The Karen Kubby Interview

Here's a sneak preview of my new column, "interview", debuting next month in the Iowa Source. Be sure to pick up a copy (it's free and has been for 23 years!) anywhere in eastern Iowa at your local bookstore, grocer, museum or coffee shop. You can also check us out online at http://www.iowasource.com

Karen Kubby is the Executive Director of the Emma Goldman Clinic for Women, a feminist reproductive health care clinic for men and women in Iowa City. She spent 11 years as an activist member of the Iowa City City Council and has volunteered her time and considerable expertise to a variety of progressive issues including the support of local labor unions, environmental protection, women’s rights, affordable housing, the public library and the new Johnson County dog park. An artist as well as an activist, Karen made her living for two decades (1980-2000) as a potter and beadworker, participating in art fairs throughout the Midwest. On a recent warm, October afternoon, Kubby and I sat on the front porch of my house and discussed the origins of her activism, her time on City Council, her artwork and why Salma Hyek would be the best choice for the lead in “The Karen Kubby Story”.


Karen, thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk with me. I want to begin by asking why you think you became an activist in the first place? Your father was a fairly high ranking military officer as I recall. Do you see any connection here?

Well, it certainly set the stage for me being a peacenik but as much as I rebelled against the content of my father’s career, I always loved the process he used. Many of my methods are definitely my Dad’s. You can’t get any more of a bureaucratic framework that’s hard to change than the United States Army. My Dad was an officer but I always saw him trying to work within the system to change it. He tried to make things work better for the people in that system – dress codes, policies, benefits, all that stuff. And my Dad and I agree on a lot of stuff. He’s against the war in Iraq, thinks it is a terrible use of military power and there are lots of Pentagon people and military strategic planning folks who also disagree with the government’s current stance there.

So what was your first act of activism?

Well, my mother would say that it was in Girl Scouts at camp and I was always sort of hanging with the kids that no one else would hang with. I’m Jewish and daily mitzvahs – daily good deeds – are a very important piece of that cultural heritage. I think there are a lot of activists throughout history who share that faith and that implementation of faith. The Jewish heaven is on earth and so if you look around you and it’s not heavenly, you work to make it as heavenly as possible before your time’s up.

You are often described as a leader in the Progressive Community. How do you define the term “progressive”?

That’s like the biggest question because it’s a really simple answer – public policy and personal politics that speak to economic, political and social justice. That’s also very broad and you can define some really perverted things as economic justice so you have to pay close attention to the details. It really is public policy and personal politics that speak to these things but then we can argue like hell about what that means in any particular moment. That’s why it’s a simple answer but also huge.

You were an extremely popular city councilor. What do you contribute this to?

I think people supported me because they trusted my process. They trusted that even if they disagreed with my overall process, even if they disagreed with my core ideology and core values, they trusted that I did my homework. I was open to new information and would be willing to change my mind and explain it half-way articulately. They didn’t have to guess with me.

What was the hardest part of being on the Iowa City City Council?

Just last week I was at the dog park coo-ing over a couple of cute dogs and a woman said, “Hey, didn’t you used to be on City Council?” I said, “Yes but that was seven years ago.” She said, “Oh we stopped watching after you left.” This was disappointing to me because I want people to be interested in larger issues beyond personalities. When I was on Council, a lot of people saw it as an ongoing soap opera - they wanted to see who was going to scream at me that week. There was a lot of disrespect there. An element of it was almost abusive, really, in that my colleagues could not handle me being a peer because of my age, my gender and my politics. It shouldn’t have been allowed to continue.

It gets old after awhile and it wears on you. As a survivor of domestic violence, I‘m very self aware of when I’m being abused and when certain lines are being crossed. I tried to handle it constructively. I would say “Well, Mr. So and So, that was really rude but I think your second point is very interesting and we should spend some time talking about that because it’s important.” I tried to be a role model of a different way to deal with conflict – how not to escalate but to de-escalate, move ahead and be productive.


What motivates you to keep working to make your community and the world a better place?

Anger. Anger and compassion along with a little bit of manic energy. There’s still a lot of injustice in the world – even in this community. It’s a beautiful and privileged community but there is still a lot of injustice. There’s just a lot of work to do. You do a little bit everyday and then you get somewhere. Anger and compassion are very easy partners. When you know that there are children going to bed hungry at night and you care about that, it makes you angry.

Karen, you are a self-identified feminist. I often hear younger women these days saying, “I’m not a feminist or anything but……” and then they say something which is essentially of a feminist nature. What do you attribute this to?

I think the term has become associated with man-hating and that has a negative connotation. I think some feminists are man-hating but most just dislike living in a system which benefits men the most. I know things are cyclical and I hope future generations become comfortable identifying with the term. I am a feminist. I think it’s an easy way to let people know you believe in gender equity which is scary to a lot of people. Well, tough.


Tell me how you became interested in pottery and beadwork.

My grandmother was a seamstress and did bead work. She did a lot of bead work on handbags, wedding dresses and cashmere sweaters with monograms so I was around it whenever I was around my grandmother. When I was a student here in town at Helen Lemme in the fifth grade, my art teacher, Sue McNeil, introduced me to clay. Ever since then I’ve been doing clay. I like to throw on the wheel. I let the clay speak to me – some days I’ll have a design in my head I want to paint on a bowl but I just can’t do it but I could throw plates all day. I just honor that process.


