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Jerome Klinkowitz

American Book Review, Volume 27, Number 3, March/April 2006, pp.

10-11 (Article)
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DOI: 10.1353/abr.2006.0079

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/abr/summary/v027/27.3.klinkowitz.html

Access provided by University of the Philippines (13 Oct 2014 03:11 GMT)

Vonnegut's Beatitudes
Jerome Klinkowitz

A Man without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut
Seven Stories Press

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

terman or Leno, even the subtle situational hilarity

of Larry David all of this is funny, but not in the
manner Vonnegut uses humor here. There's an edge
to his mockery, as when he counsels: "We are about
to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have
them. That always seems to scare them away." Or,

that caution or timidity might impose. Used artfully,

these jokes open the way for people to feel a little
better about life, balancing the fact that most great

at the end of a serious piece on the eventual yet in-

works of literature "are all about what a bummer it

evitable depletion of fossil fuels, when he sighs: "So

there goes the Junior Prom, but that's not the half of

is to be a human being."

it." What he's infused here is a sense of vernacular

Early in A Man without a Country Kurt Vonnegut recalls the method he used to get attention
from his family when he was the youngest child at

the dinner table. "[A] joke," he learned, "was a way

to break into an adult conversation." Years later,

he'd use the same trick to get himself into the adult
conversation that takes place between a novel and its
readers, a matter of posing apparently serious questions and then providing the relief of not expecting a
serious answer. With readers relaxed and refreshed,

he could then make the point he wanted to, more

often than not concerning weighty moral issues that
otherwise would have turned his audience off. It's

a technique in public speaking, of which he's also a

master. And for essays, such as the twelve collected
here, the approach works best of all.
But not simple jokes or comic pratfalls. Henny
Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield cracking one-liners on the stage, an opening monologue from Let-

power that at once deflates his opposition and creates

sympathy for his own position. That perspective, like
most vernacular views, is self-deprecating, as when
he laughs that a War on Drugs is better than no drugs
at all (borrowing the sentiment from Indiana humorist
Kin Hubbard on the reality of Prohibition). Taking
President George W. Bush's sanctimonious account
of recovering from alcoholism and rephrasing it in
the vernacular has the same effect. "[B]y his own
admission," Vonnegut notes, the man "was smashed,

or tiddley-poo, or four sheets to the wind a good deal

of time from when he was sixteen until he was forty.

funny throwaway lines is the larger purpose being

served. Humor meliorates fear, the author explains,
helping reader and writer alike proceed beyond limits

Humor deflates opposition

and creates sympathy.
A Man without a Country finds Vonnegut
deeply bummed out. As a civic idealist schooled

in the principles of Franklin D. Roosevelt's style

of government, he's aghast at the country's leadership these days. But at least he can laugh at himself

for surviving so long, despite the promise on each

package of his chain-smoked Pall Malls that the

cigarettes would kill him. "Thanks a lot, you dirty

rats," he tells the tobacco industry. "The last thing

When he was forty-one, he says, Jesus appeared to

him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling

I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most

nose paint." Is the author convinced? Well, "[o]ther

drunks have seen pink elephants."

named Bush, Dick and Colon" [sic]. If that sounds

Little jokes like this, phrased in the way people

tragic flaw he's found in the Constitution, which

is that "[o]nly nut cases want to be president. This

really talk when they're not self-conscious about their

pronouncements, move Kurt Vonnegut's commentar-

ies along. But what keeps them from being merely

powerful people on the whole planet would be

like adolescent humor, so be it, because there's a

was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed

people ran for class president." As a veteran, proud
of his service in World War II, he's even more

Marc Penka Poetry Award

bummed by the fate of those serving in the military

today: "They are being treated, as I never was, like

toys a rich kid got for Christmas." As for the preThe Marc Penka

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a first prize of $500,
aims to promote poets
whose work exemplifies the same uncom-

promising spirit that

characterizes the poetry of Marc Penka,
a radically original
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died in October 2000

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competition is open to poets of any age writing in

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Entries must be submitted online. For eligibility

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Page 10

k Ui'\k'\\

sumed enemy, our leaders are foolish to think that

they themselves are smarter. "You think Arabs are

dumb?" Vonnegut asks. "Try doing long division

with Roman numerals."

