Posted on 11/18/2002 1:16:12 AM PST by vikingchick
I thought smokers weren't supposed to live to be 80 years old; like Kurt has. ;)
The building is very Old World. The ballroom has hardwood floors and colummns carved to look like palms. The restaurant, adjacent to the ballroom, has a very old carved wood bar and brick walls. There is a gallery seating area with hanging European flags and large trophy heads of elk and moose and such. The floors are cobblestone. Decor has lots of German antiques.
The Atheneum was built by the large German community of Indianapolis, which still has today a German-American Club complete with soccer fields and a restaurant near my home, the Saengerchor, a men's choral group, and assorted clubs around the city.
Vonnegut's family ran a large hardware store called (naturally) Vonnegut's, at which my folks bought many Christmas toys back in the 50's. It was bought out by Central Hardware in the late 70's, and that company has ceased now to exist.
My favorite comment Vonnegut made in (I believe) Cat's Cradle or perhaps God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was that Hoosiers are the only state citizens who actually get excited when they see another person from their state while traveling. They will wave at other Hoosiers on the highway, as if they are long-lost cousins. This is true. Maybe we are a state that get's no respect, but Hoosiers DO act this way.
Many years ago, when I was employed by Hughes Aircraft Company, I was involved in missile testing. I read "Slaughterhouse Five," and in that book, Vonnegut said he would not let his children play with the children of people like me. I thought he was an idiot hippie anti-war protester then, and I still think that of him.
Translation: I'm pissed because I, Kurt Vonnegut, a somebody didn't get my opinion amplified out of all proportion to my message by television. I have no problem when nobodies, at least those who deserve to be nobodies, like those who voted for Bush, get no TV coverage.
One of his best! About a future where people with extraordinary abilities are given artificial handicaps to make everyone 'equal'. Only Vonnegut had it wrong -- he had the rednecks as the pc enforcers, while the sensitive, artistic and intellectual types were champions of individualism.
I haven't read as much Vonnegut as I probably should have. I recall reading a short story of his in high school, might have been "Welcome to the Monkey House," that impressed me quite a lot.
It was about a guy with above average intelligence who had a government-issued buzzer implanted into his ear, so that he couldn't keep a train of thought and become a threat to the established order.
It was kind of Ayn Rand meets Ray Bradbury. Perhaps it wasn't Vopnnegut's intention, but it wasn't exactly a Leftist message, by my recollection.
Quit bragging. ;)
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