Jack Porter
What goes on down there, anyway?
October 2, 2024
Hello, Mr. Pinkwater, I have long been a fan of your books, and my son has too, for slightly less long. In particular, we have been re-reading the Snarkout Boys books and Chicago days/Hoboken nights. We may visit Chicago this fall, and I was curious if there were any extant inspirations for those books in that city. Is there a Lower North Aufzoo Street? Thank you, Jack
Daniel replies:
There is a Lower Wacker Drive, which is a better name than the one I made up. It could have had a name change. That happens. Let me know if it's now called Lower Pinkwater Drive.
Robert L. Summers
Uncle Boris in the Yukon
September 22, 2024
I found a hardcover copy of “Uncle Boris in the Yukon” at the Village Bookstore. Just what is needed to get my mind off all the hateful speech and other nastiness that makes up today’s current events.
RS
Daniel replies:
What a nice thing to do! Thanks for taking the time.
Larry Pringle
Tibet
August 8, 2024
In the event of a spontaneous combustion of all terrestrial libraries, what would the librarians of the astral plane do with the resulting cosmic confetti, and how might this event inspire a new form of Tibetan throat singing? Please advise.
Daniel replies:
It was foretold that you would ask that question.
Jay Barnes
How do those cylinder TVs work, anyway?
August 1, 2024
In the back of my mind, I had this memory about a book I read a long, long time ago. Talking lizards with their own town, and they would watch TV on a spinning stone cylinder, with their eyes closed…
I was able to get a copy of “Lizard Music” last week and finally gave it a re-read. What a fun story, no wonder I remembered parts of it! Thank you for helping to stoke the fire that’s kept me reading all these years!
Daniel replies:
You're asking me? How does something I wrote about work? In this case How do the sort-of Tibetan prayer wheels the lizards use to watch TV work? What makes you think I have a clue? If you go to the Library of Congress site, you can see 134 titles attributed to me, plus maybe some stuff that hasn't been cataloged. In every case, I started out by asking, "Book? What's a book? Who writes them, and how do they go about it?" Typing, and to a limited extent, spelling, are my skills, not knowing things. Sorry to have been no help with your question.
Christopher Davies
Alan Mendlesohn was a good friend
June 12, 2024
Hi Daniel,
When I was a skinny little eleven-year-old kid failing to meet friends in a new school, I learned to hide in the library. Nobody could be mean to me in there, because librarians are superheroes dedicated to protecting the sort of kids they used to be. One of the first books I picked up was Alan Mendlesohn, The Boy From Mars.
I read it many times.
Just like Leonard, I wanted a friend and eventually managed to find one. I still liked to pretend that I had a secret Martian friend as well. (Of course I never smoked a brandy-soaked cigar or made an Omega Meter play Jingle Bells, although I did call my mom’s chili Green Death.) When I left that school in 1988 on my way to 8th grade at the big scary high school, I was able to take a few books with me. Alan made the cut (I think Crisis on Conshelf 10 was the only other one I could grab)
Now I’m 50, and have three kids. While cleaning out a room in my house, I found Alan hiding in a box of old school stuff. My kids are now the right age, so I’ll start reading it to them this weekend.
I just wanted to thank you for writing such great books for kids like me, ancd let you know that your older books are still making their way to children today.
Thanks,
Christopher
Daniel replies:
You'd think, me being such a great author with so many books written, that a post like this would be routine, and I'd be long past smiling all over my face and feeling my ears vibrate when I read it. But in fact I am delighted a book of mine meant something to a kid like you were. I do have to mention that a book has no utility until someone reads it, and a dull reader would get nothing from a book a reader like you could bring imagination and smarts to. So we're both to be complimented.
Ken
Memory lane
May 15, 2024
No question, I’m just listening to the Car Talk podcast, which airs the old episodes in order (I think we’re in the mid-90s at the moment), and you called in. I had forgotten that you used to do that! It was so wonderful to hear your voice after so many years, and I decided to look you up to see what you’ve been doing all these years, and found myself here. Looking forward to checking out The Pinkwater Podcast next!
I always loved how NPR personalities would call in or be guests on other NPR shows; there always seemed to be such a great comradery there. Thanks for the smile!
