Daffodil-11 day? *-day?

June 3, 2009 4:37 PM

Towel Day:Douglas Adams :: _____________:Kurt Vonnegut?

After last Towel Day, I was wondering about whether we had a day to celebrate Kurt Vonnegut.

So do we have a Kurt Vonnegut day? If not, what should a holiday celebrating Vonnegut look like? Towel Day is great 'cause you carry a towel around with you. What would we carry around with us on a day celebrating the life and works of Kurt Vonnegut? Little skeins of yarn that we attempt to work into a cat's cradle all day? Little * flags?

posted by Barry B. Palindromer to society & culture (19 comments total)

(Kilgore) Trout Day?
posted by hwyengr at 4:40 PM on June 3

"Goddamn it, you've got to be kind" day.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 4:46 PM on June 3

Blue Monday
posted by ian1977 at 4:54 PM on June 3 [2 favorites has favorites]

"So It Goes" Day - but, that's every day.
posted by illenion at 4:55 PM on June 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

Smoking Day.
posted by alan at 4:56 PM on June 3

What would we carry around with us on a day celebrating the life and works of Kurt Vonnegut?

Pieces of a popped balloon.

"If you wish to study a granfalloon
Just remove the skin of a toy balloon."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:57 PM on June 3

Breakfast.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:00 PM on June 3

I'd prefer a Sunday, where I could sit for an hour in quiet reflection with the souls of my feet pressed against the soles of my wife's feet.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:01 PM on June 3

I think that if Vonnegut would have advocated a special day it would have been any random day you are happening to enjoy during which you acted kindly to other humans because you recognized them as such.

He also held a special respect for Armistice Day, which happened to fall on his birthday.

* I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

posted by Science! at 5:22 PM on June 3 [8 favorites has favorites]

Or on which his birthday happened to fall.
posted by Science! at 5:25 PM on June 3

Pilgrim Day?
posted by elder18 at 6:16 PM on June 3

July 20th, Flying Fuck (or Leap, if you're so inclined) at the Moon Day.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 6:39 PM on June 3

Bokononism is the fictional religion practiced by many of the characters in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.

It is based on living by the untruths that make one happy, called foma. Many of the sacred texts of Bokononism were written in the form of calypsos. The foundation of Bokononism is that all religion, including Bokononism and all its texts, is formed entirely of lies; however, if you believe and adhere to these lies, you will live a happy life.

posted by alms at 6:39 PM on June 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

Skylarking Day.
posted by politikitty at 8:04 PM on June 3

Pieces of ice-nine, or dogtags that say "EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL, AND NOTHING HURT."
posted by Mapes at 8:12 PM on June 3

It would be whatever day you happened to remember to celebrate it*. You could do it daily or once every 15 years if you felt like it. It wouldn't be nationalized, it would just happen. There's no set way to celebrate - you do it however you feel is fit - but you'd do it in the quiet of your own home, and although it probably would be illegal and punishable by death, everyone does it, including those that enforce the law. It would just happen.

*Of course, my vote is April 11, the day of his death and my birthday.
posted by sephira at 8:36 PM on June 3

*
posted by Carmody'sPrize at 7:08 AM on June 4 [2 favorites has favorites]

Flying Fuck At A Rolling Donut Day.

You Are Not Alone Day.
posted by lordrunningclam at 10:10 AM on June 4

Farting Around Day.
posted by lordrunningclam at 10:11 AM on June 4