Vonnegut—my man!

People on the coasts diss my hometown, Indianapolis, without even giving it a second thought. It was so very annoying when we lived in Philadelphia. We'd confess our corn-fed roots and people visibly stepped back—as though we had some kind of red-state contagious disease that causes a loss of brain cells. Particularly cells in the "coolness" area of our brains. (There were exceptions; D, J, S & M, you know I don't mean you.)

Among the gifts of Indianapolis to the world is one of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnegut. He grew out of the city's somewhat underground liberal tradition—which is very deep if not particularly wide. Hard to imagine, but that tradition influences life there greatly.

David Hoppe, a writer for Nuvo Newsweekly has done interviews with Vonnegut over the years. The one in this week's issue is outstanding. In it Vonnegut, who had seen himself as retired, says he was forced by the Bush administration to end his retirement and publish A Man Without a Country. This interviewrocks. It will make you laugh and maybe cry. Well done, David.