{"id":5799,"date":"2019-11-01T16:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=5799"},"modified":"2019-11-01T16:00:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T16:00:11","slug":"the-conman-and-correspondence-with-kurt-vonnegut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2019\/11\/01\/the-conman-and-correspondence-with-kurt-vonnegut\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conman and Correspondence with Kurt Vonnegut"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admire old people who live by their wits, like the ancient American, a real estate man, whom I met in Galway years. He wore a badge on his lapel with the slogan:<\/p>\n

OLD AGE AND CUNNING WILL ALWAYS DEFEAT YOUTH AND TALENT.<\/em><\/p>\n

He told me he was eighty. He looked sixty. We had some laughs.<\/p>\n

As well as that real estate man and my pig-breeding Granda, I admire the old conman I encountered in Montreal railway station in 2003.<\/p>\n

He was elderly, frail, perspiring. He approached me at 8.00am as I queued for the transcontinental train. He had a worn telephone directory in his hands.<\/p>\n

\u2018Excuse me, sir. Can you help? I\u2019ve lost my reading glasses, can\u2019t make out this telephone book. Prints too small. Ya know what that street outside is called? I think there\u2019s a branch of my bank there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Afraid not. I\u2019m just visiting\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah.\u2019<\/p>\n

He surveyed the other prospective passengers, rejected them and turned back to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from outa town too. Been playing poker here all weekend and lost my shirt. Can\u2019t even pay the left luggage fee. I\u2019m trying to ring my bank but they don\u2019t answer. I probably got the wrong number. Sir, can you find it here, the First Bank of Montreal? D\u2019you mind ringing it for me?\u2019<\/p>\n

I found the number, abandoned my luggage to the next person in the queue and followed him to the booth. As I dialed the number he prattled urgently.<\/p>\n

\u2018What am I gonna do? I\u2019m in deep shit if I can\u2019t get to my bank.\u2019<\/p>\n

There was no reply from the number. Then I remembered.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s Monday,\u2019 I told him sympathetically, \u2018Queen Victoria day, a bank holiday.\u2019<\/p>\n

He was shattered. My heart went out to him. But he had an inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sir, could you lend me a coupla dollars so I can get my luggage back. I always leave some cash in it, my fare home. I\u2019ll pay you back in five minutes. Or maybe, hey, look, this watch I won a while back. It\u2019s a Rolex. Worth five hundred dollars. I\u2019m desperate. I\u2019ll give it you for a hundred.\u2019<\/p>\n

He pulled the watch off, pushed it into my hand. I shook my head. He then struggled with a gleaming ring on his finger.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is my wedding ring. 14 carat. My wife will be mad but I gotta get home.\u2019<\/p>\n

I realised it was a con, the jewellery was rubbish, but I was admiring his technique. An old man, still a consummate actor: the sweaty forehead, fogged glasses, shaky hands, lines delivered with perfect timing, especially the question that established me as a stranger to Montreal. I love actors. I took the cheap Woolworth\u2019s watch and ring as souvenirs, gave him thirty dollars. When he skedaddled, effusively grateful, I checked that my luggage was intact, thanked its minder and reported the incident to a couple of Mounties in the station. I told them I was glad to reward the old actor\u2019s performance but was worried that some kind old lady who couldn\u2019t afford thirty dollars might also be conned. The Mounties laughed and said they\u2019d look out for the man, but it was needle in haystack time.<\/p>\n

Several times, on the three-day train journey to Edmonton, I took out the cheap watch and ring and wondered what kind of fool parts with his money as easily as I did. On balance I decided my largesse was the equivalent of a cheap theatre ticket on Broadway and the real life performance was quite as absorbing.<\/p>\n

\u2018a mere political bauble\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

I shared the 3-day train journey with American pensioners availing of the cheap rate of exchange between Canada and the USA. I still thought of him, that old survivor. I also tried to figure out my real motive. Was I afraid to call his bluff, break the illusion he had constructed? Did I want his role to be real? Am I incurably gullible? Do I still prefer illusion to reality? Why do I think losers are the real winners?<\/p>\n

