The Invisible Library

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007:

“He was the kind of writer who made people - young people, especially - want to write,” added Jonathan Safran Foer, the 30-year-old author of “Everything is Illuminated.” “He wrote the kinds of books you pass around.”

For countless teenagers, reading Vonnegut was as much an entry into adult life as your first beer. The world became funnier, more dangerous, more exciting. If you were looking to send up authority, question life’s meaning or face the worst and keep your sense of humor, Vonnegut was your teacher.

I know that there have been countless generations that grew up and led meaningful lives before Kurt Vonnegut’s writing was around but they all must have realized that there was some hole, some vital missing piece to the human experience that they could not fill. It took Kurt Vonnegut to fill that hole. Those of us who have grown up in a world with his books at hand are better people for it. He was a teacher and a hero, not because he did great things but because he taught us all that it was heroic enough simply to get up in the morning and keep on living, despite all the reasons in the world not to. His message was a simple one: be kind to one another as often as you can, not because you’ll be rewarded for it but because it makes the world a better place and a lot more interesting. He may be gone but his words remain, to fill the hole left behind.

Cyrano De Bergerac was the first man to visit the moon. When he arrived, he found a young Chinese woman named Chang’e who was witty, intelligent and fond of wine. They had a brief but passionate affair. Cyrano eventually tired of life on the Moon and one morning, climbed back into his hot air balloon and put the thing into reverse. He left a note pinned to Chang’e’s pillow but there is no record of what he wrote. It was beautiful and passionate and utterly cold, no doubt. Several months layer, Chang’e gave birth to a rabbit. Things work differently in Outer Space.

The rabbit, while the first animal in space, was not the last. The United States and the Soviet Union both spent inordinate amounts of rocket fuel placing dogs, mice, rats, chinchillas, iguanas, turantulas, several colonies of ants and assorted birds (mostly parrots) into orbit at a rate that you just wouldn’t believe. On at least one occasion, the United States launched a capsule stuffed with three thousand eight hundred and fifty two speckled guinea pigs, just to see if they could. Then there were the primates. For whatever reason, all the Chimpanzees sent into space returned with their intelligence greatly augmented and full of a desire to conquer mankind. This fact was kept secret form the general public until 2000, when, due to clerical error, one of these maniacal super chimps was accidentally elected president of the United States.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit planet Earth (who was not entirely fictional) was reportedly to have said from his space capsule,”Well, here I am in heaven and I don’t see any God.” This anecdote was made up by Khrushchev and attributed to Gagarin, who was far more popular than the Russian Premiere. Unfortunately, Gagarin died just a few years later when his jet encounter foul weather and crashed.

There is no weather, foul or fair in heaven. No God either. Just stars and infinity. Enough room for everyone. Planets and comets. Fountains of methane. Hurricanes bigger than the planet Earth. Black Holes. Giant clouds of sparkling light that give birth to stars. Wonders greater than can be conceived of here, at the bottom of our little well. We look up through our narrow opening and dream of the moon, of Chinese girls and rabbits, lovers who fly to heaven in hot air balloons and heroes who ride smoking rockets into a sky that never ends.

Fantagraphics, purveyors of the greatest comics in all theUuniverse, has a trailer up for the Drinky Crow Show, set to debut on Comedy Central’s Adult Swim, May 13.
Theme song by They Might Be Giants!
Link via Boing Boing.

Apparently, we uncouth bloggers are giving some folks the vapors:

Readers should be warned when they are reading blogs that may contain “crude language”, a draft blogging code of conduct has suggested.

The code was drawn up by web pioneer Tim O’Reilly following published threats and perceived harassment to US developer Kathy Sierra on blogs.

The code begins: “We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation.”

And then goes on to tell us all to shut the fuck up, because we’re just prolls who should accept our place and thank the media outlets, all six of them, for allowing us the pantomime of free press they sell us.

But here’s the thing: if you’re reading this right now, you’ve already decided for yourself if you’re going to be offended by my loose language and run to the swooning couch and have Mammy fetch the smelling salts, or read through to the end to see if I make a valid point or not. And that’s all the bloging ethics we’ll ever need. Read my words or don’t. Agree, or don’t. You can agree and leave a comment to that effect or disagree and call me names. And maybe I’ll respond and maybe I’ll delete your trollish rants. But it’s up to me to decide because it’s my fucking website. I pay for the bandwidth, I own the domain. You don’t like my perspective? Go start your own blog and call me names on it. Maybe I’ll read it, maybe I won’t. But if you don’t like what I write, you’re under no obligation to read it. That goes as much for me as it does for Atrios or any of the big dogs in blogland. And the thing is, we all figured this out pretty quickly, on our own, years ago when we started this blog stuff in the first place and we didn’t need a manual or some policy board to tell us how to run our sites. We just made up the rules as we went along. seems to be working good so far, so what’s the problem?

The problem is that the Internet is a free medium and that scares the shit out of some people. It means unpopular opinions that might have some validity have an opportunity to get heard and to spread and become popular opinions, all without gatekeepers or some authority figure giving the thumbs up. It allows for culture to be spread and evolve organically, in the hands of anyone with a desire to contribute, not just the monied elite who, for most of human history, were the arbiters of taste and expression. Now that it is no longer so, there is fear that we, the unwashed, foul mouthed masses will have a say. And that, my friends, means the end of the way things used to be.

Who is short, talks funny and is always huntin’ wabbits? Kim Jong-il, of course:

Karl Szmolinsky of  Eberswalde faces a grim Easter.

His gold medal pride,’ Robert der Grosse ‘, the largest rabbit in recorded Prussian history , is missing and believed dead in North Korea.

The 23 1/2 pound uberbunny was sent to Pyongyang last year along with 11 others “with the aim of setting up a breeding program to alleviate famine, “  only to end up on Dear Leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday banquet table on February 16th.

A commenter at Phyrangula pointed out that it was rather naive of Mr. Szmolinsky to think that his bunny’s would be put to good use. Philanthropy, good intentions and a kind heart will always put you in tyranny’s stew pot.

Today, April 1st, Google introduces their newest feature, The Print Archive:

Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves email, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Well, you asked for it, and it’s here. We’re bringing it back.

A New Button
Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we’ll send it to you in the mail.

Simplicity Squared
Google will print all messages instantly and prepare them for delivery. Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post.

Total Control
A stack of Gmail Paper arrives in a box at your doorstep, and it’s yours to keep forever. You can read it, sort it, search it, touch it. Or even move it to the trash—the real trash. (Recycling is encouraged.)

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Google takes privacy very seriously. But once your email is physically in your hands, it’s as secure as you want to make it.

[…] Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment.

Update: also: Google TiSP