Vonnegut leaves them laughing

by Jacqueline Blais, ( USA Today)

The town of Indianapolis can't celebrate its native son Kurt Vonnegut enough.

The Year of Vonnegut touches on the late writer's contributions — and that of his German-American ancestors — including a town-wide reading of his anti-war classic, Slaughterhouse-Five.

Vonnegut could have scripted the centerpiece event himself: a smart crowd in his hometown, listening to a speech he wrote. He died before he was able to deliver it, so it was given posthumously by his son.

"We will get through this. There will be no crying. If I cry, you will politely not notice," said Mark Vonnegut Friday at Butler University.

Vonnegut finished writing the speech on Feb. 27, weeks before his death on April 11 at age 84. The lecture opened just as Vonnegut planned: no introduction, but a tape recording, set to music, of a reading from Slaughterhouse-Five.

The speech, as Mark Vonnegut said, ricocheted from topic to topic, going to all kinds of places unexpectedly, yet it was knit together seamlessly. Here is a taste of what he had to say:

•"I think we can come up with a statement on which all Americans, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, straight or gay, can agree, despite our country being so tragically and ferociously divided. The first universal American sentiment I came up with was: 'Sugar is sweet.' "


•"But seriously, my fellow Hoosiers, there is good news and bad news tonight. This is the best of times and the worst of times. So what else is new? The bad news is that the Martians have landed in Manhattan and have checked in at the Waldorf-Astoria. The good news is they only eat homeless people of all colors, and they pee gasoline."

•"We humanists behave as well we can, without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We don't fear death, and neither should you. You know what Socrates said about death — in Greek, of course? 'Death is just one more night.' "

•"The most spiritually splendid American phenomenon of my lifetime is how African-American citizens have maintained their dignity and self-respect, despite their having been treated by white Americans, both in and out of government, and simply because of their color, as though they were contemptible and loathsome, and even diseased."

•"But listen: If anyone here should wind up in a gurney, in a lethal-injection facility, maybe the one in Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: 'This will certainly teach me a lesson.' "



He also wrote of attending Indianapolis public schools, saying the teachers were "celebrities" — and students, including him, would report to them long after graduation.

He called anyone who borrows a book instead of buying one a "twerp."

He would advise people to be kind, help each other, tell jokes and get a dog.

Some people call Vonnegut the Mark Twain of our day. But if he could have his way, he'd also be known by the nickname given to writer Booth Tarkington, also a native son: "The gentleman from Indiana."

The last line of his speech: "And I thank you for your attention and I'm out of here."

Honors were showered on him, including the city's first Kurt Vonnegut Award for Literature, celebrating writing that "uniquely defines the human condition," said Chris Cairo, who presented it to Mark Vonnegut on Friday.

Mayor Bart Peterson presented a proclamation to Vonnegut's widow, Jill Krementz, naming Friday Kurt Vonnegut Day in Indianapolis. In an aside that brought the house down, Peterson noted: "Jill, we have a semicolon here. Did anyone bring white-out?"

Semicolons, as fans know, are a showoff punctuation that Vonnegut would banish from writing.

After Vonnegut finished the speech, he sent his son a letter that began: "If I should die, God forbid …" It gave directions for a memorial service: no church, no big gathering, invitation only.

The songs selected were I'll Fly Away, Down by the Riverside, and Amazing Grace— "that was about as much religion as Kurt could tolerate," said Mark Vonnegut.

He shared that his father could sight-translate Latin and would recite Chaucer while his children were banging on pots and pans for background music.

At a ceremony Saturday for the new Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library's new Central Library, a signed first edition of Slaughterhouse-Five (the One Book, One City selection) was the only book included in a time capsule to be opened in 2057.

The Indianapolis Maennerchor sang This Is My Country, Back Home in Indiana (a song Vonnegut would play on piano) and the Gettysburg Address set to music (fitting because Lincoln was a hero to Vonnegut).

These words from the Gettysburg Address took on a particular resonance: "It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion."