3 thoughts on “There’s something wrong with the world

  1. Fwd: busy, busy, busy

    ---------- Forwarded message ----------
    Date: Apr 12, 2007 12:01 PM
    Subject: Fwd: busy, busy, busy
    
    BRANCACCIO: Welcome to a special edition of NOW.
    
    This country has been through a lot in the last month and we've been
    out there covering it.
    
    But I'm thinking its time to pause for the big picture and when the
    brilliant and irascible Kurt Vonnegut said he was up for an interview,
    we jumped at the chance.
    
    It's rare to get to sit across the table from a giant. Do yourself
    a favor and read SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE again …like now, this weekend.
    
    Before it's too late.
    
    Mr. Vonnegut has a new book challenging us to think about how life
    works or doesn't work. He's 82, but I'll tell you what, he's still
    a total riot.
    
    And this icon of American literature has got some choice words for
    our political parties, our president, and our planet.
    
    Mr. Vonnegut, thanks for coming by.
    
    KURT VONNEGUT: My pleasure.
    
    DAVID BRANCACCIO: How's life?
    
    KURT VONNEGUT: Well, it's practically over, thank God.
    
    Amen.

    Well, 84 is not such a bad age to die. The world is still okay, sort of.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Vonnegut’s guidelines for a short story:
    1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
    2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
    3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
    4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
    5. Start as close to the end as possible.
    6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
    7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
    8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

    http://www.mydevilishmind.blogspot.com

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