When reading John Gruber's review of the imminent iPhone Duo this morning I stumbled upon an interesting phrase he used: "a Vonnegut errand".
What on earth is that? I thought. I couldn't help but follow my curiosity to find out.
Fortunately, Gruber linked the phrase to an explainer about Kurt Vonnegut purchasing an envelope.
Kurt Vonnegut, if you haven't heard of him (admittedly, I hadn't!) was a very successful American author.
While it would be easy to quote the whole piece (and tempting, given the website is chock full of ghastly ads), the premise is in this screenshot of a Facebook post that went viral:
To quote from the article directly:
David Brancaccio: There's a little sweet moment, I've got to say, in a very intense book — your latest — in which you're heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say — I'm getting — I'm going to buy an envelope.
Followed by this:
Kurt Vonnegut: Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know…
And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.
Ultimately, Kurt's summary is "We are here on Earth to fart around".
What a wonderful thought for the day — I suspect many of us could do with a little more of this approach to life lately.