Another old man I encountered was Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), author of Slaughterhouse 5<\/em>, Breakfast of Champions<\/em>, Cat\u2019s Cradle<\/em>, PlayerPiano<\/em> and many other masterpieces which were resolutely anti-war. He never earned a Nobel peace prize which is the reason I have always regarded that Prize as a mere political bauble. However, on November 11, 1999, the writer\u2019s birthday, an asteroid was discovered and named in his honour. It was called 25399 Vonnegut. Kurt\u2019s consolation prize is located in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, circling the sun every 4 years 2 months approximately.<\/p>\n

Vonnegut was a foot soldier against Germany in the second World War and was a prisoner of war in Dresden when it was bombed. Subsequently he wrote anti-war books. A Hollywood producer once told him he might as well write anti-avalanche books.<\/p>\n

Vonnegut was proud of his German ancestry.<\/p>\n

Kurt Correspondence<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In June, 2003 I found his address in New York and wrote a note to him:<\/p>\n

22.6.03<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Vonnegut,<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    I finally got this address from Bill Keough \u2013 I hope it\u2019s the right one.<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    This is just to say thank you for all of the encouragement \u2013 apart from the entertainment – you have provided for me over the years. I still re-read your books when I\u2019m down. Then I can laugh and cry again.<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    I wish they\u2019d given the Nobel Peace Prize to the \u2018old fart who smokes Pall Mall\u2019 (as you describe yourself) or the man who invented the Church of God the Totally Disinterested or even to your marvellous invention, Kilgore Trout. Instead they give it to poets who sentimentalize, and scientists without the humility of your late brother (Pointing to his own head: \u201cYou should see what its like in here\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    You are a treasure who keeps us on the brink of sanity \u2013 especially boring old fart-fathers like me who try to subvert my six kids with your ideas. <\/em><\/p>\n

                                    .<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    Go raibh m\u00edle maith agat. <\/em><\/p>\n

                                    Very Sincerely yours<\/em><\/p>\n

                                    Bob Quinn<\/em><\/p>\n

            To my astonishment a couple of months later I received a postcard. On its front was the slogan: LIFE IS NO WAY TO TREAT AN ANIMAL<\/strong>. Written in block capitals on the back was:<\/p>\n

                                                                AUG. 29TH<\/sup> 2003<\/p>\n

DEAR BOB \u2013 I ALREADY OWED A LOT TO AN IRISHMAN BEFORE MY LIFE WAS SAVED BY YOUR LETTER, NAMELY G.B. SHAW.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A NOBEL PRIZE TURNS THE WINNER\u2019S BRAINS TO TAPIOCA, BUT LIKE JAMES JOYCE I SURE COULD USE THE MONEY.<\/strong><\/p>\n

         CHEERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

(There was a self-portrait signed K.V. \u2013 80 AS OF 11\/11\/02<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Kurt,                                                                              24\/9\/03<\/em><\/p>\n

                        Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my simple fan letter and especially for inscribing an original self-portrait. I now have the perfect bookmark for, of course,\u2018Cats Cradle\u2019 which I have just begun again. I have also started smoking my pipe again (so it goes).<\/em><\/p>\n

                        In my youth I read a line from \u2018The Virginian\u2019: \u201cWhen you say that, smile\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

            I hope not too late I realise that this is your principal device, why you are what they call a genius and I am an ordinary crank: you – like Shaw – detail the most horrifying paradoxes about us, but with a rueful grin. By contrast, I am still into the anatomy of melancholy – my adolescent complexes will never be resolved, I hope. They\u2019ve kept me going this far.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Anyway, the sheer craft of your work will always keep it fresh; its audacity still makes me pause and exhale slowly. How did he do THAT, I ask.<\/em><\/p>\n

            I have 13 years to catch up on you, in which to achieve your state of karass ( a nice version of grace) and to grin. I shall send you a birthday card for all of your next, many, eleventh of the eleventh anniversaries; it will be easy to remember, as my own window opened on the fourteenth of the eleventh. <\/em><\/p>\n

