Tag Archives: Time

The Children’s Crusade

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim. He’s an American born in 1922, but he’s a senile widower who has “come unstuck in time” when we meet him. He can revisit any moment in his life as if he’s watching a video, and the novel consists of non-linear video clips of Billy’s life, including the time he was kidnapped by aliens, brought to Tralfamadore, and put in a zoo.

The Tralfamadorians teach Billy about time and how it’s like looking at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. ”All the moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.” Except for their habit of putting humans in zoos, the Tralfamadorians are pretty cool dudes. ”They can see how permanent all the moments [of time] are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.” So people die, but they also continue living in all the prior moments, which will always exist. That’s either comforting or distressing. It depends on how much love and happiness you’ve experienced in your allotted time – things you may not have much control over.

Billy blinks and it’s 1945, and he’s a chaplain’s assistant in World War II. In his first battle he becomes a prisoner of war, and he’s sent to a German POW camp where he and his fellow American POWs meet a group of English POWs, who were captured early in the war. The English POWs look “stylish and reasonable, and fun” so their German guards love them. The Americans are wrecks. They don’t make war look stylish, reasonable or fun, so the Germans send them to Dresden to sweep the streets. They’ll be exhibits in a different zoo.

Dresden looks like a “Sunday school picture of Heaven.” The Allies have bombed nearly every other German city, but Dresden is unscathed because it serves no military purpose. Less than a month after Billy’s arrival, the Allies inexplicably bomb it turning it into “one big flame.” 135,000 people were killed for no reason at all. Billy is one of the few survivors, and he traverses the demolished landscape looking for someone new to surrender to. 

Slaughterhouse-Five is a success on all levels. It’s a comic opera that skewers American-style capitalism and consumerism. ”Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.” It’s elite science fiction that explores what time means and how that affects our understanding of life and death. But at its heart, Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the all-time great anti-war novels. As fantastical as the novel is, it won’t allow you to ignore a fundamental truth: wars are fought by babies. Every war is a children’s crusade, and it’s the children, our children, who suffer most the brutal consequences of our tragic inability to get along.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

A Tribute to Unknown

So many people have created stunning art, and we don’t know their names.  Many more have committed full frontal assaults on humanity, and because they’re impossible to shame, everyone knows their names.  In terms of literature, some of the most provocative and enlivening works were written by history’s most prodigious writer:  Unknown. 

It’s Unknown who wrote the Old Testament, as it’s called by Christians.  Jews call it the Torah, which means Jesus Christ!  Quit coopting our stuff.  You do this all the time.  It’s also Unknown who wrote Pearl, Sundiata, El Cid, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Fifty Shades of Grey (The Geriatric Years), Beowulf, and many more masterpieces that give bone and flesh to the human condition.

We don’t need social media to notify us that Fame is fickle. We don’t need more grieving parents to remind us that Equity and Justice have never lived here. Time destroys everything we treasure, so it’s a blessing these works have survived in any form.  Even if the poets’ names are lost in the dank cellar of Antiquity’s library, their voices have survived . . . thus far.  Remember hexed Sappho, her name survives but insensate Time has denied us so much of her voice. 

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

A Tribute to Unknown

So many people have created stunning works of art, and we don’t know their names.  So many more people have created crap and because they are impossible to shame, everyone knows their names.  In terms of literature, some of the most interesting and inspiring works were written by history’s most prolific author:  Unknown. 

It’s Unknown who wrote the Old Testament, as it’s called by Christians.  Jews call it the Torah, which means Jesus Christ!  Quit coopting our stuff.  You do this all the time.  It’s also Unknown who wrote Pearl, Sundiata, El Cid, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Fifty Shades of Grey (The Geriatric Years), Beowulf, and many more works that put bone and flesh on the human condition.

We don’t need social media to inform us that Fame is fickle. We don’t need more grieving parents to remind us that Equity and Justice have never lived here. Time strips away everything we treasure, so it’s a blessing these works have survived in any form.  Even if the poets’ names are lost in the dank cellar of Antiquity’s library, their voices have survived . . . thus far.  Remember poor Sappho.  Her name survives but callous Time has denied us so much of her voice. 

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor – July 17, 2017

The Girl With Ocean Eyes

A spiced-rum girl with ocean eyes
big-bellied sailboats and osprey cries
the climbing sun in full splendor
but foolishly I did not surrender.

I had promising places to be.
My spiced-rum girl would wait for me.

The osprey and big bellied boats gone
all my assumptions of the future wrong
pink fingers release a sinking sun.
Girls with ocean eyes wait for no one.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief