April 21, 2007

  • A Brief Homage to Kurt Vonnegut

    Well, we had fun with my little True Friends test, but it appears to have about run its course.  The fun with the test, that is.  Not your friendship, for which I am most grateful and desirous of its continuation.

    Often, as I am reading certain books, I will take the time to type out quotes from the book that have particularly impressed or affected me.  I do this mostly for your edification, since I am not the type of blogger who would blog in the absence of you my readers; nor would I be inclined to read the quotes again unless there was some external reason for doing so.

    Such a book was Timequake, a rather odd rambling novelette of relatively recent (1997) vintage, considerably less well-known than many of his earlier works, by the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut.  Happy 10th anniversary, Timequake.  The book reads much like Vonnegut's speeches and interviews, sort of disjointed and whimsical but containing nuggets of pure wisdom. 

    Given Vonnegut's recent passing, now seems as good a time as any to trot out the passages from Timequake that I thought were worth sharing.  Please note that Kilgore Trout is a fictional character whom Vonnegut uses as a literary device to sort of hold the book together.  Note also that I, unlike Vonnegut and Kilgore Trout, occasionally use semicolons; I have an eccentric fondness, let us say, for transvestite hermaphrodites.

    Enjoy.

    **********

                    I am too
    lazy to chase down the exact quotation, but the British astronomer Fred Hoyle
    said something to this effect: That believing in Darwin’s theoretical
    mechanisms of evolution was like believing that a hurricane could blow through
    a junkyard and build a Boeing 747.
                    No matter
    what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros
    are ridiculous.
                    And so is
    the human brain, capable, in cahoots with the more sensitive parts of the body,
    such as the ding-dong, of hating life while pretending to love it, and behaving
    accordingly: “Somebody shoot me while I’m happy!”

                Kilgore
    Trout, the ornithologist’s son, wrote in My Ten Years On Automatic Pilot:
    “The Fiduciary is a mythological bird. 
    It has never existed in Nature, never could, never will.”
                Trout is
    the only person who ever said a fiduciary was any sort of bird.  The noun (from the Latin fiducia,
    confidence, trust) in fact identifies a sort of Homo sapiens who will
    conserve the property, and nowadays especially paper or computer
    representations of wealth, belonging to other people, including the treasuries
    of their governments.
                He or she
    or it cannot exist, thanks to the brain and the ding-dong, et cetera.  So we have in this summer of 1996, rerun or
    not, and as always, faithless custodians of capital making themselves multimillionaires
    and multibillionaires, while playing beanbag with money better spent on
    creating meaningful jobs and training people to fill them, and raising our
    young and retiring our old in surroundings of respect and safety.
                For
    Christ’s sake, let’s help more of our frightened people get through this thing,
    whatever it is.

                Why throw
    money at problems?  That is what money is
    for.
                Should the
    nation’s wealth be redistributed?  It has
    been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly
    unhelpful.

                Let me note
    that Kilgore Trout and I have never used semicolons.  They don’t do anything, don’t suggest
    anything.  They are transvestite
    hermaphrodites.

                Yes, and
    any dream of taking better care of our people might as well be a transvestite
    hermaphrodite without some scheme for giving us all the support and
    companionship of extended families, within which sharing and compassion are
    more plausible than in an enormous nation, and a Fiduciary may not be as
    mythical as the Roc and the Phoenix after all.

    - Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997), pages 162-164

Comments (34)

  • Kurt Vonnegut was a thoughtful, interesting author. And, as with many thoughtful and interesting authors, he was tormented.

    For Christ’s sake, let’s help more of our frightened people get through this thing, whatever it is.

    Why throw money at problems? That is what money is for.
    Should the nation’s wealth be redistributed? It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful.

    Two of the best quotes in your thread for me, especially the money quote...thanks for sharing these with us.

  • Oh, I've seen this stars and votes thing. How does one vote? And what is the deal, do you know?

  • Thanks! That was fun.

  • "Should the nation’s wealth be redistributed?  It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful." I love that one, which I've never heard before. Now that he's gone I regret that I didn't read more of his work. Not that it will disappear or anything, of course. I aren't at my best this early in the morning, but I aren't so bad either.

