John D, I’m with you. Those pictures are simply wonderful. Amazing. And yes, John M, Sirens of Titan is a wonderful book. The whole point of human civilization was to advertise the need of a spare part for an alien spacecraft. Now that’s what I call intelligent design…

Vonnegut has spouted plenty of nonsense since then, but everything can be forgiven the author of one of the soundest short stories ever written – Harrison Bergeron. Here’s an extract:

“The music began. It was normal at first- cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs. The music began again and was much improved. Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it. They shifted their weights to their toes. Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers. And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang! Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well. They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun. They leaped like deer on the moon. The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it. And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

“It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.”

If you haven’t already, read the whole thing. Now.