{"id":1044,"date":"2007-04-12T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-12T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html"},"modified":"2007-04-12T09:40:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-12T09:40:00","slug":"rip-mr-rosewater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Valerie Reiss, filling in for Amy.<\/i><\/p>\n

The wonderful author Kurt Vonnegut<\/a> died yesterday at age 84.<\/p>\n

Though I’ve buried many of the details of his amazing books deep into my adolescent psyche where they first bloomed (or rather, exploded), I know his snarky, brilliant, dark-yet-bright, absurd-yet-earnest, searing satires seriously shaped me–and zillions of others. <\/p>\n

If you haven’t, I urge you to pick up “Cat’s Cradle” or “Breakfast of Champions” or “Slaughterhouse Five,” because they’re all wincing and soaring revelations, if a tad gritty–and often grapple with themes of existence, God, and religion galore. You should do this especially if you mainly know of him through “his” commencement speech–one of the Internet’s first viral links, and frauds<\/a> about 10 years ago. <\/p>\n

At age 14, I scrawled this beloved quote from “Cat’s Cradle” on my bathroom’s “graffiti” wall (I had a cool mom):<\/p>\n

“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”<\/p>\n

And this, of course, was written nearby: “So it goes.”<\/p>\n

<a href="http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Kurt_Vonnegut
” target=”_new”>Here are<\/a> many other great Vonnegut quotes.<\/p>\n

The Times’ obit today talks about his work, including the metaphysical elements, here.<\/a> It says that this quote from his novel \u201cGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,\u201d “summed up his philosophy”:<\/p>\n

\u201cHello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It\u2019s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It\u2019s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you\u2019ve got about a hundred years here. There\u2019s only one rule that I know of, babies \u2014 \u2018God damn it, you\u2019ve got to be kind.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

That’s a philosophy that works for me. So it goes.<\/p>\n

Do you have any favorite Vonnegut memories or quotes or books? Please share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Valerie Reiss, filling in for Amy. The wonderful author Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at age 84. Though I’ve buried many of the details of his amazing books deep into my adolescent psyche where they first bloomed (or rather, exploded), I know his snarky, brilliant, dark-yet-bright, absurd-yet-earnest, searing satires seriously shaped me–and zillions of others.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nR.I.P., Mr. Rosewater - Chattering Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater - Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Valerie Reiss, filling in for Amy. The wonderful author Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at age 84. Though I’ve buried many of the details of his amazing books deep into my adolescent psyche where they first bloomed (or rather, exploded), I know his snarky, brilliant, dark-yet-bright, absurd-yet-earnest, searing satires seriously shaped me–and zillions of others.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-04-12T09:40:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Vonnegut070412.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vreiss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater - Chattering Mind","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater - Chattering Mind","og_description":"By Valerie Reiss, filling in for Amy. The wonderful author Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at age 84. Though I’ve buried many of the details of his amazing books deep into my adolescent psyche where they first bloomed (or rather, exploded), I know his snarky, brilliant, dark-yet-bright, absurd-yet-earnest, searing satires seriously shaped me–and zillions of others.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html","og_site_name":"Chattering Mind","article_published_time":"2007-04-12T09:40:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Vonnegut070412.jpg"}],"author":"vreiss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html","name":"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater - Chattering Mind","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Vonnegut070412.jpg","datePublished":"2007-04-12T09:40:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-04-12T09:40:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Vonnegut070412.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Vonnegut070412.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/04\/rip-mr-rosewater.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"R.I.P., Mr. Rosewater"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/","name":"Chattering Mind","description":"Amy Cunningham, Spirituality blog, Beliefnet Spiritual parenting blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d","name":"vreiss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","caption":"vreiss"},"description":"Valerie Reiss is Holistic Living Editor at Beliefnet. She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}