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Kilgore Trout
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. In Vonnegut's work, Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels. "Trout" was inspired by the name of the author Theodore Sturgeon (Vonnegut's colleague in the genre of science fiction—Vonnegut was amused by the notion of a person with the name of a fish, Sturgeon, hence Trout), although Trout's consistent presence in Vonnegut's works has also led critics to view him as the author's own alter ego. In a homage to Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is also the titular author of the novel '' Venus on the Half-Shell'' (1975), written pseudonymously by Philip José Farmer. Origins of the character In 1957, Theodore Sturgeon moved to Truro, Massachusetts, where he befriended Vonnegut, then working as a salesman in a Saab dealership. At the time, both were writing in the genre of science fiction; Vonnegut had already published '' Player Piano'', retitled ''Utopia 14'' in paperback, while St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works; further collections have been published after his death. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the US Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox, with whom he had three children. He adopted his nephews after his siste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knox Burger
Knox Breckenridge Burger (November 1, 1922 – January 4, 2010) was an editor, writer, and literary agent who lived in New York City. He published Kurt Vonnegut's first short-story and with his wife he founded Knox Burger & Associates, a literary agency.Bruce Weber, Knox Burger, Agent and Book Editor, Dies at 87, ''New York Times'', January 12, 2010available here./ref> Early life Burger was born in New York City and lived in early life in Westchester County. Carl Burger, his father, was an illustrator. While serving in World War II, Burger contributed to '' Yank'', the Army Weekly 1943–1944. In a B-29 bomb squadron in the Marianas, Burger covered a number of missions over Japan, and was transferred to the ''Yank'' Saipan bureau late summer 1945 just before the Japanese surrender. Burger moved north to Tokyo, where he was, for a few months, the editor of the Far East edition of ''Yank'', and wrote numerous stories about the occupation. Burger, like his father, the author and illu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storm Windows
Storm windows are windows that are mounted outside or inside of the main glass windows of a house. Storm windows exist in North America, but are uncommon in continental Europe, where double, triple or quadruple glazing is prevalent. Storm windows can be made of glass, rigid plastic panels, or flexible plastic sheets; and may be permanently or temporarily mounted. They function similarly to insulated glazing. The term may also refer to a small openable flap found in the side window on light aircraft. In the United States, the older style of this window is often referred to as a "storm sash". On modern houses they serve on existing windows in order to improve their thermal insulation and soundproofing. Aside from insulation, storm windows provide an additional measure of protection for homes against damages to costly glass panes during inclement weather such as hail. On older houses, storm windows were installed in autumn when window screens were removed. Later units combined the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and forms a protective layer of oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, non-magnetic and ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of 26Al is used in radiodating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and highly charged; as such, it is polarizing, and bonds aluminium forms tend towards covalency. The strong affinity towards ox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cohoes, New York
Cohoes ( ) is an incorporated city located in the northeast corner of Albany County in the U.S. state of New York. It is called the "Spindle City" because of the importance of textile manufacturing to its growth in the 19th century. The city's factories processed cotton from the Deep South. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 16,168. The name Cohoes is believed to be derived from a Mohawk term, ''Ga-ha-oose'', referring to the Cohoes Falls and meaning "Place of the Falling Canoe," an interpretation noted by Horatio Gates Spafford in his 1823 publication "A Gazetteer of the State of New York". Later historians posited that the name is derived from the Algonquian ''Cohoes,'' a place name based on a word meaning 'pine tree'. History In the early years of Dutch colonial settlement, the majority of the city's territory was once part of the area of Manor of Rensselaerswyck, a feudal-style manor or patroonship. The land north of a line crossing the Cohoes Falls (today Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basement Apartment
A basement apartment is an apartment located below street level, underneath another structure—usually an apartment building, but possibly a house or a business. Cities in North America are beginning to recognize these units as a vital source of housing in urban areas and legally define them as an accessory dwelling unit or "ADU". Rent in basement apartments is usually much lower than it is in above-ground units, due to a number of deficiencies common to basement apartments. The apartments are usually cramped, and tend to be noisy, both from uninsulated building noises and from traffic on the adjacent street.David W. ChenBe It Ever So Low, the Basement Is Often Home ''The New York Times'' (February 25, 2004). They are also particularly vulnerable to burglary, especially those with windows at sidewalk level. In some instances, residential use of below-ground space is illegal, but is done anyway in order for the building owner to generate extra income. Homeowners will typically rent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schenectady
Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New York, near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. It is in the same metropolitan area as the state capital, Albany, which is about southeast. Schenectady was founded on the south side of the Mohawk River by Dutch colonists in the 17th century, many of whom came from the Albany area. The name "Schenectady" is derived from the Mohawk word ''skahnéhtati'', meaning "beyond the pines" and used for the area around Albany, New York. Residents of the new village developed farms on strip plots along the river. Connected to the west by the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, Schenectady developed rapidly in the 19th century as part of the Mohawk Valley trade, manufacturing, and transportation corridor. By 1824, more people worked in manufacturi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany metropolitan statistical area, which has a population of 1,170,483. At the 2020 census, the population of Troy was 51,401. Troy's motto is ''Ilium fuit, Troja est'', which means "Ilium was, Troy is". Today, Troy is home to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest private engineering and technical university in the US, founded in 1824. It is also home to Emma Willard School, an all-girls high school started by Emma Willard, a women's education activist, who sought to create a school for girls equal to their male counterparts. Due to the confluence of major waterways and a geography that supported water power ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ilium, New York
Ilium is a fictional town in eastern New York state, used as a setting for many of Kurt Vonnegut's novels and stories, including ''Player Piano'', ''Cat's Cradle'', ''Slaughterhouse-Five'', and the stories "Deer in the Works", " Poor Little Rich Town", and "Ed Luby's Key Club". The town is dominated by its major industry leader, the Ilium Works, which produces scientific marvels to assist, or possibly harm, human life. The Ilium Works is Vonnegut's symbol for the "impersonal corporate giant" with the power to alter humankind's destiny. The town has been compared to Zenith, the fictional setting in Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel ''Babbitt''. In one sense, the name may refer to Troy, New York because "''Ilium''" was the name the Romans gave to ancient Troy, although Troy is mentioned as a separate city in ''Player Piano''. In many other respects, Ilium closely resembles Schenectady, New York, with the fictional Iroquois River standing in for the real Mohawk River, which flows west–ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hocus Pocus (novel)
''Hocus Pocus, or What's the Hurry, Son?'' is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Plot summary In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut claims to have found hundreds of scraps of paper of varying sizes, from wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by their author to form a narrative. The breaks between pieces of paper often signal a sort of ironic "punchline". The main character is Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and carillonneur who realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with. The character's name is an homage to American labor and political leader Eugene V. Debs and anti-war senator Vance Hartke, both from Vonnegut's home state, Indiana. Upon his discharge from the military, Hartke becomes a professor at Tarkington College in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, but is later fired for sexual misconduct. Hartke then becomes a teacher at a private prison in the nearby town of Scipio. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timequake
''Timequake'' is a 1997 semi-autobiographical work by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Marketed as a novel, the book was described as a "stew" by Vonnegut, in which he summarizes a novel he had been struggling with for a number of years. Plot summary Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake (or repetition of actions) in which there is no free will. The idea of determinism is explored—as it is in many of his previous works—to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character, who the author declares as having died in 2001, at the fictitious Xanadu retreat in Rhode Island. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of ''Timequake'' he wrote (or ''Timequake One''). Taking parts of ''Timequake One'' and combining it with personal thoughts and anecdotes produced the finished product, so-called ''Timequake Two''. Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut's family, the death of loved ones, and peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jailbird (novel)
''Jailbird'' is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1979. The book is regarded as Kurt Vonnegut's " Watergate novel." The novel is narrated by protagonist Walter F. Starbuck, a man recently released from a minimum-security prison in Georgia after serving time for his small role in the Watergate Scandal. ''Jailbird'' is written as a standard memoir, revealing Starbuck's present situation, then coming full circle to tell the story of his first two days after being released from prison. Through Starbuck, ''Jailbird'' discusses the history of the American labor movement, alongside corporate America, McCarthyism, the Nixon administration, and Watergate. ''Jailbird'' includes a cameo by Kilgore Trout, a recurring Vonnegutian character known for writing science fiction novels and short stories. Unlike other versions of the character, this "Kilgore Trout" is revealed to be the pseudonym of a character in prison, deliberately contradicting the autobiographical details of Trout's li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
