Thursday, April 12, 2007

Tock tick... so it goes

Yesterday we lost an amazing voice in literature, and cultural thought. Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of 84, following brain injuries resulting from a fall. So it goes.

Song: "Tock Tick" - Kurt Vonnegut & Simon Heselev

Back in 2003, Simon Heselev borrowed a Vonnegut exerpt from Slaughterhouse Five and put it to music, finding it made a fine protest against the invasion of Iraq, as the phrase from the novel, "so it goes..." became a protest call during the war in Vietnam.

Vonnegut later got into the act as well, writing essays strongly critical of the current administration, and published them under the title A Man Without a Country, and rightly called out Pres. Bush while making the rounds promoting the book.


Last summer, he gave up on the last novel he was working (If God Were Alive Today, saying:
That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?
Welcome home, Kilgore Trout.

3 comments:

Michelle Auer said...

Wow, that quote just made me get all misty eyed. So sad, but he lived a long and fruitful life.

Anonymous said...

I just heard the Tock TIck mix on Alternative Radio in a David Barsamian interview with Kurt Vonnegut.

I've heard it before and it made me cry again, anyway.

Rhapsody won't let Canadians download this piece to listen to it (and cry) again...

Do you know of any other sources for this great Simon Heselev recording?

Peace, Love and Justice
Vonnegut finally got what he wanted...poor us.

Shawn Anderson said...

You should be able to hear it via the CD single's CDBaby site:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/kvandsh