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Hello Mr. Pinkwater,
One day I was surfing this abandoneware site (abandoneware is games that are not made any more so they are free to download) and I came across a game called the superhero league of Hoboken. I read a lot of your books and my fav was the Hoboken chiken emergency. I found the game zany and additive like your books. So I thought you might have fun playing it. You can get it at www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Superhero+League+of+Hoboken I hope you enjoy it cause I know I did!
from,
John Waitman
Cool. Which of the characters is based on me?
Dear Perfessor P,
We just adopted a four-year-old Shetland Sheepdog from a rescue group, and none of us knows anything about dogs. Help!!! how do I get him to bond with my daughter (the person who really wanted him in the first place)? She is feeding and walking him, but he seems to want to hang out with me (the mom). Also, although he is supposed to be completely housebroken, he gives us no warning of impending needs, and has performed his "duties" in the house a number of times. I'm baffled! I had him listen to "Lizard Music" on the radio today, hoping that there would be some sort of magical osmosis in your voice, but sadly, there was no change in his behavior. Can you think of anything that might help? A faithful fan, Penny Kohn
This is a four-year-old dog you've just adopted. He's bound to be traumatized. How would you feel? Things are going to take a little time. First, have you taken him to tha vet? Is he in good health? While you're at the vet's you can ask a lot of questions, and probably pick up some useful pamphlets. Next stop, the library and/or bookstore. I suggest a book called SUPERPUPPY, and get a couple of other basic puppy care books too. Read! You don't get him to bond with anybody at this point. You let him settle down, and adjust, and get used to the idea that he's not going to get kicked out of this home like whereever he was before you took him in. Also, ask questions of people in the rescue group from whom you adopted him. If anybody tells you something that doesn't seem like common sense, ask a couple more people until you start to get a consensus.
Shelties are sensitive, trainable, smart, and good-natured dogs. Yours has been through a lot of rough stuff. Be nice to him, and give him a chance to fit in--he will try his best. Read the books. Good luck.
I am looking for the name of David Frishberg album that contains the song about what it's like to be a cubs fan. I have been searching for quite sometime without out much progress. Please help if you can
Huh? I did go to a Cubs game once.
To Whomever;
I did not mean to ease drop on your conversation with Tony, but I have a Casio [588] AE-20W which just broke for the last time, while trying to fix the watch for about the 6th time I cracked the LCD. The 3rd time I changed the battery, three or 4 years after buying the watch it started acting up (missing segments). Anyway I have been keeping it going all these years (every time I change the battery the watch acts up), now it is finally not repairable (broke the band many years ago). I do not understand the negative inferences to wanting this watch, but I too would like to get another one. I know you sent Tony one, I am not asking you to send me one, but I was wondering if with your previous discussions with Tony, have you found a source for this watch or one similar. Was this watch not a very good seller for Casio, are Tony and I the only ones interested in this watch? I am now using an old Seiko (backup watch), while I look for another. I found your site when I did a search on Yahoo for "Casio AE-20W".
"Tony," mentioned here, read a post from another reader who observed I had such a watch, (plastic, digital, gimmicky, discontinued c.$49.95), in an author photo, and went on to say his father had one too. Tony, on a passionate quest for such a watch, found his way here through a websearch. I sent him mine, which I had quit wearing years before. I have a carton of these crappy plastic watches which I won in a customs auction--and used to give them to whoever wanted one. But a conversation with a psychiatrist convinced me that my behavior was a juvenile attempt to buy approval. So, I am keeping them in airtight containers for sale to some Japanese museum in the future.
What do I think about chinwag Theater? I think it's lousy that WNYC, In Dan's veritable backyard, does not carry it! I have to tune in to KQED in San Francisco at 8:30 Sunday night, for their live stream--if I can get on the web at that time.
It's on WNYE 91.5 FM Mondays and Fridays at 4:30 PM. I am proud the program is carried by WNYE which is in the noble borough of Brooklyn. WNYC, while the biggest NPR affiliate, proves it has a way to go toward being the best by virtue of not carrying it. In the case of WNYC, and any other station--if you want the program, ask for it! Every station employs a Program Director, who craves to hear from you. And just about every station's email address can be found at their website the url of which is always formulated like this: wnyc.org, wbez.org, kpcc.org etc.
Hi Daniel, I just started keeping up with your CHINWAG THEATRE Radio broadcasts from WNYE in NYC. I really enjoy driving home listening to you and Scott read your stories. These books are for adolescents like myself (40+) and for those older as well. Maybe Victor or the Chicken man can append and give some more background on you!!
I will let the radio station know that this is a necessary program.
Thank you so much! It really helps to let the stations know you like the program. I don't know if there's an email address yet at the chinwag.org site, but wbur.org surely has one. A few listeners who are considerate enough to email can be the difference between a program continuing and being dropped. So thanks again!
I am quite sure that I first heard this made-up name from Daniel Pinkwater, who was my next door neighbor in Hoboken and classmate at Bard College. I can't exactly remember, however, whether he coined it himself or whether he heard it in some 1930s Hollywood comedy. I thought that perhaps it was the name of a Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields character, but apparently not. So who is "Hukkalaka Meshabob"?
Hukalaka Meshabab is the name of a wrestler in a W.C. Fields movie. (I forget which one). I believe Fields culled names from phone directories, though some, like Mahatma Kane Jeeves, he made up. Hi Louis.
Hi,
My name's Brian Newlin, I've been a huge fan of yours since I was a kid. "Alan Mendehlson" and "Lizard Music" were a couple of the first books I remember reading, and they really influenced me to go into animation, I really wanted to tell stories.
Anyways, years later, I've just started up my own little animation studio with a bunch of college friends, and I was really wondering if you had ever considered turning any of your books into either an animated short film or a kids series? I know you've probably been asked this before many times, but I figured it was worth a shot. Either way, I'd like to send you a video of our work so far, if you'd be interested.
Sincerely,
Brian Newlin
NewKat Studios
I don't have a video machine or a sub-rights agent at the moment. You could try me in a while to see whether I've gotten one or the other.
Dear D.Pinkwater,
My wife insists that she heard you read from Gopnik's "The Rookie" on NPR. I can find no reference to such a reading, on this site or on NPR's. Was she hallucinating just because she loves to hear you read? We've both greatly enjoyed your times with Scott Simon. Keep up the good work.
It must have been some other bozo. Wasn't me. It may have been a recording of John Gielgud--people often confuse us.
Dear Daniel,
I am an eleven-year-old girl who lives in Brookline (a dull town next to the city of Boston) and adores your books ever since I was introduced to them at around age 4. My other strange and freaky friends kind of have a hotline so that when a new book of yours comes out everyone can know about it and read it so we can refer to it at least 13 times a day and everyone will get what we mean by it (except the "popular" people who look at us strangely). Anyway, we were wondering if you come to schools and/or bookstores to give talks about books. It would be really prodigious if you could come to Massachusetts some time and visit the Children's Bookstore or Lincoln school or The Brookline Booksmith sometime. All of us would really enjoy that and it would be something new here. Thanks for reading this and please reply.
Adriana, I hardly go anyplace lately. Maybe we could work out some kind of online Q&A, or a cassette Q&A. Contact Ed the webmaster for help and advice. By "popular" people, do you mean the backup extreme emergency food supply?
Dear Mr. Pinkwater -
i have written you before, but i decided that perhaps i would try out this lovely forum, as i AM a forum junkie. growing up on your books has made my sister and i longtime fans of yours. mostly we used to sit around and eat nachos and use pinkwater references that no one but ourselves and our beloved father would recognize. due to our devotion, we have decided to start a punk-folk-geek-hipster-creepy-oi oi rock band called Pinkwater. some (but not all) of our songs have themes from your books, such as, why new jersey is like a map of time and avocados.
we are currently infiltrating the city of pittsburgh with fliers about the band but not giving any venue for a show. our companion band that we're trying to find members for is called The Snarkout Boys. we also have homemade pinkwater t-shirts. one that is pale pink and says "pinkwater" on the front and has a johnathon quicksilver poem on the back. we'd also like to call our first EP "No thanks, i just had an eggplant."
what we'd really like to know is if you mind at all.
sincerely yours
Meredith and Kyla Guthrie Hilton
Why should I mind? There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of cats named Pinkwater, and at least one other band, and a sandwich, and any number of other things. Good luck!
Is anyone sharper than those professors of Children's Literature? Can't put anything over on them, that's for sure.
Dear DP,
I am a fan of your stories(of course).
I was wondering, in "The Worms of Kukumlia", is Sir Charles Pelicanstien the same guy as Professor McFwain? I got this idea because in the beginning of the story, he mentioned hunting for a sea monster in Lake Ontario. Professoor McFwain was also hunting for the sea monster in Lake Ontario.
Please write back,
Max Mellman.
P.S. my aunt just moved to Rhinebeck in New York State. That's right next to your town isn't it? Could I Possibly visit you? I am 10 going into fifth grade.
The thing about my characters is this: Many of them are sneaky and do tend to disguise themselves and appear in other books. It's hard to keep track of them, and when you confront one with having done such a thing, he will just deny it. Of course, a lot of people have hunted for a sea monster in Lake Ontario. It could just be a coincidence. We don't encourage visits, because we'd have to tidy up the house, but I am in Rhinebeck very often. Maybe we'll meet--you can just say hello.
