cat's cradle

Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday. I discovered his novels while I was in the Air Force, way back in the seventies. I read six of his novels during the summer of '76: Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle. Cat's Cradle was the first Vonnegut book I read. I'll tell you a little bit about the beginning of the novel, but you have to promise me that you will read the book for yourself, if you haven't already. Vonnegut was my favorite author for a while. The last Vonnegut novel I read that summer was Breakfast of Champions. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the others, and I haven't read any of his novels since.

At the opening of Cat's Cradle, the narrator describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching the topic, the narrator becomes involved with the children of Felix Hoenikker, the fictional Nobel laureate physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb. As the novel continues, the narrator learns of a substance called ice-nine, created by the late Hoenikker and now secretly in the possession of his children. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature. When a crystal of ice-nine makes contact with liquid water, it becomes a seed that 'teaches' the molecules of liquid water to arrange themselves into the solid form, ice-nine. This is actually similar to how normal liquid water freezes. However in the case of ice-nine the process is not easily reversed, since the melting point of ice-nine is 114.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Song 034: Help Me Ronda
Artist: The Beach Boys
Album: The Beach Boys Today!
Year: 1965
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Well since she put me down I 've been out doin' in my head
Come in late at night and in the mornin' I just lay in bed

Well, Ronda you look so fine (look so fine)
And I know it wouldn't take much time
For you to help me Ronda
Help me get her out of my heart

Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda

I find it interesting that Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, author of Help Me Ronda, was going through much the same emotional turmoil during this time as John Lennon was when he wrote Help!, Help Me, Rhonda went on to become the second biggest hit of the Beach Boys' career (after I Get Around).