media Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’

Posted April 12, 2007 • Comments Off on Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’

Kurt Vonnegut has died, and I’m sad.

His books have brought so much to my life, ever since I was assigned Cat’s Cradle in high school, through my re- and re- and re-reading of it, through loving Slaughterhouse-Five and then, in college, Hocus Pocus, which I still quote silently to myself sometimes. Slapstick is on the first edition of the book list, from nearly ten years ago. And that’s just a few high points.

There’s a slipcased edition of five of his books (Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, The Sirens of Titan, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater [which is subtitled “Pearls Before Swine”]) on a bookcase five feet from me. This set of books is almost as old as I am. I’ve had it forever, and it was one of the things I made sure to take from my parents’ house. He’s pictured on it smoking a cigarette, as he often was in author pictures in those days. Honestly, it’s surprising he lived to 84.

He’s the reason I picked up that first Billy Pilgrim CD.

In coming days you may hear words like “Kilgore Trout” and “the elders of Tralfamadore” and “ice-nine” and “wampeters, foma, and granfalloons”—and, if you’re lucky, “I had to laugh like hell.” If you don’t recognize these things, do the reading. It’s so, so worth it.

I love this man’s words, and it pains me that there won’t be any new ones.

Here are some old ones.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

Even these:

Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the moooooooooon!

And lastly:

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

So it goes.