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R E C E N T L Y

Barhopping with the Bud Girls
By James Hibberd
Salon Exclusive: After five years of hand-wringing about binge drinking, an investigation reveals just how low some beer distributors will go to saturate the college market
(02/01/99)

Think fast and lie
By Katy Shrout
One recent graduate offers advice for confused college seniors facing the end
(01/29/99)

Saturday night fever
By Mindy Hung
Stomach flu, a batch of pot brownies and the '60s drug myth: Why one woman can't seem to take any of it seriously
(01/27/99)

Camille on Campus
By Camille Paglia
Warning! Mentorship land mine ahead!
(01/27/99)

The Big Lie
By Michael O'Donovan-Anderson
Why have today's students become a bunch of grade-grubbing morons?
(01/25/99)

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Stalking Kurt Vonnegut

BY DAN STERNThere we were in the packed auditorium, our eyes locked. He was up on stage under the spotlight, a guest in a round-table discussion on the issue of time in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. I was down in the seats, about eight rows back on the aisle. And I swear it, our stares were fixed, one on the other, on and off, for much of the night. Am I inventing this, just wishing that my literary icon, my reason for writing, actually had some special interest, good or bad, in my ordinary face in the crowd? Could my imagination have played such a wicked trick on me?

Yes, it could have. It has before and will again. But this time, no. Kurt Vonnegut was indeed probing my eyes, engaging me in a staring contest of who would give in first. All told, we came out even that night. I'd like to believe the cause of all this was that he saw some divine aura swarming around me, detecting a uniqueness that only comes around every few decades or so, one that he himself possesses. But that wasn't it at all. Let me tell you a bit about our past, Kurt's and mine. Then you'll understand.

I moved to New York City, across from the United Nations, at the end of this past summer, already a devoted Vonnegutian. He's my light in the darkness, the thrust behind my writing desire. Who else could put down on paper something like "Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different" and get away with it? Hell, not only get away with it, but come out a literati prophet on the other end. Or how about this one: "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." For a while, like most writers who read Vonnegut and find in his satirical prose a humanistic wisdom once thought extinct, I tried to imitate his art. I failed miserably but still sometimes hear an echo of his voice seeping into my stories. You'll probably even see it happen in this one. He's like head lice, hard to shake. But, ultimately, there's only one Vonnegut. Only one.

One sunny Sunday afternoon in the Big Juicy Apple not long after I'd moved here, I headed to Rockefeller Center to see Stephen King read from his most recent megaseller. King wrote one of my favorite short stories, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," since made into a film. Few things could have disrupted my stream of thought as I ran through the streets to see King in person for the first time ever. Very few things. Vonnegut, it turned out, was one of them.

Only three blocks from my apartment, I briefly caught the image of an older man with a full head of scraggly gray hair sitting on a bench, puffing away desperately at a cigarette. As I ran by, that image sent a message to the certain part of my mind that stores sacred, though little-used, information. That's what Kurt Vonnegut looks like, the message said. And then another memory swam into my consciousness: Kurt Vonnegut lives right near the United Nations.

N E X T_ P A G E .|. Meeting the man himself