Let’s pretend you could see into the future. Its twenty years from now. Where are you? What are you doing?

I going to have gray braided into my hair. I’ll probably be wearing these same pants. I’ve had them for 25 years and they’ll probably be good for another 20 and they’ll be in fashion again. I’ll be gardening, I’ll be beading and potting and I’ll be walking my dog, or three of four of them. I’ll be an activist – maybe the issues will be different, I hope they’ll be different but they probably won’t. They will be economic justice issues and water. Water is next big issue. It’s the next oil. It already is but I don’t think people recognize it. It will be much more overt.”

Will you still be Iowa?

Probably. Richest soil on the earth, why would I leave?


Okay, it’s a cliché question but who plays you in the film version of your life?

It’s funny, I read your questions ahead of time and I usually don’t but I really had no idea what you were going to ask me. I thought about this question the most because it was so stupid –the idea that someone would ever make a movie about me.

So who did you come up with?

Salma Hyek – she’s not too tall and a lot of actresses are very tall. She can play a lot of different roles, she can be funny or serious – she’s multi-faceted in that way. Plus she’s got that hair and the eyebrows – if she can play Frida [Kahlo, Hyek played the painter in the 2002 film about her life] she can play me.


Is there anything you’d like people to know about you that isn’t already common knowledge?

Yes. I can be quiet. I can be cranky and I’d like to jump out of an airplane (with a parachute that works.)

Poor Keillor

I read with great interest Garrison Keillor's article today in Salon.com suggesting our country change Columbus Day to Bush Day as a way of honoring kindness, compassion and modesty. In his proposal Keillor refers to the president as delusional and arrogant and then proceeds to suggest that honoring him with such a hoiiday would serve to be a cautionary endeavor for all Americans.

First off, let me say that I do not disagree with any of Garrison's assertions about George the Lessor. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog at all knows this. What I find humorous about Mr. Keillor's article is the matter of his own self delusion - what any mental health professional will tell you is often a primary trait of addicts and alcoholics - self-projection.

Let me tell you a true story. On earth day 2002(1?) I was leaving a benefit I had helped to coordinate for the Iowa City Green Party and I stopped by the Mill Restaurant to get some dinner on my way home. I noticed Mr. Keillor sitting at the bar. I knew he was in town that night giving a reading. I also knew he was liberal leaning in politics and known to be an environmentalist.

I decided to approach him and talk to him about the Green Party as I was also on the national fundraising committee. I ate half my blackbean burger and walked over to him. The first thing I noticed when I got close to him was how sweaty he was. This man was dripping with sweat. I was a little concerned he had some sort of chronic health problem - which, in fact, he does - alcoholism is a chronic, often fatal, disease. Anyway, I went ahead and introduced myself. He half-ignored me as he ordered another drink. Determined to get his intention and hopefully some funds for the GP, I continued on with my pitch.

The minute he heard me say Green Party, he launched into a tirade about how awful we were and how we had ruined the electoral system and the democratic party. His words slurred as he proceeded along with his diatribe. The entire time he was berating me, he was also looking me up and down. When he finally stopped, I was so shocked I just looked back at him and said, "Well, I guess this means you'd rather not make a contribution to the national party?"

This is when Mr. Prairie Home Companion demonstrated just how kind, compassionate, modest and, well, compainionable he really was - he actually replied to me, "Well, I'm sure we could work something out if you'd like to go back to my motel room with me." There we are - arrogant and delusional. I turned around, walked back to my table, payed my bill and left the restaurant. Besides knowing the man was married, I was completely shocked and disgusted by his rudeness in belittling my beliefs and then most of all by propositioning me to have sex for money. I guess he must have been used to being able to get anything he wanted by paying for it - at least where women were concerned.

There you have it, Columbus, Bush and Keillor have so very much in common. All three of them believe that anything or anyone can be bought. I have a proposal of my own. Let's change Columbus day the the official, annual Buy-Nothing Day. Now that would truly be patriotic. I for one have had enough delusion and arrogance for a life time.

I don't do enough anymore

71 War Protesters Seized
Baltimore's Tradition of Civil Disobedience Continues in Capital

by Liz F. Kay

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Andrew Foster Connors remained calm yesterday as a police officer put his hands in white plastic handcuffs and searched his pockets after he crossed a police line outside the U.S. Capitol.


How can we listen to what's going on in our world and not say it's dead wrong?" said Elizabeth McAlister.

Less than an hour later, the Rev. Roger Scott Powers was also led away in handcuffs from the interfaith demonstration against the war in Iraq in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

The two Presbyterian ministers from Baltimore were among 71 people who were detained yesterday as they protested the war in Iraq - and continued Baltimore's long tradition of civil disobedience against wars.

"I was just happy to be able to be a witness for peace," said Connors, 33, who wore a multicolored stole, clerical collar and blue armband. "It's one thing to talk about nonviolence, but to enact it ... nonviolence is a powerful thing."

Baltimore's legacy of nonviolent protest against violence began with the Berrigan brothers' burning of draft records during the Vietnam War and continued through the nuclear proliferation during the Cold War. It persists today as clergy in Baltimore and elsewhere answered a national call to pressure Congress to end the war in Iraq.

