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moderator asked him about Bush’s State of the Union speech, specifically his notion that America is addicted to oil.
    “That certainly isn’t a thought he could have by himself,” Vonnegut responded. The audience exploded into laughter. But Vonnegut wasn’t joking. “Everything that distinguishes our era from the dark ages—since we still have plagues and torture chambers—is what we’ve been able to do with petroleum, and that is going to end very soon.” He stared out into the audience. “I think the world is ending,” he said softly. “Our own intelligence tells us we’re perfectly awful animals, that we’re tearing the place apart and should get the hell out of here.”
    A thudding silence ensued.
    The moderator turned to Jen Weiner and asked if she had a more hopeful message to offer the audience.
    Weiner looked a bit panicked. “Wow,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to have to deliver a message about humanity tonight.”
    “Well, leave, ” Vonnegut murmured.
     

    I DON’T THINK Vonnegut meant to be cruel. He was simply taken aback that any author would sit before a packed house of fellow citizens and have nothing to say on the subject. More so, that she would act offended at the notion that she should have something to say.
    Nonetheless, the damage was done. Weiner spent the rest of the panel sniping at Vonnegut. Unfortunately, Weiner is one of those people deeply invested in the idea that her body contains no mean bones. So her attacks were of the throw-a-rock-but-hide-your-hand variety. She made a joke about Vonnegut wanting to kick her off the stage. She asked him why he would offer advice to high school kids if he felt the world was ending. She expressed shock that Vonnegut had any children. 5.
    So he was getting it from both sides now.
     
     
     
    AS IT TURNED OUT, Vonnegut needn’t have bothered chiding Weiner. She did a bang-up job of revealing herself to the crowd. Her most emphatic statement of the night was about how great it was to hang out on the set of In Her Shoes, the movie they made from one of her books. And how she actually got to meet Cameron Diaz. And how super excited she was to be meeting Cameron, but all she could think to say is, “Where’s Justin?” which is totally funny if you happen to know that Cameron Diaz is totally dating the singer Justin Timberlake!
     
     
     
    I REALIZE THAT I’m being harsh toward Oates and Weiner, and I realize that my motives may be questioned. I feel protective of Vonnegut. He alone seemed to grasp that the panel was a rare chance for writers to speak about what they actually do, and why it might matter. He was compulsively honest with the crowd—about his fears, his doubts, even his own motives. This is why I found the conduct of his colleagues so odious. They weren’t just petty or vain. They were disingenuous.
    Oates, for instance, insisted her famous infatuation with violence had nothing to do with her own internal life. Instead, she offered a wistful account of her upbringing on a farm with lots of animals and a river flowing past. She sounded like Laura Ingalls Wilder, not a woman who has made her nut channeling serial killers. 6.
     
     
     
    VONNEGUT WAS ALSO the only author who seemed burdened by the state of the human race, and the American empire in particular. He kept making these big, clanging statements. The crowd had no idea what to do. Our citizens aren’t used to having their fantasies punctured. We don’t mind watching guys like Jon Stewart josh around about that silly war in Iraq, or global warming. But when someone actually points out that our species is goose-stepping toward extinction —without a comforting laugh line at the end—things get uncomfortable.
    Far from offering support, his co-panelists played him as a cranky doomseeker. 7. Neither one had much to say about the moral crises facing this country. Oates spoke of her stories as if they were merely problems of language to be solved, an oddly