My favorite author of all time passed away yesterday. Kurt Vonnegut's witty social and political rhetoric will be missed. The New York Times article is a good sum of how he became so significant to American counterculture. Edward Champion also has an excellent roundup of some Kurt Vonnegut resources including interviews and excerpts.
I was fortunate enough to see Kurt Vonnegut speak during a Literary Circle event at the Dominican University Center for the Performing Arts in River Forest, Illinois. His talk was titled "How to Get a Job Like Mine"; the title of every speech he gives, allowing him to speak about whatever he feels like. The Tufts Journal has an excellent write-up of a similar talk given the year before. I recorded the entire talk using my 3 day old Powerbook and didn't have enough motivation to clean it up and post it until now. Here is Kurt Vonnegut's 40 minute speech in it's entirety. Probably the only recording of the 2004 talk in River Forest ever made public! I will make some disclaimers that I'm not an audio wizard and tried to clean up the outside noise/chatter/powerbook-fan as much as possible. Sometimes there are quiet parts, sometimes his jokes are lost because you can't see his illustrations, but it is still a touching and insightful view into this legendary author if you never had the chance to see him live.
MP3: Kurt Vonnegut - How To Get A Job Like Mine [6.20.04] (20MB / 40 Minutes)
On especially timely quote from the beginning of his speech goes like this:
"I am so old, that I can remember a president that said to us, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. I myself say, life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse. Those are my last words, although I'm not dead yet."
And in closing his speech:
"As you probably know I'm a humanist, so I don't believe in any sort of punishment or reward in the after-life, but I would like to go to heaven.....to ask one question, then I'd leave again, quietly. Hey, what was the good news...and what was the bad news?"
Here's hoping Mr Vonnegut got some answers.
12:29 PM on 04.26.07
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MP3: Kurt Vonnegut's speech "How To Get A Job Like Mine" My recording of a talk I saw him give in June 2004 SaveNetRadio.org is a resource for learning about the rate hikes and what you can do about it... Read more in Links »