The Times has a nice obituary and a good collection of Vonnegut links. The boss wanted me put a notice up on the blog with some of the videos.
There's a brief, hagiographic appearance on the Daily Show in 2005 that you can find here. I would embed it but the folks at Viacom (God bless them) make everything so difficult. And what's this nonsense about keeping Kurt on such a short leash. Have you seen Senator McCain's Baghdad Market Shopping Tips Appearance? Jonny Boy, we love you, but what do you mean you don't have time for a legend to read a short paragraph on air? You can find a longer interview done about the same time from NOW on PBS. He talks about his good uncle and his bad uncle (the WWI vet who slapped him on the back when Vonnegut came home from POW camp, told him that the war had made a man out of him, and came close to being the only German casualty that Vonnegut was responsible for), the futility of revenge, his free-thinking heritage, the high school that he attended, American politics, the superiority of gangs to the nuclear family. The interviewer lets him read from pieces of paper in both of his pockets (something he did not get to do on The daily Show) at this link. A good part of the interview is available on You Tube.
You can find a bunch of his most recent writing over at our old friend's place, In These Times: http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/vonnegut/
By the way, this is as good a place as any to remind all the e-mail forwardistas out there that the Kurt Vonnegut MIT commencement addressof 1997--the one where he tells people to wear sunscreen and hug their family--is a hoax and part of the ongoing and nefarious Hallmark Card Conspiracy to take the edges off everything still remotely sharp in America. Kofi Annan delivered the actual commencement address and some hack from Chicago wrote the feel-good piece that was supposed to prove Kurt Vonnegut, like George Carlin and a host of others, had mellowed in old age. Not so. Vonnegut remained one of the sharpest knives in the American culture drawer to the end.
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