Speaking of really great writers, Kurt Vonnegut recently attended his self-proclaimed last paid speaking gig at Ohio State. I’ve never envied Ohio anything, but I wish I’d been present to hear the imparted wisdom from the one of the word’s most imaginative living (kind of) writers.

I love Vonnegut. I read everything he’d written in such rapid succession during adolescence that it’s all blended together into one lumpy warm mass in my brain, like the soft spot on a banana. I even enjoyed his son Mark Vonnegut’s Eden Express detailing the drug-triggered schizophrenia he suffered for awhile before becoming a pediatrician. Mark’s memoir showed me that schizophrenics and children can probably grow to contribute something valuable to society (under heavily medicated circumstances).

My favorite Vonnegut quotes from his recent speech (via Rawstory):

“If you want really want to hurt your parents and don’t want to be gay, go into the arts.”

“I’m going to sue the cigarette companies because they haven’t killed me.”

And then he sang Stardust Memory as the collective audience counted the pulse beats in his neck and made friendly wagers.

Sigh. I guess the main reason I like Vonnegut is that he reminds me of my grandfather, only slightly less dead.