9RQQHJXWV%HDWLWXGHVJerome Klinkowitz

American Book Review, Volume 27, Number 3, March/April 2006, pp.10-11 (Article)

3XEOLVKHGE\$PHULFDQ%RRN5HYLHZDOI: 10.1353/abr.2006.0079

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Vonnegut's BeatitudesJerome Klinkowitz

A Man without a Country

Kurt VonnegutSeven Stories Press

http://www.sevenstories.com145 pages; cloth, $23.95

Early in A Man without a Country Kurt Von-negut recalls the method he used to get attentionfrom his family when he was the youngest child atthe dinner table. "[A] joke," he learned, "was a wayto break into an adult conversation." Years later,he'd use the same trick to get himself into the adultconversation that takes place between a novel and itsreaders, a matter of posing apparently serious ques-tions and then providing the relief of not expecting aserious answer. With readers relaxed and refreshed,he could then make the point he wanted to, moreoften than not concerning weighty moral issues thatotherwise would have turned his audience off. It'sa technique in public speaking, of which he's also amaster. And for essays, such as the twelve collectedhere, the approach works best of all.

But not simple jokes or comic pratfalls. HennyYoungman or Rodney Dangerfield cracking one-lin-ers on the stage, an opening monologue from Let-

terman or Leno, even the subtle situational hilarityof Larry Davidall of this is funny, but not in themanner Vonnegut uses humor here. There's an edgeto his mockery, as when he counsels: "We are aboutto be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you havethem. That always seems to scare them away." Or,at the end of a serious piece on the eventual yet in-evitable depletion of fossil fuels, when he sighs: "Sothere goes the Junior Prom, but that's not the half ofit." What he's infused here is a sense of vernacularpower that at once deflates his opposition and createssympathy for his own position. That perspective, likemost vernacular views, is self-deprecating, as whenhe laughs that aWar on Drugs is better than no drugsat all (borrowing the sentiment from Indiana humoristKin Hubbard on the reality of Prohibition). TakingPresident George W. Bush's sanctimonious accountof recovering from alcoholism and rephrasing it inthe vernacular has the same effect. "[B]y his ownadmission," Vonnegut notes, the man "was smashed,or tiddley-poo, or four sheets to the wind a good dealof time from when he was sixteen until he was forty.When he was forty-one, he says, Jesus appeared tohim and made him knock off the sauce, stop garglingnose paint." Is the author convinced? Well, "[o]therdrunks have seen pink elephants."

Little jokes like this, phrased in the way peoplereally talk when they're not self-conscious about theirpronouncements, move Kurt Vonnegut's commentar-ies along. But what keeps them from being merely

Marc Penka Poetry AwardThe Marc Penka

Poetry Award, witha first prize of $500,aims to promote poetswhose work exempli-fies the same uncom-

promising spirit thatcharacterizes the po-etry of Marc Penka,a radically originalAmerican poet whodied in October 2000

at age 44. The First Prize will be granted to an au-thor based on a body of representative work. Thecompetition is open to poets of any age writing inEnglish. In addition to the $500 cash award, thewinning works will be displayed for one year atthe Award's official website, www.marcpenka.com.Entries must be submitted online. For eligibilityand submission guidelines, please consult www.marcpenka.com.

The entry deadline is July 30, 2006.Winners will be announced on September 10, 2006.

Previous winners: 2004: Annalynn Hammond;2005: Erin Elizabeth

MARC PENKA POETRY AWARD FOUNDATIONPO BOX 16102 I PHOENIX I ARIZONA I 85014

funny throwaway lines is the larger purpose beingserved. Humor meliorates fear, the author explains,helping reader and writer alike proceed beyond limitsthat caution or timidity might impose. Used artfully,these jokes open the way for people to feel a littlebetter about life, balancing the fact that most greatworks of literature "are all about what a bummer itis to be a human being."

Humor deflates oppositionand creates sympathy.

A Man without a Country finds Vonnegutdeeply bummed out. As a civic idealist schooledin the principles of Franklin D. Roosevelt's styleof government, he's aghast at the country's leader-ship these days. But at least he can laugh at himselffor surviving so long, despite the promise on eachpackage of his chain-smoked Pall Malls that thecigarettes would kill him. "Thanks a lot, you dirtyrats," he tells the tobacco industry. "The last thingI ever wanted was to be alive when the three mostpowerful people on the whole planet would benamed Bush, Dick and Colon" [sic]. If that soundslike adolescent humor, so be it, because there's atragic flaw he's found in the Constitution, whichis that "[o]nly nut cases want to be president. Thiswas true even in high school. Only clearly disturbedpeople ran for class president." As a veteran, proudof his service in World War II, he's even morebummed by the fate of those serving in the militarytoday: "They are being treated, as I never was, liketoys a rich kid got for Christmas." As for the pre-sumed enemy, our leaders are foolish to think thatthey themselves are smarter. "You think Arabs aredumb?" Vonnegut asks. "Try doing long divisionwith Roman numerals."

