Only one reason why I think that the If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,
There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats blog is awesome:

Kurt Vonnegut is right up there with Haruki Murakami, Milan Kundera, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Buddha as my own personal Jesus.

The Last Rites of Bokononism

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait…
To find out for certain what my wampeter was…
And who was in my karass…
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

(via Alas, a Blog)

Answers to the following questions about Kurt Vonnegut from the gang at alt.books.kurt-vonnegut: Who is Kurt Vonnegut? What has he written? How can I write to Him? Is he on the net? Does he read this newsgroup? What about his uncollected short stories? All right then, so who wrote “Venus on the Half-Shell”? Can someone tell me where to find “Canary in a Cathouse”? Where can I find “Hal Irwin’s Magic Lamp”? Who is Kilgore Trout? Can you name any resources for finding rare and used Vonnegut books? Didn’t Vonnegut write a book using the name “Kilgore Trout” as a pseudonym? What is “Timequake”? What is “The Eden Express”? What books have been written about Vonnegut? Have any bands been influenced by Vonnegut’s writing? Where’s the “flying fuck” quote from? What movies been made from his books? Isn’t there a new movie coming out based on “Mother Night”? Has Vonnegut been in any movies? Are there any World Wide Web sites about Vonnegut? What has been the funniest post to a.b.k-v to date?

Alt.books.kurt-vonnegut FAQ

1. Who is Kurt Vonnegut?

Kurt Vonnegut was born on Armistice Day (November 11, 1922 – or
Veterans Day, as we call it now [read "Mother Night" by KV for more on
Armistice Day]) in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is, among other things, a
writer of science fiction and satire (and the occasional dictionary
review). A true master of contemporary American literature, he is the
author of eighteen highly acclaimed books, and dozens of short stories and
essays. Among his most known works are “The Sirens of Titan” (1959,)
“Cat’s Cradle” (1963,) and “Slaughterhouse-Five” (1969).

2. What has he written?

Here, in chronological order, is a complete bibliography of Vonnegut’s
books published in the U.S. and England (not counting foreign language
editions, or uncollected short stories). This list is as posted
by John Dinsmore (dinsmorej@uky.campus.mci.net):

All codes (e.g. AA1) refer to entires in the authoritative Pieratt &
Klinkowitz author bibliography (Archon, 1987).

Untermeyer, Louis, & Ralph E. Shikes, eds. The Best Humor Annual. Holt,
1951. 1st ed.
KV’s first published appearance in book format. “$3.50″ front flap.
Yellow cloth boards / printed dj. KV’s story “Epicac,” reprinted from
Collier’s, an early computer-related piece. Other authors in anthology:
John Lardner, H. Allen Smith, Roger Price, Red Smith, James Thurber, Ogden
Nash, Russell Lynes, Roger Angell, Peter deVries, Robert Ruark, S.J.
Perelman.

Player Piano.
1st trade ed. Scribner’s, 1952. 1st print: 7,600cc. AA1
“A” and Scribner’s seal at copyright page. Advance Review Copies:
25-30cc (est.)
1st Brit. ed. L, Macmillan, 1953. 2,000 to 3,000cc printed (1,000
pulped) AA10
Bantam pap. edition, 1954. retitled: Utopia 14. 248,000cc. AA3
reedition. Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. 1966. single print: 4,000cc. AA4

The Sirens of Titan.
1st trade ed. Dell, 1959. (pap. orig.) single print: 177,500cc. AB1
Reedition of 1st ed. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1961. 2,500cc. cloth/dj
AB2
Reprint ed. of 1st ed. Dell, 1966. 201,703cc. wraps. AB3
1st Brit. ed. L, Gollancz, 1962. 3 impressions, 1962. AB7

Canary In A Cathouse.
1st trade ed. Fawcett, 1961. Original Gold Medal Collection. wraps.
175,000cc. AC1

Mother Night.
1st trade ed. Fawcett, 1962. Original Gold Medal Collection. wraps.
175,000cc. AD1
Harper & Row, 1966. single print: 5,500cc. (1st ed. in cloth/dj) AD2
Avon edition, 1967. wraps. AD3
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1968. AD6

Cat’s Cradle.
1st trade ed. Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1963. 1st print: 6,000cc. AE1
1st Brit. ed. L, Gollancz, 1963. AE9

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater.
1st trade ed. Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1965. 1st print: 6,000cc. AF1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1965. AF8

Welcome to the Monkey House.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1968. 5,000cc AG1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1969. AG4

Slaughterhouse-Five.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1969. 1st print: 10,000cc. Uncorrected Proofs:
39cc. AH1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1970. AH8
Franklin Library, 1978. 25,000cc. sgd./leather/box. AH7

Happy Birthday, Wanda June.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1971. 1st print: 3,000cc. AI1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1972. AI5

Between Time and Timbuktu. Based on Vonnegut materials, with foreword
(only) by KV.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1972. AJ1
1st Brit. ed. L, Panther, 1975. pbo. AJ3

Breakfast of Champions.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1973. 1st print: 100,000cc. AK1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1973. 1st print: 8,500cc. AK7

Wampeters Foma Granfalloons.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1974. 1st print: 20,000cc. AL1
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1975. 1st print: 3,000cc AL4

Slapstick; Or, Lonesome No More!
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1976. 1st print: 85,000cc. AM1
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1976. 250cc no./sgd./slipcase. AM2
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1976. 1st print: 7,500cc. AM5
Franklin Library, 1976. sgd./leather/box.

