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News of Kurt Vonnegut‘s death comes this morning. Having grown up in Indiana, Vonnegut’s home state, I’ve always felt a kinship to him. I haven’t always read his work avidly, but I’ve still considered myself a fan. As has been noted in the sidebar for some time, I’ve been reading his little non-memoir, A Man Without a Country, and here’s a particularly appropriate passage:
“I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, ‘Isaac is up in heaven now.’ It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ‘Kurt is up in heaven now.’ That’s my favorite joke.”
OK, then: Kurt is up in heaven now.
