Today it has been 40 days since I lost a personal hero.
Today is a karassounk day for me (the end of the Armenian 40-day mourning period).
He was one of the greatest writers of modern times. He was Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
He has authored numerous and incomparable works of great humour, sadness and love for people. Mostly though, works of amazing humanism.
Look him up, you won't be sorry. Better still read his books.
His style was unique in that many of his characters appeared and reappeared throughout his novels, even though the novels were not related.
His recurring Armenian character was Rabo Karabekian, the main hero of Bluebeard, the fictional autobiography of an American Armenian painter who was one of the founders of abstract expressionism.
His alter ego, who appeared in all of his works was Kilgore Trout. A forgotten yet prolific science fiction writer who has literally authored thousands of works (or ideas for works, which just ended up as jotted down and torn notes in a garbage heap).
Today, I am Kilgore Trout-yan.
Here is my story (or an idea for a story):
"Existence is reduced to those of straight lines in space. They can only have three kinds of relationships.
The vast majority of lines are in a relationship of being skew to each other. Which is another way of saying that they have nothing to say to each other. From different angles they would appear that they actually touch but it really is not so. It is only an illusion.
Many lines are parallel, they are purposeful, in synch, unified in direction. They ultimately long for each other. Yet they can never meet. They will actually suffer because they know about the existence of the other parallel lines but cannot experience them.
The only way lines can communicate is by intersecting. They are unique, they are individual. They come from beyond infinity, touch for an infinitesimally small instant and then they will forever part. It is at this point that they experience existence in full. Intersection is so unique that it is the only life long quest of lines in this world.
The coincidence and intersection of more than two lines in one point is so rare that it is worshipped as a manifestation of the Creator.
Some lines are engaged in finding or forecasting where in their space-time continuum will such multiple intersections occur. They say that by doing so, all lines will experience the real intentions of the Creator. They are priestly lines.
Other lines say that by trying to warp their space-time continuum they can actually cause these multiple intersections to occur at will. They say that they can become Creators and hence they spend their lives engaging in such experiments. These scientific lines cause a tear in their universe and create a tunnel into another.
In this other universe, on a speck of dust, revolving around a lost star at the edge of a galaxy eight bipeds with highly evolved brains are getting ready to meet in a remote landscape which they say is the land of their ancestors. They have no idea that once they meet, they will pass through a tear in their universe, in this land of their ancestors, and end up in the universe of lines.
None of the lines of course have a clue about the real intentions of the Creator.
None of the lines suspects that they are just scribbles made on a piece of paper by a child, who is the real Creator and has no intentions about his creation whatsoever; no one really knows whether the Creator is even trying to draw a specific picture.
The eight lines from the second universe will spend their lives in the universe of lines trying to explain this to the others, and trying to get back to their world. No one of course believes them and they are declared completely mad lines.
And so it goes."
I am one of those eight bipeds. I will be going through a tear in my world. I have no idea where I will end up.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ended his writings with his characteristic "and so it goes".
For the past 40 days, I have been ending my writings with "and so it goes".
Today will be the last time in mourning that I will write "and so it goes".
Here it is.
And so it goes.
Today is a karassounk day for me (the end of the Armenian 40-day mourning period).
He was one of the greatest writers of modern times. He was Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
He has authored numerous and incomparable works of great humour, sadness and love for people. Mostly though, works of amazing humanism.
Look him up, you won't be sorry. Better still read his books.
His style was unique in that many of his characters appeared and reappeared throughout his novels, even though the novels were not related.
His recurring Armenian character was Rabo Karabekian, the main hero of Bluebeard, the fictional autobiography of an American Armenian painter who was one of the founders of abstract expressionism.
His alter ego, who appeared in all of his works was Kilgore Trout. A forgotten yet prolific science fiction writer who has literally authored thousands of works (or ideas for works, which just ended up as jotted down and torn notes in a garbage heap).
Today, I am Kilgore Trout-yan.
Here is my story (or an idea for a story):
"Existence is reduced to those of straight lines in space. They can only have three kinds of relationships.
The vast majority of lines are in a relationship of being skew to each other. Which is another way of saying that they have nothing to say to each other. From different angles they would appear that they actually touch but it really is not so. It is only an illusion.
Many lines are parallel, they are purposeful, in synch, unified in direction. They ultimately long for each other. Yet they can never meet. They will actually suffer because they know about the existence of the other parallel lines but cannot experience them.
The only way lines can communicate is by intersecting. They are unique, they are individual. They come from beyond infinity, touch for an infinitesimally small instant and then they will forever part. It is at this point that they experience existence in full. Intersection is so unique that it is the only life long quest of lines in this world.
The coincidence and intersection of more than two lines in one point is so rare that it is worshipped as a manifestation of the Creator.
Some lines are engaged in finding or forecasting where in their space-time continuum will such multiple intersections occur. They say that by doing so, all lines will experience the real intentions of the Creator. They are priestly lines.
Other lines say that by trying to warp their space-time continuum they can actually cause these multiple intersections to occur at will. They say that they can become Creators and hence they spend their lives engaging in such experiments. These scientific lines cause a tear in their universe and create a tunnel into another.
In this other universe, on a speck of dust, revolving around a lost star at the edge of a galaxy eight bipeds with highly evolved brains are getting ready to meet in a remote landscape which they say is the land of their ancestors. They have no idea that once they meet, they will pass through a tear in their universe, in this land of their ancestors, and end up in the universe of lines.
None of the lines of course have a clue about the real intentions of the Creator.
None of the lines suspects that they are just scribbles made on a piece of paper by a child, who is the real Creator and has no intentions about his creation whatsoever; no one really knows whether the Creator is even trying to draw a specific picture.
The eight lines from the second universe will spend their lives in the universe of lines trying to explain this to the others, and trying to get back to their world. No one of course believes them and they are declared completely mad lines.
And so it goes."
I am one of those eight bipeds. I will be going through a tear in my world. I have no idea where I will end up.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ended his writings with his characteristic "and so it goes".
For the past 40 days, I have been ending my writings with "and so it goes".
Today will be the last time in mourning that I will write "and so it goes".
Here it is.
And so it goes.
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