I Love You, Madame Librarian

By Kurt Vonnegut, August 6, 2004.
Found at In These Times

I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: Our daily sources of news, papers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books can we find out what is really going on. I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published near the start of this humiliating, shameful blood-soaked year.

more...

[500x608]

via

from "Hocus Pocus" (1990)

When I had Bruce in Music Appreciation I played a recording of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. I explained to the class that the composition was about an actual event in history, the defeat of Napoleon in Russia. I asked the students to think of some major event in their own lives, and to imagine what kind of music might best describe it. They were to think about it for a week before telling anybody about the event or the music. I wanted their brains to cook and cook with music, with the lid on tight. The event Bruce Bergeron set to music in his head was getting stuck between floors in an elevator when he was maybe 6 years old, on the way with a Haitian nanny to a post-Christmas white sale at Bloomingdale’s department store in New York City. They were supposed to be going to the American Museum of Natural History, but the nanny, without permission from her employers, wanted to send some bargain bedding to relatives in Haiti first.
The elevator got stuck right below the floor where the white sale was going on. It was an automatic elevator. There was no operator. It was jammed. When it became obvious that the elevator was going to stay there, somebody pushed the alarm button, which the passengers could hear clanging far below. According to Bruce, this was the first time in his life that he had ever been in some kind of trouble that grownups couldn’t take care of at once.

more...

из "Фокус-Покус", перевод М. Ковалевой

Когда Брюс учился у меня слушать музыку, я поставил запись увертюры «1812 год» Чайковского. Я объяснил классу, что увертюра написана по поводу действительных событий, а именно – поражения Наполеона в России. Я предложил ученикам вспомнить какое-нибудь значительное событие в своей жизни и подумать, какая музыка могла бы это наилучшим образом выразить. Я им дал неделю на размышление. Мне хотелось, чтобы у них в голове, как в скороварке, мозги хорошенько пропитались музыкой.
Событие, которое вспомнил Брюс Бержерон и которое он превращал в музыку в своей голове, случилось, когда ему было лет 6. Он застрял в лифте между этажами вместе со своей нянькой-гаитянкой, в Универсаме Блумингдейла, по дороге на дешевую распродажу постельного белья перед Рождеством. Вообщето они шли в Американский Музей Естественной Истории, но нянька, не спросившись у хозяев, решила сначала послать дешевое белье своим родичам, на Гаити.
Лифт застрял как раз под этажом, где шла рождественская распродажа. Лифтера не было. Кабина была набита битком. Когда все поняли, что лифт застрял всерьез и надолго, кто-то нажал на кнопку тревоги, и пассажиры слышали, как звонок заверещал далеко внизу. Брюс сказал, что тогда он в первый раз попал в переделку, из которой взрослые не смогли сразу же найти выхода.

дальше...

[600x600]

from Books We've Never Read

Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer

(back cover of "Like shaking hands with God: a conversation about writing")

[показать]

by Alex Gardega

[351x500]

<< Послушайте.
Когда я был моложе – две жены тому назад, 250 тысяч сигарет тому назад, три тысячи литров спиртного тому назад... >>

<< Она была глупа, и я глупец, и всякий, кто думает, что ему понятны дела рук господних, тоже глуп. >>

<< Зачем мне играть в выдуманные игры, когда на свете так много настоящей игры. >>

<< Над чем бы ученые ни работали, у них все равно получается оружие. >>

<< Все мы много пропустили, – сказал доктор Брид. – Всем нам не мешало бы начать все сначала – предпочтительно с детского сада. >>

<< Предложение неожиданных путешествий есть урок танцев, преподанных богом», – учит нас Боконон. >>

<< – Как тесен мир, – заметил я.
– Особенно тут, на кладбище. >>

more...

Slapstick:

They accounted for my unflagging courtesy and optimism, and perhaps for my failure to age as quickly as other men. I was seventy years old, but I had the vigor of a man half that age.
I had even picked up a pretty new wife, Sophie Rothschild Swain, who was only twenty-three.