Not everyone can take such extreme measures to oppose war, but Roman Catholic moral theologian Joseph J. Fahey said the Jonah House form of protest made the stance more acceptable and mainstream. Jonah House was the West Baltimore pacifist community founded by Philip F. Berrigan.


War protesters lie on the floor of the Hart Senate Office Building as police make arrests after the protesters refused to disperse.
(Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett)

"I think the Jonah House people showed that it is patriotic and love of your country to perform civil disobedience," said Fahey, who specializes in war and peace at Manhattan College in the Bronx and was a founding member of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace organization.

He described religion as a double-edged sword that has called people to war, sexism, racism and hatred. But "protest - that's religion at its best," Fahey said.

Yesterday's peace action was one of a weeklong series of events through the Declaration of Peace campaign, an initiative organized by a collection of secular and faith-based groups.

The arrests included Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Director Rick Ufford-Chase, who served for two years in the denomination's highest office, moderator of the 216th General Assembly. He sent a letter to Presbyterian congregations nationwide explaining his decision.

"If God opens the way for me to do so, I will risk arrest to make it clear that I believe the War in Iraq is a violation of my most fundamental beliefs as a Christian," he wrote. "Whether or not such a witness is effective, it is clear to me that I must do everything in my power and in keeping with my values as a follower of Jesus Christ to stop this war."Elizabeth McAlister, a former nun who founded Jonah House with her husband, Philip F. Berrigan, held a banner and wore a chain of origami paper cranes around her neck yesterday.

"How can we listen to what's going on in our world and not say it's dead wrong?" she said. "'Thou shalt not kill' - they're all one-syllable.""We need more," she said. "You don't do enough. I don't do enough."

Patrick G. Coy, director of the Center for Applied Conflict Management at Kent State University, said he was surprised that there has not been more nonviolent protest and civil disobedience linked to this war, given its length and the intensity of the opposition before it began.

Coy says the lack of a military draft, media management by the Bush administration, economic pressures on students and a broader cultural shift toward conservatism have all contributed to a smaller-than-expected outcry.

"They have dramatically increased from the second year forward, but it's not as broad-based as I would expect," he said.

Fahey agreed. "I'm disappointed that it's always been a small minority of clergy," he said. "I wish more academics were involved."

Connors, pastor of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Bolton Hill, said he was called to bear witness because he believes that imposing democracy through violent means is a contradiction.

"In a democratic society, we trade up killing each other with weapons for a vote," he said. "Voting is a form of nonviolence. What's called for now is a witness - people who are willing to put their bodies where their words are."

Yesterday, about 250 people gathered in the Upper Senate Park for an interfaith service. A small group, including Connors, brought a coffin covered with pictures of wounded Iraqis to the U.S. Capitol, where the arrests took place.

Most of the group marched to the Russell Senate Office Building, where some protesters were arrested. Leaders, including Ufford-Chase, negotiated with U.S. Capitol Police, who later let them enter the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Most of the activists stood in a circle to listen to readings and sing as Senate staff members gathered on walkways overlooking the atrium.

"This is what democracy looks like," said Gordon S. Clark, coordinator of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. "Hopefully, this message will get back to those Senate offices."

Connors was released about 6 p.m. Each of the 71 people arrested was processed one at a time - handcuffs removed, searched, interviewed and given a wristband. He received a citation and a November court date.

The police were very courteous but did not allow them to make noise, he said. "We broke into song a few times and they quickly tamped down on that."


Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun

New News

Well, God bless her, my editor from The Iowa Source has accepted my proposal for a new column concept. I'll keep you posted on this.

I've accepted an article assignment which is rather scary because I look back on some of my earlist pieces for them and wish I had written them so differently. Oh well, I know people who regret entire books that are still being read as part of course syllabi (is that the plural, I cannot recall?) all over the country.

Coffee, coffee. I need more and must get back to work.

In 4 months

alot can happen and yet things can still stay the same. I am no longer in the "landshark business". Let's just say as much as I wanted to succeed in that position and as hard as I worked, sometimes there really are no-win situations in the workplace.

I have a new job in the non-profit sector that better suits me. It is also in the arts so this is good. Unfortunately, it is not full-time but the pay is quite decent as are the people I work with.

Sweet Marc had 2 surgeries this summer but weathered them quite well. His discomfort has been hard to bear - when you love someone all you want to do is take it away and you can't. It's one of the most difficult situations in which to find yourself powerless. He never complains and has such a positive attitude that at times I find myself feeling remarkably childish and self-obsessed as I complain, worry and fret about my poverty, my own health problems and social anxieties. He never judges me though and is always supportive. I think we are really beginning to love one another unconditionally. It must be true because, God help me, I tolerate a great deal of Star Trek for this man!

Last night was one of the best in months. We turned in early and Marc read Wallace Steven's "The Necessary Angel" while I dozed off and on with my arm across his chest. Oh my, I was so happy and contented. That's the very best stuff there is in the world and I really don't recall having ever felt so safe and secure with someone.


Oh well, it's late. G'night

I of i's

Irony of ironies - I see that God forewarned Pat Robertson of the terrible storms and flooding that have recently ravaged New England. My Goodness, God has been warning me about Mr. Robertson for years.

