obit: Kurt Vonnegut 'A Single Column Of Flame'

ref: http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm
ref: http://mail.architexturez.net/+/In-Enaction/archive/msg01964.shtml

The defining moment of Vonnegut's life was the firebombing of Dresden, 
Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a 
young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, 
many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. "The firebombing of 
Dresden," Vonnegut wrote, "was a work of art." It was, he added, "a 
tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so 
many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed 
and vanity and cruelty of Germany."

His experience in Dresden was the basis of "Slaughterhouse-Five," which 
was published in 1969 against the backdrop of war in Vietnam, racial 
unrest and cultural and social upheaval. The novel, wrote the critic 
Jerome Klinkowitz, "so perfectly caught America's transformative mood 
that its story and structure became best-selling metaphors for the new age."

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