a sad day indeed. i enjoyed his science-fiction.

GoodDoggyTreat wrote:

No! You lie! You all lie. He's still alive, somewhere. :\

hes renting a villa on tupac's private island, right next to elvis.

I liked early Vonnegut very much; his later works were unfortunately minor, and he descended into a bitterness about the world that I cannot agree with.

Nonetheless, I appreciate him for having been an outspoken atheist and for having created works of amazing creativity.

Well, he did decline in his later years... but who doesn't?

This is actually an interesting question...it seems like there is often a correlation between profession and when people "burn out". For example, I understand in mathematics the prime years are often the 20s...after which you are washed up.

Writers seem to excel from, say, 30-50, and then often decline. With notable exceptions like Roberson Davies, who was a late bloomer indeed.

Then there are professions like architect and conductor...for whatever reason, these guys not only seem to go forever, but are often doing their best work in their 80s. In architecture, a 50 year old is a young pup just at the beginning of his career.

Which leads to the question: Does the kind of thinking required by these different professions cause the different burn-out times, or do people with different burn-out times get attracted to different professions?

Extend your life -- become an architect!

Thank goth I'm the worst in my family at math. :p Interestingly, my early 30s is about where I was figuring on hitting my stride professionally... I've never seen statistics laid out like that before, but I have my plan based on observations by successful writers of when they "made it" and how long one has to keep plugging away for it to become profitable.

Of course, I'm going about things a totally different way... but that's the only reason I'm benchmarking myself against others at all. I figure it'll be helpful to know, 5 years or so from now, if the "road less traveled" comes out ahead of the beaten path or not.

Then there are professions like architect and conductor...for whatever reason, these guys not only seem to go forever, but are often doing their best work in their 80s.

I remember reading an article (it maybe have been by the bass trombonist of the BSO, but I can't remember) saying that the reason conductors give such good performances at such old ages is at least partly because by the time the famous ones are old, they've become famous. Their reputation causes the musicians to pay even closer attention than usual to them and to the music.

On the other hand, I think more of it probably comes from experience and wisdom than from the hidden effect described above: after all, old instrumentalists too tend to play better and more musically than when they were younger.

I saw that, and immediately slapped my forehead and said "I should have titled my post 'So it goes.'"

Personally, I would have made one of the respondents say, "I knew something was up when that asterisk appeared in front of his name.", but hey.