Jailbird.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1979. 1st print: 90,700cc. AN1
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1979. 500cc no./sgd./slipcase. AN2
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1979. 1st print: 7,500cc. AN7

Sun Moon Star.
1st trade ed. Harper & Row, 1980. illus. Ivan Chermayeff. AO1
1st Brit. ed. L, Hutchinson, 1980. AO2

Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1981. 1st print: 69,500cc. AP1
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1981. 500cc no./sgd./slipcase. AP2
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1981. 1st print: 5,000cc. AP6

Deadeye Dick.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1982. 1st print: 100,000cc. AQ1
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1982. 350cc no./sgd./slipcase. AQ2
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1983. 1st print: 10,000cc. AQ7

Fates Worse Than Death. L, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1982.
pamphlet. AR1

Nothing Is Lost Save Honor. Jackson, Mississippi, Nouveau Press, 1985.
AS1
Ltd. ed. of 40cc no./sgd. quarter bound cloth
Ltd. ed. of 300cc no./sgd. half bound goatskin

Galapagos.
1st trade ed. Delacorte, 1985. AT1 (final “A” entry in Pieratt &
Klinkowitz bibliography)
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1985. 500cc no./sgd./slipcase.
Franklin Library, 1985. sgd./leather. precedes trade ed.
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1985.

Bluebeard.
1st trade ed. Delacorte,1987.
Ltd. signed ed. Delacorte, 1987. 500cc no./sgd./slipcase.
Franklin Library, 1987. sgd./leather.
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1988.

Who Am I This Time? For Romeos & Juliets. Minneapolis, Redpath Pres,
1987. plastic sleeve. illus. Barry Blitt. story first pub. in Monkey
House.

Hocus Pocus.
1st trade ed. Putnam, 1990.
Ltd. signed ed. Putnam, 1990. 250cc no./sgd./slipcase.
Franklin Library, 1990. sgd./leather.
1st Brit. ed. L, Cape, 1990.

Fates Worse Than Death.
1st trade ed. Putnam, 1991.
Ltd. signed ed. Putnam, 1991. 200cc no./sgd./slipcase.

Timequake. Work-in-progress. To be published by Putnam in 1995?

3. How can I write to Him?

I’m told he can be reached at this address:

Kurt Vonnegut
c/o Donald Farber
Farber Rich and Simmons
150 E. 58th St,
New York, NY 10155

4. Is he on the net? Does he read this newsgroup?

Perhaps in keeping with his take on technology as presented in “Player
Piano” and others of his novels, Kurt doesn’t seem to be at all into
“this internet thing.” Not completely unexpected, really. Thanks
to our own John Dinsmore, though, he has read this FAQ (version 2.0,) and
had this to say about it, in a letter dated Nov 5, 1995:

“The internet stuff is spooky. I am of course not on line.
I do remember ham radio operators though, usually in attics or
basements, pallid, unsociable, and obsessed, inhabiting a
spirit world, and harmless.”

Way off. Doesn’t sound like me at all. Nope. Nuh-uh. No way.
My computer is in a room on the *ground floor*, thank you very much!

5. What about his *uncollected* short stories?

Vonnegut has written many many short stories for a wide variety of
magazines and newspapers. His book “Welcome to the Monkey House” is a
collection of only 22 of his “best.” Here is the list from Klinkowitz and
Somer “The Vonnegut Statement” (1973) of as many of his other stories as
they were able to discover. Vonnegut has said that there are still a
few that these two guys weren’t able to find out about (and he hopes they
never do,) but I’d say this is about as complete a list as we’re going to
get for now. :-)
This was posted by William J. Herbst (wjh3578@is2.nyu.edu):

“Ambitious Sophomore” Sat. Eve. Post (May,1,1954)
“Any Reasonable Offer” Collier’s (1/19/52)
“Bagombo Snuff Box” Cosmopolitan (10/54)
“The Boy who Hated Girls” Sat. Eve. Post (3/31/56)”
“Custom-Made Bride” Sat. Eve. Post (3/27/54)
“Find Me a Dream” Cosmopolitan (2/61)
“Lovers Anonymous” Redbook (10/63)
“Mnemonics” Collier’s (4/28/51)
“A Night for Love” Sat. Eve. Post (11/23/57)
“The No-Talent Kid” Sat. Eve. Post (10/25/52)
“The Package” Collier’s (7/26/52)
“POOR Little Rich Town” Collier’s (10/25/52)
“The Powder Blue Dragon” Cosmopolitan (11/54)
“A Present for Big Nick” Argosy (10/54)
“Runaways” Sat. Eve. Post (4/15/61)
“Souvenir” Argosy (10/52)
“Thanasphere” Collier’s (9/2/50)
“This Son of Mine…” Sat. Eve. Post (8/18/56)
“2BRO2B” Worlds of If (1/62)
“Unpaid Consultant” Cosmopolitan (3/55)

6. Who wrote “Venus on the Half-Shell”?

This has been by far the most frequently asked question of the newsgroup.
The book is attributed to Kilgore Trout, a fictional author appearing in
many of Vonnegut’s works. In actuality, the book was written by Philip
Jose-Farmer. There have been reports from numerous sources that this is
the case, and that Vonnegut and Jose-Farmer themselves have each
identified Jose-Farmer as the real author. No, Kurt didn’t write it.
No, Kilgore Trout is not a real person. A later publication of the work
even correctly names Jose-Farmer as the author. If you’re looking
for it, I’d recommend looking under both the names Trout and Jose-Farmer;
if you find it under Vonnegut, it’s been misfiled.

On the subject, Chris A. Hall (chall@sutro.SFSU.EDU) writes:
In the introduction to his story “The Phantom of the Sewers” in
“Riverworld and Other Stories,” Farmer talks about his occasional habit
of writing “fictional author” stories as a method of breaking writer’s
block. According to him, “Venus on the Half-Shell” was the very first
of these attempts. He also says that that was him on the back cover
under all that hair (actually pieces of a wig glued to his face.)

I have not read the book, and there have been mixed reviews of it in the
newsgroup.

