Armistice Day

Today is Armistice Day, or Veteran's Day here in the US.

Kurt Vonnegut was born Nov. 11, 1922, died this past April. They seldom list his book, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!, which was one of my favorites. Vonnegut explains it thus in the prologue:"This is the closest I will ever come to writing an autobiography. I have called it "Slapstick" because it is grotesque, situational poetry -- like the slapstick film comedies, especially those of Laurel and Hardy, of long ago. It is about what life feels like to me." Here is that 'cosmic loneliness' from which I suffer from time to time. No wonder I liked the book.

Right now I am listening to BBC Radio Player's Broadcast on the Radio 3 Night Waves Nov. 8th discussion "Exploring the cultural legacy of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, which focuses on the Allied fire bombing of Dresden during WWII.

"On December 14, 1944, Vonnegut was captured in the Battle of the Bulge. He was held as a POW in Dresden, a beautiful German city with no major industries or military presence. The bombing of Dresden was unexpected. Vonnegut and the other POWs were some of the only survivors. They waited out the bombing in a meat cellar deep under the slaughterhouse."

While poking about the Web, I discovered this Gradesaver written by Harvard students. I suppose now that I am not concerned about grades, as such, this is a wonderful site. Maybe it is more detailed than the more known CliffsNotes. Cliff was a graduate student in geology and physics at the University of Nebraska in the dirty thirties. Working out of Lincoln, Nebraska, Cliff built the company that produces the most widely used study guides in the world. Cliff's message for students was to use CliffsNotes to better understand literature.

But I digress. He Who Must Be Obeyed has washed all of the windows already this morning, his having gone to church last night. I stayed in my cozy bed, having had one of those new inoculations for shingles yesterday. I asked the pharmacist who drove over to Belleview to get the prescription, what shall I expect. He had no idea as it was so new. That wasn't exactly comforting. I am hoping I don't break out in an elderly version of chicken pox. "Let me know," he requested. And so it goes.