I was very saddened to hear the news yesterday that Kurt Vonnegut had died. It was the first thing I heard when I turn on WMUB/NPR. I don't often cry for dead people I have never met but I did for Kurt.
He was my favorite author as well as a great critic of society, politics, etc..
I did almost meet him once. He spoke at Miami University back in the early 1990's. I was working at DiPaolo's and was pissed off that I had been scheduled to work the night of his lecture. I felt somewhat better that my boss, George DiPaolo Jr, was also working that night and wanted to go to the lecture as well. We were commiserating together about missing Vonnegut when he walked in the dinning room with his Miami escort and proceeded to get good and drunk. DiPaolo's had a policy that no employee was to bother famous people (they did a some catering of big musical events and since they were the finest eatery in town that is where the famous would be taken to eat) so I was not allowed to go and introduce myself but I did get to see him down 5 gin and tonics in about an hour
1 comment:
I keep running into the fact that all my own favourite bloggers read his books. I don't really know who he was, sad to say, being English, he never really made it big over there. So I will have to start.
:-) When the hype has died down, of course..
Yes, some people's deaths just really affect you, don't they? I was like that when Steve Irwin died, and Robert Anton Wilson. I cried for a few days..
Glad you're enjoying your morning chickens.
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