So now we can build an unselfish society by devoting to unselfishness the frenzy we once devoted to gold and to underpants.

You should all of you go read some Kurt Vonnegut. How did I ever fall away from this author? I read a lot of Vonnegut in high school, initially because Slaughterhouse Five was one of the more attractive choices on Foster's booklist, and then because it was excellent writing. The stories are great but the way they're told is greater. The style is completely laid back, completely outside the story. The narrator is the narrator and is almost a character. This is an author who cares more about ideas and language than literary conventions.

Last night we went to a bookstore. I collected Kevin from his new apartment outside Merle Hay and we went to Goathead's, where Goathead was deeply entrenched in a Halo dispute, and by the time we got to the bookstore we had mere minutes to shop. I found a copy of Breakfast of Champions in the V's. When I opened it I found that the text was illustrated, and that the previous owner had scrawled his name in the front. And can you guess what that previous owner's name was? His name was Tim. With an underline beneath it. He did not connect the bars of the T. So I bought the book.