God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut. (via nevver)

(via drawnblog)

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printedandbound:

“In 1989, eager to seek feedback from an established, highly influential author, and in an effort to simply reach out to a long-time inspiration, first-time novelist Mark Lindquist wrote to his idol, Kurt Vonnegut. Some time later a reply materialised in the form of the admirably gracious typewritten letter seen below, in which Vonnegut spoke of his inspirations in the literary world and warmly welcomed Lindquist into the ‘family’; the missive illustrated by way of Vonnegut’s self-portrait, drawn in his trademark style.”

“The fact that you have completed a work of fiction of which you are proud, which you made as good as you could, makes you as close a blood relative as my brother Bernard.”

Full text at Letters of Note

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Starting today I’m kicking off a write-in campaign to get Jason Siegel cast in a biopic as Kurt Vonnegut. Look at the similarity. Who’s with me?

Paris Review Interviews: Kurt Vonnegut →

INTERVIEWER: The Franklin Library is bringing out a deluxe edition of Slaughterhouse Five, I believe.

VONNEGUT: Yes. I was required to write a new introduction for it.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any new thoughts?

VONNEGUT: I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one.

INTERVIEWER: And who was that?

VONNEGUT: Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.

Ouch. (via)

"

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses, took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

"

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five. I just finished reading The Invisible Bridge, and after the horror at the end of the war I could only wish that things would happen as Billy Pilgrim sees them.

Bet that was a fun day at the beach. Wolfe and Vonnegut. (via walkwhilereading)

Terrific cover for a terrific book. A behind-the-scenes look at its creation is here. (via Snarkmarket)

Kurt Vonnegut explains drama →

We love to read big, dramatic stories because our own lives have so little drama in them. We try to make our lives fit into a dramatic arc, but it’s a tough fit. On the balance, I’d rather live a less dramatic life and find my drama in movies and books. (via Big Contrarian)

Now this is how you sell a book. The NYT has a slideshow of old book ads from the Sixties and Seventies.

You’ve got Gonzo here (with a long, glowing blurb from Vonnegut, which is awesome) plus a bunch of other authors including Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Joan Didion.

(Via kottke, of course. Get off my back.)

"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!"

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Author, Dies at 84