7. Can someone tell me where to find “Canary in a Cathouse”?

Well, the short answer is “lots of luck.” Though listed under “by the
same author” in thousands of recent publications of KV’s books, this book
has been out of print for years, and is rumored to be selling for over
$100 a copy now. It isn’t worth going after unless you are a serious
collector, because all it really is is 11 of the 22 stories that are also
in “Welcome to the Monkey House,” plus one extra, entitled “Hal Irwin’s
Magic Lamp.”
So what are the twelve stories in “Canary in a Cathouse”? Courtesy of
Jeff Rhodes (ir002222@interramp.com), they are:

“Report on the Barnhouse Effect”
“All the King’s Horses”
“D.P.”
“The Manned Missiles”
“The Euphio Question”
“More Stately Mansions”
“The Foster Portfolio”
“Deer in the Works”
“Hal Irwin’s Magic Lamp”
“Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog”
“Unready to Wear”
“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”

8. Where can I find Hal Irwin’s Magic Lamp? (Or “But I’ve just got to read
everything he’s ever written!”)

Well, if you can’t find “Canary in a Cat House” (see #7 above — “lots of
luck,”) check your local library. It can also be found in the June, 1957
issue of Cosmopolitan, on pages 92-95.

9. Who is Kilgore Trout?

Kilgore Trout is perhaps Vonnegut’s fictional alter ego. He is mentioned
in many of KV’s books as a little known science fiction writer who is
usually published in pornographic magazines and books with pictures of
“wide open beavers,” although his stories have nothing to do with the
accompanying photographs. Frequently, Vonnegut will give a synopsis
of an amusing story written by Trout, as read by one of Vonnegut’s main
characters. Trout himself is a main character only in one of Kurt’s
novels, “Breakfast of Champions,” where Vonnegut actually writes himself
in to his own book, and allows Trout to meet him.

10. Can you name any resources for finding rare and used Vonnegut books?

There is one who posts to this newsgroup from time to time. He is:

John Dinsmore & Associates, Booksellers
1037 Castleton Way South
Lexington, KY 40517-2724 USA
(606) 271-8042 Daily 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time
email: dinsmorej@uky.campus.mci.net
current catalogue: http://www.cyberspc.mb.ca/~scott/jda/
Modern First Editions and Fine Art

11. Didn’t Vonnegut write a story using the name “Kilgore Trout” as a
pseudonym?

No. See question #5, “Who wrote ‘Venus on the Half-Shell’?”

12. What is “Timequake”?

This is still a work in progress that is supposed to be Vonnegut’s next
and final novel. It was originally due to be published by Putnam in
1994, but then got pushed back to 1995, and is now “indefinite.” Some
people have the mistaken impression that it was published but then
yanked from the shelves, or published and now just really hard to find.
Not so.

I read an interview of Vonnegut last November in which he said that
he is frustrated with it, unhappy with how it’s coming, continually
rewriting this part or that. He said that it’s his last book and he
doesn’t want it to be a flop, he really wants to end his writing career
with a bang.

In any case, there’s no telling when this will be published, or if it
ever will. All we can do is hope, and keep our eyes and ears peeled!

13. What is “The Eden Express”?

Kurt’s son Mark Vonnegut wrote a book, “The Eden Express,” about his
episode with schizophrenia. I haven’t read it, and there have been mixed
reviews of it in the newsgroup.

14. What books have been written about Vonnegut?

Here’s a list of some of them, courtesy of Mic Platt
(mic@darkwing.uoregon.edu):

“The American Absurd: Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Barth” (Hipkiss)
“Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut” (Allan, Ed.)
“Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut” (Merrill)
“The Critical Response to Kurt Vonnegut” (Mustazza, Ed.)
“Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity: An Economic
and Social Perspective” (Block & Walker, Eds.)
–Kurt Vonnegut is a contributor to this book
“Forever Pursuing Genesis: The Myth of Eden in the Novels of Kurt
Vonnegut” (Mustazza, Ed.)
“Happy Birthday, Kurt Vonnegut.” (Jill Krementz)
–issued on the occasion of KV’s 60th birthday, November 11, 1982.
“Kurt Vonnegut, Fanatacist of Fire and Ice” (Goldmith)
“Kurt Vonnegut” (Lundquist)
“Kurt Vonnegut” (Klinkowitz)
“Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.” (Reed)
“Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.” (Schatt)
“Kurt Vonnegut: The Gospel from Outer Space (or, Yes we Have No Nirvanas)”
(Mayo)
“Kurt Vonnegut, Jr….a checklist” (Hudgens)
“Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A Descriptive Bibliography and Annotated Secondary
Checklist” (Pieratt & Klinkowitz)
“The New Realism of Heller, Kesey, and Vonnegut: A Study of Catch-22, One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Slaughterhouse 5″ (Gilligan)
“Rhetoric, Identity, and Morality in Selected Leter Novels of KV”
(Gholson)
“Sanity Plea: Schizophrenia in the Novels of KV” (Lawrence P. Broer)
“Slaughterhouse Five: Reforming the Novel and the World” (Klinkowitz)
“Understanding Kurt Vonnegut” (Allen)
“Vonnegut: A Preface to His Novels” (Giannone)
“Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of KV”
(Klinkowitz & Lawler, Eds.)
“The Vonnegut Encyclopedia: An Authorized Compendum” (Marc Leeds)
–with a foreword by Kurt Vonnegut
“The Vonnegut Statement” (Klinkowitz & Somer, Eds.)

Also:

“Justly Proud: A German American Family in Indiana” (Beverly Raffensperger
Fauvre) — about the old Indianapolis of the Vonneguts. Kurt
Vonnegut contributed some material. It was due to be released on
October 7, 1995.

