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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)

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One recent graduate offers advice for confused college seniors facing the end
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Saturday night fever
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(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)

BROWSE THE
IVORY TOWER
ARCHIVE

STALKING KURT VONNEGUT | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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In "Cat's Cradle," Vonnegut's novel on the foibles of man, of religion, of science, he writes that any seemingly random person who keeps finding his way into your life for no apparent reason is likely a member of your karass, "a team God has formed to get something done for Him." Kurt, listen: My friend's friend, I recently learned, is one of your grandsons. My other friend's friend's mother is your son's colleague (you follow?) in his medical practice. I recently interviewed for a copywriting position at Penguin Putnam, your current publisher. I even saw you on the street several times. Once you were wearing a pumpkin orange sweater in a city teeming with people cloaked in black and I just smiled to myself and went on my way in my own orange shirt. Kurt, I am part of your karass, can't you see? If only on the fringe of it. But I'm in there. I know I am, damn it. And I need you to see that before you head off toward your Galapagosian blue tunnel into the Afterlife.

Back in the auditorium at the round-table discussion, Kurt was eyeing me. And you can see why now. He recognized me and thought I was a lunatic stalker. This occurred to me after I had relinquished the delusion that he was somehow trying to signal me to say he'd lost my number and, oh, could I pretty please give it to him again 'cause I'd just love to get together with you. Me, a stalker? No, never. But wait. Aren't I the same kid who, after moving to New York, reread "Timequake" looking for clues to his life? "As I saunter a half-block to the news store on Second Avenue ... the store is a Ma-and-Pa joint owned by Hindus, honest-to-God Hindus! This woman has a teeny-weeny ruby between her eyes ... From the news store I go one block south to the Postal Convenience Station, where I am secretly in love with the woman behind the counter." Don't think I didn't map out this U.N.-area scene, look for the Hindu joint with the ruby-wearing woman or try to pick out the unknowing object of his passion at the postal store. Damn, I thought in that auditorium seat, I might very well be a stalker. An unsuccessful one, a good-intentioned one. But a stalker, possibly, nonetheless.

The round-table wrapped up, and a surge of audience members carrying books and ready pens lunged toward the stage. I was purposely slow in getting up, smooth and patient. Stalkers can't make sudden movements or their hunt will flee. Still, I had no problem making my way to the front. So there I was, holding my pen and a pile of books -- two by Vonnegut, one by E.O. Wilson and one by Peggy Noonan (both of whom were round-table participants too). Wilson and Noonan were up on stage and Vonnegut came stepping down to the floor to speak with his wife. And who do I address, in whose famous face do I shove my attention? Noonan's.

My lord, what was I doing? What words did I actually hear my unthinking mouth spewing? "Peggy, would you sign this for me, please?" My hero, my hope, my very own enlightenment is sliding behind me to get by, and I'm playing hard to get talking to Peggy, who, though real, real sexy for an older woman, is someone whose work I don't even know. My Mom made me have her sign her bestselling book, "What I Saw at the Revolution." Oh, you'd better love me for this one, Mother Dear.

And, then, it only gets worse. With Vonnegut still only a few feet from me, talking to his wife and signing books for others wiser than myself, I found it necessary to avert my concentration from Peggy to Professor Wilson. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, leading evolutionary biologist and one incredible human being, Wilson, still, is no Kurt Vonnegut. And yet there I was, asking him to sign his book, all along ignoring the very man whose gravity had pulled me to this place in time. This same kind of silly crap is what prevents men and women in bars who otherwise are attracted to one another from ever actually getting together.

Next thing I knew, Vonnegut had ventured back up to the stage and disappeared behind the curtain. Gone ... for now.

Why do I speak of Vonnegut so often to my friends, to myself? Because to me he is a saint, which he himself describes as a person who behaves decently in an indecent society. And his writing illuminates decency for others. Why else? Because, as Vonnegut has one of his characters in "Cat's Cradle" say, "People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say." I'm preparing my voice box for that weekend afternoon when I'm heading out the door into that fresh spring day to play some ball in the park and that patient little phone begins to ring and ring and ring.
SALON | Feb. 3, 1999

Dan Stern is a first-year MFA creative writing student at the New School for Social Research in New York.