2007: People We Lost Who Gave So Much

[Right after I wrote this, I learned that the mother of one of my best friends died New Year's Eve morning. Mrs. Judd, being human, was hardly perfect. But when my own mother died just as I started college - my father predeceased her, dying just as I started kindergarten - Mrs. Judd was quite kind to me. A few times, I was lucky enough to hear her say that despite all I had been put through - "she's handling as well as anyone could as bad a tragic situation as life deals" - she was impressed that I still kept up with school despite having to take care of my little brother and take multiple jobs to do so. For many years, she allowed me to be an odd little part of her family. Knowing she was ill, she had been in my thoughts a lot lately and especially yesterday. I was about to contact her son, my friend, to ask how best I could contact her to tell her how much I appreciated her kindness at such a tough time when I learned she had died. I was too late - but if the appreciation in my heart counts for anything, then she knows. I dearly appreciated her as a scared teenager and I still do today. Thank you, Mrs. Judd, and may God bless you and show you the same kindness.]

There are many more of these folks than I will list here, but I'd rather publish an abbreviated list (and get it out) than to start some exhaustive, all-inclusive one I won't even have finished by this time next year.

My heart and soul demand I start this list with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a writer whose work I did not begin to respect and appreciate until I was well into my adulthood (my loss) and whose death I continue to grieve almost a full year later. If you have not yet read his last work, "Man Without A Country", shame shame shame on you... and get yourself to a bookstore and get a copy post haste. A library borrow is also acceptable, though you want this one on your bookshelves (and pity on you if you don't HAVE even one bookshelf).


I also deeply miss Molly Ivins, probably one of the very best things to ever hail from Texas. Her humor, her sharp mind and even sharper pen and tongue, are unmatched.


Norman Mailer, the prized writer, also well more than earned a spot at the top of this list for all he contributed to the arts, to American culture, and to my own education and development as a writer. With all three of these people so far listed, we have a blessing: we still have their work to admire for many, many, many generations to come.


There is also David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer whose documentation of the Vietnam War, among other pivotal American and world events, was invaluable.

But I'm hardly done. I also mourn the loss of:

Tom Snyder, the once top TV talk show host who was far more human than the "egos with hair" we have now

Grace Paley, the poet and anti-war activist

Madeleine L'Engle, one of the first and most prolific published women sci-fi writers

Ira Levin, best known as the author of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives" but I believe his best work was "This Perfect Day", a terrifying and thought-provocating sci-fi future society book; he like Vonnegut and Mailer have played a role in shaping my writing

Steve Gilliard who started The News Blog

Beverly "Bubbles" Sills, the great opera singer who, though I hated opera, I thoroughly enjoyed her and her beloved mother

Art Buchwald, the humorist

Calvert "Larry Bud Melman" DeForest of David Letterman fame

And last but not least, Benazir Bhutto; while her legacy may be considered controversial, she proved that a woman can play an enormous role in traditional Muslim societies and MUST be allowed to do so - few would have been as brave as she in trying again and again to help change her country

Name Your Best Films/Documentaries/Books of 2007?

(And yes, if you have WORSTies, you can cite those, too.)

While Time Magazine and CNN and all the usual suspects rush to TELL US what films, books, and yes, even scandals were the best and worst of 2007, we're all thinking people here who don't need to be told what we can reason for ourselves.

With this in mind, what films/documentaries and books did YOU find to be the best of 2007?

Some of my big favorite books (and they would go on a big favorites list that spans more than just this year, btw) also happened to find their way onto my Christmas wish list, and I've already devoured two. These are:

* "Touch and Go" - Studs Terkel's excellent memoirs (he's a national treasure!)
* "The Omnivore's Dilemma" - Michael Pollan, an excellent follow-up to his mind-opening botany book that discusses how Americans really ARE what we eat
* "Deep Economy" - a must-read by Bill McKibben, a Vermont neighbor, that gives us a real eye-opener of an understanding of how the economy, much of which escapes our attention, drives our lives and politics and the future of this planet

But I can't fail to note the late, forever great Kurt Vonnegut's last book that I literally inhaled, "A Man Without A Country".

As for films and documentaries, I would rank "An Unreasonable Man" (about Ralph Nader), Michael Moore's "Sicko", and "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" among a slew of excellent works that I saw this year.

What about your favorites?

And So It Goes

For those, like me, already missing the bloody hell out of Kurt Vonnegut, let me point you to this lovely picture (courtesy of First Draft) of the man for whom "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", who welcomed us into the Monkeyhouse and to the Player Piano and into Mothernight, served me endless portions of "Breakfast of Champions", who bore our "Palm Sunday", shared the strange life of Kilgore Trout many times not to mention introduced us to Mr. Rosewater, who made me love Indianapolis simply because he did, delighted me with Timequake and, oh yes, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian", a slim novel I cannot recommend highly enough.

And, once more, speaking for KV:

"Ting-a-ling, god damn it! Ting-a-ling!"

The World Has Lost A Friend: Kurt Vonnegut Entertained, Informed, Inspired, and Made Our World And Our Own Minds So Much Richer

I am speechless at the death of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.

For years and years and years, I reread every Vonnegut novel of the many, many volumes on a regular basis. I just went through "Timequake" again.

But what many don't know about this beautiful man, one of the best of the humanists we are blessed to have, is how much Kurt worked for peace, for justice in a much more important sense than "an eye for an eye" (please don't insist to me that the Biblical "eye" statement is what God wants; it's ONLY what more than 20 centuries of authors, and editors and rewriters, and copiers, and kings and other men NOT of God have told us).

Since Kurt was very badly injured in a fire several years ago, I knew both by his age and the situation we would not have him for long. Yet Kurt continued, leading up to the Iraq War, to write beautifully in alternative publications such as "In These Times."

I will mourn Kurt tonight. But - damn it - it won't be just for one night. Kurt is part of me, as I suspect he is part of many others; helped us look closer than just the immediate sight, helped us question authority and what is "done" by our governments in our names, helped me be a little smarter (and sarcastic).

No, I suspect I will mourn the loss of him for the rest of my life. But the blessing is that I also get to read and reread him, praise and thank him, strive to be a little better for what he (and hey, his brother the scientist was no slouch) made me see, to look above and beyond and under "the facts", and pray that there will be more Vonneguts, just as I know there will never be quite another man exactly like Kurt.

Good night, Kurt. Thank you. Love you.