Daniel replies:
I started as an NPR contributor in what might have been the network's golden age. There were so many talented people, not just the on-air personalities, editors, producers, engineers, working, I think, for less money than they'd have gotten in some commercial application, but delighted to be somewhere they could do their best work. 25 years later it was still good, but not in the same way. Maybe it was just that people matured, and aged.
Mandy Keifetz
remembering Beverly Coyle’s kazoo serenade
May 12, 2024
I dreamed last night about the time Beverly Coyle gave me a Rat wig and a kazoo and bade me serenade you with Eine kleine Nachtmusik, maybe for a birthday? We talked about German Expressionism, and there was a a malamute and possibly a pony? (Or the pony might be dream editorializing??) It was the only interesting evening I ever had in my brief sojourn at Vassar College finishing school for Reagan Youth, and I’d forgotten it until the dream.
Cheers,
mandy
Daniel replies:
It was probably Halloween. Beverly Coyle must have been one of the few fun teachers at Vassar--the ones I remember seeing were all swathed in tweeds, and looking like the 1930s. I had nothing to do with the institution, and appreciate it's probably different now. (disclaimer)
Channing
The Artsy Smartsy Club
March 29, 2024
We’ve read The Artsy Smartsy Club to our kid twice: once when she was two, for our own amusement, and once when she was five or six, for our shared amusement. The other day at school, she pointed out to me that one of her classmates had written his name on his coat book label three times. “Daniel Daniel Daniel! Isn’t it funny that he did that?” she said to me, and then, as a sort of aside to herself, I heard her mutter “Davis Davisdavis.” If she ever tries to spend a spectacular amount of money on an MFA, I plan to point out to her that she’s already read The Artsy Smartsy Club twice and is welcome to review our copy any time she likes for a reasonable fee.
Daniel replies:
You can add that I found out (too late) that one cannot learn Art in an academic setting, and a degree in Fine Art is ridiculous. An informed student will major in History, even Art History, or Accountancy, or Advanced Auto Mechanics, and do art at home, alone, with others, in France or New York City, but never where grades are given.
Ella
Inventor of the Celluloid Button-Making Machine
March 7, 2024
I was listening to your reading of Borgel for the gazillionth time, and I got to wondering: is it actually true that the inventor of the first celluloid button-making machine was named Matthias Klopmeister, and was it really invented in 1883, and if so, where can I find this information? There seems to be no record online of Matthias Klopmeister, or a button-making machine of any kind invented in 1883.
Daniel replies:
You bring up a nice point about my proclivities and practices as a writer. It's generally known, that much of my composition takes place while I am sleeping, in a state of meditative trance, or watching cartoons and movies on television. It is not automatic writing because I still have to operate the keyboard manually, though I have high hopes for automatic intelligence improving the process. Now, the nice point is, some things I write turn out to be perfectly true, others not. I have no conscious memory of knowing anything about the history of celluloid button manufacture or anyone named Matthias Klopmeister, which does not mean the reference in a book of mine may not be accurate. And now I ask you: Why have you read BORGEL a gazillion times, as you claim, when there are so many other books, many of them by me, possibly containing the answer, or a hint at the answer, to your interesting question?
Helena, at least among the lizards
Lizard Music sequel?
February 10, 2024
I recall some talk of a sequel to Lizard Music, and possibly also that publishing companies, being terrible, were insufficiently interested in it. I wonder if you (or webmaster Ed??) would ever consider crowdfunding? The internet is often dumb and destructive but it does really excel at getting a lot of nostalgic people to support art projects. I know a nontrivial number of people who would be delighted to contribute to such an effort. (I know you may have already considered this idea and decided against it for plenty of very valid reasons, but just in case you hadn’t!)
Daniel replies:
Doesn't BUSHMAN LIVES! end with the characters setting out for the island? And I was planning a book to be called WILD PARAKEET INN which was going to take place on Skolnick Island (which may have turned out to be the lizard island) but Tachyon Publications, currently the only publisher I appear to be able to get, and a very nice publisher it is, decided to shut down doing children's books, (which mine, nominally are...incidentally, are you a child? I thought not), so that project is undoable, and I'm about to sign with them to do an autobiography, to which I say, who would possibly be interested, but it's a gig, and I have a life, so why not? Categorization is the hobgoblin of something or other. I'm afraid crowdfunding might disappoint or depress me, and I am terrible at math and careful record-keeping.
David Gallahan
Worm Genesis? More appreciation from my family
January 24, 2024
Your books have always been very important to us. We did read other books too, but
yours we read over and over and over.
