Re-Post: Happy Birthday, Mr. Vonnegut!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Vonnegut! 

Social media reminds me that today would be Kurt Vonnegut's 90th birthday. 

It's also Veteran's Day and, since Vonnegut wrote one of the great war novels of all time, Slaughterhouse Five, it seemed appropriate to re-post this classic Vonnegut tattoo. You can see all of the Vonnegut tattoos that have appeared on Tattoosday here. 

Enjoy this Tattoosday classic:


At the Seventh Avenue Street Fair in Park Slope on Sunday, there was plenty of ink. Amazing ink too. But I only stopped one person, Samantha.

Samantha had this simple quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut on her back. This simple refrain (used 106 times in Slaughterhouse-Five, according to Wikipedia), came to be synonymous with the Vonnegut philosophy.

Samantha had this inked on her birthday at Hypnotic Designs in Sunset Park by Dru. Her boyfriend Igor also had a Vonnegut quote inked, but on his left leg:


or, from a different view:


This quote is from God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian...

My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

Thanks to Samantha and Igor for sharing their Vonnegutian ink here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2008, 2012 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Sammi Skolmoski

Whenever possible, I try and correspond our posts with corresponding dates. So, when Sammi Skolmoski sent this tattoo in, April 11 seemed appropriate:

Why this tattoo today? April 11, 2012 marks five years since the great Kurt Vonnegut passed away and, as Sammi explains:

" 'Goodbye, Blue Monday' is the alternate title of Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. It is my favorite book - one in which Vonnegut’s masterful use of satire and science result in a climax where he, as author, enters the pages as master/manipulator supreme, to indefinitely release his indentured characters from narrative confinement. The 'meta' relationship between writer and character — that they answer to, and are, the same person — changed my attitude toward writing, and rid me of the dreadful seriousness I often assigned it.

And, I just adore sunflowers. The floral manifestation of a ruling cosmic entity! The perfect warrior to bid goodbye to any blue Monday’s to come."

Sammi credits this piece to Mario Desa at the Chicago Tattooing & Piercing Company.

Not only do we get this tattoo from Sammi, but she has also provided us with one of her poems:

ALCHEMIST’S LAMENT

He is monochromatose
transmuted by kaleidoscope
inherent in his daily dose
of bioluminescent dope.

A regulated water bath
that leavens into churning gas
facilitates the stoneward path
of drowning yellow jars of glass

the philosophic red and white
beheld as sacred, even nigh,
rears ancient alchemistic plight
of whole salve dangling near his thigh.

~~~

Sammi Skolmoski is a writer and multimedia artist living in Los Angeles who curates a quarterly lit zine called “Madness, Barely” and is a frequent contributor to San Diego Citybeat. She surrounds herself with mystics, gazes at the sky, and plays her records LOUDLY.

Thanks to Sammi for her contribution to The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!


This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.


If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Marisa Shares Some Vonnegut

I love a good literary tattoo, especially when I recognize the text and the author.

I met Marisa after I spotted these six familiar words below her neck:

 The quote "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" refers to an epitaph inscribed on a tombstone in Vonnegut's classic novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.

This is Marisa's one and only tattoo and she explained why she chose this particular quote:

"I was going through a hard time and it helped me out a lot - it's just one of those quotes, so meaningful ... that I just needed to have it on me."

Marisa and I share a mutual appreciation of Vonnegut's work and, despite the greatness of Slaughterhouse-Five, we both liked Cat's Cradle better.

The word were inked at High Roller Tattoo in Hicksville, New York.

Thanks to Marisa for sharing this classic literary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

And remember, you can see more literary tattoos at Contrariwise and The Word Made Flesh.

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.