rip kurt
April 12, 2007 / 1:47 p.m.
R.I.P Kurt Vonnegut.
I remember sitting in the library of portland community college on killingsworth, circa 2000. Two years after graduating from high school, no real desire to do anything, and reading 'Welcome to the Monkeyhouse'.
How the fuck did i decide to read that?
And it changed my life.
I feel ashamed to admit it, but before that i never really read anything, period. In high school, i was always the one who would skim through shit and then expend twenty times the effort bullshitting my way through papers that it would have required just to read whatever i was assigned and go from there.
And when i did read, it was always something about true crime or the military or sports. Always. ALWAYS.
I wouldn't have even been able to tell you what literature was. Literature? what is that, some kind of lawn furniture?
Okay, maybe i wasn't that bad, but i wasn't far from it.
And reading Welcome to the Monkey House, i could feel my mind literally opening up page by page. Such a cliche, but it was true.
I don't know, i tried to read it maybe three years ago, and didn't enjoy it nearly as much. Thought it was a bit cliched. And obviously there is a certain draw that someone who is 19 or 20 has to anything that makes you think, that doesn't necessarily require high-mindedness over platitudes.
But still, I wouldn't trade anything for the spark that book gave me, for the way it reversed the way my mind was headed. Towards simplicity, hooking onto anger and conformity and a real contempt for individuality.
Shit, what would have happened if i never randomly picked that book off the bookshelf? And rode the bus back on killingsworth with a history of naval aviation or a biography of ty cobb instead that day?
I'm not saying my life is perfect, but thanks, Kurt.