In some respects, it's sad to see Kurt Vonnegut,a writer who has brought so much happiness intothe world, be depressed by so much bad news, fromthe way our government is run to the catastrophesof AIDS and global warming. In one of the poster-style broadsides that serve as frontispieces to eachessay, he spells out his worry in capital letters, that"Our planet's immune system is trying to get rid ofpeople." Funny, but cruel, and the cruelty is hardestfor the writer himself to bear, not just signing thestatement but dating it at 6 a.m., surely a time whenthis gentle octogenarian should be peacefully asleep.But he never lets depression have the last word.Instead, he uses it as a point in his narrative fromwhich humor will show the way out.

False humor false anything is not the solu-tion. One ofVonnegut's essays uses an anthropologi-cal analysis of various ways of storytelling to showhow the best literary art remains true to itself and toits subject. This way, one can look for a surprisingtruth, then play it for comic effect. Feel bothered byall those self-taken Christians who want to post theTen Commandments everywhere? Just invite them topost the Beatitudes instead. The prospect is hilarious.

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'"Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom?" Von-negut asks. '"Blessed are the peacemakers' in thePentagon? Give me a break!"

As for positives, they can be found all aroundus, such as in the joy of putting aside the computerand typing a letter, buying a stamp and envelope, anddropping it in the mailbox, "the giant blue bullfrog"that says '"Ribbit'" when its door swings shut. "AndI go home," the author notes, having had "one hellof a good time." As for the alternative, "fellectroniccommunities build nothing. You wind up with noth-ing. We are dancing animals." A larger philosophy

America!"BvSw"

for all this? How about simple humanism, Vonnegutsuggests. As opposed to the ridiculous guessing afterabsolutes that our government tries to pass off asleadership, "fw]e humanists serve as best we canthe only abstraction with which we have any realfamiliarity, which is our community."

And so the grand old man of American letterssoldiers on, well beyond the most extreme expecta-tions of service. Why does he do it? These essays,like the silk-screened posters he produces with artistJoe Petro III, give him a reason for living, a way tobe of use. Call them his Beatitudes, his Sermon on

the Mount from East 48th Street in New York. Peoplestill listen.

Jerome Klinkowitz teaches at the University ofNorthern Iowa. His recent books include The Von-negut Effect (University of South Carolina Press)and, with Julie Huffman-Klinkowitz, The EnchantedQuest of Dana and Ginger Lamb (University PressofMississippi).

A Sample of Fair UseDavis Schneiderman

Freedom of Expression:overzealous copyright bozos

and Other Enemds of CreativityKembrew McLeod

Doubledayhttp://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/

384 pages; cloth, $24.95

An enticing descendant of Naomi Klein'senormously engaging trade book No Logo: TakingAim at the Brand Bullies (2000) and the currentMichael Moore/AI Franken stable of left-leaninghumor diatribes, media prankster and University ofIowa professor Kembrew McLeod 's Freedom ofEx-pression9: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and OtherEnemies ofCreativity wants to appeal to the curiousBarnes & Noble-browsing hipster while nodding tothe more academic-oriented market.

The book succeeds wildly on the first count,exploring the complex interconnections betweengenetic coding and patenting, bioprospecting andthe exploitation of non-Western cultures, musicsampling and the varied practices of hip-hop, theprotected status of songs such as "Happy Birthday toYou," media pranks (including McLeod's infamoustrademark of the phrase "Freedom of Expression"),the surrealist and Dada traditions, Barbie blender artand Barbie/Karen Carpenter art, the literary appro-priations ofmodernist poet Marianne Moore, VannaWhite suing a robot look-alike for infringement, and,most importantly, the brave counter-discourses oforganizations such as Illegal Art and the ElectronicFrontier Foundation (EFF)- to list but a small sam-pling. Given the provocation of his subtitle, McLeodis ultimately more optimistic than many of his purelyacademic peers, noting that "[a]nyone with basiccomputer-programming skills and an imagination canpotentially alter the habits of millions," and that thefreedom to respond to the media mlange swirlingaround us, and (at times) choking our orifices, "isessential for the survival of a robust democracy."

McLeod stresses that big moneycan sometimes be defeatedby healthy doses ofmoxie

andperseverance.