In some respects, it's sad to see Kurt Vonnegut,

a writer who has brought so much happiness into
the world, be depressed by so much bad news, from

the way our government is run to the catastrophes

of AIDS and global warming. In one of the posterstyle broadsides that serve as frontispieces to each
essay, he spells out his worry in capital letters, that

"Our planet's immune system is trying to get rid of

people." Funny, but cruel, and the cruelty is hardest
for the writer himself to bear, not just signing the
statement but dating it at 6 a.m., surely a time when
this 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 from
which humor will show the way out.
False humor false anything is not the solu-

tion. One of Vonnegut's essays uses an anthropological analysis of various ways of storytelling to show
how the best literary art remains true to itself and to

its subject. This way, one can look for a surprising

truth, then play it for comic effect. Feel bothered by
all those self-taken Christians who want to post the
Ten Commandments everywhere? Just invite them to
post the Beatitudes instead. The prospect is hilarious.
-Klinkowitz continued on next page

America!

"BvSw"
Klinkowitz continuedfrom previous page ------------'"Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom?" Von-

that says '"Ribbit'" when its door swings shut. "And

I go home," the author notes, having had "one hell
of a good time." As for the alternative, "fellectronic
communities build nothing. You wind up with noth-

for all this? How about simple humanism, Vonnegut

suggests. As opposed to the ridiculous guessing after
absolutes that our government tries to pass off as
leadership, "fw]e humanists serve as best we can
the only abstraction with which we have any real
familiarity, which is our community."
And so the grand old man of American letters
soldiers on, well beyond the most extreme expectations of service. Why does he do it? These essays,
like the silk-screened posters he produces with artist
Joe Petro III, give him a reason for living, a way to

ing. We are dancing animals." A larger philosophy

be of use. Call them his Beatitudes, his Sermon on

negut asks. '"Blessed are the peacemakers' in the

Pentagon? Give me a break!"
As for positives, they can be found all around
us, such as in the joy of putting aside the computer
and typing a letter, buying a stamp and envelope, and

dropping it in the mailbox, "the giant blue bullfrog"

the Mount from East 48th Street in New York. People

still listen.

Jerome Klinkowitz teaches at the University of

Northern Iowa. His recent books include The Von-

negut Effect (University of South Carolina Press)

and, with Julie Huffman-Klinkowitz, The Enchanted
Quest of Dana and Ginger Lamb (University Press
ofMississippi).

A Sample of Fair Use

Davis Schneiderman

Freedom of Expression:
overzealous copyright bozos
and Other Enemds of Creativity
Kembrew McLeod

Doubleday
http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/

384 pages; cloth, $24.95

An enticing descendant of Naomi Klein's

enormously engaging trade book No Logo: Taking
Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000) and the current

Michael Moore/AI Franken stable of left-leaning

humor diatribes, media prankster and University of
Iowa professor Kembrew McLeod 's Freedom ofExpression9: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other
Enemies ofCreativity wants to appeal to the curious
Barnes & Noble-browsing hipster while nodding to
the more academic-oriented market.

The book succeeds wildly on the first count,

exploring the complex interconnections between
genetic coding and patenting, bioprospecting and
the exploitation of non-Western cultures, music
sampling and the varied practices of hip-hop, the
protected status of songs such as "Happy Birthday to
You," media pranks (including McLeod's infamous

trademark of the phrase "Freedom of Expression"),

the surrealist and Dada traditions, Barbie blender art

and Barbie/Karen Carpenter art, the literary appropriations of modernist poet Marianne Moore, Vanna
White suing a robot look-alike for infringement, and,
most importantly, the brave counter-discourses of
organizations such as Illegal Art and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF)- to list but a small sam-

pling. Given the provocation of his subtitle, McLeod

is ultimately more optimistic than many of his purely
academic peers, noting that "[a]nyone with basic
computer-programming skills and an imagination can
potentially alter the habits of millions," and that the
freedom to respond to the media mlange swirling
around us, and (at times) choking our orifices, "is
essential for the survival of a robust democracy."

McLeod stresses that big money

can sometimes be defeated

by healthy doses ofmoxie

and perseverance.
From this confidence springs the book's most
important contribution to intellectual property debate: a "how-to" sensibility that encourages artists

to exercise the legal doctrine of "fair-use," the right

to quote and sample from copyright protected works
under certain circumstances. One of many examples:
rapper Ghostface Killah's transformation of Louis
Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" into an ode
to marijuana, with appearances from a bevy of cartoon characters including such corporate-protected
animals as Porky Pig, Kermit the Frog, and Tom
and Jerry, engaging in "unspeakable acts." Punk
rock mainstay Joey Ramone, applying an amphet-

amine-inspired speed boost to a cover version of the

Armstrong classic, had only to pay a set fee for the
privilege to record (in a way arguably very different
from the original), but Ghostface Killah had to defend
his right to transform in court.
The lessons McLeod takes from "fair use"

proponents often merge with his delight in the wellexecuted media prank: a group known as the Yes

Men (aka ark) staged a hilarious presentation

(as faux-WTO representatives) to a Textiles of the
Future Conference, where they told the crowd that
Gandhi was "a likeable, well-meaning fellow...but
did not understand the benefits of open markets and
free trade," before exposing an inflatable phallus with
a video screen on the tip.
Throughout these examples, McLeod stresses
again and again that being threatened with a corporate lawsuit does not always correlate to an actual
crime, and that the big money can sometimes (but not
always) be defeated by healthy doses of moxie and
perseverance. Take the 2003 example of the student
activists who posted internal company documents
from voting-machine vendor Diebold, detailing
gaping security holes and apparent illegalities in the
company's voting software; after a public relations
nightmare (and a counter-suit from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation and the Stanford Cyberlaw
Clinic), Diebold backed down in its attempts to remove the documents: "In making frivolous claims
on its copyrights, Diebold succeeded only in setting
a precedent that opened up more possibilities for
freedom of expression." Such victories prove the
effectiveness of ju-jitsu strategies willing to engage
the 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 offered
by his big-name publisher, cracking not only (occasional) bad jokes, but also clearly thrilling in lines
such as "I'd like to connect my foot to whoever's ass
approved" a commercial using Martin Luther King,
Jr., to shill for Cingular wireless. With a subsection
titled "Happy Birthday, Screw You," it is hard for
even the soberest reader to avoid cracking a smile.
Such humor will resonate with educators

looking to introduce students to a world where the

transformation of even the most ethereal aspects of

culture into protected property is

pushed with more
gusto than any
designer drug, but
where responses are carefully
monitored by an
expanded intellectual property
Detailfrom cover
regime that long
ago grew beyond
its more limited roots. No longer deployed simply for
the "encouragement of learning" (Statute of Anne,
1 7 10) or merely to "promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts" (US Constitution), McLeod's version of copyright and intellectual laws focuses on the
abandonment of the historical compromise between
the "rights" of creators to be rewarded for their work
(as a way of ensuring continued creation) and the
rights of the public to access the work for its own
purposes. In today's world post-Digital Millennium
Copyright Act and post-Sonny Bono Copyright Term
Extension Act (both 1 998) a Church of Scientology
threat invoking the former caused Google to cease
"linking" to websites that criticized Scientology's
legally protected documents and icons, while the
latter statute (sarcastically termed the "Mickey
Mouse Protection Act") paradoxically allows old
films without easily identifiable copyright holders to
literally disintegrate before nervous archivists engage
in preservation.
All of this goes down with ample spoonfuls
of sugar: McLeod dutifully fills each chapter with
conversational anecdotes, and the main text is

largely devoid of notes and references; quotations

from everyone from Public Enemy to former Motion Picture Association of America president Jack
Valenti receive more prominent billing. Also, those

familiar with McLeod's work will see this project

as a remix of sorts as well, with significant sections
revamped from his earlier academic work, Owning
Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual
Property Law (200 1 ). In spite of the similar subject
matter of the two books, none of the remix seems

particularly forced, or even out of place. Accordingly,

those familiar with the issues tackled by Freedom

of Expression18 may find it most useful as a clever

compendium of examples applied to familiar arguments, which, as McLeod might suggest, is precisely
the stuff of which art is often made.

Davis Schneiderman is the author of Multifesto: A

Henri d'Mescan Reader (Spuyten Duyvil), as well as
coeditor o/Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Pluto) and the
literary journal Potion (http:llpotionmag.org).

-\piil 2006

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