Chapter Two begins by letting the reader know that Dwayne was a rich bastard without a family whose only companion was a dog that was beat to shit from fighting with other dogs. It wasn't the dog's fault. He wasn't aggressive. It's just other dogs decided, based on his appearance (a lack of a wagging tail), that he was mean and unfriendly and probably a violent criminal to boot. If dogs could have complicated thoughts like that. Which they can't. Because no matter how much they seem to understand things, their method of thinking is so different from ours that we can't actually know why it is they do what they do, other than the simple reasons like food, shelter, and companionship (which, for a dog, probably means safety but for us we've decided it means "He luffs me so much!"). Anyway, it's a metaphor for being Black in America, just in case you didn't understand that by the way I stated it.
Next we learn Dwayne had a Black servant named Lottie. Lottie is mentioned after the dog because Dwayne barely spoke with her even though he and Lottie liked each other well enough. It's just she was his employee and she made him dinner and cleaned his house and he got down on the floor to roll around with his dog and talk to it more than he talked to Lottie. I suppose if you didn't want things you read to be political, you would read all of that in a matter of fact way and be all, "He loved his dog! And he got along with the Black lady! Good guy!" But if you know that things are always political, you might be on the verge of understanding the perspective of a rich old white male. Some might say I'm reaching but since this book is about race relations and not just art and martinis, I'd place a bet with a Las Vegas bookie that I wasn't reaching at all.
Since this book has two primary protagonists (all of the characters are protagonists but really should differentiate the two that Kurt himself points out right from the start), we also learn a little bit about Kilgore Trout. He owns a bird named Bill whom he talks to. But since birds aren't affectionate like dogs (at least not with mammals. I bet they're super cuddly with other birds), he doesn't treat the bird the same way Dwayne treats his dog. Instead, he constantly points out to the bird that it's just a canary in a coal mine and Trout will watch it die one day right before he also dies from the toxic atmosphere poisoned by mankind.
Anyway, Kilgore Trout then mentions Heliogabalus whom I first learned about either via reading this book the first time or, very nearly around the same time, when I saw a comic book store selling a 24-hour Comic by Neil Gaiman about Heliogabalus. I think it was one of those things where you hear about something and then you start to notice it everywhere. I think the concept is named after a German leftist military group or something. Oh, um, Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. I didn't just suddenly remember that. I did this Internet search: "that thing where you hear about something and then start seeing it everywhere". I then clicked into the first link that came up, a Reddit post, and this was the post:
Anyway, Kilgore Trout knows we're all going to be killed by climate change and he believes we all deserve it. So now you know a little bit about Dwayne and Kilgore.
Another thing Trout and Hoover didn't have in common was that Trout lacked charm and Hoover had charm to spare. I only mention this while not mentioning the stuff about Trout calling mirrors "leaks" because Vonnegut interposes himself into the story by pointing out that he, also, could be quite charming when he wanted. He doesn't say it as a brag about a good quality; he's telling us that he's not always a great person. Charm, Vonnegut seems to be saying, is just a thing people use to manipulate others.
By the end of this book, the entire world will know who Kilgore Trout is and love him. So in this chapter, Vonnegut wants everybody to understand how unlikely that was for both Kilgore Trout and everybody else on the planet at the time the book begins. He does this by pointing out that Kilgore Trout made no money publishing his stories and books because they were mostly just used to bulk up pornographic magazines. During this discussion on Trout's literary merit, Vonnegut digresses into the origin of calling a woman's private parts a "beaver". It was just a code word so journalists could shout it out when they saw up an injured woman's skirt at an accident, just in case all the firemen and cops and medics on the scene wanted to get a gander at the lady's privates. So that's a little digression about heterosexual men that isn't super charming but, you know, pretty accurate, I suppose.
Next we learn Dwayne had a Black servant named Lottie. Lottie is mentioned after the dog because Dwayne barely spoke with her even though he and Lottie liked each other well enough. It's just she was his employee and she made him dinner and cleaned his house and he got down on the floor to roll around with his dog and talk to it more than he talked to Lottie. I suppose if you didn't want things you read to be political, you would read all of that in a matter of fact way and be all, "He loved his dog! And he got along with the Black lady! Good guy!" But if you know that things are always political, you might be on the verge of understanding the perspective of a rich old white male. Some might say I'm reaching but since this book is about race relations and not just art and martinis, I'd place a bet with a Las Vegas bookie that I wasn't reaching at all.