15. Have any bands been influenced by Vonnegut’s writing?

Yes. Plenty of them. We keep getting posts to the group about various
artists who use Vonnegut characters (and other Vonnegutian nouns) as names
and/or song titles. Here’s the list so far:

The Karabekians (Netherlands)
Billy Pilgrim
Kilgore Trout
The Nixons do a song called “Foma.”
Guitarist Joe Satriani does a song called “Ice Nine” (On his album
“Dreaming #11.”)
The Grateful Dead publishes their music under their own company,
“Ice Nine Music.” They also used to own the movie rights for
“Sirens of Titan” before KV recently bought them back.

There is also a band called Deadeye Dick, and Ben Colmery
(barb.colmery@umich.edu) reports that he heard Casey Kasem specifically
say that they drew their name from the Vonnegut novel of the same name.

Finally, English folksinger Al Stewart wrote a song called “Sirens of
Titan” in 1975. Here are the lyrics, courtesy of Peter Wieriks
(peterwie@knoware.nl):

Sirens of Titan

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all
Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and ordered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head
I followed the call

Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth
But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the harmoniums make
The words on the walls

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds from my friends
Finding a home in the end of my days
Looking around I’ve only to say
I was a victim of a series of accidents
As are we all

“I adored Kurt Vonnegut, and Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan are
his best books, so I just decided to put Sirens into a song. The line ‘I
was a victim of a series of accidents’ comes from the book.” -sleeve
notes from Al Stewart on 1992 CD reissue.

16. Where’s the “flying fuck” quote from?

A favorite quote among at least a faction of the newsgroup readership,
the quote is thought to have originated in “Slapstick” (1976.) It
appears numerous times in that book, and actually becomes a bit of a
plot point. The quote is “why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling
doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”
(pp 163, among others.) But it was also found (by Kevin Brophy
(kevinb@drk.com) in “Slaughterhouse-Five.” “‘Go take a flying fuck at a
rolling doughnut,’ murmered Paul Lazzaro in his azure nest. ‘Go take a
flying fuck at the moon.’” (pp 147) This is the earliest known
appearance of the quote to date.

17. Have any movies been made from his books?

Perhaps the best one (according to almost everyone including Kurt) was
George Roy Hill’s 1972 “Slaughterhouse Five.” The 1984 Jerry Lewis /
Madeline Kahn film “Slapstick (Of Another Kind)” is widely regarded as
just plain terrible. Displaced Person (DP) is a short film that I
haven’t been able to get any info about. Glenn saw it some years ago,
and reports that it was pretty good. The 1971 “Happy Birthday, Wanda
June,” is a film that Vonnegut doesn’t like at all; he even tried to have
his name removed from it. As he writes in “Palm Sunday,” “This proved to
be impossible, however. I alone had done the thing the credits said I
had done. I had really written the thing.” (chap 18, pp 311) Finally,
“Mother Night” is new from Fine Line Features, due out on November 8th,
1996. Read about it in question #18 — “Isn’t there a new movie coming
out based on ‘Mother Night’?”

For TV movies, there was the 1972 “Between Time and Timbuktu” which was
done by PBS, and also a pair of movies made by Showtime at some point:
“Who am I this time?” starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken, and
“Harrison Bergeron,” starring Sean Astin and Christopher Plummer. I have
seen these in video rental stores in the USA; they are both very good and
worth seeing, even with “Harrison Bergeron” being quite expanded with only
very basic and thematic resemblance to the short story.

Showtime also breifly had a science-fiction series called “Kurt Vonnegut’s
Monkey House” made up of 25 minute episode adaptions of various Vonnegut
short stories, and this even included introductions by Kurt himself. I’m
told there is one more Showtime tape containing four of these stories:
“All the King’s Horses,” “Next Door,” “The Euphio Question,” and
“Fortitude,” and additional stories adapted in the series include “More
Stately Mansions” with Madeline Kahn, “EPICAC,” with Alley Sheedy, and
“The Foster Portfolio.” If anybody has any more concrete info about
these or any other Vonnegut related movies, please email me.

For more info about some of these KV movies, be sure to check out the KV
info at the Internet Movie Database.

Maybe some of our loyal readers can fill in some of the blanks they have
with even more specific info about these movies.

18. Isn’t there a new movie coming out based on “Mother Night”?

Yes! It’s true! It is distributed by Fine Line Features, and is
scheduled to open on November 8th, 1996. “Mother Night” is directed
by Keith Gordon, and the screenplay is by Robert Weide, who posts to
the newsgroup from time to time. The main cast is as follows:

Nick Nolte …. Howard Campbell
Sheryl Lee …. Helga Noth
John Goodman …. Wirtanen
Alan Arkin …. Kraft
David Straitharn …. O’Hare
Kirsten Dunst …. young Resi Noth

You can read about it at the Fine Line Features web page, which has
a plot summary and a picture.

Bob Weide is now working on a documentary on Kurt Vonnegut which he
hopes will be on PBS in a year or so and needs funds, and is also adapting
“The Sirens of Titan” for the screen as well, at the request of Vonnegut.
I for one can’t wait for the new movie, and hope that these other
projects also proceed unfettered.

19. Has Vonnegut been in any movies?

He appears for approximately five seconds in “Back To School” starring
Rodney Dangerfield. He delivers an essay about himself that Dangerfield
paid him to write. The essay is later graded ‘F,’ because “whomever
wrote this obviously knew *nothing* about Vonnegut!” (paraphrase)

Bob Weide also reports that Vonnegut does make a cameo appearance in the
new “Mother Night” movie! For more on “Mother Night,” again, see
question #18 above.

20. Are there any web sites about Vonnegut?

Boy, are we glad you asked! Check them out:

Kevin Boon’s Kurt Vonnegut Home Page has been growing steadily – lots of
jpegs and some other neat stuff.

Robert Daeley also has a thorough collection of material on Kurt, as
well as many other authors in his authors database.

