so it goes

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Originally uploaded by evilnick.

The first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was "The Breakfast of Champions." I read it at a time when I was in sort of a reading drought. When I was little, I read like crazy. Of course, back then it was all Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. It stuck with me for the most part, but there was a stretch after maybe the 10th grade when reading had become more of a chore than it used to be.

Vonnegut sort of broke that trance and brought me back to being a little kid again. With a unique mix of cynicism and gratitude, he exposed the lunacy of being normal in the modern world. He was like an anthropologist from another planet who seemed to try so hard to understand the peculiar behavior of our species.

He was near the top of my list of people I would like to meet. I won't be able to do that now, but at least he left us an armload of great books.