Since this book has two primary protagonists (all of the characters are protagonists but really should differentiate the two that Kurt himself points out right from the start), we also learn a little bit about Kilgore Trout. He owns a bird named Bill whom he talks to. But since birds aren't affectionate like dogs (at least not with mammals. I bet they're super cuddly with other birds), he doesn't treat the bird the same way Dwayne treats his dog. Instead, he constantly points out to the bird that it's just a canary in a coal mine and Trout will watch it die one day right before he also dies from the toxic atmosphere poisoned by mankind.
[Trout] told Bill that humanity deserved to die horribly, since it had behaved so cruelly and wastefully on a planet so sweet.No wonder Conservatives don't read. Every character worth writing about hates them.
Anyway, Kilgore Trout then mentions Heliogabalus whom I first learned about either via reading this book the first time or, very nearly around the same time, when I saw a comic book store selling a 24-hour Comic by Neil Gaiman about Heliogabalus. I think it was one of those things where you hear about something and then you start to notice it everywhere. I think the concept is named after a German leftist military group or something. Oh, um, Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. I didn't just suddenly remember that. I did this Internet search: "that thing where you hear about something and then start seeing it everywhere". I then clicked into the first link that came up, a Reddit post, and this was the post:
What is the phenomenon called where you hear about something for the first time, and then suddenly see it everywhere?The world's so fucking cool, guys.
For instance, today I read a short story by Kurt Vonnegut for English. Very first time I’ve ever heard his name. Then, suddenly, one of the first posts I see on Reddit today is a quote by him. Why is that? It happens with many other things too
Anyway, Kilgore Trout knows we're all going to be killed by climate change and he believes we all deserve it. So now you know a little bit about Dwayne and Kilgore.
Another thing Trout and Hoover didn't have in common was that Trout lacked charm and Hoover had charm to spare. I only mention this while not mentioning the stuff about Trout calling mirrors "leaks" because Vonnegut interposes himself into the story by pointing out that he, also, could be quite charming when he wanted. He doesn't say it as a brag about a good quality; he's telling us that he's not always a great person. Charm, Vonnegut seems to be saying, is just a thing people use to manipulate others.
By the end of this book, the entire world will know who Kilgore Trout is and love him. So in this chapter, Vonnegut wants everybody to understand how unlikely that was for both Kilgore Trout and everybody else on the planet at the time the book begins. He does this by pointing out that Kilgore Trout made no money publishing his stories and books because they were mostly just used to bulk up pornographic magazines. During this discussion on Trout's literary merit, Vonnegut digresses into the origin of calling a woman's private parts a "beaver". It was just a code word so journalists could shout it out when they saw up an injured woman's skirt at an accident, just in case all the firemen and cops and medics on the scene wanted to get a gander at the lady's privates. So that's a little digression about heterosexual men that isn't super charming but, you know, pretty accurate, I suppose.
This is probably one of the reasons this book was banned. Also Kurt's drawing of an asshole from earlier. Plus all the stuff about race and how shitty America is.
Just so we're clear: I have never masturbated to that!
Kurt continues on men's obsession with seeing lady's privates because he's trying to make a point about how society determines some things should be kept as secret knowledge and, of course, those things drive people mad in trying to learn about it. So guy's were off their nuts trying to see lady's beavers. So much so that they also wanted to see lady's underpants because even those were not to be discussed or seen by men and boys ever! He goes on to draw a pair but they're not attractive underpants at all. Maybe, as Kurt points out, if I had been born in 1905, I'd have a raging hard-on after seeing Kurt's drawing of lady underpants. But being that I've seen the inside of several buttholes in my life, underpants drawn poorly by an old man just don't do it for me.
Look at me! Calling Kurt Vonnegut old when he's five years younger than I am now when he wrote this book! The nerve!