The Michigan State University Celebrity Lecture Series includes an
internet presence, and they have an image, a sound file, and a brief
story about the lecture Vonnegut gave there in 1992.

Eric Scheur’s page houses the text of two of Vonnegut’s short stories,
and the full storybook (text and pictures) from KV’s children’s
book “Sun, Moon, Star.”

The Internet Movie Database has movie info on Kurt Vonnegut, peruse it at

The Indiana Historical Society houses a “Kurt Vonnegut and
Slaughterhouse-Five” essay.

Brian Rodriguez has a Vonnegut page with all the links, including a
link to the Vonnegut newsgroup, and answers to a few questions not on
this FAQ. (yet! :-) )

Marek Vit also has some interesting things, including some essay's he's
written, and some favorite quotes.

Finally, of course, you all must know about the usenet newsgroup
alt.books.kurt-vonnegut!

21. What has been the funniest post to a.b.k-v to date?

Well, IMHO, it was this one, from Corddry (corddry@aol.com):

> Does anybody recognize this quote from a Vonnegut novel?
>
> “Go take a flying fuck at a rolling Karass! Go take a flying fuck at
> the Dupraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!”
>
> I think it was in a book called “Venus in the Half-Shell” by a guy named
> Kilgore Trout which is actually Steven King’s first pen name under which
> he published “The Body” which was made into a great movie called
> “Slaughterhouse Five”, starring Karen Black, Bruce Davidson, and a man
> called Rory.

Then again, I suppose I could be wrong. :-)

That’s it for now. If there is any information that you feel should be in
here, or if you think something is wrong or out of date, please email me at
geocool@blarg.net
Any and all information and/or suggestions for improvement will be welcomed!

—————————————————————————
Maintained by George A Cooley (geocool@blarg.net, geocool@mit.edu)

–

Kurt Vonnegut, labeled as a science-fiction writer, soon became recognized as a social satirist for such works as Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Galapagos, and Mother Night. Vonnegut is best known for his irony, wild inventive humor, and the uneasy balance between technology and humanity. Vonnegut was a world-class curmudgeon.

Kurt Vonnegut From Wikipedia

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007) (pronounced ['v?.n?.g?t]) was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat’s Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973).

Early years of Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was born to third-generation German-American parents in Indianapolis, Indiana. As a high-schooler at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, Vonnegut worked on the nation’s first daily high school newspaper, The Daily Echo. He lived on Illinois Street in Indianapolis, and his boyhood home—featuring a handprint of baby Kurt set in concrete—went on sale in April 2007. He briefly attended Butler University, but dropped out when a professor said his stories were not good enough. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1942, where he served as assistant managing editor and associate editor for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, and majored in chemistry. While attending Cornell University he was a member of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity, following in the footsteps of his father. Nevertheless, Vonnegut often spoke and wrote about The Sun being the only enjoyable part of his time at Cornell. He enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1943. He studied there only briefly before enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II. On May 14, 1944, Mothers’ Day, his mother, Edith Lieber Vonnegut, committed suicide.

World War II and the firebombing of Dresden

Vonnegut’s experience as a soldier and prisoner of war had a profound influence on his later work. As an advance scout with the U.S. 106th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge, Vonneguet was cut off from his battalion and wandered alone behind enemy lines for several days until captured by German troops on December 14, 1944. While a prisoner of war, Vonnegut witnessed the aftermath of the February 13, 1945 – February 15, 1945 bombing of Dresden, Germany, which destroyed much of the city. Vonnegut was one of just seven American prisoners of war in Dresden to survive, in an underground meatpacking cellar known as Slaughterhouse Five. “Utter destruction,” he recalled. “Carnage unfathomable.” The Nazis put him to work gathering bodies for mass burial … Vonnegut explains. “But there were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Nazis sent in guys with flamethrowers. All these civilians’ remains were burned to ashes.” This experience formed the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five and is a theme in at least six other books.

Vonnegut was freed by Soviet troops in May 1945. Upon returning to America, Vonnegut was awarded a Purple Heart for what he called a “ludicrously negligible wound.”

Postbellum Career of Kurt Vonnegut

After the war, Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. According to Vonnegut in Bagombo Snuff Box, the university rejected his first thesis on the necessity of accounting for the similarities between Cubist painting and Native American uprisings of the late 19th century, saying it was “unprofessional.” They later accepted his novel Cat’s Cradle and awarded him the degree. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York, in public relations for General Electric. He attributes his unadorned writing style to his earlier reporting work.

On the verge of abandoning writing, Vonnegut was offered a teaching job at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. While he was there Cat’s Cradle became a best-seller, and he began Slaughterhouse-Five, now considered one of the best American Novels of the 20th century, appearing on the 100 best lists of Time magazine and the Modern Library.

Early in his adult life, he moved to Barnstable, Massachusetts, a picturesque town on Cape Cod.

Personal life of Kurt Vonnegut

He married his childhood sweetheart, Jane Marie Cox, after returning from World War II, but the couple separated in 1970. He did not divorce Cox until 1979, but from 1970 to 2000, Vonnegut lived with the woman who would later become his second wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

He had seven children: he shared three with his first wife, adopted his sister Alice’s three children when she died of cancer, and adopted another child, Lily. Two of these children have published books, including his only biological son, Mark Vonnegut, who wrote The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity, about his experiences in the late 1960s and his major psychotic breakdown and recovery; the tendency to insanity he acknowledged may be partly hereditary, influencing him to take up the study of medicine and orthomolecular psychiatry. Mark was named after Mark Twain, whom Vonnegut considered an American saint, and to whom he bears some resemblance, in both style and facial appearance.

