A little more on Vonnegut
Apr. 19th, 2007 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleTasha Robinson, whose LJ ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rollick I read every day, wrote this memorial to Kurt Vonnegut. It occurred to me the other day, while enjoying lunch with kjpepper, that, in fact, I have a Kurt Vonnegut anecdote to share myself. Here it is:
Back in 2001, I was helping to organize 5Con, a small SF/Comics/Anime/etc. convention which, in theory, alternated between the Five Colleges (Amherst, UMass, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire) here in the valley. I was in charge of getting guests to come, and one of the people I was asked to invite was Kurt Vonnegut, who that year was in residence teaching at Smith. So, I wrote him a letter in September inviting him for the following April. He never answered.
A couple of weeks before the show, I was riding the bus back from UMass to Northampton when one of the other organizers got on and asked me exactly who I had gotten for the con. I told him, and he asked why I hadn't gotten Kurt Vonnegut. I explained that I had tried but had received no reply. He asked me why I didn't just go to his office and ask him person. I explained that, first off, I wouldn't know Kurt Vonnegut to look at and that he could be on this bus with us for all I knew. Second, I didn't want to harass the man. I had mailed a letter to him in care of Smith College, and if he didn't want to answer, that was OK. Most of the people I had invited hadn't answered, even though I had included SASEs and such to allow them to do so, and even though I actually knew a couple of them personally.
When we got to Hamp, an old man with wild curly hair wearing a threadbare red cardigan got off first. I am not certain, but I think it was, in fact, Mr. Vonnegut, who would have therefore heard the entire conversation, since he literally was sitting next to me.
So it goes.
rollick I read every day, wrote this memorial to Kurt Vonnegut. It occurred to me the other day, while enjoying lunch with kjpepper, that, in fact, I have a Kurt Vonnegut anecdote to share myself. Here it is:Back in 2001, I was helping to organize 5Con, a small SF/Comics/Anime/etc. convention which, in theory, alternated between the Five Colleges (Amherst, UMass, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire) here in the valley. I was in charge of getting guests to come, and one of the people I was asked to invite was Kurt Vonnegut, who that year was in residence teaching at Smith. So, I wrote him a letter in September inviting him for the following April. He never answered.
A couple of weeks before the show, I was riding the bus back from UMass to Northampton when one of the other organizers got on and asked me exactly who I had gotten for the con. I told him, and he asked why I hadn't gotten Kurt Vonnegut. I explained that I had tried but had received no reply. He asked me why I didn't just go to his office and ask him person. I explained that, first off, I wouldn't know Kurt Vonnegut to look at and that he could be on this bus with us for all I knew. Second, I didn't want to harass the man. I had mailed a letter to him in care of Smith College, and if he didn't want to answer, that was OK. Most of the people I had invited hadn't answered, even though I had included SASEs and such to allow them to do so, and even though I actually knew a couple of them personally.
When we got to Hamp, an old man with wild curly hair wearing a threadbare red cardigan got off first. I am not certain, but I think it was, in fact, Mr. Vonnegut, who would have therefore heard the entire conversation, since he literally was sitting next to me.
So it goes.