MDB Update

Well, it's been a while. Sorry to leave you hanging with the news of falling in love and disaster photos of Iowa City. I have little to say about the tornado. I missed it. I mean, I heard the sirens and the hail and saw people staring at the sky but I was so bloody exhausted I just stayed in bed and hoped it wasn't my time. In retrospect that was NUTS but in the moment it seemed perfectly reasonable. The destruction of the thing was massive - given that it's a miracle no one died and no one was seriously injured physically. Emotionally I know it will be very difficult for those who lost everything. I've been there and it's very, very hard.

On to happier things - being in love!! It's wonderful and so is Marc. I promised to share a little bit about him so here goes. He's 36 (ahhh, those younger men) and a poet but, get this (!!!!), he actually has a real job. He works in human services helping people perfect their job skills. The main thing is he's just about the sweetest and most kind man I've ever known, while at the same time being wicked smart and delightfully witty.

He's certainly not perfect, that's for sure. Last weekend he tried to make me watch some superhero comic book movie on the Cartoon Network and he's a total freakazoid about his trash - esp. meat trash - don't even ask. My father would have LOVED this.

Other News:

There is a new link on my blog - OurMedia. Check it out if you want.

Lisa Phillips' NPR book is out! It's wonderful, of course. Her publisher sent an advance copy (thanks, Josh!) 'cause I'm going to be doing an interview with wonderful Lisa for a local paper.

Anne Watts of the "Anne & the Boys" link was featured on Morning Edition a few weeks back speaking of NPR. If you hit the link, it links you to the piece.

It sounds like my Mom and my siblings and nieces and nephew had a pretty nice Easter cruise. I work so much I hardly ever get to talk to anyone anymore but that's the word.

Speaking of work - people are friggin' nuts, you know that? The pettiness and litigousness of this culture is VERY disheartening. The zap-fast-speed at which people just threaten to sue one another over any little thing is B I Z A R R E - that word is a euphemism in case you were wondering.

Oh well, that's the MDB update. Much love...All the Best...Kindest Regards....Peace.

Aerial Damage Photos - Photos

Aerial Damage Photos - Photos

No Spoon

I just tried to change the photo on my profile. Blogger didn't like the one I picked to upload - it said it "did not have enough extension". That's one of the reasons I gave up on baton lessons when I was a kid. The older girl down the street from us who did the teaching kept telling me I didn't have enough extension.

The picture I tried to upload is really cool. It's an extreme close-up of a spoon on slab of corragated metal - good shadows, really grainy, nice reflections & contrasts.

I wish I could send a picture of that spoon to someone and have them know just exactly what I mean. Some images are just not between the arrangement of any words and it just makes it worse to try to fit them in there somewhere.

Can a Good Man Ever Win?

I was just taking a peek at the March edition of The Iowa Source which includes the results of our annual reader's restaurant poll. There was a quote from a woman saying she always makes a man take her to Taste on Melrose before she has sex with them.

Jeez, I've got a new boyfriend who I really like but so far I've given him the flower, I'm doing the cooking for his friends tomorrow night, he spends a whole lot of his time at work surfing the 'net but has never bothered to read any of my columns or anything else I have published on the electronic ether (he gives me his writing ALL the time & it's very damn good, BTW) and he has this habit of telling me how "pretty" this or that woman is on a frequent basis (I'm "hot" & "striking" but not, apparently "pretty".)

Okay, okay - he is wonderful in so many ways I'm not mentioning here and he's sweet as pie and has a wisdom and generosity of spirit that's incredibly awesome. As a matter of fact - he asks about reading my poetry all the time and I suppose "hot and striking" just might be analagous to pretty. Poor guy, if he were telling me I was "pretty", I'd probably be miffed that he wasn't telling me I was "hot & striking". Oh dear, can a good man ever win?

I'm sooooooo tired right now. I've worked about 9073 hours this week. I really like my new job. I actually get to think and my boss actually values my work. Imagine that!

Wanted to Mention

I've gone and gotten myself so busy (yucky and yahoo!), I've been neglecting my own links. Anyway, just checked them out again and wanted to mention that Boister has a gorgeous new site (aka "Anne and the Boys"). Check it out! How'd they do that?

Buy a record from 'em. Buy one of Sweet How's, as well. He gave Ms. Watts her very first gig.

Out.

P.S. Lisa's husband, the painter Bill Mead - www.billmead.com. is now linked from her site (Lisa's Book!). It's gorgeous work. Check it out. Eye candy.

What the frig....

I was just trying to link Sandy Brown's blog from here and it goes straight to the Yahoo home page. What gives. If you know or can figure this out, please check it out or let me know. Gotta admire a woman bold enough to throw a biscuit at Mark Levine at a dinner party with such fine aim she beaned him right in the head.

Poor Guy. Okay, it was poor manners but it is a funny story.

A Requiem for my Eyebrows?

Alas, I've always wished I were a musician to. This from today's Common Dreams. Glad to read of Vonnegut's regret at the passing of manners in our society. An old roommate once told me she thought I was beginning to resemble Mark Twain. My eyebrows were beginning to gray. It was hilarious. I only wish I were that witty.Oh yeah, Lisa will be reading at Party Lights in mid-June. Keep you posted.

Kurt Vonnegut: A Requiem for the USA

'All the other species are dying and so will we. I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard... whistling as beautifully as I can'

Kurt Vonnegut is dwelling on the apocalypse. It’s not that his omelette isn’t good. It’s not that his mood is downcast, but for the third time over lunch in Manhattan, America’s funniest and most pessimistic novelist is explaining why he will welcome the end of the world. “I don’t like life very much for what it does to other people,” he says. This is by no means the most depressing statement he makes between starter and main course, but somehow, by the time we leave the restaurant I feel inspired and full of hope.

Taken at face value, Vonnegut’s worldview is appallingly bleak. He tells me that “all the other species are dying and so will we”. He argues that almost everybody is “humiliated, frustrated, terribly disappointed”, and compares life to an enforced spell in the army lasting 80 years instead of three. An hour in the company of such an acutely-aware Eeyore could be dispiriting, were it not for his belief in the redemptive power of creativity and his endless capacity for jokes. “I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard,” he admits, “and I’m whistling as beautifully as I can.”

A Man Without A Country has been presented as Vonnegut’s final testament, eight years after he announced that he would never publish again. It contains many familiar themes, some old gags, and several passages lifted verbatim from previous essays and speeches, most of which first appeared in the left-wing magazine In These Times. He credits his publisher, Daniel Simon, with “doing for me what Jesus did for Lazarus”.

“I was so dead I stank,” he continues, “I’m as surprised as anyone to be back at the age of 83 and I’m embarrassed to have lived so long. I was in a house-fire some years ago and it would have been much more tasteful to have died back then.”

For all the references to his advanced years, and his continued loyalty to unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, Vonnegut is in remarkably good health. His wheezing laugh, the tar-pit depths of his baritone and the occasional coughing fit testify to 70 years of smoking, but he doesn’t light up. In New York, even literary icons must keep their habit at home. A glass of wine is declined because “it hits me too hard these days”.

It has often been remarked that as he grows older, Vonnegut increasingly resembles Mark Twain, one of his heroes. The curls are tighter and darker, the moustache less pronounced, and despite his frailty he looks younger than Twain in his declining years, even though Huckleberry Finn’s creator never saw 75. The picture on the front cover of the new book, taken by his second wife, the renowned photographer, Jill Krementz, is a good one. “It’s a good face, fer chrissakes,” cackles Vonnegut.

Manners are important to him, and he regrets their passing. He is unfailingly courteous, and once wrote that if he dined with Richard Nixon’s defence secretary, he would discuss global annihilation with a smile. If promoting a new book is a chore, it never shows. He tells the waitress: “This place is great … I eat less than this on Thanksgiving.”

And so on.

Born in Indianapolis in 1922, Kurt Vonnegut Jr was encouraged to believe that once the Great Depression was over, technological advances would ensure prosperity for all. His father, an architect, insisted that he should become a scientist like his brother. “What actually happened,” he recalls in his collected speeches, “was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima. We killed everybody there.”

As he had recently experienced his mother’s suicide, fought in the second world war and witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden as a captive of the German army, he decided, not unreasonably, that there was no longer much cause for optimism. “I predicted that everything would become worse,” he says, “and everything has become worse.”

In 1958, Vonnegut’s sister Alice died of cancer the day after her husband John was killed in a train crash. Vonnegut and his first wife adopted their three children. They already had three of their own.

“I try to be truthful,” he continues, “My God, after the Holocaust isn’t it time we gave up as a species? After the first world war wasn’t it time we gave up? We’re perfectly awful animals and we’re intelligent enough to know about it.”

This dim view of humanity permeates Vonnegut’s fiction, without ever becoming corrosive, thanks to an endless parade of wild ideas, elegantly constructed comic set-pieces and cheap one-liners. Slaughterhouse Five, widely regarded as his definitive statement, views the horrors of Dresden through the eyes of a man who has become unstuck in time. Billy Pilgrim leaps from 1950s America to the planet Tralfamadore and back to Dresden again, a device Vonnegut describes as “the equivalent of [Shakespeare] bringing on the clowns every so often to lighten things up”.

Writing it was a painful experience lasting more than 20 years, and by the end all he felt able to conclude was: “I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.”

The novel has been a staple of US high school reading lists for three decades now, but Vonnegut’s work remains under- appreciated next to his avant-garde peers Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and William Gaddis. For too long, critics and academics stacked all science-fiction with the trash, assuming that books thousands of teenagers were enjoying on their own time did not merit serious consideration.

That stigma has faded, but there is still a sense that Vonnegut is both too whimsical and too accessible for America’s literary custodians, an issue he has himself addressed, writing that “clarity looks a lot like laziness and ignorance and childishness and cheapness to them. Any idea which can be grasped immediately is for them, by definition, something they knew all the time”.

In A Man Without A Country, Vonnegut plays with this notion that he has been cheated of due recognition, claiming that he hasn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature because he once ran a Saab dealership that went bust and consequently bad-mouthed the Swedes. “I think it was great that Pinter won,” he says “and it was a fine speech. Perhaps as a result of this book they’ll give me one too. I just need to make it to October and I get a million dollars.” He’s kidding, although his publisher points out that his work is always translated into Swedish, just to make sure it doesn’t slip past the Nobel committee.

If there is a lingering hunger for acceptance, Vonnegut hides it well. “I’m just the asshole who broke the bank at Monte Carlo,” he says, and if it’s a well-worn line, he seems ready enough to believe it. “Listen, I have no idea how it happens,” he continues. “There are plenty of artists that have no idea how they did it. I don’t think any of us know what we are. I seem to have had a destiny, so I did it.

