We all have a request from Kurt Vonnegut.
I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.
Kurt is up in heaven now.
I think it is also only fair to give him Kilgore Trout's epitaph: "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."
Asimov and Vonnegut, along with Douglas Adams and Carl Sagan were strong formative influences in my younger years. The realization that they are all gone fills me with sadness. But I am more than ever grateful for their thoughts and ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment