One of my favorite books by Kurt Vonnegut. It has about twenty short stories written all through his career. The stories range from asinine drivel to classic literature. Definitely worth the paperback price. My personal favorite stories are Harrison Bergeron, Welcome to The Monkey House, Next Door, and The Euphio Question. Geeks take note of EPICAC and The Barnhouse Effect.

The actual line "Welcome to the Monkey House" referred to the following incident, in the story Welcome to the Monkey House: The social reformer who invented pills to numb all men and women from the waste down was spurred to this zealous rejection of all things sexual when, on a visit to the zoo with his family, he looked into the monkey house and saw a monkery playing with his balls. The thought that we and our immediate relatives were so "debased", and that anyone visiting the zoo could see it, led to his creation of pills which eliminated any pleasure to be gained from sex. The goverment later made these pills mandatory as a check on overpopulation. And after the story's protagonist kidnapped, denied her pills, and raped a beautiful Suicide Hostess, he left her a note saying, "Welcome to the Monkey House".

The man responsible for the invention of the pill that was to deaden men and women from the waist down was J. Edgar Nation, a Grand Rapids Michigan druggist, and the Father of Ethical Birth Control. He invented the pills never intending them to be taken by humans. His mission was to introduce morality to the John Ball Park Zoo monkey house so that it could be a thing a Christian man could bring his family to on a sunny Easter morning.
”He and his eleven kids went to church one Easter. And the day was so nice and the Easter service had been so beautiful and pure that they decided to take a walk through the zoo, and they were just walking on clouds.”
“Good morning Mr. Nation,” I said to him. “It certainly is a nice morning.”
“And a good morning to you Mr. Howard,” he said to me. “there is nothing like an Easter morning to make a man feel clean and reborn and at one with God’s intentions.”
“And so we went on to the monkey house together, and what do you think we saw?
We saw a monkey playing with his private parts!”
“No!”
“Yes!
And J. Edgar Nation was so upset that he went straight home and he started developing a pill that would make monkeys in the springtime fit things for a Christian family to see.”
As a denizen of West Michigan and in fact a resident of the city of Grand Rapids, I have a special appreciation for this little bit of fictional history. West Michigan was settled by Dutch outcasts, religious zealots that were driven from the Netherlands due to their steadfast intent on turning life into a dull, colorless, intolerant and fanatical devotion to their flavor of Christ worship. The supposed innovation of Mr. Nation’s pill, as well as his motivation behind inventing it is a rather biting and accurate depiction of many residents of this area.
The fourth album by The Dandy Warhols, released May 5, 2003 on the Capitol Records label. The title of the album, as you might have guessed, is a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut's book of short stories with the same name.

This album has a very different sound than the previous three. Synthesizers and drum machines are at the forefront, with the familiar sound of the Warhols' guitars often buried tantalizingly just under the surface. It's new wave synth-pop, and it's surprisingly good. Despite having changed soundwise, The Dandy Warhols still manage to stick to what they do best: music that sounds great, rocks hard, and trades substance for style whenever possible.

Tracks

  1. Welcome To The Monkey House
  2. We Used To Be Friends
  3. Plan A
  4. The Dope (Wonderful You)
  5. I Am A Scientist
  6. I Am Over It
  7. The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone (Lovely)
  8. Insincere Because I
  9. You Were The Last High
  10. Heavenly
  11. I Am Sound
  12. Hit Rock Bottom
  13. (You Come In) Burned

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