and carried a small, black leather duffle bag. He was quiet and kind and courteous. I showed him to the guest room, where he immediately laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

Knowing that Kurt Vonnegut was under the same roof as me, I barely slept during the night. Like an eager kid on Christmas morning, I was wide awake at 6:00 AM, and excited to see what the day held. I peeked inside the guest room and there was Kurt, sitting in bed and reading a book—I think by Truman Capote. I left him alone and retreated to the patio for my morning cigarette. As I lit my smoke, I grabbed the ashtray and noticed it was full of Pall Mall filterless cigarette butts—Mr. Vonnegut obviously had not slept much during the night.

Mom and Grandma started preparing breakfast, and Kurt finally emerged from the bedroom. I introduced him, and again, he was kind and courteous—although he declined the toast and banana Grandma offered him. We both returned to the patio for another cigarette but this time, I brought my camera with me.

"Do you mind if I take some photographs of you today?" I asked.

"I don't mind. Just be sure to use your camera's Blue Mode," Kurt said. "I photograph much better in the Blue Mode."

"Blue Mode?" I asked while looking at and twisting the dials on my camera, "I don't think my camera has a Blue Mode."

Kurt reached over and turned one of the dials. "There's the Blue Mode for you," he said.

"How did you know that?" I asked.

"You know, my wife, Jill Krementz. She's a photographer," Kurt answered.

We left the house and walked to the school playground across the street.

"I'll tell you what," Kurt said to me, "I'll sit down on this little rocket-ship thingy and you climb-up on the ladder of the slide and shoot a photo angled downward at me. I'll look up at you, and I'll be like a child again."

 .

 .

After taking this and more photographs, and while on the the way back to Grandma's house, I asked Mr. Vonnegut to prove to me that I wasn't dreaming, and that he was indeed real, and somehow visiting with me inside my head.

"I'll leave you with a joke... no, a wry story," he said. "How about that?"

"Okay," I said.

So here's the brief story that Kurt Vonnegut told me while I slumbered:

 .

There once was a medieval village in Scotland where high above on a hill was a great castle—it was the home of a wealthy Lord, his Lady, and their servants. One day a maiden from the castle came running frantically into the village.

"There's a murderer in the castle! Help me! There's a brutal murderer somewhere in the castle!" She screamed.

The elders in the village assembled a small group—armed with clubs and axes—and they set out to investigate the hullabaloo at the castle.

Entering the Great Hall, they found the Court Jester beaten to death on the floor. They went downstairs to the Bottlery Chamber, where they found the Sommelier cut to pieces with broken bottles.

"There's a madman on the loose!" Someone in the group yelled.

"A barbaric animal he is!" Someone else said.

"Who could do such a thing!" Someone chimed in.

The group went upstairs to the Minstrel's Gallery where they found all three musicians strangled with wires from their previously stringed instruments.

Upstairs on the third level, inside the Bower Room, the Fair Lady's body was found, raped and beaten.

"Where is this coward?" Someone blurted.

"He's a deadman when we find him!"  Someone else yelled.

"I'll gut the pig myself!" One of the villagers said.

On the fourth level, in the Throne Room, the Lord laid decapitated in a pool of blood. His head was nowhere to be found.

"To the Mezzanine!" Someone shouted.  

"Yes, the killer must be using the Mezzanine to get around the castle so quickly!" Replied a voice from the crowd.

And so the small mob of villagers ran out onto the Mezzanine—which overlooked the inner courtyard that was surrounded by the castle's outer walls—and in the courtyard below they saw 1,200 men from the King of England's army—many of whom were on horseback—and all armed to their teeth with bloody spears and swords.

The End. 

 .

I woke up this morning convinced that I'd actually met Kurt Vonnegut in my sleep.

 .

FiN.

Five Years Later - The Crass Media and the Death of Kurt Vonnegut

 .

 .

When Kurt Vonnegut died—five years ago today—Fox News aired a scathing obituary that mostly highlighted Vonnegut's fallacies as a father, writer, and as a human being.