            At the very least, sir, I share that dangerous characteristic with you: a Scorpio.<\/em><\/p>\n

            God Bless you Mr. Rosewater.           <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            Dear Kurt                                                                                           27th<\/sup> April 05<\/em><\/p>\n

As your next birthday card I am taking the liberty of portraying you as the deus ex machina in my new novel, one of a series of unpublishable fictions. I feel like your invention Kilgore Trout whose work ended up in pornographic books.<\/em><\/p>\n

            I have placed you in a country called Ishkailand, a tiny, glacier-bound Republic which has a superabundance of mountain water. A bit like Ireland. This has made it rich in a dying, thirsting planet whose desalination plants have rusted because the oil has run out. The tiny country, location of OWEC (Organisation of Water Producing Countries) conferences, is nominally run by a failed poet\/President who has a wife, the rejected daughter of a vile mountaineer goatherd who is going to precipitate an avalanche which will destroy the country – but I run ahead of myself.<\/em><\/p>\n

            You are posing as a shabby old tramp but are in reality a wandering writer -you\u2019ve discovered that writing, like crime, has only a tiny pension of satisfaction and have abandoned it for the quiet relief of painting pictures of edelweiss. But you are also a scholar and student of the Ishkailite aboriginal language – and I am not sure yet whether you will save this world and its people or say, the hell with them all. <\/em><\/p>\n

Is that okay with you?<\/em><\/p>\n

At this moment in the chaotic narrative, you are getting blotto with your exact contemporary the goat-herd father-in law who, like you, fought at Anzio, and you are both having a ball. <\/em><\/p>\n

Your fictional persona\u2019s diagnosis of the planet\u2019s problems is simply \u2018a stack-up of tolerances\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n

That is the story so far \u2013 60 pages! You have only yourself to blame. I hope to have it ready for your next birthday which will be three days before my 70th<\/sup>. I think they call it a festchrift.<\/em><\/p>\n

God save all here!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n

                                                                                        5\/5\/05<\/strong><\/p>\n

HAPPY TO HAVE YOUR ADDRESS WHICH YOU FAILED TO INCLUDE IN YOUR PREVIOUS AND MOST STRIKINGLY FRIENDLY COMMUNIQUE. USE MY NAME OR IMAGE HOWEVER YOU PLEASE IN YOUR NEW NOVEL. I NEVER SUED ANYBODY AND NEVER WILL.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LOVE!<\/strong><\/p>\n

          (signed with self-portrait and \u201882 as of 11\/11\/04\u2019<\/p>\n

I next sent him a copy of a book of mine that was actually published: Maverick.<\/p>\n

                                                                                3.6.05<\/strong><\/p>\n

I AM ENJOYING YOUR BOOK, AND KNOWING SOMETHING ABOUT YOU, AND BEMUSED AS WELL BY ITS TITLE, WHICH IS OF ALL THINGS THE NAME OF A TEXAN WHO DID NOT BRAND HIS CATTLE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

                                                  CHEERS! KV<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

6\/5\/05<\/strong><\/p>\n

DEAREST IRAQ:<\/strong><\/p>\n

ACT LIKE ME. AFTER 100 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY LET YOUR SLAVES GO. AFTER 150 LET YOUR WOMEN VOTE. AT THE START OF DEMOCRACY ETHNIC CLEANSING IS QUITE OK.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LOVE YOU MADLY!<\/strong><\/p>\n

UNCLE SAM<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11th<\/sup> May 05<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Kurt<\/em><\/p>\n

                        This evening at dinner I was trying to impress my latest wife, who is 26 years younger than me and runs the world, by showing her your latest treasured postcard. She is also a fan.<\/em><\/p>\n

            \u2018Note\u2019, I said, \u2018Vonnegut has never been invited to \u2018C\u00fairt\u2019, that Galway mecca for international literary figures like Heaney, Proulx , Coetzee etc etc.\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018C\u00fairt is into people who are fashionable\u2019, she said. \u2018Why don\u2019t we cut through the literary shit and get him to deliver a keynote address at the Fleadh.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