“Beethoven died shaking his fist at God because all this music was still pouring out of him. I don’t know how the hell I did it. What people say is they’re possessed, and I suspect that we’re more possessible than we realise. Something just takes over.”

Vonnegut has threatened to quit several times. Long before he formally declared that Timequake would be his last book, in 1997, he was fond of reminding people that of all the great writers only Tolstoy produced his best work after 45. Is there not some slim chance that he will be possessed again?

“I don’t care,” he answers, “I don’t think it would be particularly good news. I feel like I’ve fulfilled my destiny. I’m completely in print. I’ve been allowed to say everything I’ve wanted to say. I’ve said that this country needs another novel the way the world needs another Sistine Chapel or another Beethoven’s Ninth.”

As to what the country does need, Vonnegut is less sure. His last book, if it is his last, is an excoriating attack on modern American society in all its greed and stupidity, but there is no pay-off or conclusion. It ends not with a revolution but with a requiem.

Vonnegut’s contempt for George Bush and his government is expressed with great force and clarity in A Man Without A Country, but his feelings of alienation from his homeland are nothing new. In 1972 he covered the Republican Convention for Harper’s Magazine, describing Nixon as “the first president to hate American people and all they stand for”. It was there he concluded that the USA’s two party system is one of winners and losers, rather than Democrats and Republicans, and the winners win no matter who gets into office. This being so, surely there is some consolation in the fact that the current president is such a ripe satirical target?

“I suppose so,” he acknowledges, “but the country is terribly at risk, because his stupidities have terrible consequences, leading to deaths of many people, rotten schools, rotten healthcare. He should be protecting us not only from insurgents or terrorists but from disease and ignorance, and he’s not about to do either.

“Still, there’s not much difference. [Democratic candidate, John] Kerry said out of the side of his mouth at one point that he’s not for re-distributing wealth. He and George Bush belong to the same social class, went to the same university, belong to the same gentleman’s club. Can you believe that, in a country of 300 million people, we have to choose between two members of Skull & Bones [a secret society] at Yale?”

Vonnegut votes Democrat, but describes himself as socialist, in the tradition of Carl Sandburg, Eugene Victor Debs and Powers Hapgood. Does he find it troubling that there is no socialist party of note in the US, that historians of the right can claim that the left has demonstrably failed?

“They have socialised medicine in Sweden and Canada, I wish to God we had it,” he answers, “there are socialist experiments going on everywhere. In the Communist Manifesto, what they demanded was free education and free healthcare. One of the most beneficial social experiments in this country was the GI Bill Of Rights – when we came home we could all go to college for free.”

Last week, George Bush used his annual State Of The Union address to declare that his government is meeting its responsibility to provide healthcare for the poor and the elderly and spearheading a global quest for peace. Vonnegut’s stump speech states the opposite. In the land of his internal exile, corporate profiteers rule unchecked, extended families have been split into desperately vulnerable nuclear groups, “lethal injection and warfare are forms of entertainment” and Americans are “as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were”.

When challenged about this last statement, Vonnegut repeats that US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice- president Dick Cheney are “jut-jawed, like Nazis” and argues that the main difference is that the Germans were justly feared for their military prowess.

“We have no army,” he says, “What makes us the most powerful nation on Earth is our willingness to kill people in their thousands with remote-controlled missiles, the fact that we’re prepared to set off nuclear explosions in the middle of unarmed people – men, women and children.

“Only one country has been crazy enough to set off a nuke in the middle of a civilian population. Did it twice, and that’s when members of my generation, soldiers, could see that ‘we’re not the good guys any more’. We were very careful not to hurt civilians.”

In his rage and despair he invokes the true guardians of America’s soul, quoting from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and Christ’s Sermon On The Mount. For a confirmed humanist, he mentions the Beatitudes surprisingly often, arguing that the President’s fundamentalist friends have forgotten the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers.

Vonnegut once observed that he was at his funniest two days after Martin Luther King Jr was shot, because he was speaking to an audience “full of pain that they couldn’t do anything about … there was an enormous need to either laugh or cry”.

The punchline count is high in A Man Without A Country, as it has been in every one of his novels. On the first page he explains that, as the youngest child in a family of five, making jokes was the only way to get noticed in adult conversation. Reporting on the fall of Biafra in 1970, he noticed he still cracked wise as the Nigerian army approached, writing that “joking was my response to misery I couldn’t do anything about”.

Crucially, it has not been his only reflex. What elevates his work above gallows humour and exposes him as an idealist in pessimist’s clothing is his palpable compassion and the way in which he appeals to his readers’ better natures. “Practising any art is a way to make your soul grow,” he writes, and it is clear that this has been his own salvation. As we speak, he raises a glass : “To the arts.”

Later, when the food arrives, Vonnegut talks about the teacher who inspired him, James C Bean, reminding me that “the Great Depression was going on, and there were no good jobs, so it was a wonderful break to get to be a teacher or a mailman. Some of the best and smartest people in Indianapolis were teaching in school.

“All it takes is one great teacher,” he continues, and though he would never be so conceited as to admit it, he has evidently been that teacher, for his seven children, for students at various American universities, and for three generations of science-fiction fans.