                

 .

When I first saw the Fox Special Report on Vonnegut's death, I nearly became sick to my stomach. How could anyone—a newsgroup or otherwise—spin this incredible American writer's death into something political, especially the day after his death? Then, less than six months later, I got sick to my stomach again when my own father died, and his reputation as a U.S. Government photographer was dragged over the coals by a misinformed media. At the time I thought that my world, along with Dad's reputation and integrity, were quickly coming to an end.

But then something happened. I remembered that my favorite author was a cynical realist. Vonnegut was a chain-smoking doomsayer who had all but given-up on mankind's presumably inherent ability for us to be nice to each other. And unlike-wise, my Father had faith in mankind, and he knew that world peace was a very possible reality, although probably not during his lifetime. So I guess Dad was somewhat a realist too, although he didn't know it at the time.

I like to think that between these two men—one being a mentor and the other trying to be a Father to the best of his ability—I somehow found a happy medium that shaped me into the person I am today. A little bit of Yin, a little bit of Yang. There's positive and negative, good and bad, in everything. Without it, there can be no comparison. I would never want to live in a Utopia because really, what's the fun in that? Perpetual pure bliss? No thank you.

Even though the Fox News broadcast was inexcusable and very disappointing to Vonnegut's family and many fans, I actually think Vonnegut would have been amused by the televised obituary. I like to think that the day after his death, Kurt was hanging-out somewhere on a cloud, perhaps sitting next to Walter Cronkite, watching the special report.

"Well color me happy!" Vonnegut would exclaim while watching his own obituary on television, “By God, Fox News actually got something right for once! Stop the presses!"

Oh the hilarity! The above sentence is probably the best impression of Kurt Vonnegut I'll ever write.

I guess it all comes down to this in the end. Whitney's music will always be heard and Vonnegut's words will always be read, just like my Father's photographs will always be seen. And the media, no matter how crass and insensitive, no matter how blood-thirsty they are for controversy and viewership, can't take away the people's desire for authentic art, whether it be music, words, photographs or something else. The media may succeed in temporarily casting a thin veil over these great things—masquerading the person's highlights with their faults—but over time truth does eventually win.

If all the dead, criticized artists could speak, I think their message would be this:

"We did our work because we thought of it as being enjoyable and important. Forgive us."

And of course let's not forget what Vonnegut wrote in chapter 119 of Cat's Cradle:

Each one of us has to be what she or he is...

...We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodely do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.

It's been five years, and I still miss him terribly.

 .

FiN.

Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Offers Banned Novel to Students

 .

It's called a "typewriter."

 .

Until a few days ago I had no idea the two things I'm about to share happened. Sometimes I think Las Vegas might as well be on another planet, light-years away from Earth. You would think with the benefit of the Internet and my online subscriptions to The Huffington Post, The Week and The Daily Beast, pertinent news wouldn't slip by me—but apparently it often does.

Here's what I did know: Back in 1973 a school in Drake, North Dakota burned copies of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five in the school's furnace. Pissed off, Vonnegut respectfully wrote a letter to school board chairman Charles McCarthy, and you can read that letter here.

In the nearly forty years following the conflagration of the novel, more instances of schools banning Vonnegut's books have sporadically surfaced, but with the dawn of the new millennium—I thought (hoped?) society had left this type of unjust censorship behind.

As I often am though, I was wrong.

Here's what I didn't know: First, in August of last year, Missouri's Republic High School banned Slaughterhouse-Five, citing the novel teaches "principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth." I had no idea this asinine travesty had recently happened—again.

Second, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library did a beautiful thing. Thanks to an anonymous donor, all 150 students at Republic High School were given the opportunity to request a copy of Vonnegut's best selling anti-war novel, and at no charge—this being the other thing that somehow slipped by me—not the free books for the students, but the fact there's a Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library.

