04.13.07
Kurt Vonnegut
The news is that Kurt Vonnegut has shuffled off this mortal coil. We will miss him.
I remember going to a guest lecture by Mr. Vonnegut back in college, where he was impressive and irreverent at the same time. Duke would only grant guest lectures to speakers who agreed to have a question and answer period after their speech, and he agreed to those terms.
After his speech, he got to the question and answer period… he offered up, “does anyone have any questions?” Barely a second later he continued, “No? Thank you, and good night.”
Irreverent all the way.
Rick G said,
December 6, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I went to a Vonnegut lecture at Duke in around 1996. He did the questions, answered a few, then said “I don’t think much of your questions, so good night.” In all fairness, they weren’t very good questions.