So it goes.
Listen: Kurt Vonnegut has come unstuck in time.
Yesterday I was searching the internet for Vonnegut quotes. I didn't know he was dying. Didn't know he was even sick.
There's a point to be made here. It is not that I have supernatural powers. I did not magically sense his death from afar. No.
That kind of thinking ignores all the times I pulled his books down from the shelf, all the times I looked to him for entertainment or inspiration, all those times I did these things and he didn't die. But this time he did.
So it goes.
When I was 15, Mrs. Peterson handed me Cat's Cradle. We were fresh off Ethan Frome and that fucking pickle jar. "You'll like this one," she said.
She wasn't wrong.
Every few years I go on a Vonnegut bender. It starts with an old friend like Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five. Proceeds through the lesser knowns, the Player Piano's or Hocus Pocus's. Ends with a sense that my moral compass has been sufficiently recalibrated.
So it goes.
Yesterday one of those quotes I found was the Bokononist Last Rites. Here it is:
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 that 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.
God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.
Yesterday I was searching the internet for Vonnegut quotes. I didn't know he was dying. Didn't know he was even sick.
There's a point to be made here. It is not that I have supernatural powers. I did not magically sense his death from afar. No.
That kind of thinking ignores all the times I pulled his books down from the shelf, all the times I looked to him for entertainment or inspiration, all those times I did these things and he didn't die. But this time he did.
So it goes.
When I was 15, Mrs. Peterson handed me Cat's Cradle. We were fresh off Ethan Frome and that fucking pickle jar. "You'll like this one," she said.
She wasn't wrong.
Every few years I go on a Vonnegut bender. It starts with an old friend like Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five. Proceeds through the lesser knowns, the Player Piano's or Hocus Pocus's. Ends with a sense that my moral compass has been sufficiently recalibrated.
So it goes.
Yesterday one of those quotes I found was the Bokononist Last Rites. Here it is:
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 that 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.
God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.