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Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.

His writing meant so much to me.

My previous post on him illustrates his vision and (to me) his profundity.

To me he was a true humanist. With humor and cynicism his books enlighten and console me.

I think this from the obit in the NY Times says it well:

To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness.

Out of reflex I'd wish to say "thank you" to Kurt, but I know he'd understand that he can't hear me anymore.

UPDATE: From Pharyngula, quoting a speech by 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.

I will comply. Kurt is up in heaven now.

I have just finished reading Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Written in 1995 after being solicited by pubishers who were interested in the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama recounts his early life, culminating in his first trip to Kenya, Africa.

Obama's father was a black Kenyan economist, who he only met once when he was about 10 years old, and his mother a white Kansan anthropologist. He was born in Hawaii and spent a number of his early years in Indonesia. After graduating from college he spent a number of years working as a community organizer in the south side of Chicago.

His memoir explores and questions, in an honest and searching way, the meaning of community, race, identity and family. While I admire what I know of Obama's politics, in the paperback edition I read there is, tacked on to the end, the text of Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Democratic Convention. It is kind of sad to contrast the seriousness, sincerity and sensitivity of the memoir with the calculating and overt use of his history in the speech. Not hypocrisy exactly, but disappointing nonetheless.

That being said, the section of the book where he finds the truth behind his father's and grandfather's lives is deeply affecting and makes universal the complexities that are present in everyone's history which transcend race and culture. Obama is a smart and self-reflective guy who I came to admire in reading this book.

Here's a profile of Obama from the New Yorker.

In recent interviews promoting his latest book A Man Without A Country Kurt Vonnegut has stated, in his usual arch way:

I think we are terrible animals and I think our planet's immune system is trying to get rid of us, and it should.

Illustrating the validity of his position, from As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound, in today's New York Times:

CHURCHILL, Manitoba - It seems harsh to say that bad news for polar bears is good for Pat Broe. Mr. Broe, a Denver entrepreneur, is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions of global warming.

Still, the newest study of the Arctic ice cap - finding that it faded this summer to its smallest size ever recorded - is beginning to make Mr. Broe look like a visionary for buying this derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997. Especially at the price he paid: about $7.

(...)

"It's the positive side of global warming ..."

Consisting of three volumes, but not a trilogy, and spanning almost 3000 pages, Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle is an epic novel set in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. (This is similar to the Lord of the Rings, which is often referred to as a trilogy, but was too big for the the publishers to put out in one volume, much to Tolkien's objection.) It spans adventures around a world that is moving into the "Age of Enlightenment" and anticipates the industrial age. The novel has been described as historical science-fiction, with elements of court intrigue, cryptography, economics, wars, plagues, philosophy, pirates, and more.

Cryptonomicon was published prior to The Baroque Cycle but is essentially a sequel to the other books, weighing in with another 900 pages. This book shifts between WWII and the present, if not the near future, and includes characters who are descendants of families that appeared in The Baroque Cycle volumes as well as the apparently immortal alchemist/priest(?)/adventurer, Enoch Root. The plot revolves around the strenuous effort to hide the fact that the Allies have broken German and Japanese secret codes and intrigue related to buried golden treasure stolen by the original Axis of Evil which is desired by all parties in the modern parts of the story.

In these books, Stephenson exhibits a bottomless appetite for digression, discursion and embellishment as well as multi-layered and engaging plots. Not everybody's cup of tea I am sure, but immersing myself in these books was quite enjoyable. I was both relieved and sorry to get to the end.

Stephenson is also the author of, among other books, Snowcrash, a cyberpunk look into a dystopian urban future and The Diamond Age, set in a Hong Kong of the future controlled by nanotechnology where the ruling class emulates the manners and mores of Victorian England. Really.

A new "documentary portrait" of Bob Dylan by Martin Scorsese No Direction Home will air on PBS'S American Masters series, September 26-27 (check local listings) and in the UK on BBC'S Arena series September 26.

The two-part film, which focuses on the singer-songwriter's life and music from 1961-66, includes never-seen performance footage and interviews with artists and musicians whose lives intertwined with Dylan's during that time. Dylan talks openly and extensively about this critical period in his career, detailing the journey from his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, to Greenwich Village, New York, where he became the center of a musical and cultural upheaval, the effects of which are still felt today.

For the first time, The Bob Dylan Archives has made available rare treasures from its film, tape and stills collection, including footage from Murray Lerner's film Festival documenting performances at the 1963, 1964 and 1965 Newport Folk Festivals, previously unreleased outtakes from D.A. Pennebaker's famed 1967 documentary Don't Look Back, and interviews with Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Maria Muldaur, and many others. In anticipation of the film, members of Dylan's worldwide community of fans also contributed rarities from their own collections.

While I like many of Scorsese's films, he seems to always excel when he deals with music. Remember The Last Waltz, his contributions to to the PBS series "The Blues" and even the musical New York, New York. I'm looking forward to it.

While I'm on the subject of Dylan, the first volume of his memoirs, Chronicals, Vol. 1, is a remarkable book. Different from any musician's biography that you will ever read.

The End Of Faith by Sam Harris is a profound book for me. This quote from Natalie Angier in the NY Times well sums up how I felt while reading it:

“The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood… Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say in contemporary America… This in an important book, on a topic that, for all its inherent difficulty and divisiveness, should not be shielded from the crucible of human reason.”

In today's world, particularly in the US, it is becoming a dangerous thing, not to believe. The similarity in goals of the "faith-based" movement in the US and the government structure that appears to be emerging in Iraq are all too close in the way that those in power seek to impose their beliefs on their respective societies. Harris' book promotes rational thinking about the complexity of life, morality and other issues without having to resort to blind-faith and un-provable assertions while still honoring the wonder and preciousness of life and the universe.