Ah, zmjejezhd, I am not the Milo of Heller, I am rather the Milo of Vonnegut.
In 1972 I met Kurt Vonnegut at the Airport Holiday Inn Lounge in Birmingham, Alabama. We (I) talked of Science Fiction and the nature of life in depth while we sat drinking at the mirrored bar until late at night. Me being me, I did most of the talking.
A year or so later -- after seeing his photograph in the back fly of "Breakfast Of Champions" -- I saw that the nappily ruffled fellow with whom I had chated that night was none other than THE Kurt Vonnegut who very often visited his 80 year old aunt in Birmingham. Vonnegut's favorite aunt was a life long attendee of the Ruhoma Baptist Church in South East Lake which was only a short three miles away.
From an Amazon review... Breakfast of Champions is about what it means to be alive and kickin'. The universe is unreasonable. The syntax of stuff doesn't make sense. The center caves in. When Trout arrives in Midland City, an admirer named Milo Maritimo approaches him as savior:
"Oh, Mr. Trout teach us to sing and dance and laugh and cry. We've tried to survive so long on money and sex and envy and real estate and football and basketball and automobiles and television and alcohol — on sawdust and broken glass!"
[Trout responds]
"You have nothing but desolation and despair here, you say! I bring you more of the same!" And so it goes.
