Epicac

I really enjoyed reading this weeks selections from Welcome to the Monkey House. I've been a Kurt Vonnegut fan for some time but haven't spent much time reading his short stories. His ability to pick some social topic, throw it into some outrageous scenario, and have it spit out a sound message at the end is uncanny. "All the King's Horses" seemed to me more of an entertaining read than some profound statement. Although I hate to admit it, this may be because it conjured up images in my head from that chess scene in harry potter... EPICAC however, I enjoyed thoroughly. I'm fairly sure it is spelled differently, but the title made me think of that medicine used to induce vomit. I'm not sure how appropriate this is in reference to the story, but it made me laugh. As an engineer, the "mathematician romance" also made me laugh.

Only in a Vonnegut short story would a multi-million dollar super computer designed to pinpoint a rocket to Stalin's coat buttons turn out to be a helpless romantic. This story plays along with our discussion of last week pertaining to people being masked by/in order to please society. The narrator used this war machine to pursue Pat, whereas he wouldn't have stood a chance winning her over by himself. This "betrayal" ultimately leads to the self-inflicted short-circut of Epicac, only after he vomits enough poems to last the narrator 500 years of anniversaries.