jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Forget dog-eared: my copy of Cat’s Cradle is a torn-up mess. Still, I took Verylin Klinkenborg’s advice (mentioned earlier) and revisited the book for the first time in decades. It turns out Klinkenborg’s spot on: Vonnegut’s work is so rich with wit and truth, it deserves to be read outside of a dorm room, by people who think they already know. Somehow, he managed to combine willful naiveté, insistence on kindness, and a freewheeling imagination with a no-illusions view of history and human stupidity, all without having the resulting paradox implode on contact. No wonder he is routinely compared to Mark Twain.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 103, A Medical Opinion on the Effects of a Writers’ Strike:

Young Castle called me “Scoop.” “Good morning, Scoop. What’s new in the word game?”
“I might ask the same of you,” I replied.
“I’m thinking of calling a general strike of all writers until manking finally comes to its senses. Would you support it?”
“Do writers have a right to strike? That would be like the police or the firemen walking out.”
“Or the college professors.”
“Or the college professors,” I agreed. I shook my head. “No, I don’t think my conscience would let me support a strike like that. When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.”
“I just can’t help thinking what a real shaking up it would give people if, all of a sudden, there were no new books, new plays, new histories, new poems…”
“And how proud would you be when people started dying like flies?” I demanded.
“They’d die more like mad dogs, I think–snarling and snapping at each other and biting their own tails.”
I turned to Castle the elder. “Sir, how does a man die when he’s deprived of the consolations of literature?”
“In one of two ways,” he said, “petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system.”
“Neither one very pleasant, I expect,” I suggested.
“No,” said Castle the elder. “For the love of God, both of you, please keep writing!”

Cat’s Cradle. Kurt Vonnegut, 1963. *****

• Cat’s Cradle free PDF ebook
• Cat’s Cradle at VonnegutWeb
• Cat’s Cradle on Wikipedia
• YouTube - A Tribute To Kurt Vonnegut on PBS’ NOW
• The Books of Bokonon

From the secure, undisclosed New Jersey location where we’re weathering the storm, here’s a muckworld roundup, covering the triumphs, marriages, deaths, drug convictions, and ambivalent critical reception of five artists so famous their first names are enough.

Jami
I have neither video nor photos to prove it, but an exquisite literary time was had at KGB Bar on Friday, where Jami Attenberg celebrated tax day and the release of her Instant Love paperback together with Pauls Toutonghi (Red Weather), Darin Strauss (Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy) and Min Jin Lee (Free Food for Millionaires.) Jami read a story about anonymous sex with accountants. Darin Strauss played the Dobro, and Anya Ulinich sang the Internationale. I have it on good authority that less than half of those in attendance actually recognized the song, which indicates that it’s been a good long while since everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers. The dustbin of history, indeed.

Kermit
Finally, good news from New Orleans: Kermit Ruffins got hitched! I realize St. James Infirmary isn’t quite appropriate, but it’s the best Kermit on YouTube. Congratulations, and thanks for all the BBQ. (And thank you for the tip, Robbi Jeanne.)

Kurt
“If you read Kurt Vonnegut when you were young — read all there was of him, book after book as fast as you could the way so many of us did — you probably set him aside long ago,” begins Verylin Klinkenborg’s piece in the Times. I followed her advice and just picked up Cat’s Cradle for the first time in 15 years, and it’s even better than I remembered. Around 1999, I saw Vonnegut speak, but at that point, he wasn’t my wavelength at all and just seemed like another bitter old Luddite griping about how superior the post office was to sending email. My friends Dusty and Kathleen enjoyed hanging out with him afterwards, so perhaps it was me who was bitter. Either way, Kurt could write. John Leonard in The Nation: “God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut.” Mourning at Metafilter and on Maud Newton.

Quentin
That Cleopatra rant was my last word on Grindhouse, but there are a few more pieces worth pointing out: Filmbrain, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week, thinks Quentin needs a girlfriend, and the Looker agrees with my assessment that Death Proof is just way dull. At The House Next Door, Keith Uhlich and Matt Zoller Seitz have a debate that’s twice as exciting as the actual movie–and almost as long.

Trey
Trey pleads guilty. IANAL, but five years probation with mandatory prison in case he slips sounds like a tough deal. Hang in there, Trey. We love you. Push on ’till the day and don’t you listen to that evil Amy Winehouse. A video of better times: