The very first major science fiction series for adults on radio was Mutual Broadcasting System's
2000 Plus (1950-1952). An anthology program,
2000 Plus used all new material rather than adapting published stories. Just one month after its premiere, NBC Radio began airing
Dimension X (1950-1951), which dramatized the written work of such young writers as Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Kurt Vonnegut. In 1955, NBC relaunched
Dimension X as
X Minus One (1955-1958), drawing from stories that had been published in the two most popular science fiction magazines at the time:
Astounding and
Galaxy.
17 of 30 episodes of
2000 Plus,
all 50 episodes of
Dimension X, and
all 125 episodes of
X Minus One are available for free download as individual mp3s from the Internet Archive.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 12, 2013 -
23 comments
"In October of 1973, Bruce Severy — a 26-year-old English teacher at Drake High School, North Dakota — decided to use Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, as a teaching aid in his classroom. The next month, on November 7th, the head of the school board, Charles McCarthy, demanded that all 32 copies be burned in the school's furnace as a result of its "obscene language." Other books soon met with the same fate.
On the 16th of November, Kurt Vonnegut sent McCarthy
the following letter. He didn't receive a reply."
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Apr 5, 2012 -
50 comments
In the spring of 1945, three weeks after VE Day, Private First Class Kurt Vonnegut, Jr wrote a letter home to inform his family that he was alive. His infantry unit had been smashed by Panzer divisions in the Ardennes; his unmarked POW train attacked by the RAF; miraculously, he and a handful of fellow prisoners escaped incineration by American and British bombers. "Their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden – possibly the world’s most beautiful city", Vonnegut wrote. "But not me."
-
Survivor:
How Kurt Vonnegut created a novel, a cult following and one of the most loyal readerships in American Fiction by Thomas Meaney in The Times Literary Supplement.
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 11, 2012 -
85 comments
Web artifact made of solid gold CELEBRITY LECTURES SERIES from Michigan State University. Ten years worth of lectures were posted in 1998. They are all still there-- awaiting your return.
Edward Albee ,Isabel Allende, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, Jacques d'Amboise, E.L. Doctorow, Richard Ford, Carlos Fuentes, David Halberstam,
Joseph Heller,
John Irving, Judith Jamison, William Kennedy, Norman Mailer, David McCullough, Terry McMillan, Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Jane Smiley, Susan Sontag, Amy Tan,
Paul Theroux, John Updike,
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Derek Walcott, Garry Wills, August Wilson and
Tom Wolfe.
I listened to the Vonnegut lecture. Imagine-- a whole hour and a half (Well, I skipped the first 9 minutes of introductions.) with my favorite author wheezing and sputtering. How refreshing to hear him declaim in his own voice and reveal the happiest day of his life and his own favorite from among his works -"The Sirens of Titan".
posted by notmtwain
on May 27, 2011 -
8 comments
Mr. Vonnegut talked about my dad a lot and put him into a lot of his books. Sometimes he was Dad, and sometimes he was just a character Mr. Vonnegut made up. So what I would say to any of you who are wondering is this: My dad was what people called a real character, which always made us laugh because it was so literally true owing to his association with a famous fiction writer. He could also get pretty obnoxious. But he was a good man. And he definitely wasn’t crazy. At least not until the brain tumor.
Kurt Vonnegut Didn't Know Doodly-Squat About Writing: Finally, Literary Analysis Worth Reading by Bernard V. O'Hare, with an introduction by Meghan O'Hare.
posted by shakespeherian
on Nov 3, 2010 -
49 comments
Chrono-synclastic infundibulum - SLYT featuring Bob & Ray, somehow based on a concept from Kurt Vonnegut's
Sirens of Titan which refers to a region of the universe in which all conflicting opinions are simultaneously correct.
posted by longsleeves
on Aug 7, 2009 -
17 comments
If you were doing research in the 60s, You might've heard of Polywater, A form of water that exhibited wide variety of interesting characteristics and existed under identical conditions to that of normal water. Eventually debunked, none the less is a fascinating story. Naturally one draws parallels to Vonnegut's ice nine, but did you know there
actually is an ice nine? In fact, there's
twelve to sixteen types of ice,
depending on your opinion. More recently, computer simulations have indicated
water may structure itself into icosahedra, which, incredibly, is
the platonic solid (described over 2000 years ago!) representing the element water! And if you don't know what an icosahedron is,
I bet you've used one before. One of the most ubiquitous,
and arguably most important, substances in our lives, our
understanding of water is far from complete.
posted by Large Marge
on Apr 29, 2008 -
38 comments
Dulce et Decorum Est Kurt Vonnegut was
interviewed by an Australian newspaper, which took the quote out of context and completely missed the poetic reference Vonnegut was making with the comment , thereby generating what will likely be a firestorm of negative publicity for Vonnegut. (A blogger's
negative reaction was Farked.)
I am sure that Metafilter readers would spot the reference, but having been Farked and misquoted on ABC (Australian TV), Vonnegut is probably in as much trouble as Terrell Owens.
posted by notmtwain
on Nov 21, 2005 -
80 comments