His daughter Edith Vonnegut, an artist, has also had her work published in a book entitled Domestic Goddesses. Edith was once married to Geraldo Rivera. She was named after Kurt Vonnegut’s mother, Edith Lieber. His youngest daughter is Nanette, named after Nanette Schnull, Vonnegut’s paternal grandmother.

He was the younger brother of atmospheric scientist Bernard Vonnegut, now deceased.

Of Vonnegut’s four adopted children, three are his nephews: James, Steven and Kurt Adams; the fourth is Lily, a girl he adopted as an infant in 1982. James, Steven and Kurt were adopted after a traumatic week in 1958, in which their father was killed when his commuter train went off an open drawbridge in New Jersey, and their mother — Kurt’s sister Alice — died of cancer. The fourth and youngest of the boys, Peter Nice, went to live with a first cousin of their father in Birmingham, Alabama as an infant. Lily is a singer and actress.

On January 31, 2000, a fire destroyed the top story of his home. Vonnegut suffered smoke inhalation and was hospitalized in critical condition for four days. He survived, but his personal archives were destroyed. After leaving the hospital, he recuperated in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Death of Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut died at the age of 84 on April 11, 2007, in Manhattan, NY, after a fall at his Manhattan home several weeks prior resulted in irreversible brain injuries.

Works of Kurt Vonnegut

Writing career of Kurt Vonnegut

His first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” appeared in 1950 in Collier’s. His first novel was the dystopian science fiction novel Player Piano (1952), in which human workers have been largely replaced by machines. He continued to write science fiction short stories before his second novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959. Through the 1960s the form of his work changed, from the orthodox science fiction of Cat’s Cradle (which in 1971 got him his master’s degree) to the acclaimed, semiautobiographical Slaughterhouse-Five, given a more experimental structure by using time travel as a plot device.

These structural experiments were continued in Breakfast of Champions (1973), which included many rough illustrations, lengthy non-sequiturs and an appearance by the author himself, as a deus ex machina.

“This is a very bad book you’re writing,” I said to myself.
“I know,” I said.
“You’re afraid you’ll kill yourself the way your mother did,” I said.
“I know,” I said.

Vonnegut attempted suicide in 1985 and later wrote about this in several essays.

Breakfast of Champions became one of his best sellers. It includes, beyond the author himself, several of Vonnegut’s recurring characters. One of them, Kilgore Trout, plays a major role and interacts with the author’s character.

In addition to recurring characters, there are also recurring themes and ideas. One of them is ice-nine, said to be a new form of ice with a different crystal structure from normal ice. When a crystal of ice-nine is brought into contact with liquid water, it becomes a seed that ‘teaches’ the molecules of liquid water to arrange themselves into ice-nine. However, this process is not easily reversible, as the melting point of ice-nine is 114.4 degrees Fahrenheit (45.8 degrees Celsius). Ice-nine could be considered a fictionalization of the real scientific controversy surrounding polywater, a hypothetical form of water which has since been disproved.

Although many of his later novels involved science fiction themes, they were widely read and reviewed outside the field, not least due to their anti-authoritarianism. For example, his seminal short story Harrison Bergeron graphically demonstrates how even the debatably noble sentiment of egalitarianism, when combined with too much authority, becomes horrific repression.

In much of his work Vonnegut’s own voice is apparent, often filtered through the character of science fiction author Kilgore Trout (based on real-life science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon), characterized by wild leaps of imagination and a deep cynicism, tempered by humanism. In the foreword to Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut wrote that as a child, he saw men with locomotor ataxia, and it struck him that these men walked like broken machines; it followed that healthy people were working machines, suggesting that humans are helpless prisoners of determinism. Vonnegut also explored this theme in Slaughterhouse-Five, in which protagonist Billy Pilgrim “has come unstuck in time” and has so little control over his own life that he cannot even predict which part of it he will be living through from minute to minute. Vonnegut’s well-known phrase “So it goes”, used ironically in reference to death, also originated in Slaughterhouse-Five and became a slogan for anti-Vietnam War protestors in the 1960s. “Its combination of simplicity, irony, and rue is very much in the Vonnegut vein.”

With the publication of his novel Timequake, Vonnegut announced his retirement from writing fiction. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times until his death in 2007, focusing on subjects ranging from contemptuous criticism of President George W. Bush’s administration to simple observational pieces on topics such as a trip to the post office. In 2005, many of his essays were collected in a new bestselling book titled A Man Without a Country, which he insisted would be his last contribution.

An August 2006 article reported:

He has stalled finishing his highly anticipated novel If God Were Alive Today – or so he claims. “I’ve given up on it … It won’t happen. … The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people’s discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, ‘Please, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?’ That’s what I feel right now. I’ve written books. Lots of them. Please, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Can I go home now?”

Design career of Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut’s work as a graphic artist began with his illustrations for Slaughterhouse-Five and developed with Breakfast of Champions, which included numerous felt-tip pen illustrations, such as anal sphincters, and other, less indelicate images. Later in his career, he became more interested in artwork, particularly silk-screen prints, pursued in collaboration with Joe Petro III.

More recently, Vonnegut participated in the project The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were, where he created an album cover for Phish called Hook, Line and Sinker, which has been included in a traveling exhibition for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Beliefs of Kurt Vonnegut

Politics of Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut was a humanist; he served as Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having replaced Isaac Asimov in what Vonnegut called “that totally functionless capacity”. He was deeply influenced by early socialist labor leaders, especially Indiana natives Powers Hapgood and Eugene V. Debs, and he frequently quotes them in his work. He named characters after both Debs (Eugene Debs Hartke in Hocus Pocus) and Russian socialist leader Leon Trotsky (Leon Trotsky Trout in Galapagos). He was a lifetime member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and was featured in a print advertisement for them.

