Vonnegut at Severance Hall

Kurt Vonnegut spoke today at Severance Hall, though with the sudden heat wave here in Cleveland, we should've carried the lecture outside.

His age showed when the words didn't always come out in the right order, and when his body defied his mind's liveliness in dancing off the stage for his curtain calls. He is still sharp as a tack, though, and his profound wit and heady, unapologetic viewpoints were provocative and entertaining.

Vonnegut cursed Pall Mall cigarettes for not fulfilling their promise, printed on every box, to kill him -- He doesn't want to live in a world where three of the most powerful people are named Bush, Dick, and Colon.

This existential questioning factored heavily throughout the talk. He credited his son, Mark, with saying,

We are here to help eachother get through this thing, whatever it is...

Kurt's own take on the matter, however:

We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody ever tell you any different.

In the later part of the talk he wandered ever so slightly a few times from his saucy, spirited humor, and dropped us a few reminders: Namely that we should pay attention and recognize those times when we are enjoying ourselves and our lives. To keep our eyes and minds open, because

We don't know enough about life to know what the good news is, or what the bad news is.