  • as you may have guessed, , , a howard the duck comic book (the old one, before disney stepped in with its lawsuit and ruined howard) is heavy reading for me.  so i obviously have never heard of either of these characters, , , unless kilgore is the one leaving all the messages on the wall back during wwll.

    after i read the post tho i continued to scroll down to your last post.  and noted the comment, , , use your xanga names.  and i happened to think, , , this quiz is outside xanga  and therefore it is possible, , , isnt it? that people outside xanga read your post and possibly do on a regular basis, , , i see one of them scored rather high didnt they?

    just a thought. , , , but when have i ever been wrong?

  • I just can't come out against semicolons; occasionally they are useful.

  • My 7th grader just did an exercise with semicolons; it seemed useless to me.    I have never read Vonnegut.  Interesting. 

  • One of the few times I've smiled today. Thanks!

  • I'm too lazy to read Vonnegut's full works and too impatient to sift through the ramblings to find the nuggets of wisdom.  Maybe I should just look at the wikiquote page.  Semicolons are wonderful and underappreciated; they show a close relationship between sentences.

  • I think I'll read something else by Vonnegut soon.  One of my favorites is "We could have saved the Earth but we were just too damned cheap." -->; <--however,  the majority of those promoting green are the most toxic.  

  • RYC:  I like your idea on how to get some swimming in.  Actually, I've never traveled to those beautiful places, but I sure would like to some day.  I did not pay them anything yet!  I have learned that lesson.

  • Ok, I'm still stuck on trying to picture transvestite hermaphrodites....

  • I'm with MorningGloria; we're looking at the side show.  I read some Vonnegut back then but I've lost most of it.

  • one out of three aint bad. . . cigarettes.  hahahaha, , , cheaper there than in mexico.  and more legal.  they do demand i pay $15 a carton for smokes brought over from mexico, , , and thats state tax only, , , federal tax allows you one carton free. the state is greedy, , , a carton of smokes, , , my brand montana, , , about $20. . . add  $15, , , thats awful close to $35  plus thats only one carton, , , i dont even know if more than one is allowed.   one carton will not last me a week.

    i can buy them in kentucky for around $17 a  carton, , , state and federal taxes included.  and i can bring back more than one carton more or less legally.  i have not checked to see if there is a limit i can cross state lines with and i am not going to, , , they are not for sale, , , they are mine. , , and amazingdoggos, , , and well, , , i pick up some for the mangager of my apts here.

    i do not buy them by the truckloads, , , but i do buy enough  to last a couple of weeks, , , and like this week, , , there are 9 people going i just heard, , , so im gonna skip another week, , , thats a little crowded for  me, , , i like to stretch out when im sleeping, , , not sitting up.

    but dont worry, , , no panic , , , yet, , , i still have about 6 cartons of smokes in reserve.

  • im assuming you dont smoke, , , or you would know that about kentucky, , , lucky you, , , like a trip to the grocery store to get to kentucky from illinois.

  • Huh? (in reference to your email) stay blessed

  • Thank you. I read this book when it was first published 10 years ago, and now I will revisit it. Vonnegut was one of the greatest. Tortured and tormented yes. But a good example of 20th century literature. S

  • ryc: LOL! Me & Max=no go.

    hahahah! that was so funny to me! Max is married. but if he wasnt i would indeed marry him!

  • I always liked Vonnegut. I'm glad we are fortunate enough to have his published works.

    RYC: I watched Scarface once; only once. I could not have sat through it again, ever. As for the migraines, I am indeed a migraineur. I used to get one or two a month like clockwork. As I get older I find that some months I don't get one, and other months (like this one) I have several. Sometimes I vomit, other times I only have the pain and aural effects (the latter just having started recently). Interestingly, my body lacks the enzyme needed to metabolize the newest drugs for migraines, so my doc has me on a barbiturate/caffeine/aspirin combo (and has this month added codeine - which makes me nauseated), and it usually helps a bit, but not always. I have found that morphine helps the best with the pain, but alas, they will not give that to me on a regular basis.

  • ryc: ha. why i look the way i do? what was is that, haha?

  • *waves* hiya...how art thou?

  • RYC: Thank you (about the daughters comment). That's not me on most days, lol. I just had some nasty person anonymously comment me as "God" who said I had miscreant children, and it was misleading to use such an attractive profile picture when I was not at all attractive. He/she/it must've thought that was me as well. LOL. Whatever. They must not really know me, or it's an ex-husband.

  • guru-onthe-hill had a better explanation... agape is better left between man and God...

    and for a con of complex thought, look up my theories on sex

  • thank your for your visit
    and comments
    Native American Words of Wisdom
    a link for the quote

  • ryc: ha. good question. how you been? thanks for commenting, it's always good to hear from you.

