Writing

[popvulture]

Last one.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3605/the-art-of-fiction-no-64-kurt-vonnegut

If that doesn't make you laugh and/or cry, I submit that you are not human. Or maybe I'm just really, really tired today.

Fuck.

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.

God I love him. I think the combination of sentimentality (one of the first I read) and its excellent illustrations, Breakfast of Champions will always be my fave.

And for what it's worth, it always warms some odd part of my soul that he included a butthole in his signature. <3

[Invisible Man]

That part about the three dollars for each person stopped me dead in my tracks.

Slapstick seemed like a weak one, I thought. Galapagos was a blast, though. I really liked Mother Night, and teach his short stories as often as I can. Harrison Bergeron is pretty well-worn, but it goes over really well in the classroom, and I do weird shit with it (blindfolding entire classes).

Seems appropriate that Vonnegut stuff took over this thread right quick. He'd be the writer's patron saint of these parts, I think, if I had to choose someone.

[Invisible Man]

My favorite part in Inglorious Basterds was when the "Jew Hunter" shouts out, "I love rumors!"

All of the Vonnegut stuff I linked to was to incorporate Chuckchuck's fucking bizarre non sequitur. Now it makes *a little* more sense.

[D.o.S.]

Slapstick is the best if only by virtue of the fact that homefry himself gave it an A+/F. It also speaks most directly to relationships, which is something that KV didn't spend a lot of time on.

My introduction was reading Cat's Cradle for pleasure in, I think, 6th or 7th grade. Shit fucked me up. Should revisit it.

[Chuckchuck]

Thanks Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison--felt derived from Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground.

[Chuckchuck]

I do love Paris Review Interviews.

[Iommic Pope]

Slapstick is the best if only by virtue of the fact that homefry himself gave it an A+/F. It also speaks most directly to relationships, which is something that KV didn't spend a lot of time on.

Yeah, sometimes I think the true genius of a thing lies in omission, and the implications that arise from what is left out.

[chuckjaywalk]

I'm still mulling it over. I'm unsure what interests me, right now, besides listening to Pavement and eating junk food.

[Iommic Pope]

Back from the dead.

I am now committing to one of my ideas.
I have NO process.
But, i think I know where I want to go.

I hate my life, so it seemed like the logical thing to do.

And now, I torture myself.

[Invisible Man]

Pope--does your location mean that you are on Hoth?

[Iommic Pope]

Pope--does your location mean that you are on Hoth?

Only psychologically.

[Invisible Man]

Whoa

[Iommic Pope]

Whoa

[popvulture]

Just write yourself a metaphorical Tauntaun, baby, and slice into that sheeit.

[Invisible Man]

Just write yourself a metaphorical Tauntaun baby and slice into that sheeit.

NO COMMAS