Kurt Vonnegut was a true artist with an unrivaled literary voice. This man lived an incredible life, one that will forever be immortalized in his many short stories, novels, and essays. The day after Kurt Vonnegut passed in 2007, I was set to give a presentation on Vonnegut's life and works in my high school english class. It crushed me to have to add "and so it goes" to the end of the presentation. This is one of my favorite of Vonnegut's speeches, wish I could have seen him speak in person!
One of the great humorists in American history... "What, incidentally, was a pregnant mother of two doing, operating a vacuum cleaner on Mother's Day? She was practically asking for a bullet between the eyes!"
Deadeye Dick? Also, now that I'm seeing that quote again, if it's actually the one I think it is, I'm realizing it might be a reference to the way people talk about rape.
@skyhouse Well, he was pointing out how that women, even on the day they're supposed to be celebrated, still feel compelled to do housework, and for that, they deserve to be punished. It's a commentary on the unfairness of these kinds of gender roles and the place of women in society. It's classic Vonnegut.
Elsewhere Vonnegut wrote 8 rules for the short story and ended it by saying that Flannery O'Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that. The first rule was "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted." Vonnegut's stories always did that, although the dark irony of his stories often had characters near the bottom of the chart from B to E. So it goes.
I think it is the reputation of the brilliant man that is driving the thunderous applause for what was otherwise a funny take on story arcs. Any takers for that appraisal?
I've written about 20 novels, and he's dead right. I remember I had my novel Lia's Scream in a writer's group session, and someone said, "Well, are you going to rescue her by the end of chapter six?" Hell no. I'm still digging the hole. Good writing is all about digging a hole and having a character who is dogmatic about beating her head against the wall.
shame he missed out my favorite.. that's where the curve starts above the base, rises slowly and then drops dramatically before being cut short... the 'true life' curve as it is better known.
i read your comment, chuckled expecting to chuckle when i heard that part; took a sip of coffee - bad fuckin idea. i hear the line and VERY NEARLY spit out the whole fucking gulp!
@soupazninvasion you can project anything to something simpler, there is just the loss of information, until it is so simple that you can't differentiate between a graph for Cinderella and one for Inception. It also depends to what relation you graph it like the case with fortune for Cinderella. You could go ahead and graph Cinderellas change in Family structure. Funny thing is, movies became more intricate and complex BY applying statistics and formulas.
irongoat788 I would say the curves help to determine whether a non-fiction idea is worth writing about. If there is a real life story that fits one of these curves, it could be made into a great book/movie.
@qwertzu3 Just the shape of a waveform. At the most basic level sound, electrical current, light, anything that travels as a wave is comprised of tens to thousands of different waveforms that follow the standard undulating curve we're used to seeing. When you combine that many different frequencies and amplitudes, you get the more jagged, random wave patterns you'd actually record with an instrument.
How funny, the Cinderella story still works today. U see it with all the new entrepreneurs! “I grew up poor, I did this. And now I’m a millioner. And now u can do it too! It’s all over UA-cam!
As I recall from his book "A Man Without A Country", which has a chapter about this, it's because every good thing that happens in Hamlet seems to be counterbalanced by a bad thing, and it ends with everybody (good and bad alike) dying. He's joking about Shakespeare being a bad writer, of course. I think in the book he says that Hamlet's a really popular story, so maybe the whole shifting from good fortune to ill or vice versa thing is overrated.
@serexlol k? don't get me wrong, i respect this professor and i'm not trying to debunk him. I'm just saying movies have become much more intricate and complex and a simple graph can't always showcase them. on a side note, (aren't documentaries stories also?)
I saw Kurt do this at a lecture inFlorida and he ended it graphing Hamlet and He due a straight line and then declared that Shakespeare was a bad writer.
profesor bruna suàrez en Venezuela presenta a muchos trabajos que si hay errores en lmi deber es corregirlo y tratar de que no fije en mi si no en usted el dìa de mañana y en su superación las de sus hijos y la juventud el profesionalismo es para todos estudiados y no estudiados es pata todos
"Start on it everyday today. Average person not expecting anythign to happen and like any other. Find something wonderful, just wonderful - oh God-dammit."
What a shame to exclude Vonnegut's final summation of his chalkboard story shape lecture, which I saw live at Syracuse University. He draws a straight horizontal line; Hamlet. If you know, you know.
@SQLinjected This was actually his master's thesis in anthropology, and he is pretty sore about it being rejected. he believed it was about as important to analyzing a culture as pots and arrowheads.
It's a flex, he had tumultuous life and it's beautiful His son became a doctor. It's really not easy being an artist or a writer, And it's not easy on their families. Bless you both
Does anybody have more of this lecture, where he goes on to discuss the story curves of Kafka stories, aboriginal legends, and Hamlet? I've read about it, but I'd like to see him giving it, if I could find it.
If things had not worked out for Kurt Vonnegut as an author he likely would have had a brilliant career as a standup comedian. His jokes and timing are spot-on. I can imagine growing up watching a cutting-edge but very insightful sitcom called Vonnegut.
almost word to word similar to his lecture at the Case Western Univ when he's older. But damn … what do I care … if it isn't nice, I don't know what is! Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. You make my day, Sir!
I wonder if that also fits the "series", pick the critical points to cut off the story so people keep coming back for more and inevitably end up at the happiness bar!
"Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but dropped out in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army. He was deployed to Europe to fight in World War II, and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden and survived the Allied bombing of the city by taking refuge in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned."
Thank you so much for putting this up ! I have read and reread Vonnegut's novels for many many years and have practically memorized his earlier works verbatim. He taught at the Famous Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa in the same building where I took some writing courses when I was a chemistry student there and when I found that out, I was ecstatic !!! What a brilliant, funny, compassionate man !
During years I lived in IC 2 times in late 1970’s I found myself across the remainders table in the Book Store in the student Union from a fellow in an old crumpled raincoat and I thought that he looked a lot like Kurt Vonnegut ( my fave author). Then I went to a visiting lecture by him. There he was ! The fellow from the remainder table! He did photograph a bit different from in person. It was a great lecture! I think he must have visited friends from time to time.
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Kurt Vonnegut was a true artist with an unrivaled literary voice. This man lived an incredible life, one that will forever be immortalized in his many short stories, novels, and essays. The day after Kurt Vonnegut passed in 2007, I was set to give a presentation on Vonnegut's life and works in my high school english class. It crushed me to have to add "and so it goes" to the end of the presentation.
This is one of my favorite of Vonnegut's speeches, wish I could have seen him speak in person!
Reading "and so it goes" just sent a shiver down my body
🥲
Totally Agree! One of the Best literary voices around. Thank You Kurt Vonnegut ❤
I did in circa 1980 at the U of Iowa. It was forever memorable.
And so it went.
I was fortunate enough to attend one of his speaking engagements. I can’t imagine his take on these dark times… he is sorely missed.
Whatever his take would have been, it would have ended with: "And so it goes..."
One of the great humorists in American history...
"What, incidentally, was a pregnant mother of two doing, operating a vacuum cleaner on Mother's Day? She was practically asking for a bullet between the eyes!"
Deadeye Dick? Also, now that I'm seeing that quote again, if it's actually the one I think it is, I'm realizing it might be a reference to the way people talk about rape.
Which narrative was this?!
@@isabelthedying "actually"
@skyhouse Well, he was pointing out how that women, even on the day they're supposed to be celebrated, still feel compelled to do housework, and for that, they deserve to be punished. It's a commentary on the unfairness of these kinds of gender roles and the place of women in society. It's classic Vonnegut.
This is really cool. It's like a cross between a college lecture and a stand-up comedy routine!
+Jeff Weskamp What every college lecture ought to be, really.
Well, sometimes the roles are reversed.
look up the video where he's older and it has spanish ("castellano") subtitles. he includes a shakespearean story "arch".
This story and the story of Hamlet can be found in his book a man without a country.
Fun is our brains favourite way to learn 😁👍
Elsewhere Vonnegut wrote 8 rules for the short story and ended it by saying that Flannery O'Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that. The first rule was "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted." Vonnegut's stories always did that, although the dark irony of his stories often had characters near the bottom of the chart from B to E. So it goes.
Wow! What treasure to have this lecture preserved. I didn't realize he had such a sense of humor.
His humor is a big part of him! His sense of irony and humor often appear in many of his literature pieces I highly recommend them.
OH, HE WAS SAYING "BOING BOING" NOT BORING!!
you have achieved off scale awareness
yo man them subtitles say he sayin boring, not boring. just saying my guy.
Some of his works were brilliant. Short story recommendation is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Some hard-core prophecy. And so it goes.
I just love Kurt Vonnegut,
"...Oh God dammit."
He literally has better comedic timing than a lot of comedians!
A humorous but effective (and useful) illustration and analysis of narrative structure.
slaughter house 5 is one of his best works in my opinion.
+Hunter Brass literally everyone agrees slaughter house 5 is 'one of his best works.'
+Alan Herrera Mother Night is amazing too! :)
Cat's Cradle, Bluebeard, & God Bless You Mr.Rosewater are excellent reads too!
Man's explaining stuff I wouldn't have understood in the most humorous way possible
I think it is the reputation of the brilliant man that is driving the thunderous applause for what was otherwise a funny take on story arcs. Any takers for that appraisal?
The one Vonnegut book I've read is Cat's Cradle, which I can't stand. I think this is hilarious.
I LOVE this man. This was fun and brilliant.... Awesome.
We call it "person in hole" these days for our course, but it's still such a useful way of giving a visual to something abstract.
Learned recently he was in the same POW camp as my grandfather... his book Slaughterhouse Five was inspired by that time.
Soon as he said, "we're gonna start way down here", I knew what story it was.
This guy is a boss. Nothing more can be said.
He would have slayed at a TED Talk
1:43 onwards. THE BEST REPRESENTATION EVAR.
I could't stop laughing after a really long time. So wonderful!
The piece that plays at the end is Variation 1 from Goldberg Variations by Bach.
Brilliant decomposition.
I agree. "The Road" had some curve to it. Including several shocking spikes downward. Now "Lost in Translation" was an absolute flatliner.
Great Scott! This is heavy.
We call this the Story EKG and use it to analyze stories at work.
I've written about 20 novels, and he's dead right. I remember I had my novel Lia's Scream in a writer's group session, and someone said, "Well, are you going to rescue her by the end of chapter six?" Hell no. I'm still digging the hole. Good writing is all about digging a hole and having a character who is dogmatic about beating her head against the wall.
This man can draw straight lines
this is absolutely fantastic!
shame he missed out my favorite.. that's where the curve starts above the base, rises slowly and then drops dramatically before being cut short... the 'true life' curve as it is better known.
HEY MISS ITS ME JACK OR ANYONE IN MY CLASS!!
i read your comment, chuckled expecting to chuckle when i heard that part; took a sip of coffee - bad fuckin idea. i hear the line and VERY NEARLY spit out the whole fucking gulp!
A great writer and thinker. A Christopher Hitchens in another body
few people in the world who believe their convictions so strongly that there philosophy sounds like stand up. so smart, so funny
@soupazninvasion you can project anything to something simpler, there is just the loss of information, until it is so simple that you can't differentiate between a graph for Cinderella and one for Inception. It also depends to what relation you graph it like the case with fortune for Cinderella. You could go ahead and graph Cinderellas change in Family structure.
Funny thing is, movies became more intricate and complex BY applying statistics and formulas.
interesting, absolutely fitting on fiction novel, but I wonder how it works on storytelling which is nonfiction.
irongoat788 I would say the curves help to determine whether a non-fiction idea is worth writing about. If there is a real life story that fits one of these curves, it could be made into a great book/movie.
thank you sir!
@qwertzu3 Just the shape of a waveform. At the most basic level sound, electrical current, light, anything that travels as a wave is comprised of tens to thousands of different waveforms that follow the standard undulating curve we're used to seeing. When you combine that many different frequencies and amplitudes, you get the more jagged, random wave patterns you'd actually record with an instrument.
This channel is very different from my own channel but it's nice.
thanks sir
"she poops along at this level..." lol that got me
How funny, the Cinderella story still works today. U see it with all the new entrepreneurs! “I grew up poor, I did this. And now I’m a millioner. And now u can do it too! It’s all over UA-cam!
Breakfast of Champions and Mother Night are pretty great.
As I recall from his book "A Man Without A Country", which has a chapter about this, it's because every good thing that happens in Hamlet seems to be counterbalanced by a bad thing, and it ends with everybody (good and bad alike) dying.
He's joking about Shakespeare being a bad writer, of course. I think in the book he says that Hamlet's a really popular story, so maybe the whole shifting from good fortune to ill or vice versa thing is overrated.
Brilliant.
@serexlol k? don't get me wrong, i respect this professor and i'm not trying to debunk him. I'm just saying movies have become much more intricate and complex and a simple graph can't always showcase them. on a side note, (aren't documentaries stories also?)
Where does Grave of the Fireflies fit into this? Does it start below B and just continue to go to the floor?
Do you happen to know which year this lecture was delivered?
I saw Kurt do this at a lecture inFlorida and he ended it graphing Hamlet and He due a straight line and then declared that Shakespeare was a bad writer.
As far as humans go, this man was alright.
So it goes
"There's no reason why the simple of shape of a story can't be fed into a computer".
I think Hollywood took the advice too literally.
fantastic
profesor bruna suàrez en Venezuela presenta a muchos trabajos que si hay errores en lmi deber es corregirlo y tratar de que no fije en mi si no en usted el dìa de mañana y en su superación las de sus hijos y la juventud el profesionalismo es para todos estudiados y no estudiados es pata todos
Video Creator brought me here!
Ditto
Create Imperfect Me 2 haha
Same!!!
do you happen to remember the name of the video because I think it's a video I've been looking for.
Last part too
"Start on it everyday today. Average person not expecting anythign to happen and like any other. Find something wonderful, just wonderful - oh God-dammit."
What a shame to exclude Vonnegut's final summation of his chalkboard story shape lecture, which I saw live at Syracuse University. He draws a straight horizontal line; Hamlet. If you know, you know.
@SQLinjected This was actually his master's thesis in anthropology, and he is pretty sore about it being rejected. he believed it was about as important to analyzing a culture as pots and arrowheads.
Dont even bother to try rising the quality of the video
Kurt would've had a hell of a time talking to ChatGPT.
Looks like my life
Does anyone know what this is from? A news story? a documentary?
web.usca.edu/english/multimedia/shapes-of-stories.dot
Too true to be good. But excellent!
1:58 - >.
All are in the comment section are aspiring author.
Genius
What's better than satire
What's your favorite story?
Thank you, awesome!
Llyane
"Off-scale happiness" sounds a lot better than "lives happily ever after"
Such a wonderful dry humor. He is one of my all time favorites. "Goddamnit!"
"B" stands for beginning. "E" stands for... electricity.
Shockeye00
ya
Mine too.
incredible.
The same man who wrote the short story called "The Big Space Fuck."
Can you imagine the horrible state your life must be in when you thumbs-down a 4 minute video of Kurt Vonnegut explaining fiction?
Personally, that is inconceivable.
Don't worry, that person is just the main character in that third storyline.
Way way wayyyyyyyyy down on the G/I axis!!! So low that not even Kurt Vonnegut can offer his stairs up.
What I can't imagine is caring if or how many people choose "thumbs-down."
@@jamesmcinnis208 you'll get over it. And if you don't it's no one's problem but yours.
"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt"
I love "off scale happiness"!!!!
With new data mining techniques years later he was absolutely right we can now see the shapes of stories. :)
I started reading Vonnegut when I was 15 and I have to say it introduced me to a huge amount of knowledge. There will never be another like him.
I wonder how he would map out the curve for slaughter house 5
@conorwellman8592 I pretty well know how he'd map a curve for one of today's slaughterhouses.