She runs the Galway Film Fleadh, the only down-to earth-film festival in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018You could show the film \u2018Breakfast of Champions\u2019 which was an honest attempt\u2019, I ventured.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Whatever\u2019, she said. \u2018Get him to deliver his anti-Bush onslaught. Film makers need shaking up. We\u2019ll bring him here, put him up in luxury, give him a good time. Persuade him to come\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018What about his photographer wife\u2019, I asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ll look after her. She\u2019ll protect him from fools\u2019 she said.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018What about me?\u2019 I asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018She\u2019ll protect him from you, too.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

So, Mr. Trout, there it is: an invitation. The Galway Film Fleadh is on from the 5th to the 10th<\/sup> of July (this year too). Have you ever visited Galway in the west of the country called Ireland, this figment of the American imagination? <\/em><\/p>\n

            Mit besten gruessen<\/em><\/p>\n

14\/5\/05<\/strong><\/p>\n

IT IS WIDELY CONCEDED THAT IRISH PERSONS ARE THE MOST MELODIOUS AND INTRICATE AND AMUSING SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. SO A GERMAN-AMERICAN APPEARING BEFORE YOU WOULD BE A DANIEL IN THE LIONS\u2019 DEN. ALSO, I AM TOO EFFING OLD. BUT THANKS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kurt Vonnegut<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the 26th<\/sup> May Kurt sent me a signed copy of \u2018POEMS WRITTEN DURING THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS OF 2005\u2019.<\/p>\n

One of his poems was titled Naptown, USA<\/p>\n

It was alright there in Indianapolis<\/em><\/p>\n

Where I was born:<\/em><\/p>\n

Jazz and serious music, law, journalism,science,<\/em><\/p>\n

Good food and jokes, sports, politics,<\/em><\/p>\n

Architecture, libraries, institutions of higher learning,<\/em><\/p>\n

People so smart I couldn\u2019t believe it<\/em><\/p>\n

People so dumb I couldn\u2019t believe it<\/em><\/p>\n

People so nice I couldn\u2019t believe it<\/em><\/p>\n

People so mean I couldn\u2019t believe it<\/em><\/p>\n

But for some reason <\/em><\/p>\n

I had to get out of there.<\/em><\/p>\n

The cost?<\/em><\/p>\n

At 82 I am a homeless man.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

3rd<\/sup> June 05<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Kurt,<\/em><\/p>\n

            After your \u2018too effing old\u2019 card I lapsed into contemplation of my own mortality. <\/em><\/p>\n

            Now your 2005 poems have arrived and have dragged me kicking and screaming with laughter back to life. If you can keep on keeping on so acutely so can I \u2013 minus the brilliance, of course. Thank you. I can now continue writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

            As you won\u2019t be visiting, here are some images to show you what you are missing \u2013 a place not long and narrow like Chile \u2013 but I must say that its equally interesting living on an island shaped like a little puppy, begging on its hindlegs. Trouble is, to find the positive images and experiences illustrated, you have to go through a lot of touristic rubbish as well as increasingly draconian immigration barriers (unless you\u2019re white) \u2013 rather like the reason I refuse to go back to the USA: ploughing through groups of fat, expressionless security people who approach me on the assumption I\u2019m a geriatric suicide bomber. <\/em><\/p>\n

            A late friend of mine, Reggie Howard (who had his brains dislodged in the back of a warplane in WW2, held them in with his hand and achieved Ripley\u2019s Believe it or Not fame by surviving thus far ) told me that at the age of 68 he had laid an 18-year-old (female). This was my ambition until I passed that watershed last year and now all I can hope for is an encounter appropriate to my present age, 69, which mightn\u2019t be a bad substitute. These giggly and desperate thoughts are suggested by your latest work \u2013 which gift has flattered and delighted me.<\/em><\/p>\n

