… the article catches my attention because it describes a 22 year old Vonnegut as a prisoner of the Germans in Dresden when it was fire bombed… the book is about Dresden… i did not know that…

… have i read this book?, there is a movie, right?, Art Garfunkle?… google informs me that there is a movie, i haven’t seen it, AG wan’t in it… yes, now i remember, that was Catch 22… the book is apparently about the allied bombing of Dresden during World War II, 130,000 peopled dead, target of no strategic importance, except to break the back of the will of the German people… strange to have this come to the front in the same morning Susan Sontag helps me remember and fill in the gaps of the Vietnam and Desert Storm wars… also the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia… H was lamenting the death of one of the breeders of Chas, ‘the universe is cruel” she said, i pointed out that the universe is indifferent, it is people who are cruel… we believe they can choose not to be cruel and shake our heads over and over again when they don’t… is there free will?… prevailing science seems to think not, so maybe even people are not cruel, they cary out the indifference of the universe…

… the article on Literary Hub is a reprint of “a 1969 review of Kurt Vonnegut’s Iconic Anti-War Novel”… Vietnam war era, an oblivious time in my life, the draft ended as i turned 18… i still got a draft card, number 27 or something like that, i would have gone, or J said once, been shipped to Canada…

… i read the review, it mentions Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, as being unstuck in time and abducted by aliens… ahh, i did read it, a long time ago… the aliens and unstuck time welded to my consciousness, the rest i have no memory of…