Not to flex but...I have his son Mark Vonnegut as my pediatrician.
Jus let him know dat SACHIN a dude from INDIA is a HUGE fan of his dad!! Would love to receive a book Signed by his dad!! 😌... Lol
@@qwaskharjullalamber1441 sadly, he is no longer with us.
It's a flex, he had tumultuous life and it's beautiful His son became a doctor. It's really not easy being an artist or a writer, And it's not easy on their families. Bless you both
Does anybody have more of this lecture, where he goes on to discuss the story curves of Kafka stories, aboriginal legends, and Hamlet? I've read about it, but I'd like to see him giving it, if I could find it.
If anyone is still looking, a longer version has been uploaded here: ua-cam.com/video/GOGru_4z1Vc/v-deo.html
Jordan Ferguson gracias !!
de nada!
This entire lecture is in his book a man without a country
I saw this lecture at the University of Kansas in the late 80's.
If things had not worked out for Kurt Vonnegut as an author he likely would have had a brilliant career as a standup comedian. His jokes and timing are spot-on. I can imagine growing up watching a cutting-edge but very insightful sitcom called Vonnegut.
What a guy. So funny and so clever.
01:25 "Somebody gets into trouble - gets out of it again." He just described 'life'.
Not mine. I'm stuck in trouble.
@@jamesmcinnis208 I think that's how it actually goes for most of us.
@@20000dino That's how it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite author. I'd recommend any of his novels, but Player Piano, and The Sirens of Titan are particularily excellent.
This is a fantastic clip. It gives me some new ideas for my subreddit post, and for some new dank may mays. (tips hat in appreciation).
***** such prejudice, much meanness
I, too, am above average intelligence.
Then there's Flowers for Algernon
That's just one of the shapes in reverse
almost word to word similar to his lecture at the Case Western Univ when he's older. But damn … what do I care … if it isn't nice, I don't know what is! Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. You make my day, Sir!
Isn't Cinderella just boy gets girl (girl gets boy in this case), but stretched vertically?
I don't think so due to magic interference. Cinderella does not strike it out the same way.
I absolutely love this clip - I must have watched it 20 times and it still never fails to make me grin!
Love it. Have to keep coming back to it. My problem is trying to have all these plots running together - men in a mess.
I wonder if that also fits the "series", pick the critical points to cut off the story so people keep coming back for more and inevitably end up at the happiness bar!
I wonder if the series is as he has drawn ... all the patterns together as you follow different characters?
"Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but dropped out in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army. He was deployed to Europe to fight in World War II, and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden and survived the Allied bombing of the city by taking refuge in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned."
He is just so incredible. Thanks for posting.
Thank you so much for putting this up !
I have read and reread Vonnegut's novels for many many years and have practically memorized his earlier works verbatim. He taught at the Famous Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa in the same building where I took some writing courses when I was a chemistry student there and when I found that out, I was ecstatic !!! What a brilliant, funny, compassionate man !
Want some cool trivia? He worked at GE and knew Langmuir. His brother was a scientist there.
During years I lived in IC 2 times in late 1970’s I found myself across the remainders table in the Book Store in the student Union from a fellow in an old crumpled raincoat and I thought that he looked a lot like Kurt Vonnegut ( my fave author). Then I went to a visiting lecture by him. There he was ! The fellow from the remainder table! He did photograph a bit different from in person. It was a great lecture! I think he must have visited friends from time to time.
1:58 gets me every time.
+meadslosh me too!
I think he's ironicly referring to his rule 6. "Be a sadist." :D
+meadslosh Me too. I just saw this in my writing class, laughing in the middle of class, and laughed even louder just now.
"Oh, god dammit"
Tears every time
Should we take him literally? I know we don't have to but...
Can we get the whole lecture? That would be fantastic
The "Oh God Damn It!!" @ 1:59 gets me everytime!
Just from the knowledge I gained from that cough caused my IQ to go up 50 percent 0:26
great visualization - I love it!
Great writer and humorist. You Tube - our favorite people back in the moment to revisit for eternity. Thank-you computer.
this is one of my favorite videos