I thought, after 354 pages, that I loved Vonnegut completely then I came across the following and fell in love with the dear man all over again and then some:
In the mid 1950s, Vonnegut worked very briefly for Sports Illustrated magazine, where he was assigned to write a piece on a racehorse that had jumped a fence and attempted to run away. After staring at a blank piece of paper on his typewriter all morning, he typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and left.
Mr Vonnegut, you're alright by me.
12 comments:
On the basis of this story, I'm going to say that I think we need a 24hr news service staffed entirely by people like Kurt Vonnegut.
If we had that, Alex, I would never, ever be able to sleep.
Speaking of people who never sleep, do you ever?
I do spend a lot of time around computers, if that's what you mean.
Of course, you might just be forgetting that there's no daylight savings up here.
But yes, I find I do okay on five or six hours a night.
Kurt is OK here too. Discovered him in college and loved him. And I might even watch/read sports news if they could bring him back from the dead to write it. Now there is a thought - sports news brought to us by a satirical zombie.
the horse jumped over the fence and than I ate its b-b-r-a-i-i-i-n-n-s-s-s-s
Alex no daylight savings means you were still up at 11:42pm. Sure I might still be at the computer at that time of night but often (in a very un-rock-God kind of way) fast asleep in my chair.
Now there is a thought - sports news brought to us by a satirical zombie.
Dear TEC, now there's a thought for your next blog!
And Maddie hello! Seems you and TEC have a similar zombie bent-of-mind happening at the moment; I reckon there would be a place for you on the writing team of TEC's new satirical zombie sports blog. Send me the link when it's up!
Kettle, you're reading comics now too, right?
I just had to share this particular strip from Oglaf*. The allegory for allegory just made it too good not to.
*It's a pornographic comedy strip that's being written by Trudy Cooper while she takes a break from Platinum Grit. Take note of the "Next Page" and "Next Story" links on the right. Things get very confusing if you try to use them interchangeably.
Whoops (NSFW)
That's bloody funny, Alex. 'Grappling with hope' and the analogy of an analogy were my favourite bits.
Gold.
I borrowed some Vonnegut from my sister when I finished my Year 12 exams, but ... it was the start of summer and I had a lot of sunning myself and lazing around to do, so I never finished it (and I can't for the life of me remember the title).
I always felt bad because she said I'd really enjoy it and I don't think I even got past the first page.
What do you usually like to read, EMS?
I can't believe you've all been discussing Vonnegut without me! I've only read 3 but my best one is Bluebeard and this is my favourite quote from it:
“If anybody has discovered what life is all about,” Father might say, “it is too late. I am no longer interested.”
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