            What encourages me is that you are still highlighting our absurdity. I am accustomed to people of advancing age adopting an attitude of resigned hopelessness equivalent to the pragmatic despair of the young. Maybe the latter is a function of a small population like ours, whereas no matter what one\u2019s opinion, there seems to be still room \u2013 and an audience – for anarchic thought over in Uncle Samland. Okay, Monkeyface ignores it, but it hasn\u2019t gone away. And won\u2019t, I hope, for a very long time.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Wer schreibt, bleibt.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n

14.7.05<\/p>\n

YOUR PRAISE OF ME DID NOT FALL ON DEAF EARS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LOVE \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Self-portrait)<\/p>\n

GIFT COMING!<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

He sent me one of his paintings which featured the lone, framed word \u2018sleep\u2019 where the \u2018S\u2019 was elongated into a curving serpent. He signed it with his usual cartoon self-portrait and the words: \u2018For the writer Bob Quinn, my best friend among the living.\u2019 Never losing his sense of humour and irony, he was old enough to have seen most of his real friends die.<\/p>\n

28.Aug. 05<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Kurt,<\/em><\/p>\n

                        I enclose a book of pictures, the exhibition of which I just opened with words that include passing reference to you. This is becoming a habit.<\/em><\/p>\n

                        Since our last communication I\u2019ve been busy reading your oeuvre: Bagombo Snuff Box out of the library in Galway, read all the stories and felt like an archaeologist excavating the origins of your enormous talent. My favourites are Thanatos and 2BR02B but I enjoyed them all and saw how your agents persuaded you to tailor the ends to middle American \u2018fifties taste, but leaving sharp prescient stings in various tails all around you.<\/em><\/p>\n

            In Dublin this week I found Hocus Pocus and am getting a great kick out of it. <\/em><\/p>\n

            I told you before that in the festschrift which I am writing I forced you to become very drunk with a stinking goatherd. I am beginning to suspect this is an uncharacteristic plot turn because I\u2019m having difficulty sobering you up to launch another gentle onslaught on the assembled suits. They remind you of the 1950\u2019s Berlin Congress of Culture at which Arthur Koestler spoke and which transpired to have been financed covertly by the CIA. (Note: The CIA also bought up a million copies of Koestler\u2019s \u2018Darkness at Noon\u2019 and distributed them, free, throughout the world. That\u2019s how best-sellers are made) I think I can sober you up fast this way.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Your incitement to <\/em>S<\/em>leep is much admired<\/em><\/p>\n

The next communication, an illustration of his irony and anger, was a copy of a letter he had sent to the Chicago paper In These Times\u201d<\/em>:<\/p>\n

TO \u2018IN THESE TIMES\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Editor, If I may impose on your extraordinary hospitality yet again:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was on John Stewart\u2019s Daily Show September 13th<\/sup>, and arrived with a compendium of liberal crap I never wanted to hear again, and my responses thereto. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But I only had six minutes, and so never got a chance to read them aloud. For whatever they may be worth to you:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGive us this day our daily bread\u201d     <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure. I\u2019ll pay for it. Enjoy!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cForgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us\u201d   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh Yeah? Anybody trespasses on me, and I\u2019ll cut him a new you-know-what.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Blessed are the peace-makers.\u201d   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jane Fonda? Give me a break!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLove thy enemies.\u201d    <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Arabs?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blessed are the meek.\u201d   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You bet! I love \u2018em, too. I tell \u2018em to kiss my ass, and they\u2019ll kiss it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo man can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.\u201d   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mammon , of course, is the god of greed and riches. And the hell I can\u2019t serve both God and Mammon. Look at Pat Robertson! He\u2019s as happy as a hog up to its ears in excrement!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

                                                <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(signed)<\/em> Kurt Vonnegut.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

                                                                                    10\/9 05<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

also<\/strong><\/p>\n

12.10.05<\/strong><\/p>\n

WE ARE A DISEASE SO, LIKE SYPHILIS WITH A CONSCIENCE, WE SHOULD STOP REPRODUCING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

