site index
                          [Picture of the Day logo]

Picture of the Day
Friday
  March 19, 2021

subscribe

My lifelong love affair with
Kurt Vonnegut's writings
began by chance when I
bought a couple of novels
for 5 cents a piece at my
public library's book sale.
I was 14, curious about the
world, and ripe to receive his
mix of cynicism and empathy.
That was almost 40 years ago
and I'm still rereading his
works with ever deepening
appreciation. I've been pacing
myself on this cross-country
drive
but I headed out before
sunrise
so I'd have time to pull
off the interstate and visit the
new and improved KVML in
his hometown of Indianapolis.
I visited the first iteration a few
years ago, when it was just a
street level storefront, humbler
than this spacious three story building
that houses more than just his stories.
 

     
There's a library of banned books
by Vonnegut and other authors, a
collection of personal artifacts,
and a whole bunch of fan art, of
which this quilt was my favorite.
Look closely at this detail and
you'll see words emerge as if by
magic. Allegedly the background
contains the titles of all his
novels but I didn't have time
to tease them all out, had to
get back on that asphalt ribbon
undulating between vast expanses
of winter brown fields punctuated
by turbines towering over siloes
to reap the wild wind, en route to
a layover with my in-laws in Ohio,
where Miso has been cooling her
heels since Sarah flew her out there
a couple of weeks ago. Unlike other
road trips, I made a conscious effort
to not count the miles this time, tried
to exist in the moment--as much as
that's possible moving at 120 fps