Nestled in the historic Emelie Building in the author's hometown of Indianapolis, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library opened in November of 2010. On display is his typewriter where visitors can type short messages to later be tweeted around the world. A stack of rejection letters are on display, along with an unopened pack of his Pall Mall cigarettes. Many of his drawings and artwork adorn the walls and there's a replica of his writing studio. Of course all his books are available—as are other things all Vonnegut. The library has monthly events and workshops and since it's non-profit, donations are gladly accepted. Depending on the amount, your donation can get you anything from a bumper sticker to an invitation to his birthday celebration every November 11th.

 Morley Safer of 60 Minutes introduces KVML

 .

I've written plenty about Kurt Vonnegut in the past. It's no secret I think of the man as a surrogate father because of the gigantic generation gap between myself and my own Father. You see, my Dad was much older than most fathers of kids my age, and I think this made him feel awkward at times. I wish he'd written down the things he didn't want to talk to me about—things for me to read later—but he didn't (because Dad wasn't much of a writer) so I guess you can say Kurt Vonnegut filled-in the empty spaces in my brain.

I love Kurt like he's one of my own—and I don't even have any kids. Besides the cigarettes, alcohol and humanist cynicism, we're both also connected by the same Latin words written on his pack of unfiltered Pall Malls and on my family's Irish crest—In Hoc Signo Vinces—by the sign of the cross, we shall conquer. Not that it means anything.

For me, Kurt is part father, part brother, part best friend. I think of him often.

So now I'm sitting here trying to figure out how and when I can get to Indianapolis because there's a birthday party there that's not to be missed.

FiN.

Dear Kurt Vonnegut

Dear Mr. Vonnegut,

Today is Veterans Day but as I learned while reading your book Palm Sunday in the 11th grade, this holiday was originally called Armistice Day. Today commemorates the signing of the armistice that ended the great war on the Western Front at 11am in the morning on the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 1918, but you already know all this stuff.

Today is a special Veterans Day because the date is 11/11/11. For some reason there were a lot of weddings here in Las Vegas—I guess couples like having an easy date to remember when it comes to their anniversaries. Personally, I wouldn't want my wedding to fall on a holiday that remembers and honors our military, but that's just me.

I read your book (I've read all your books!) Slaughterhouse-Five and I know how you were in the Army in Europe and how you were caught by the Germans and was a prisoner of war for six months. I also know how the Allies (your own team!) firebombed Dresden while you were imprisoned there and how afterwards you had to help dispose of the fifty-thousand dead civilians. Dresden, as you know, was a beautiful cultural city of little military importance. It was nicknamed the "Florence on the Elbe."

My father (I don't know if the two of you have ran into each other where you are now but I hope so) was also in World War II but was stationed in the Pacific. He too witnessed the horrors of more Allied bombings, these being the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just like Dresden, these two cities were of little military importance and a lot of women and children lost their lives.

Mr. Vonnegut, thanks to your books I learned at an early age how insane war and society and mankind can be. I think it's during one's high school and teenage years—when we are still impressionable and easily influenced—that we develop our beliefs and ideals that carry us into adulthood. My father never talked about what he saw in Japan until I was an adult but because of your books, I knew when Dad did finally start talking, he spoke the truth.

I wish to thank you and all veterans for serving in our Armed Forces. Because of people like you I've never had to experience war first hand and I'm grateful for that. I'm also sorry you got caught by the Germans and had to be a prisoner of war and had to pick-up a lot of dead bodies and burn them.

On a lighter note, remember how after being an atheist all your life you finally decided that there was a God? The proof, you said, was because of the existence of music. Shortly after writing this in your final essay (you didn't know it was your final essay at the time) you fell down and hit your head and died. I was really sad for a long time but that heaven-sent music you mentioned helped make me feel a little better.

Lastly, I want to wish you a Happy Birthday. Not only is today the day we honor veterans, but it's also the day I remember the man who taught me so much at a time when I really needed to learn.

Happy Birthday Mr. Vonnegut. I still miss you terribly.

Tyge