What he has consistently taught is that art alone can rescue his homeland, through a series of personal revolutions. This belief in the transformative power of creativity is expressed beautifully in the preface to Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons (Opinions). “I now believe,” he writes, “that the only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness, can mature sufficiently to rescue themselves and to help rescue the planet, is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imaginations.

“I am not especially satisfied with my own imaginative works, my fiction. I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.”

At 83, Vonnegut has been convinced by a publisher from his children’s generation that his last task is to tell the truth. He has decided that the proximity of environmental catastrophe will probably make him unfunny for the rest of his life. He is unrepentant in his pessimism, and he wishes he wasn’t a writer. He wishes, as he has always wished, that he was a musician.

“Music gives pleasure as we never can,” he reasons. “I’ve said that the purpose of the arts is to make people like life more than they had done before, and people ask me if I’ve seen this done and I say, ‘Yes, the Beatles did it’ – it was an amazing event.”

In Breakfast Of Champions, Vonnegut’s satirical take on the madness of consumer society, science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout longs to be seen as “a representative of all the thousands of artists who devoted their entire lives to a search for truth and beauty – and didn’t find doodley-squat”. It is his master’s voice. Vonnegut’s lifetime of searching has left him weary, and he is reluctant to claim much credit for the wonders he has unlocked for millions of readers.

After lunch, as he climbs into the back of a waiting car, he offers this parting shot: “Remember, I don’t know how I did it.”

Poor Norm

The following appeared in the V. Voice in 1956 in Norman Mailer's Column. Poor Mailor, he apparently got into a bit of a scuffle about the little typo. I think it's rather hilarious and actually like the idea of growth being a bit of a "nuisance". Anyway, there you go - "did you really believe that?". Happy 50th b-day to the Voice.

Last week a classic of this sort occurred. Writing about Hip, part of my final sentence was supposed to read:

. . . because Hip is not totally negative, and has a view of life which is predicated on growth and the nuances of growth, I intend to continue writing about it . . .

As it appeared in The Voice, it read:

. . . because Hip is not totally negative, and has a view of life which is predicated on growth and the nuisances of growth, I intend to continue writing about it . . .

Poor Ted

from The Onion

Man Who Does Everything At Last Minute Wonders How You Do It

February 1, 2006 | Issue 42•05

CHICAGO—

Ted Henson, a copywriter at Green/Allium Advertising and notoriously disorganized procrastinator, is awestruck by his coworkers' ability to manage multiple aspects of their lives. "I'm surrounded by, like, these amazing super-multitasking rock stars," said Henson as he watched creative director Kyle Peters put some layouts in a metal file cabinet. "How do you deal with all this lame bureaucratic bullshit? You have to tell me your secret kung-fu organization system." Henson remained in Peters' office for over an hour, talking about Peters' filing system, the filing system in the film Brazil, and other Terry Gilliam films, causing him to miss a 2:30 assignment deadline.

If you're lucky....

“If you’re lucky, people like something you do early and something you do just before you drop dead,” he said. “That’s as many pats on the back as you should expect.” - Zevon

I just needed to find this quotation today, really I did.

Franzen Affirmed?

Jeez - James Frey. I feel sorry for the guy. The writing world is, as one friend aptly remarked, "a small, muddy pond with too many animals lapping at its shore." I read his first book when it was originally published (Frey's not the friend's) and thought it was pretty cliche so not surprised he couldn't sell the thing as a work of fiction but, man, it's better than, say, Dean Koontz. Don't ask how I came to read one of his books.

Maybe lying was not the best thing in the world for him, but billionairess, badass Oprah Winfrey has a hell of a lot more to be ashamed of in my opinion. The whole message to her madness seemed to be I'll stand by you as long as it's not going to make me look bad or effect my ratings.

Jonathan Franzen, man, he must be finding this entire episode rather, well, affirming.

It you don't know what I'm refering to check out his book of essays, How to be Alone and in particular the one about his brush with HARPO. Hell check out my Blog archives and check out my brush with the big O. Those very Oliver P frames are in the display case at MacDonald Optical as I write this, oddly enough.

New Link

Okay - I've added a link for my friend, Lisa's upcoming book, Public Radio: Behind the Voices. For those of us who listen to Public Radio (are there any other stations on the tuner thingie?), who doesn't want to read a little gossip about our favorite reporters and personalities. Check out the link. Sadly, no dirt on Sedaris' enigmatic boyfriend, Hugh. I asked, alas.

Well, that's about it except, Howard - that was a really sweet metaphor you used about a certain category you're in but I'm not gonna publish it here.

America's Best TV Show

Yep, I love the Jewish World Review. Where else are you gonna find stuff by Pat Sajek next to the Chevelier of NO Bohemia? A little bit of a dream world ain't the worst thing in the world. This is a hilarious essay and I swiped it outright. Sorry, Andrei. Nobody much reads this thing anyway. More free publicity?

Disclaimer: I've never seen Extreme Makeover. I've never even seen Dr. Phil. I really am living in a dream world.

Extreme makeover: New Orleans

By Andrei Codrescu


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The votes are in. Extreme Makeover is America's best TV show. The premise is universal: men and women with good intentions and lots of money swoop down from Hollyood on the ugly and the hopeless and transform them through surgery and advice into beauties to die for. Or is that the Swan?