Walter Starbuck, the main character of his novel Jailbird, was a minor bureaucrat in the Nixon administration who found himself swept up in the Watergate scandal. Otherwise, while he frequently addressed moral and political issues, Vonnegut rarely dealt with specific political figures until after his retirement from fiction. His collection God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian referenced controversial assisted suicide proponent Jack Kevorkian.

With his columns for In These Times, he began a blistering attack on the administration of President George W. Bush and the Iraq war. “By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East?” he wrote. “Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December.”

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.”

In 2005 Vonnegut was interviewed by David Neson for The Australian. During the course of the interview Vonnegut was asked his opinion of modern terrorists, to which he replied “I regard them as very brave people.” When pressed further Vonnegut also said that “They [suicide bombers] are dying for their own self-respect. It’s a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It’s [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you’re nothing … It is sweet and noble – sweet and honourable I guess it is – to die for what you believe in.” (This last statement is a reference to the line “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” ["it is sweet and appropriate to die for your country"] from Horace’s Odes, or possibly from Wilfred Owen’s ironic use of the line in his Dulce Et Decorum Est.) David Neson took offense to Vonnegut’s comments and characterized him as an old man who “doesn’t want to live any more … and because he can’t find anything worthwhile to keep him alive, he finds defending terrorists somehow amusing.” Vonnegut’s son, Dr. Mark Vonnegut responded to the article by writing an editorial to the Boston Globe in which he explained the reasons behind his father’s “provocative posturing” and stated that “If these commentators can so badly misunderstand and underestimate an utterly unguarded English-speaking 83-year-old man with an extensive public record of exactly what he thinks, maybe we should worry about how well they understand an enemy they can’t figure out what to call.”

A 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine stated, ” … it’s not surprising that he disdains everything about the Iraq War. The very notion that more than 2,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in what he sees as an unnecessary conflict makes him groan. ‘Honestly, I wish Nixon were president,’ Vonnegut laments. ‘Bush is so ignorant.’ ”

Writing of Kurt Vonnegut

On pages 9 and 10 of his book, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut stated that there are eight rules for writing a short story.

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.

In Chapter 18 of his book Palm Sunday “The Sexual Revolution,” Vonnegut grades his own works. He states that the grades “do not place me in literary history” and that he is comparing “myself with myself.” The grades are as follows:

* Player Piano: B
* The Sirens of Titan: A
* Mother Night: A
* Cat’s Cradle: A-plus
* God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
* Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus
* Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus
* Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
* Breakfast of Champions: C
* Slapstick: D
* Jailbird: A
* Palm Sunday: C

Trivia of Kurt Vonnegut

In 1974, Venus on the Half-Shell, a book by Philip José Farmer aping the style of Vonnegut and attributed to Kilgore Trout, was published. This action caused some confusion amongst readers.

Vonnegut played himself in a cameo in 1986′s Back To School, in which he is hired by Rodney Dangerfield’s Thornton Melon to write a paper on the topic of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. Recognizing the work as not Melon’s own, Professor Turner tells him, “Whoever did write this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.”

Vonnegut also makes brief cameos in the film adaptations of his novels Mother Night and Breakfast of Champions. Night was directed by Keith Gordon, who starred as Rodney Dangerfield’s son in Back To School. He also makes a cameo appearance in his own novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, in which the protagonist is held at the same German prisoner-of-war camp as Vonnegut.

Vonnegut has given commencement addresses at Southampton College (in 1981), Syracuse University (in 1984), Rice University (in 1998), and Agnes Scott College (in 1999). There was a widely-circulated urban legend on the Internet that he gave a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997 in which he issued simple advice, most notably advising students to “wear sunscreen”. In fact, the commencement speaker at MIT in 1997 was Kofi Annan and the supposed Vonnegut speech was an article published in the Chicago Tribune on June 1, 1997 by columnist Mary Schmich. The premise of the Schmich column was used as the basis for a novelty pop song by Baz Luhrmann in 1999.

* Vonnegut maintained a long friendship with the writer Joseph Heller. The two met in April, 1968 on the night Martin Luther King Jr was shot, while both were attending a literary festival at the University of Notre Dame. Heller and Vonnegut recalled the meeting and spoke of their long association in a 1992 interview in Playboy.
* Vonnegut reportedly smoked Pall Mall cigarettes, unfiltered, which he claimed is a “classy way to commit suicide.”
* Vonnegut claimed to have run a car dealership called “Saab Cape Cod” in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, but failed to sell the Swedish two-stroke SAAB cars, and went into bankruptcy. He jokingly said that this may be the reason he has never received a Nobel Prize.
* The asteroid 25399 Vonnegut is named in his honor.
* Vonnegut taught an advanced writing class at Smith College for a period in 2000. He has been a lecturer at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and at Harvard University, as well as a Distinguished Professor at the City College of New York.
* In early 2006, while speaking at The Ohio State University, which he proclaimed would be the bookends of his college speaking career, as the first and last school he would ever speak at, Kurt Vonnegut said: “If you really want to disappoint your parents, and don’t have the nerve to be gay, go into the arts.” This quote also appears in Bluebeard, Timequake and A Man Without a Country.
* He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001–2003. Indianapolis named 2007 “The Year of Vonnegut.”
* In the novel Timequake, Vonnegut writes that his alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, (also) dies at the age of eighty-four. Kilgore dies in luxury in the Ernest Hemingway Suite of the writer’s Xanadu in the summer resort village of Point Zion, Rhode Island.

“Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.” Via the New York Times

I have a $100 wager with a buddy that Saddam Hussein will never be put to death.