Slaughterhouse-five:

Rumfoord's left leg was in traction. He had broken it while skiing. He was seventy years old, but had the body and spirit of a man half that age. He had been honeymooning with his fifth wife when he broke his leg. Her name was Lily. Lily was twenty-three.

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

Sermon by Steve Edington
May 6, 2007

Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua

Back in 1991 Kurt Vonnegut published a collection of his essays and speeches under the title Fates Worse Than Death. He included among them the talk he gave, as the annual Ware Lecturer, at our Unitarian Universalist Association's 1986 General Assembly, which was held in Rochester, New York that year. The Ware Lecture is the "celebrity event" at our GAs, where someone whose name recognition goes well beyond UU circles comes in. Vonnegut included his Ware Lecture in the book I just mentioned, and he introduced it - in this text, not at the GA itself - in this way: "In order not to seem a spiritual quadriplegic to strangers trying to get a fix on me, I sometimes say I'm a Unitarian Universalist. So that denomination claims me as one of their own. It honored me by having me deliver a lecture at a gathering in Rochester, New York."

So, there you are; among the various roles our liberal faith has played and accomplished in the larger American society, we saved of our country's more prominent novelists and essayists from the fate of being a spiritual quadriplegic. Who knows, maybe Vonnegut considered an absence of a spiritual component to one's life as a fate worse than death. Indeed, some of his writings do seem to suggest that even though he was an avowed atheist throughout his life.

"...Was an avowed atheist throughout his life..." I've made numerous references to Mr. Vonnegut and his work from this pulpit over the years, and this is the first time I've had to refer to his life in the past tense. Mr. Vonnegut died this past April 11 at age 84. I've been out of the pulpit here for the past couple of Sundays, but did not want to let his passing go by without offering a tribute to him because he has had a marked influence upon how I generally tend to look at life. It was also of interest to me to note that Vonnegut, and another of my literary heroes - Jack Kerouac - were born in the same year of 1922. Kerouac, largely thanks to a tragically self-destructive life-style, died nearly 40 years ago and has been long relegated, rightly or wrongly, to another earlier era. Vonnegut, on the other hand, remained remarkably contemporary right up to his death a little over three weeks ago.

My one and only encounter with Mr. Vonnegut was at that General Assembly to which I've just referred. It was held on the campus of the University of Rochester, which is only a few blocks over from where I went to theological school in the late 1960s and where I first discovered Vonnegut's writing. Seeing him in that locale in roughly the same place where I'd first met him by way of his work did have the effect of closing a circle.

Vonnegut had just published his novel Galapagos at that time, and he did a signing at the U. of R. student union. I waited patiently in a long line with my newly purchased copy of his newly published novel. When I finally got up to the table where he was signing I thanked him for providing me with a lot of sermon material over the years. His response was to look up at me, raise one eyebrow slightly, and say, "Well, that stuff is all copyrighted material you know." Yes, I know. So just to keep this sermon on the up and up, all literary references henceforth made this morning from this pulpit - unless otherwise noted - come to you courtesy of Kurt Vonnegut and his publishers.

more...

[358x500]
Еще один рок-альбом со ссылкой на Воннегута в названии - на сей раз американской группы из Орегона The Dandy Warhols.
Жанр: Garage rock / Alternative rock / Post-punk revival

Треклист:
01. Welcome to the Monkey House
02. We Used to Be Friends
03. Plan A
04. The Dope (Wonderful You)
05. I Am a Scientist
06. I Am Over It
07. The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone
08. Insincere Because I
09. You Were The Last High
10. Heavenly
11. I Am Sound
12. Hit Rock Bottom
13. (You Come In) Burned

Бонус:
01. We Used To Be Friends
02. Scientist
03. Relax
04. Call Me
05. Sometime Sunday
02. Sun
02. We used to be friends (Coates & Stiles Mix)
03. Dye
03. Everyday should be a holiday (Tony Lash Mix)

Стихи героя "Балагана" Вилбурна Нарцисса-11 Свейна - когда он еще не был Нарциссом.

I was those seeds,
I am this meat,
This meat hates pain,
This meat must eat.
This meat must sleep,
This meat must dream,
This meat must laugh,
This meat must scream.
But when, as meat,
It's had its fill,
Please plant it as
A Daffodil.

перевод...

Denver Body art Expo, May 2008

(via Mez Love)

[525x700]

from "The Sirens of Titan" (1959)

The planet Mercury sings like a crystal goblet. It sings all the time.
One side of Mercury faces the Sun. That side has always faced the Sun. That side is a sea of white-hot dust.
The other side faces the nothingness of space eternal. That side has always faced the nothingness of space eternal. That side is a forest of giant blue-white crystals, aching cold.
It is the tension between the hot hemisphere of day-without-end and the cold hemisphere of night-without-end that makes Mercury sing.
Mercury has no atmosphere, so the song it sings is for the sense of touch.
The song is a slow one. Mercury will hold a single note in the song for as long as an Earthling millennium. There are those who think that the song was quick, wild, and brilliant once - excruciatingly various. Possibly so.
There are creatures in the deep caves of Mercury.
The song their planet sings is important to them, for the creatures are nourished by vibrations. They feed on mechanical energy.
The creatures cling to the singing walls of their caves.
In that way, they eat the song of Mercury.
The caves of Mercury are cozily warm in their depths.
The walls of the caves in their depths are phosphorescent. They give off a jonquil-yellow light.
The creatures in the caves are translucent. When they cling to the walls, light from the phosphorescent walls comes right through them. The yellow light from the walls, however, is turned, when passed through the bodies of the creatures, to a vivid aquamarine.
The creatures in the caves look very much like small and spineless kites. They are diamond-shaped, a foot high and eight inches wide when fully mature.
more...

из "Сирен Титана", перевод на русский М. Ковалевой

Планета Меркурий певуче звенит, как хрустальный бокал. Она звенит всегда.
Одна сторона Меркурия повернута к Солнцу. Эта сторона всегда была обращена к Солнцу. Эта сторона – океан раскаленной добела пыли.
Другая сторона Меркурия обращена в бесконечную пустоту вечного пространства. Та сторона всегда была обращена в бесконечную пустоту вечного пространства. Та сторона одета порослью гигантских голубовато-белых, обжигающе-ледяных кристаллов.
Напряжение, создаваемое разницей температур между раскаленным полушарием, где царит венный день, и ледяным полушарием, где царит вечная ночь, и рождает эту музыку – песнь Меркурия.
Меркурий лишен атмосферы, так что его песнь воспринимается не слухом, а осязанием.
Это протяжная песнь. Меркурий тянет одну ноту долго, тысячу лет по земному счету. Некоторые считают, что эта песнь когда-то звучала в диком, зажигательном ритме, так что дух захватывало от бесконечных вариаций.
В глубине меркурианских пещер обитают живые существа.
Песнь, которую поет их родная планета, нужна им, как жизнь, – эти существа питаются вибрациями. Они питаются механической энергией.
Существа льнут к поющим стенам своих пещер.
Так они поглощают звуки Меркурия.
В глубине меркурианских пещер уютно и тепло.
Стены пещер на большой глубине фосфоресцируют. Они светятся лимонно-желтым светом.
Существа, обитающие в пещерах, прозрачны. Когда они прилипают к стенам, светящиеся стены просвечивают сквозь них. Но, проходя через их тела, желтый свет превращается в яркий аквамарин.
ПРИРОДА ПОЛНА ЧУДЕС!
Эти пещерные существа очень напоминают маленьких, мягких, лишенных каркаса воздушных змеев. Они ромбовидной формы и во взрослом состоянии достигают фута в длину и восьми дюймов в ширину.
дальше...

'cause thus spoke vonnegut

Sirens Of Titan (2007) - альбом одноименной американской группы из Миннеаполиса.

[600x600]

Жанр: Doom / Stoner / Experimental Metal

Треклист:
1.Sirensong PPI
2.Dancing Methuselah
3.Lothario
4.Dogsbody Blues
5.43
6.Thetan Audit
7.Canvas
8.Hang Me Twice
9.Breathe
10.Saltonaut
11.Washed Away

[208x342]

more...

from "Cat's Cradle" (1963)

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

из "Колыбели для кошки", перевод Р. Райт-Ковалевой

– Бог создал глину.
– Богу стало скучно.
– И бог сказал комку глины: «Сядь!»
– Взгляни, что я сотворил, – сказал бог, – взгляни на моря, на небеса, на звезды.
– И я был тем комком, кому повелели сесть и взглянуть вокруг.
– Счастливец я, счастливый комок.
– Я, ком глины, встал и увидел, как чудно поработал бог!
– Чудная работа, бог!
– Никто, кроме тебя, не мог бы это сделать! А уж я и подавно!
– По сравнению с тобой я чувствую себя ничтожеством.
– И, только взглянув на остальные комки глины, которым не дано было встать и оглянуться вокруг, я хоть немного выхожу из ничтожества.
– Мне дано так много, а остальной глине так мало.
– Благодарю тебя за честь!
– Теперь ком глины снова ложится и засыпает.
– Сколько воспоминаний у этого комка!
– Как интересно было встречать другие комки, восставшие из глины!
– Я любил все, что я видел.
– Доброй ночи!
– Теперь я попаду на небо!
– Жду не дождусь…
– …узнать точно, какой у меня вампитер…
– …и кто был в моем карассе…
– …и сколько добра мой карасс сделал ради тебя.
– Аминь.

Похоже, норвежская Madrugada (или, возможно, только их вокалист Sivert Høyem, написавший эту песню) -
большие поклонники Воннегута.

Madrugada - Ice-9

Kurt Vonnegut's Studio

[400x397]

[525x700]

by fbsfbigbggds

The Use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five
Jason Dawley

In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses fragmentation of time, structure and character in order to unify his non-linear narrative. Vonnegut's main character, Billy Pilgrim, travels back and forth in his own life span "paying random visits to all events in between" (SF 23). The result is Billy's life is presented as a series of episodes without any chronological obligations. This mirrors the structure of the novel which has a beginning, middle and end but not in their traditional places.

The first piece of information that is given about Billy is that he has "come unstuck in time" (SF23). With this sentence Vonnegut has turned time from the intangible to the tangible and thus he is now able to use it to fit his own purposes. By using the word "unstuck", Vonnegut implies that Billy has now become free. Consequently, Vonnegut's narrative, as well as Billy, has achieved a freedom of sorts. Vonnegut will not be tied down by the conventions of time; now he will be able to place Billy in any time frame he chooses. Vonnegut moves Billy rapidly,having him experience a mere fragment of his life before whisking him off again. This creates a collage effect in the novel, which is made up of bits and pieces of Billy's life. By fragmenting Billy's life like this, Vonnegut is able to bring the events that comprise his life closer together. One minute Billy is marching through a forest and the next he is waiting at a public pool for his father to teach him how to swim. This co nstant fragmentation of Billy's life serves, ironically, to unify Billy's character for the reader. By going back and forth in Billy's life the reader is able to see a whole picture of what Billy is actually like instead of just one fragment of his personality.

Vonnegut also uses time fragmentation in order keep the Dresden bombing fresh in the reader's mind. When Billy goes back to Dresden the reader goes with him. The reader is able to get a first hand account of the massacre, but, at the same time, to gain a distance from it. Vonnegut gives the reader both worlds. The reader is able to live through the horrors of war and then, in almost the same instant, reflect on them. The fragmentation of Billy's life in the war and after enables the unification of the emotional and intellectual response of the reader.

more...