No matter, the concept is in play. Huge billboards in Arkansas display side by side a normal-looking teenager and a hideously deformed and prematurely aged woman. The caption: Extreme Makeover: Meth. In Iraq, sci-fi American soldiers are transforming that country from a nest of intrigue and terror into a brand-new gas station. Extreme Makeover: Iraq. Sleepy Chinese hamlets are waking to find themselves transformed overnight into humming producers of chachkas and putrid air: Extreme Makeover: Walmart, China. Extreme Makeover: Walmart (name a country here) will be soon coming to a country near you. Extreme Makeover: Mexico, has already transformed that country from a dusty nightmare of siesta-takers into a dynamic hive of supermercado shoppers.


The Extreme Makeover concept has been around for thousands of years under diverse names such as "imperialism," (we are coming to your place to clean up), or "urban planning," (we'll fix your city), or "no urban planning, but we'll make you over (extremely) anyway".


For at least a century, the concept was integral to the functioning of the Mafia where it was known as "re-arranging da face." Those forms of extreme makeover were but the beginning of possibilities for the TV-version that has begun, modestly enough, with individuals. The problem with the extreme makeovers of the past is that the results were often unseemly. A Mafia makeover, for instance, couldn't be shown on television because a "mob re-arranged face" made people throw up. Better leave the business of making someone or something over to the professionals of beauty.


In the future, entities wishing to be made over should appeal directly to the TV show's producers and insist until they are given a shot, like the teenager who importuned them until the maimed in her trailer were changed into cover girls. Even the U.S. government could benefit from the show's expertise. Let's say we want to make over another middle eastern country: the show will produce a clear "before" and "after." There will be no confusion, and there will be ratings. I suggest that New Orleans get on the waiting list as quickly as possible. If we leave our future to the current planners, we'll come out looking like a cross between Kabul and Detroit.


What we want is to look like New Orleans, Las Vegas, and only Extreme Makeover can do that for us.

Logic Smogic

or...."It's my party and I'll spy if I want to"

from the January 2 edition of Common Dreams who apparently swiped it from the SF Chronicle. Happy New Year!

A Brief Primer Designed to Help You Understand the Workings of Our New, Streamlined American System of Government
by Jon Carroll

Perhaps you have been unable to follow the intricacies of the logic used by John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor who has emerged as the president's foremost apologist for all the stuff he has to apologize for. I have therefore prepared a brief, informal summary of the relevant arguments.

* * *

Why does the president have the power to unilaterally authorize wiretaps of American citizens?

Because he is the president.

Does the president always have that power?

No. Only when he is fighting the war on terror does he have that power.

When will the war on terror be over?

The fight against terror is eternal. Terror is not a nation; it is a tactic. As long as the president is fighting a tactic, he can use any means he deems appropriate.

Why does the president have that power?

It's in the Constitution.

Where in the Constitution?

It can be inferred from the Constitution. When the president is protecting America, he may by definition make any inference from the Constitution that he chooses. He is keeping America safe.

Who decides what measures are necessary to keep America safe?

The president.

Who has oversight over the actions of the president?

The president oversees his own actions. If at any time he determines that he is a danger to America, he has the right to wiretap himself, name himself an enemy combatant and spirit himself away to a secret prison in Egypt.

But isn't there a secret court, the FISA court, that has the power to authorize wiretapping warrants? Wasn't that court set up for just such situations when national security is at stake?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court might disagree with the president. It might thwart his plans. It is a danger to the democracy that we hold so dear. We must never let the courts stand in the way of America's safety.

So there are no guarantees that the president will act in the best interests of the country?

The president was elected by the people. They chose him; therefore he represents the will of the people. The people would never act against their own interests; therefore, the president can never act against the best interests of the people. It's a doctrine I like to call "the triumph of the will."

But surely the Congress was also elected by the people, and therefore also represents the will of the people. Is that not true?

Congress? Please.

It's sounding more and more as if your version of the presidency resembles an absolute monarchy. Does it?

Of course not. We Americans hate kings. Kings must wear crowns and visit trade fairs and expositions. The president only wears a cowboy hat and visits military bases, and then only if he wants to.

Can the president authorize torture?

No. The president can only authorize appropriate means.

Could those appropriate means include torture?

It's not torture if the president says it's not torture. It's merely appropriate. Remember, America is under constant attack from terrorism. The president must use any means necessary to protect America.

Won't the American people object?

Not if they're scared enough.

What if the Supreme Court rules against the president?

The president has respect for the Supreme Court. We are a nation of laws, not of men. In the unlikely event that the court would rule against the president, he has the right to deny that he was ever doing what he was accused of doing, and to keep further actions secret. He also has the right to rename any practices the court finds repugnant. "Wiretapping" could be called "protective listening." There's nothing the matter with protective listening.

Recently, a White House spokesman defended the wiretaps this way: "This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches." If these very bad people have blown up churches, why not just arrest them?

That information is classified.

Have many weddings been blown up by terrorists?

No, they haven't, which is proof that the system works. The president does reserve the right to blow up gay terrorist weddings -- but only if he determines that the safety of the nation is at stake. The president is also keeping his eye on churches, many of which have become fonts of sedition. I do not believe that the president has any problem with commuter trains, although that could always change.

So this policy will be in place right up until the next election?

Election? Let's just say that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It may not be wise to have an election in a time of national peril.

Copyright © 2006 San Francisco Chronicle