We made it back when Saddam Hussein was just yanked out of the spider hole. I don’t believe Hussein will ever be put to death. I believe, in proof that truth is stranger than fiction, that Saddam Hussein will find his Blue Fairy Godmother before he hits the gallows. From a review of Mother Night:

“Three months before the Americans enter the war, Howard’s ‘Blue Fairy Godmother,’ an anonymous representative of the U.S. War Department (John Goodman) approaches him to spy for the Americans. Campbell is to pretend to be a Nazi, broadcasting coded information during anti-semitic propaganda on his weekly radio show. The American government, he is warned, will never acknowledge his role. ‘You must be careful what you pretend to be,’ he writes in his memoirs later. ‘Because in the end, you are what you pretend to be.’”

“After being captured by the Americans (David Strathairn plays the G.I. who captures this Nazi propaganda machine), Campbell is again visited by his fairy godmother who quietly arranges his release and relocation to a life of anonymity in a Greenwich Village apartment.”

That’s what I think is going to happen with former US ally Saddam Hussein. Do you think I will win or lost $100?

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “it doesn’t get better than this.” What a fine day on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

I got up in time for church this morning, Saint James’ (awesome sermon — Father Downing is the Sermonator), ate well at the pot luck coffee hour, walked to Murky, ran into Julia while awaiting Sarah, down from NYC.

We spent the rest of the afternoon together drinking coffee and then walked around Eastern Market.

Julia and I grabbed some lunch at Mr. Henry’s, met Danny from church there and had him join us, walked back to the market, dropped Jules off at Murky’s, then walked back to 8th & C, NE, to grab the car, and then drove over to visit Sarah as she packed, readying herself for the return trip to Brooklyn. In all, that was a perfect day.

I am off to a run now.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of playing house. This included the herculean task of fitting a round peg into a square hole. Egad.

On Saturday, I helped receive a huge 500-pound-plus rough-hewn kitchen island into Wendy’s home in McLean.

This was not the typical kitchen island but a heavy, solid-wooden work table rife with iron fittings. No Ikea piece here. Easily weight-bearing — for an elephant.

We knew the entire time that there was a chance that the island wouldn’t fit throught the door to the kitchen. I spend the morning unfastening doors from their jams and clearing the way.

It for sure didn’t fit. Not even remotely, not even just about.

The delivery guy and I tried any number of angles of attack, strategies, and tactics. Wendy almost gave up and sent it back to the antique dealer. We even started to dismantle it by removing the casters.

After removing the casters didn’t work, we decided to unfasten some bolts. Our purpose was to remove two of the legs. We knew it would then be a simple process to bring her in. And it was simple, until we realized that the legs were fastened not merely by the bolts but also by wooden pegs and by long nails.

We asked Wendy if it would be okay to rip two legs from the island. We had a vague idea that we would be able to reassemble it after we got it through the door.

She agreed to it, and I can’t believe we were able to turn her our way. I don’t know how much confidence either of us really had.

Wendy blanched and bolted upstairs as we started wrenching the legs. She just disappeared. Poof. Smart girl, because what happened after that pretty ugly. At the very least, it sounded like we were tearing the valuable and expensive antique to pieces.

We finally pulled both legs clear moved the island into the kitchen. We were even able to reassemble the entire thing into something resembling “just new.”

I attained “Most Capable and Useful Man” standing with her — I still have loads of points left.

The rest of the day was spent playing more house, including visits to Giant, the hardware store, the cafe, some Asian dinner, a visit to her parents’ house amd some weekend vegetating.

To tell you the truth, if I had a choice between living la vida loca and taking the domestic weekend path, I have to choose playing house.

How old does that make me. I loved it.

I shovelled snow, removed and attached doors, manhandled furniture, I hung out in hardware stores, visited parents, went grocery shopping, napped while watching cable, read the paper, sat and talked, and just farted around.

Fantastic!

The only thing missing was cooking, although I did make a pretty nice pot of coffee before the weekend was complete and that’s something.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “it doesn’t get better than this.”

I am both proud and disappointed that I have read thirty-four of the top 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present from Time Magazine. Via J-Walk Blog.

READ:
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow

All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral
Philip Roth

READ:
An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser

READ:
Animal Farm
George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra
John O’Hara

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Judy Blume

The Assistant
Bernard Malamud

At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O’Brien

Atonement
Ian McEwan

READ:
Beloved
Toni Morrison

The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder

Call It Sleep
Henry Roth

READ:
Catch-22
Joseph Heller

READ:
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

READ:
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess

The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

READ:
The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon

A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell

The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West

Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather

A Death in the Family
James Agee

The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

READ:
Deliverance
James Dickey

Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone

Falconer
John Cheever

The French Lieutenant’s Woman
John Fowles

The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessig

Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin

READ:
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell

READ:
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck

READ:
Gravity’s Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon

READ:
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene

READ:
Herzog
Saul Bellow

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul

I, Claudius
Robert Graves

READ:
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace

READ:
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

Light in August
William Faulkner

READ:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis

READ:
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

READ:
Lord of the Flies
William Golding

READ:
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkein

Loving
Henry Green

Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis

The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead

Midnight’s Children
Salman Rushdie

Money
Martin Amis

The Moviegoer
Walker Percy

READ:
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch
William Burroughs

READ:
Native Son
Richard Wright

READ:
Neuromancer
William Gibson

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

READ:
1984
George Orwell

READ:
On the Road
Jack Kerouac

READ:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ken Kesey

The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov

A Passage to India
E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion

READ:
Portnoy’s Complaint
Philip Roth

Posession
A.S. Byatt

The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Rabbit, Run
John Updike

Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow

The Recognitions
William Gaddis

Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles

READ:
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut

READ:
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth

READ:
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner

The Sportswriter
Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John LeCarre

READ:
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway

READ:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

READ:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller

Ubik
Philip K. Dick

Under the Net
Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowrey

Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

READ:
White Noise
Don DeLillo

White Teeth
Zadie Smith

Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys

“The only way to tell a good painting from a bad painting is to look at a million paintings.” – Kurt Vonnegut