What Can You Do?

Vonnegut died. What can you do?

He was old, famous, and rich. He was talented, depressive, and cynical. He was amazing, predictable, and prone to repeat himself. I love many of his books. Reading his work never fails to make me want to go write something of my own.

If we think hard, maybe we can think of another writer who meant as much to us. Who influenced us as much. Who inspired us to do better. Hemingway, for older people, did much the same. Vonnegut was our Hemingway.

Now we’re without either. What can you do?

As I wrote the paragraphs above, iTunes played a digital version of an old recording of Glenn Miller and his band performing “Tuxedo Junction”. This fit, somehow.

Much was made of Vonnegut’s resemblance to Mark Twain, both in writing and looks. Attitude played a big part of the writing resemblance. Wild hair, a hook nose, and a big mustache explains the physical echo.

There are many worse writers to resemble, in any way.

To the extent we’re blunt, focused on big issues that matter to individuals, and piss against the wind of control, fascism, and death and destruction, we writers left alive resemble Vonnegut.

He was famously liberal. Eugene V. Debs was a hero of his. Standing up for the common person mattered to Kurt. Not being pushed around by bullies with money, power, and connections. Speaking up for the ones whose voices could not be heard from under the layers of shit they’d been buried in by the propaganda machines of the right.

If we writers left alive learn one thing from Vonnegut, it should be kindness.

That, he figured, was all that mattered, in the end.

Kindness to each other, he meant. Individuals, taken one at a time, and given the respect each deserves simply by being alive, were Vonnegut’s champions. He wasn’t much for collective singulars like The Nazi Party, the Mafia, or the GOP.

Everybody mentions how Vonnegut survived the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany in 1945. Few mention that his mother had committed suicide just before he’d shipped out for the European theater. He was tough in ways few can ever understand.

Now he’s dead. What can you do?



/// /// ///