From this confidence springs the book's mostimportant contribution to intellectual property de-bate: a "how-to" sensibility that encourages artists

to exercise the legal doctrine of "fair-use," the rightto quote and sample from copyright protected worksunder certain circumstances. One ofmany examples:rapper Ghostface Killah's transformation of LouisArmstrong's "What a Wonderful World" into an odeto marijuana, with appearances from a bevy of car-toon characters including such corporate-protectedanimals as Porky Pig, Kermit the Frog, and Tomand Jerry, engaging in "unspeakable acts." Punkrock mainstay Joey Ramone, applying an amphet-amine-inspired speed boost to a cover version of theArmstrong classic, had only to pay a set fee for theprivilege to record (in a way arguably very differentfrom the original), but Ghostface Killah had to defendhis right to transform in court.

The lessons McLeod takes from "fair use"proponents often merge with his delight in the well-executed media prank: a group known as the YesMen (aka ark) staged a hilarious presentation(as faux-WTO representatives) to a Textiles of theFuture Conference, where they told the crowd thatGandhi was "a likeable, well-meaning fellow...butdid not understand the benefits of open markets andfree trade," before exposing an inflatable phallus witha video screen on the tip.

Throughout these examples, McLeod stressesagain and again that being threatened with a corpo-rate lawsuit does not always correlate to an actualcrime, and that the big money can sometimes (but notalways) be defeated by healthy doses of moxie andperseverance. Take the 2003 example of the studentactivists who posted internal company documentsfrom voting-machine vendor Diebold, detailinggaping security holes and apparent illegalities in thecompany's voting software; after a public relationsnightmare (and a counter-suit from the ElectronicFrontier Foundation and the Stanford CyberlawClinic), Diebold backed down in its attempts to re-move the documents: "In making frivolous claimson its copyrights, Diebold succeeded only in settinga precedent that opened up more possibilities forfreedom of expression." Such victories prove theeffectiveness of ju-jitsu strategies willing to engagethe media machine, as the book advocates that we"vigorously and confidently (though not carelessly)employ [fair use] in daily life."

McLeod also delights in the freedom offeredby his big-name publisher, cracking not only (oc-casional) bad jokes, but also clearly thrilling in linessuch as "I'd like to connect my foot to whoever's assapproved" a commercial using Martin Luther King,Jr., to shill for Cingular wireless. With a subsectiontitled "Happy Birthday, Screw You," it is hard foreven the soberest reader to avoid cracking a smile.

Such humor will resonate with educatorslooking to introduce students to a world where thetransformation of even the most ethereal aspects of

Detailfrom cover

culture into pro-tected property ispushed with moregusto than anydesigner drug, butwhere respons-es are carefullymonitored by anexpanded intel-lectual propertyregime that longago grew beyondits more limited roots. No longer deployed simply forthe "encouragement of learning" (Statute of Anne,1 7 10) or merely to "promote the Progress of Scienceand useful Arts" (US Constitution), McLeod's ver-sion of copyright and intellectual laws focuses on theabandonment of the historical compromise betweenthe "rights" of creators to be rewarded for their work(as a way of ensuring continued creation) and therights of the public to access the work for its ownpurposes. In today's worldpost-Digital MillenniumCopyright Act and post-Sonny Bono Copyright TermExtension Act (both 1 998)a Church of Scientologythreat invoking the former caused Google to cease"linking" to websites that criticized Scientology'slegally protected documents and icons, while thelatter statute (sarcastically termed the "MickeyMouse Protection Act") paradoxically allows oldfilms without easily identifiable copyright holders toliterally disintegrate before nervous archivists engagein preservation.

All of this goes down with ample spoonfulsof sugar: McLeod dutifully fills each chapter withconversational anecdotes, and the main text islargely devoid of notes and references; quotationsfrom everyone from Public Enemy to former Mo-tion Picture Association of America president JackValenti receive more prominent billing. Also, thosefamiliar with McLeod's work will see this projectas a remix of sorts as well, with significant sectionsrevamped from his earlier academic work, OwningCulture: Authorship, Ownership, and IntellectualProperty Law (200 1 ). In spite of the similar subjectmatter of the two books, none of the remix seemsparticularly forced, or even out of place. Accordingly,those familiar with the issues tackled by Freedomof Expression18 may find it most useful as a clevercompendium of examples applied to familiar argu-ments, which, as McLeod might suggest, is preciselythe stuff of which art is often made.

Davis Schneiderman is the author ofMultifesto: AHenri d'Mescan Reader (Spuyten Duyvil), as well ascoeditor o/Retaking the Universe: William S. Bur-roughs in the Age of Globalization (Pluto) and theliterary journal Potion (http:llpotionmag.org).

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