Kurt Vonnegut is Dead

Hi-Ho. Boing Boing has a collection of Vonnegut-related web stuff, by way of remembrance. I read about all of Vonnegut's work between my 15th and 20th year. His prose is still with me, I'll drop the imperative "Listen" into the body of an e-mail to indicate something that I feel must not be missed.

Vonnegut is most likely the ultimate source of my instinct - still somewhat operational after all the theory tried to train it out of me - that any complex system of belief is rationalization, that is bullshit, and that the truth is likely to be brutally simple. Most importantly, he taught me that we're all dying - whatever baroque fantasies we have constructed to convince ourselves otherwise notwithstanding - and that that probably ought to compel us to try to be kind to one another.

I'll miss you, Mr. Rosewater.