Vonnegut on VHS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So I've got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago. It's got some nice readings from John Updike, Woody Allen and Alice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/03\/30\/vonnegut-on-vhs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vonnegut on VHS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So I've got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago. It's got some nice readings from John Updike, Woody Allen and Alice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/03\/30\/vonnegut-on-vhs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-30T16:58:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/slacktivist\/files\/2011\/03\/kurt-223x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/03\/30\/vonnegut-on-vhs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/03\/30\/vonnegut-on-vhs\/\",\"name\":\"Vonnegut on VHS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-30T16:58:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-30T16:58:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e\"},\"description\":\"So I've got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vonnegut on VHS","description":"So I've got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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{"id":274,"date":"2011-03-30T12:58:51","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T16:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/slacktivist\/?p=274"},"modified":"2011-03-30T12:58:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T16:58:51","slug":"vonnegut-on-vhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/03\/30\/vonnegut-on-vhs\/","title":{"rendered":"Vonnegut on VHS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>So I\u2019ve got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s got some nice readings from John Updike, Woody Allen and Alice Walker.\u00a0 It\u2019s got John Irving reading an excerpt from his memoirs about the death of his old classmate Russell in Vietnam after Russell \u201clied about his height\u201d to get into the Army (that story eventually was embellished into my favorite Irving novel).<\/p>\n

But the real treasure on that VHS tape \u2014 the reason I\u2019ve held on to it even though I no longer have a VCR capable of playing it \u2014 is a short lecture\/comedy routine by the late Kurt Vonnegut in which he explains how computers will soon be programmed to write our stories for us.<\/p>\n

To demonstrate, he graphs out the story of \u201cCinderella\u201d on a blackboard. The vertical axis is happiness-unhappiness, the horizontal axis goes from B to E. (\u201cB for beginning,\u201d Vonnegut says, \u201cand E for electricity.\u201d)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s brilliant and wise and very funny and yet, sadly, inexplicably, indefensibly, not on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Can anyone recommend a good VHS-digital service so I can try to remedy that?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"