Since last winter break's pilgrimage to Long Island I have been mostly out of leads.
I got a random email from someone named Jen who directed me to this link:
http://www.yoism.org/images/tombstone.jpg
but after further exploration of the site I am confident that isn't real. this "yoism" is sort of vaguely interesting but as a committed non-committed individual I can't muster much enthusiasm.
new religions seem to be slightly more "rational" than old ones, but not nearly as colorful or accepting of big, crazy stories. if i was going to subscribe to something i'd get myself a religion with some epic narrative and bombastic rites and rituals and a big group of new friends.
Also I got a suggestion on a comment post here directing me to Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Several members of his family are buried there. Timequake and Slapstick refer to it. But nothing online leads me to believe he is there. Maybe he is. Indianapolis is 6 hours away from Pittsburgh and I don't know anyone there to stay with.
My intention is to try to find a conference or something there and get school to pay for me to go.
The only other news I have to report is from my hometown of Bethlehem, PA which is adjacent to Hellertown home of the Bernard B. O'Hare family. O'Hare is in Slaughterhouse 5 and appears in altered form in Mother Night. He passed away some time ago but his son, named after his father, is an active local political blogger and general town personality. Our town keeps a Vonnegut connection that way. Last Christmas the local paper published a Vonnegut letter home from WWII that was the beginnings of Slaughterhouse.
I emailed the son and originally he said he knew where he was buried and what was on the tombstone. He suggested it was, " THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC"
Which I can certainly believe.
But he stopped responding to my emails.. in a concerted effort not to step over the "too creepy" line I left him alone.
So I am waiting for a lead to drop from the sky.
But so it goes.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Trip 1: Green River Cemetery
In Bluebeard, Rabo Karabekian says he is going to be buried in Green River Cemetery in East Hampton, NY.
Green River Cemetery just happens to be located pretty close to where Vonnegut had a home out there in the Hamptons. Since his other home late in life was in Manhattan and pretty much no one gets buried in Manhattan, I thought Green River might be a pretty good shot.
So after a wild New Years celebration that stretched from SoHo to the lower east side, on New Years Day we set out on the Long Island Expressway.
"Set Out" gives us too much credit. Actually we got lost in Spanish Harlem and drove around a bunch. By the time we got to the cemetery it was almost dark.
It's an incredible place, Green River. Pretty small space, very manageable to search. There are a lot of artists there with gravestones made out of unique mediums and in weird forms. Lots of epitaphs and signatures. Painter Jackson Pollock is buried there. His marker is a giant mossy rock. So is poet Frank O'Hara, whose Lunch Poems is one of my favorites.
Yet, no Vonnegut. As the sun finished setting we looked over the back fields and smoked American Spirits. It wasn't too cold.
Disappointed but not discouraged we laughed about the fact that we were in the Hamptons. Green River seems to be sort of a monument to the place's bohemian past. Today its something else.
We stayed at a Holiday Inn that night, like in Breakfast of Champions. It wasn't much like Midland City. The room was, however, a perfect receptacle for human beings, just like Dwayne's. Then we went to the beach in the snow.
More research to do. Busy busy busy.
Comments, Insults, Admonishments more than welcome.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Shalom Reader,
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11th, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana and died April 11th, 2007 in New York, New York.
In between, among a lot of other things, he wrote 14 novels, 9 collections of short stories, and a bunch of assorted letters and commentaries.
I was born on October 6th, 1985 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and one of the best things I've done is read them. All of them.
Kurt Vonnegut's writing gave me a way to think about the world that eased my bewilderment and anger. He taught me to think seriously and warmly about people and institutions and systems. He showed me how to survive on kindness and beauty.
I saw him twice, once on the street in New York City, and again when he gave Lehigh University's commencement address in 2004. Both times I was skipping school.
When he died I was studying for my final exams in Pittsburgh. I went to the 7-11 at Forbes and Bigelow and bought a pack of his favorite unfiltered Pall-Malls (my first cigarettes ever) and smoked them on the steps of the library in the rain. Then I went home and read chapters 18 &19 of Breakfast of Champions for the 200th time.
I read his obituaries. I didn't except any sort of public memorial service, but although I've never done anything like it before, I would have gone had there been one.
Although everyone talked about his epitaphs, "Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt", "We are only human to the extent that our ideas are humane" and "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was Music" to name a few. But not one article, not one obituary or letter said where he is buried (if he is) or what the stone says.
And I need to know.
So what I'm going to do is look. I'm going to go around to Manhattan and Long Island first, and to Barnstable or Indianapolis if I have to, in order to find out.
How weird is this? Probably very. I have no response to this charge. However, I think most Vonnegut fans can sympathize, and perhaps support such a quest.
that is my hope
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11th, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana and died April 11th, 2007 in New York, New York.
In between, among a lot of other things, he wrote 14 novels, 9 collections of short stories, and a bunch of assorted letters and commentaries.
I was born on October 6th, 1985 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and one of the best things I've done is read them. All of them.
Kurt Vonnegut's writing gave me a way to think about the world that eased my bewilderment and anger. He taught me to think seriously and warmly about people and institutions and systems. He showed me how to survive on kindness and beauty.
I saw him twice, once on the street in New York City, and again when he gave Lehigh University's commencement address in 2004. Both times I was skipping school.
When he died I was studying for my final exams in Pittsburgh. I went to the 7-11 at Forbes and Bigelow and bought a pack of his favorite unfiltered Pall-Malls (my first cigarettes ever) and smoked them on the steps of the library in the rain. Then I went home and read chapters 18 &19 of Breakfast of Champions for the 200th time.
I read his obituaries. I didn't except any sort of public memorial service, but although I've never done anything like it before, I would have gone had there been one.
Although everyone talked about his epitaphs, "Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt", "We are only human to the extent that our ideas are humane" and "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was Music" to name a few. But not one article, not one obituary or letter said where he is buried (if he is) or what the stone says.
And I need to know.
So what I'm going to do is look. I'm going to go around to Manhattan and Long Island first, and to Barnstable or Indianapolis if I have to, in order to find out.
How weird is this? Probably very. I have no response to this charge. However, I think most Vonnegut fans can sympathize, and perhaps support such a quest.
that is my hope
This is Important
I am on a mission to find out what is written on Kurt Vonnegut's headstone, that is, if he has a headstone.
Despite all his writing about epitaphs and his many gravestones depicted across novels it has never been published what is on his tombstone.
I've googled and googled. I've emailed his website and people who are called "Vonnegut Experts" and just about anyone I can think that might know.
To no avail.
As far as I am concerned this is the final word. The last thing I need to know to put it all together. If he doesn't have a headstone, then that's important too.
In any case, I need to know.
This blog is the story of trying to find out.
If you have any information or want to help, email laura.meixell@gmail.com
Despite all his writing about epitaphs and his many gravestones depicted across novels it has never been published what is on his tombstone.
I've googled and googled. I've emailed his website and people who are called "Vonnegut Experts" and just about anyone I can think that might know.
To no avail.
As far as I am concerned this is the final word. The last thing I need to know to put it all together. If he doesn't have a headstone, then that's important too.
In any case, I need to know.
This blog is the story of trying to find out.
If you have any information or want to help, email laura.meixell@gmail.com
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