(1) When I was seventeen I had a car wreck (the day before I was supposed to graduate high school, actually) and wound up spending a week or so in the hospital being tested and monitored for head/brain injuries. During that time, my friend Russ brought me a paperback copy of Mother Night, which I read straight through, drugs and all. I remember the MRI techs taking it away from me right before they slid me into the tube.
(2) Also as a teenager, I went and saw Vonnegut speak at a university. I hadn't thought to bring any of his books with me, so in between his talk and the lining up for signatures I hustled out onto the campus and pulled down one of the posters advertising his appearance. It was one of Vonnegut's cartoon self-portraits, done with a black Sharpie or Magic Marker. The only color was the red tip of his cigarette. When I got up to the front of the line, he looked me up and down then wrote, "To Christopher, who thinks he wants to know what it is he thinks I know."
Goodbye, babies.