Dear Mr. Pinkwater:
Discovered your books late in life, but the whole family enjoys them. Every time one reads them, one discovers always something new. Also love the Chinwagtheater on Public Radio.
Wishing you viel Erfolg/success in all your endeavors.
The Lattimore's
Herbert, Edeltraud & Angela
PS: not so slim people of the world unite!
Thank you, thank you! Tell the radio station that you like it! It's important to do that. You'd probably not like the program they might replace us with as well as Chinwag. A few letters will eliminate that as a possibility.
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
I recently wrote to you from dear old Portland Oregon. I included in my letter one of my own kevin Shapiro stories. Is it possible, that you could compile into a book, all the Kevin Shapiro stories that you have recieved? (or at least those print-worthy.) It would be very intiresting.
Dear old Portland Oregon. Is it as we remember it? And you, Rachel Reynolds--had you been a lizard, you might be named Reynold Reynolds. I did publish a few Kevin Shapiro stories in Dead End Dada, and they continue to turn up and drift in. Yours quite recently. But I am too old and weak and crazy to assemble them into a book. It is an honor to have readers like you.
Is Yobgorgle REALLY the Flying Piggie???????? What book are you writing now?????????????????
Sam Goldberg age 7
Is it? I ask you. I am writing The Picture of Morrie and Ray, a thriller.
Hello, Mr. Pinkwater...
I live in a town where finding many/ANY of your books is an enterprise akin to finding a balsa wood model of a German airplane. Which is to say, the odds are not so good...I suspect this may be typical.
I've gotten to the point that my (well-worn) copy of Fish Whistle is practically a recommended read on my bookshelf, and the audiobook has achieved a status close to any random Beatles album in my car...in other words, it gets played A LOT.
Have there been any plans to re-release the Fish Whistle collection in the Seedy format anytime soon, or will I need to knock off a CD-R of the set to preserve my tapes (please don't hate me for that; I assure you that it's the last act of a desperate man)?
Apologies if this has been addressed in the archives...this is being written on the fly and I haven't had time to look yet, but I didn't see anything in amazon.com regarding the possibility. I thought I should ask the man himself.
Do good work. Be well. And thank you for all your wonderful writing. It has been more than a little bit inspiring.
Sincerely yours,
Todd Berryman - 92.3 WTTS, Bloomington/Indianapolis
I suppose you know about "Hoboken Fish & Chicago Whistle," from Xlibris--that's a book. As to a new recording...there has been some talk of issuing Chinwag Theater audio stuff, but not yet, and I am sort of bored with all those old radio essays. However..........I just handed in a book of similar pieces, "Uncle Boris in the Yukon," and I understand Simon and Schuster plans an audio version of that. Maybe you'll like it.
I have a strong but vague rememberance of hearing you (on the radio) describing a wonderous restaurant in the Hudson valley. I thought at the time "I must go there". Years have since passed. Of course I can't remember the name, the date you spoke of it, ( along time ago), or specifically who you were talking to on NPR.
I'm sure you remember. (he he he)
Maybe you've only talked about a restaurant in the Hudson Valley once ?;
maybe you've remembered it in case I ever wrote to ask ?;
Maybe it is still operating so this will not be mute ?
Hope you are well, I know you are cool.
It closed. But we now have a Dunkin' Donuts. And right proud we are. Help! Send food!
Daniel,
Love your program on NPR. Following your reading of Calef Brown's "Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks", my wife Shaun and I ran out and bought a copy. Upon close inspection of the illustrations for the "Polka Bats" poem, we noticed something interesting. There's a man in the lower right of the page with a "polka-turd" falling on his head, and he looks suspiciously like a certain children's author we all know and love.
So, this presents the obvious question -- do you make a cameo appearance in "Polka Bats", only to be smote with polka-bat guano?
Curiously Yours
Rob & Shaun Baesman
This unusual coincidence has been pointed out before, (by Scott Simon). I can only assume that Calef Brown was trying to honor me. Thanks for saying you love the program. More important to say it to the radio station on which you hear it. I bet you even know their email address.
Daniel, I am a 43 year old male who has read all of your books I could find and have literally worn out both of the early Snarkout Boysbooks and I really would like to see more of them. Also, how about a new adventure starring the crew from the Worms of Kukumlima?
Thanks for many years of enjoyable reading to break the monotony of information based books that are interesting but don't involve one in a story that is FUN!!!
Sincerely
David Stormont
Thanks. There is stuff coming out, and I hope to write more. Keep reading!
