“Our economy today is not capitalism. It’s casino-ism. That’s all the stock market is about. Gambling.
“Live one day at a time. Say ‘if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is!’
“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.”
The greatest peace, Vonnegut wraps up, “comes from the knowledge that I have enough. Joe Heller told me that.
“I began writing because I found myself possessed. I looked at what I wrote and I said ‘How the hell did I do that?’
“We may all be possessed. I hope so.”
We were joined for after-speech drinks by the professor and several awe-struck graduate students. Kurt expressed an interest in renewable energy, so I sent him another book, and he called back with another blurb, and more advice on how to publish it.
We planned to have dinner. I wanted more than anything to introduce my daughters to him. But when I finally made it to New York, he was too ill. Now he’s gone. When a national treasure and a being of beauty like Kurt Vonnegut invites you to dinner, don’t make plans, hop on the next plane.
The mainstream obituaries are emphasizing Kurt’s “off-beat” career and the “mixed reviews” for his books. Don’t believe a word of them.
Kurt Vonnegut was a force of nature, with a heart the size of Titan, an unfettered genius who changed us all for the better. He was possessed of a sense of fairness and morality capable of inventing religions that could actually work.
Now he’s having dinner with our beloved siren of social justice, Molly Ivins, sharing a Manhattan, scorching this goddam war and this latest batch of fucking idiots.
It hurts to think about it. But we should be grateful for what we got, and all they gave us. So it goes.
Harvey Wasserman read Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse Five in college, sought Boku-Maru, and has never been the same.
