This year I lost a lifelong friend. Kurt Vonnegut. We never actually spoke, but he mentored me between the lines. It was for Vonnegut that I named my column "So It Goes."

I miss Vonnegut's harmoniums, whose purpose in life was to vibrate with anything that beats or pulses. A ticking watch could attract thousands.

Before Vonnegut flew away, my friend Charlie Myers sent me an original Vonnegut painting -- a big yellow asterisk that represents ... um ... the finish line of our digestive track. Vonnegut used it as shorthand for political figures and so forth. I hung it in my bathroom for obvious reasons.

If you read just one book by Vonnegut, don't do "Slaughterhouse Five" (so cliché). Try "The Sirens of Titan," where you will find out about the harmoniums and Transfalmagorians and planets where gifted people have to wear chains to make the others feel better.

For the moment, though, a moment of silence for the master who revealed the lighthearted side of dark humor.

You'd think that after 19 novels, Vonnegut's website would be filled with teary farewells and I-knew-him-when's...

In Vonnegut fashion, the website was reduced to one page, a painting by the man himself...