  • You should have seen it before I went back and fixed the first few "globals".

    Canada and Canadians, I feel the same way as you do. They are usually much to nice to bash Americans if they know I am one. I hear more of it on the radio than in person. I like BC, I go up there a lot.

  • well, , , i dont figure in the cost of gas since i dont pay for any, , , i dont pay for anything, , , except my smokes, , , and not even all of them, , , i pay for the smokes i bring home.  gambling money for the casino in (or near) clarksville indiana is also included as an incentive to lure me to kentucky, , , altho i would usually like to pass on that since they like to do the casino thing on thursday nite which i visualize as cutting into traveling time to get back home. (i like to leave on thursday)  this time i picked up 14 cartons, , , 4 for me, , , 4 for amazingdoggo , , , and 6 for my landlady.  i have been buying marlboros and camels at a savings of about, , , hahahaha, , , i dont even know, , , i would not even think about buying them in texas.  i spoiled myself buying my smokes in mexico, , , however since the texas state tax went up to $15 a carton and mexican smokes are now near $20  that is a stupid alternative, , , $35 a carton and i could only bring one carton.  that is for real not worth the trip.  my landlady tells me she was paying around $80 a carton for doral, , , i guess thats around $40 a carton, , , im sure thats off a little, , , that sounds a little high to me, , , even for texas, , , but the high 30s does sound about right.  for $105 all tax included i got her 6 cartons of kentuckys best (which i dont know if its a generic brand or merely a small company, , , they are quality smokes according to my smoke buds)  so altho its not my savings, , , i seem to have saved her around $140.00, , , all in all, , , i probably save near $300 a trip.  im sure kentucky will fall soon to the anti smoking nazis, , , but in the meantime, , , as far as comparison, , , the smokes are free and i get a  discount on the taxes, , , federal taxes anyway, , , i gave $16.50 a carton for them (plus or minus a few pennies)  and in texas, , , the state tax alone is $15.00 a carton.  im sure federal tax is more than 1.50 a carton.

    if you quit smoking and are happy with it, , , i am happy for you, , , i have never known many who could quit, , , and the one i can think of off the top of my head said 14 years later, , , he would kill for a cigarette, , , hahahahahahahaha, , , i do not want to go thru life like that.  often wished i did not smoke, , , but, , , i dont believe in crying over spilt milk, , , whats done is done, , , so , , , oh well.

    they (the mexicans) would be trying to lure me to kentucky with or without the smokes and unfortunately i have met people there who i do enjoy going back and visiting with, , , and if worse came to worse, , , i guess i could just buy a case of smokes and i would be fixed up for about a year, , , hahahahaha, , , i bought about 1/4 a case this week.  the only problem with that plan being, , , if i was stopped by out of state police and the smokes were found, , , i would probably be accused of smuggling smokes to sell at a discount price, , , i have found most police to be hard to convince they are total idiots as well as judges, , , i did in fact buy 2 cases once and smoked on them forever, , , they were bought in texas tho at a more smoke friendly time at a buy one get on free price, , , came to $6 a carton.  and i only had to smuggle them a couple of blocks.

  • ps, , , if worse comes to worse, , , i will merely move back to mexico and buy my smokes at the tax free stores on the us side of the border, , , and i can take them into mexico tax free as well, , , only mexicans are charged for importing smokes.  last time i bought smokes there, , , i gave $10 a carton for winstons, , ,

  • ok, , , before you come and tell me the word is misspelled, , , i know it, , , and i asked the idiot, , , is that the way you spell it?  he said yes, , , hahahahahaha, , , it dont matter, , , nobody will know but you.

  • ryc:  Thanks!  As far as being neat goes, that doesn't apply everywhere.  You should see my closet.  It's HORRIBLE.  I can hardly stand to go in it.  I'm tackling it tonight hopefully.  The fridge and pantry are always neat though.

  • Hi John,I wanted to say hi,and ask how you are doing? Do you have your radio program's playlist all figured out for this week?
    I have never read a book by Kurt Vonnegut but I saw the movie Happy Birthday, Wanda June .

  • I am sorry that you had a miserable birthday!!! Blessed sleep is such a welcome releif sometimes.
    I love the song "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"  I will look for that version.
    I hope that today is better than yesterday for you.

  • Happy (belated) Birthday to you!!!

  • FABULOUS post John!

    I'm still your biggest fan! *Grins*

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