Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

A film by Robert Weide & Don Argott

This documentary has been being made for over 30 years now. And director Bob Weide (you might know him from his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Parks and Recreation [the episode Dave Returns], Woody Allen: A Documentary, etc. {http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004332/}) needs our help to fund this film on Kickstarter {https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1468288415/kurt-vonnegut-unstuck-in-time}.

My own history with Vonnegut starts out when I was 14 years old. I was a slow learner, pretty much illiterate, and one of those students that teachers had told over the years, “You don’t need to read to be a construction worker” since they pretty much had given up on me. But at 13, with the help of my cousin and with great support from my mother, I really started to read and one of the first books my mother bought me was “Slaughterhouse-Five” and this started a 16 year love of reading. It wasn’t only reading that Vonnegut made me love, but his war time story made me fascinated in Germany. And that has pretty much shaped my life right there. I took German in high school, studied German in college, moved to Germany, moved to Austria to do my Master’s, ended up in Ohio studying at Bowling Green State University, got trapped almost penniless in Toledo, decided to study translation at Kent State to get my second Master’s, met my girlfriend (a beautiful lady from Dresden, the second person in my duprass), which has all landed me here in New York City. All that from a book I read nearly 16 years ago (not all of it, but you know what I mean). But, Vonnegut is more than that. He continues to be someone I turn to when I need a laugh or just when I’m stuck in a deep purple depression. And maybe he has done that for you, too.

Which is why I think this documentary is so damn important. Though his writing is timeless and universal (war, science, kindness, love, community), we won’t be getting any new Vonnegut books, no more of his wit and humor and social commentary. And this documentary offers a view one last time into the world of Kurt Vonnegut. In just the view clips that Bob Weide has posted in the updates on the Kickstarter page, we have gotten to hear about two murderous dogs Boots and Beans and where Tralfamadore came from.

There are roughly 10 days left and $50,000 is still needed. We live in a world where a cartoonist can raise over $8 million dollars for a card game… Why can’t this be a world where we can raise $250,000 for a hero of American Literature?

If you’re a part of the Vonnegut reading community, or his karass, would you please consider donating, retweeting, reblogging, rewhatevering, and help spread the word?