We get some foreshadowing about Kilgore Trout getting the Nobel Prize for medicine and also about some terrible things that happen to our planet before Trout helped ensure that humans would work together unselfishly to save the human race. Also it's not really foreshadowing so much as a leap in time to show the scene where he accepts the Nobel Prize and discusses mankind's lust to see wide open beavers. He also goes on to explain why human beings couldn't reject bad ideas. It's a good theory but it's also one of those theories that people would instantly "both sides" if they could. His theory is that people couldn't reject bad ideas because believing in the same ideas was how people showed their friendliness to each other. He's pointing out the tribalism baked into human beings. And I know that many people are bad at reading so they would read this, or take it out of context, and be all, "See? Even Kurt Vonnegut was against echo chambers! All you dumb jerks on Bluesky should come back to Twitter and get called slurs already, you [SLURS]!" But the problem with that argument is that one side has all the bad ideas that they espouse so that they won't get kicked out of their tribe and the other side has people who want to enjoy life and don't want to base every decision they make on having to fucking defend themselves from a bunch of assholes who can't keep their noses out of other people's business!
I'd just like to point out that I don't have to claim to believe in God or fly an American flag or fly dozens of American flags or pretend to love cops just so that I don't get kicked out of my peer group! I can say and believe and think whatever I want and the people whom I love and cherish and choose to spend my time with don't fucking judge me. Okay, they judge me a little bit! I can, mostly, be honest! I put that "mostly" in there because, let's face it, we're all kind of disgusting in ways that we'd rather not every single person we know know about!
Um, uh, so that's Chapter Two! The Chapter with the beaver shot!
Oh, I should also point out, for no particular reason, this was my 5000th blog post on this blog. *throws confetti into your face*
Kurt continues on men's obsession with seeing lady's privates because he's trying to make a point about how society determines some things should be kept as secret knowledge and, of course, those things drive people mad in trying to learn about it. So guy's were off their nuts trying to see lady's beavers. So much so that they also wanted to see lady's underpants because even those were not to be discussed or seen by men and boys ever! He goes on to draw a pair but they're not attractive underpants at all. Maybe, as Kurt points out, if I had been born in 1905, I'd have a raging hard-on after seeing Kurt's drawing of lady underpants. But being that I've seen the inside of several buttholes in my life, underpants drawn poorly by an old man just don't do it for me.
Look at me! Calling Kurt Vonnegut old when he's five years younger than I am now when he wrote this book! The nerve!
We get some foreshadowing about Kilgore Trout getting the Nobel Prize for medicine and also about some terrible things that happen to our planet before Trout helped ensure that humans would work together unselfishly to save the human race. Also it's not really foreshadowing so much as a leap in time to show the scene where he accepts the Nobel Prize and discusses mankind's lust to see wide open beavers. He also goes on to explain why human beings couldn't reject bad ideas. It's a good theory but it's also one of those theories that people would instantly "both sides" if they could. His theory is that people couldn't reject bad ideas because believing in the same ideas was how people showed their friendliness to each other. He's pointing out the tribalism baked into human beings. And I know that many people are bad at reading so they would read this, or take it out of context, and be all, "See? Even Kurt Vonnegut was against echo chambers! All you dumb jerks on Bluesky should come back to Twitter and get called slurs already, you [SLURS]!" But the problem with that argument is that one side has all the bad ideas that they espouse so that they won't get kicked out of their tribe and the other side has people who want to enjoy life and don't want to base every decision they make on having to fucking defend themselves from a bunch of assholes who can't keep their noses out of other people's business!
I'd just like to point out that I don't have to claim to believe in God or fly an American flag or fly dozens of American flags or pretend to love cops just so that I don't get kicked out of my peer group! I can say and believe and think whatever I want and the people whom I love and cherish and choose to spend my time with don't fucking judge me. Okay, they judge me a little bit! I can, mostly, be honest! I put that "mostly" in there because, let's face it, we're all kind of disgusting in ways that we'd rather not every single person we know know about!
Um, uh, so that's Chapter Two! The Chapter with the beaver shot!
Oh, I should also point out, for no particular reason, this was my 5000th blog post on this blog. *throws confetti into your face*
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