'Look at the Birdie'- new Kurt Vonnegut

[n2doc]

By Kurt Vonnegut
October 18, 2009

I was sitting in a bar one night, talking rather loudly about a person I hated -- and a man with a beard sat down beside me, and he said amiably, "Why don't you have him killed?"

"I've thought of it," I said. "Don't think I haven't."

"Let me help you to think about it clearly," he said. His voice was deep. His beak was large. He wore a black mohair suit and a black string tie. His little red mouth was obscene. "You're looking at the situation through a red haze of hate," he said. "What you need are the calm, wise services of a murder counselor, who can plan the job for you, and save you an unnecessary trip to the hot squat."

"Where do I find one?" I said.

"You've found one," he said.

"You're crazy," I said.

"That's right," he said. "I've been in and out of mental institutions all my life. That makes my services all the more appealing. If I were ever to testify against you, your lawyer would have no trouble establishing that I was a well-known nut, and a convicted felon besides."

more:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-kurt-vonnegut18-2009oct18,0,4530239.story

[ixion]

1. cool... bookmarking for later reading

thanks!

[slay]

2. Cool - Vonnegut had great insight

especially into the psychology and sociology of people. Gonna read the story right now - thanks.

[n2doc]

3. times also reprinted a review of Slaughterhouse Five by Harlan Ellison

Kurt Vonnegut reviewed by Harlan Ellison, 1969
October 18, 2009 | 10:30 am
In this Sunday's paper, we've got a never-before-published story by Kurt Vonnegut. "Look at the Birdie" is the title story of the collection to be released next week, two and a half years after his death.
"I'm lucky," Vonnegut told David L. Ulin in 1997, "that I'm free to do art, and presumably to keep my soul growing, by finding something else to do. Participation in the arts -- drawing, dancing, and all that -- makes the soul grow. That's why you engage in it. That's how you grow a soul."

When Vonnegut's masterpiece "Slaughterhouse-Five" was published in 1969, it was reviewed for the L.A. Times by Harlan Ellison. Here's his review:

For those who have never slipped down any of the special rabbit holes Kurt Vonnegut has been boring into the decaying flesh of the American Novel, dropping hints about the plot of his new novel only serves to confuse. This is Vonnegut's attempt to describe his feelings about the Allied fire bombing of Dresden, a singular act of senseless brutality in which 135,000 men, women and children were incinerated. (An act of war now generally considered to have been of no strategic value. Dresden, at the time, was an "open" city. One wonders who, inevitably, will be asked to support the guilt for such a deranged deed.)

more:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/10/vonnegut.html

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. it is the next book I am reading.

Kurt Vonnegut was a real force in my life. I re-read his work regularly