Sometimes you start out writing a sentence and then just want to dynamite it all to hell. Just like I want to do with this correct your spelling as you type bullshit. Like I wanted the computer's opinion each time I try to pound out some words. Who died and made this computer the arbiter of all that is good and bad in the english language. If I want to spell something without a capitol Letter or with one, or make up words, or spell words wrong cause I don't remember them, the computer should just stay the fuck out of the way and take good dictation like any other recorder.

Anyway. I was trying to say something nice about the people at 3QD who have been posting lots of articles about Vonnegut, which I am now going to steal/repost/celebrate here on this never read, quiet, homey piece of cyberspace that I still happen to own, for the time being... the near future... if you will.

The ability to write anything you want and then publish it is rare. I think I have it but I know I don't. This century is full of fear and seems darker with the recent literary losses of Vonnegut and Thompson.

I wrote Kurt Vonnegut three letters. I never sent any of them. And when I was busy not sending them, I knew that eventually his time would come and I would regret not sending them.

Truly, I regret not sending them.

In the letters I told him that he didn't need to fear so much about the generations of kids after him. That people like me still do care about things like Abraham Lincoln and Sacco and Vanzetti and Eugene Debs. Kids like myself (although I suppose I'm not much of a kid anymore) really did learn and care to learn from people as wise as he. [link]

"He's a figure who still speaks to ordinary people," observed Dan Chaon, an Oberlin College English professor. "He was such a towering figure in the '70s that I think it was inevitable that his reputation took a dip for a while."

Nevertheless, Chaon said, Vonnegut's influence can be seen in the writing of John Irving, his student at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and in the work of a new generation like George Saunders and David Foster Wallace.

Ever provocative, Vonnegut told his Ohio State listeners: "If you really want to disappoint your parents, and don't have the nerve to be gay, go into the arts."

Fans of Vonnegut tend to liken him to Mark Twain, whom the cranky and craggy Vonnegut began to resemble later in life. Both men were terrific public speakers. Vonnegut rather encouraged the comparison, naming his son Mark after Twain and editing a collection of the Missourian's writings. [link]

EGGERS: His books -- very personal novels disguised as allegories disguised as science fiction -- nearly always take the entire world (or more) as their canvas. Usually there is a world war, or some catastrophic event, or often genocide, or a scientific or political innovation that threatens to, or has succeeded in, destroying all that we hold dear.

Because of this, Vonnegut could be dismissed as a cranky pessimist. Because his prose is frank and uncomplicated and often very funny, he could be passed off as a "humorist." Gore Vidal once called him "America's worst writer." But despite Vidal (did you know he's related to Al Gore? And the Kennedys?) and other critics, for some inexplicable reason, Vonnegut is taken seriously (by many at least), and he is loved by millions -- even the superintellectuals like yourself. [link]