Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut

This day will live in history as the day the first six-fingered, multi-nippled, neanderthaloid monster, with massive brow-ridges, sloping forehead, and steamshovel jaw, becomes President of the United States. He is two meters tall. His name is Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain. His main program consists in creating artificial extended families throughout America, as to abolish loneliness.

***

Kurt Vonnegut himself tells us that this is the closest he will ever come to writing an autobiography. With that and the bizarre character of Dr. Wilbur in mind, one can only wonder about what sort of a nutcase he really was. It is very endearing, however, to read about Eliza Mellon Swain -- Dr. Wilbur's dizygotic twin -- knowing Kurt's feelings towards his own deceased sister. "For my part, though: It would have been catastrophic if I had forgotten my sister at once. I have never told her so, but she was the person I had always written for. She was the secret of whatever artistic unity I had ever achieved. She was the secret of my technique. Any creation which has any wholeness and harmoniousness, I suspect, was made by an artist or inventor with an audience of one in mind. Yes, and she was nice enough, or Nature was nice enough, to allow me to feel her presence for a number of years after she died -- to let me go on writing for her."

Besides his sister, Vonnegut dedicated this book to the memory of Arthur Stanely Jefferson and Norvell Hardy, two artists he considered to be angels of his time. Slapstick it is, like a warning label, like he is saying: hey, you oughta know that in this story people will be crashing one another nonsensically. And drooling. And babbling.

And you have to laugh. This is a picture of a button part of the country went on wearing as opposed to the Lonesome No More! campaign button. For there were those who didn't want to take part on the program of artificial extended families -- that, basically, was the adoption of randomly selected new middle names, by the use of which everybody should become a member of a gigantic family. Of course some snob individuals that praised too much their own blood heritage felt disinclined to enroll. But this program would actually not only abolish loneliness, but would also solve another annoying problem: beggars. Like this:

"And consider how much better off you will be, if the reforms go into effect, if a beggar comes up to you and asks for money", I went on. "I don't understand", said the man.

"Why", I said, "you say to that beggar, 'What's your middle name?' And he will say 'Oyster-19' or 'Chickadee-1,' or 'Hollyhock-13', or some such thing.

"And you can say to him, 'Buster -- I happen to be a Uranium-3. You have one hundred and ninety thousand cousins and ten thousand brothers and sisters. You're not exactly alone in this world. I have relatives of my own to look after. So why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the moooooooooooon?'"

The "Lonesome - Thank God!" button.