He's popped off to the planet Tralfamadore for the last time and I will miss him. Not that I ever knew him personally, dig, but I will feel an absence, a void in the fabric of the universe -- the space which he previously inhabited. Perhaps not so much actually on a personal level, for the resonance of his work lingers on and on and on and on and so on... but more the idea that if the human race could produce such a fine fellow -- as a humanist, the ultimate collision of sadness and magnanimity -- will it ever bother to do so again? Could it, even?

And I think the world will be a poorer place -- and we will probably struggle for some time to examine ourselves as effectively -- without his intelligent, forthright sagacity.

My favourite Kurt Vonnegut moment? Encountering his drawing of an anus while reading his novel Breakfast of Champions for the first time at about age 14. It looked something like this:

Some possible reading:

Custodians of Chaos: an excerpt from his memoirs A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut's Blues For America

Salon interview and profile from 1999

Wikipedia entry

Labels: eulogies, freedom-hating, heroes