KV<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the 1st<\/sup> of December Kurt sent me a Merry Christmas card consisting of a self-portrait drawn in silver paint on plastic. I sent him a dvd of my Romanian Quartet film documentary.<\/p>\n

                                                                                    11th<\/sup> Sep. 06!!<\/p>\n

DEAR BOB:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I LOOKED FORWARD TO BEING DELIGHTED BY YOUR VIDEO. BUT WHEN IT TRIED TO PLAY IT THESE WORDS APPEARED ON THE SCREEN: \u201cDUE TO REGIONAL LIMITATIONS THIS CANNOT BE SHOWN.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MY HEART IS BROKEN.<\/strong><\/p>\n

                                                (Self-portrait, complete with tear)<\/strong><\/p>\n

            <\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Kurt,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve got tears in my ears from lying on my back and crying over you.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

          I am more heartbroken than you especially as the DVD worked for two old pals in Missouri and NY city.<\/em><\/p>\n

          I\u2019ve spoken harshly to the Dublin copying studios and they explained thusly:<\/em><\/p>\n

          The DVD will play on any computer<\/u> anywhere but not on every TV set. A difference between old fashioned Europe and the good old USA is we can play American films on our TV sets but you can\u2019t play ours on your sets unless the latter are dual capacity PAL \/NTSC Tv sets. <\/em><\/p>\n

Ours are, yours aren\u2019t. I presume its to stop our decadent frenchfried ideas flourishing over there.<\/em><\/p>\n

          All I can suggest is asking one of your gracious kids to lend you their computer to look at the film. And I hope you enjoy it.<\/em><\/p>\n

          Unfortunately I still drink (alcohol and coffee) and smoke like a trooper. However years ago a pretty young German doctor explained her similar bad habits to me as follows: the nicotine narrows your arteries, the coffee thins your blood so it\u2019s a perfect metabolic marriage. <\/em><\/p>\n

          I\u2019m still trying to find a suitable denouement for your heroic role in my Ishkailand saga.<\/em><\/p>\n

          My very best wishes to you and your local post office. I thoroughly enjoy the concentrated focus of your postcards. Would that I were so short-winded and long-focussed.<\/em><\/p>\n

          When this summer I proudly displayed your Sleep etching to an ex-head honcho of United Artists (my wife brings stray dogs like that home sometimes, the type that is impressed by nothing) \u2013 he stared and murmured: \u2018wow!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

          Your name is good everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

            <\/em><\/p>\n

9\/6\/06<\/p>\n

I had the temerity to send Mr. Vonnegut a copy of my failed novel \u2018The Accompanist\u2019. He quoted at least one sentence of it and commented:<\/p>\n

3.9.06<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI HAD AN IMAGE OF THE UNIVERSE AS ONE GIGANTIC CHORD, FROZEN IN TIME, BUT ACCESSIBLE THROUGH THE HEAT OF HUMAN EMOTION WHICH MELTED DOWN BITS IN THE FORM OF MELODIES, MERE GLIMPSES OF THE IMMENSITY BEHIND THEM.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

            <\/strong>WOW!   You got a major poem in a single senence<\/strong><\/p>\n

                                                            Kurt Vonnegut.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Kurt,                                                                              4th October 06<\/em><\/p>\n

            <\/em><\/p>\n

            To-night I showed your latest postcard to my 19-year-old and my 11-year old and asked them this question: Why would one of the greatest writers of the 20th century take the trouble to write out in block capitals a sentence from my feeble writing and add \u201cWOW!\u2019?<\/em><\/p>\n

            The younger said: \u2018He likes you.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

            The older said: \u2018Solidarity.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

            I told them about your son Mark (?) who had various tough times and who told you that life was about helping each other to get through it – whatever it was.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Then they wandered off to their multifarious activities.<\/em><\/p>\n

            I mentioned your quote to the young Irishman in Syracuse who wanted to publish a \u2018print on demand\u2019 \u2018version of \u2018The Accompanist\u2019 and he asked me could he put it on the cover and I said \u2018Absolutely not, this is personal.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

            So, thank you. It\u2019s about solidarity in our solitudinousness, if there is such a word.<\/em><\/p>\n

            <\/em><\/p>\n

Death<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

            {{{Reason for over-wroughtness:<\/em><\/p>\n

            My favourite son-in-law Islem, a 33-year-old French-Tunisian died suddenly on a visit to Lyons, France 10 days ago. I think he literally killed himself working to provide for the future of his wife,my daughter, and kids. We spent a week in Lyons, going through courts for the right to bury him in Ireland, near his wife and kids. His Lyons-based brothers wanted to bury him initially in Tunisia (from which he had escaped, aged 17, to join the French army. Although he was born in France, his father had brought him and the family back to Tunisia to avoid French decadence! Then the brothers wanted him buried in Lyons. My daughter, cool, calm, repressing her emotion (unlike me) won the case and the appeal in her fluent French. The funeral is in Bray, Co. Wicklow to-day.<\/em><\/p>\n

            I asked a religious Moroccan friend for advice. Today, 10 days late, he sends me the following:<\/em><\/p>\n

            \u201cIn Islam the whole earth belongs to Allah. He can be buried where he dies! \u2018The sooner the better\u2019, says the Prophet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

            That\u2019s a lot of help for a grieving widow.<\/em><\/p>\n

            <\/em>It appeared initially to to be a clash of civilisations and religions but ultimately transpired as a miserable pursuit of property. The brothers had their eyes on an apartment he owned in Lyons. There\u2019s no accounting for human behaviour.<\/em><\/p>\n

The good news is that two other of Bairbre’s friends, also Muslims, stayed by her side the entire week. I asked them was there any physical danger. They said, we don’t know, but we are on a ‘jihad’ to protect you and your family. And they did.<\/em><\/p>\n

The west must learn this other meaning of the word.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is good and bad everywhere}}}<\/em><\/p>\n

            <\/em><\/p>\n

            God Bless you twofold, Mr. Trout.<\/em><\/p>\n

8\/10\/2006<\/strong><\/p>\n

            <\/em>SOLIDARITY , OF COURSE, BUT ALSO AWE AT HOW MUCH YOU HAVE GIVEN A GUY MY AGE TO PONDER IN SO SMALL A SPACE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

                        WOW!<\/strong> \u2013 (as speech bubble coming from his self-portrait)<\/em><\/p>\n

                                                                                                            <\/em><\/p>\n

                                                                                                <\/em><\/p>\n

11\/10\/06<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

YOU PUT A MAJOR POEM IN A SINGLE SENTENCE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

OK?<\/strong><\/p>\n

                        KV<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n

It was easy to remember his birthday, three days before mine.<\/p>\n

13.11.06<\/em><\/p>\n

Happy Birthday to you<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday to you<\/p>\n

Seventeen more await you<\/p>\n

Until we are through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A few months after my last greeting to him, Kurt Vonnegut fell down a stairway and died from multiple head injuries. I never met him in person. I wrote to his widow.<\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n

Jill Krementz                                                                                      12.April 2007<\/em><\/p>\n

Turtle Bay<\/em><\/p>\n

New York<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Jill,<\/em><\/p>\n

Forgive the familiarity. I am really sorry to hear about your loss. <\/em><\/p>\n

I feel bad too, like a child who has carelessly offended his father who then dies without a word of forgiveness.<\/em><\/p>\n

I treasure our occasional correspondence and the picture he sent me. I miss his birthdays and shooting the breeze but am consoled by his magnificent legacy of writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yours Sincerely<\/em><\/p>\n

Bob Quinn<\/p>\n

I received no reply. So it goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admire old people who live by their wits, like the ancient American, a real estate man, whom I met in Galway years. He wore a badge on his lapel with the slogan: OLD AGE AND CUNNING WILL ALWAYS DEFEAT YOUTH AND TALENT. He told me he was eighty. He looked sixty. We had some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":5816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[207],"class_list":["post-5799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-uncategorized","tag-2019november"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}