the humanist joke

it has been two weeks & now kurt vonnegut is dead.

i just read it when i logged on, pages of streaming bulletin banners of r.i.p kurt.

[could you imagine if myspace had been around when the other kurt passed?]

of course vonnegut's death upsets me, pulls my satirical safety blanket from my hands. he was always paired with mark twain in my literary patheon. mustached & sharp, putting the truth down on paper one stark, yet eloquently shaped letter at a time. he never rubbed ignorance in another's face, but set a potent example with his humility & his ability to ask / address questions without shame. rare qualities, those.

i am grateful for his writings as they have offered honest laughter & comfort to the world for the past sixty years or so & will surely continue to do so in times to come, when things perhaps become stranger still.

kurt is up in heaven now.