Three of your books
I never found in a bookstore, we only had them from the library. So I
recorded my reading of them. That cassette tape, of Blue Moose,
The Return of the Moose, and Jolly Roger got played a
lot during the 90s. Amazingly, that tape still works, and now my six
year old grandson loves those stories, and also gets to enjoy my
reading them though we live far apart.
Way back when I read
The Worms of Kukumlima (maybe 1993) there was something
familiar that I couldn’t quite remember. Recently it hit me:
Krakatoa! I had a faint memory of reading a fantastic book (well,
fantastic for back then since you hadn’t published anything yet) when
I was a kid and now with computer aided memory, know that it was The
Twenty-One Balloons.
I know you disavow
any knowledge of how your writing process works, but I guess that
book must have been some kind of trigger for you.
[time passed]
(I could not figure
out how to post this to the site, so years later now, I am trying
again.)
Now that grandson is
nine, and is reading Crazy in Poughkeepsie. We have loved all
of your more recent chapter books, especially The Neddiad and
The Yggyssey and… but I was greatly disappointed that the
Bushman Lives sequel didn’t.
One more interesting
note: when she was about eleven years old, my daughter used Theobald
Galt’s talk about avocados from The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado
of Death for her monologue for a theatrical tryout. She got the part.
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Daniel replies:
Yes! The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene DuBois is an outstanding book, and I remember enjoying it as a child. I'm sure elements, and certainly the feeling of it, are part of my subconscious. Nice call, and nice post. Thanks for your kind words.
Andrew Glencross
Thank you!
January 19, 2024
My best friend gave me a copy of Lizard Music this last Christmas because I guess I had told her at some point how much I’d loved it as a 13-year-old kid and how much it had influenced me to be curious about the subterranean and to cherish the weird. Now I’m 56 and this was a really nice, thoughtful gift. So I read it again after 43 years, and I have to tell you that it holds up super well. Just a fantastic piece of YA fiction that’s so kooky but so relatable. I devoured it in one sitting, smiling and laughing the whole time. Congratulations and thank you!
Daniel replies:
That's a swell message, and I am both humble and proud. The only way it could have been better would have been if there were a line like, "I am the boss of a publishing house, and we are prepared to allow you to do more of what you do." You aren't, are you?jn
Vincent Jeffers
Do your characters continue their lives?
December 24, 2023
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Your books were a staple of my childhood:
Yobgorgle, Lizard Music, Fat Men from Space, and probably quite a few
others. I remember laughing at many of them, but Lizard Music always
made me feel a bit sad that the lizards parted ways with Victor at the
end.
When you write a book, do your characters have lives outside
of that book’s pages? Sometimes, a book’s characters are done with their
stories on the last page, but several of your characters have such rich
backstories and amazing potential for future adventures that it seems
likely that they continue with their stories in books that may not have
been written yet. I hope that makes sense.
In any case, your works really meant something to me forty to forty-five years ago, and I continue to think of them even today.
Daniel replies:
Your question assumes I know what I'm doing. I'm not saying I don't. but I'm not saying I do either. Characters do show up in more than one book, and sometimes in my dreams. But do I have any control over the process, or am I even aware?
Catrinel
Mr. Plumbean, creativity, and constraints
November 29, 2023
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
As a creativity researcher and Psychology professor, I found inspiration in your writing — so much so that the Big Orange Splot story (a favorite of mine and my son’s) became a parable for my theory of creativity from constraints. The article that describes it is titled “The Mr. Plumbean Approach: How Focusing Constraints Anchor Creativity“.
Warm regards,
Catrinel
Daniel replies:
Professor!
Thanks for your interest in my book, THE BIG ORANGE SPLOT. I read most of your article, and am happy to report it is some of the highest quality gibberish I have experienced. A few notes from the author/illustrator: I was on a prolonged stay away from home when I wrote the script. I had none of my semi-professional art supplies with me, so I went to a drugstore and purchased a sketch book, meant for children, and a set of markers for a dollar. I did rough sketches, and sent the whole project, text and sketches, to a publisher. The publisher took the drawings to be finished art, and made me an offer for publication rights, which I accepted. I always felt the book was presented in an unfinished state, text needing possible attention, and art very rough. However, I needed the money, and assumed no harm had been done. I didn't think the book was very good. A high government official contacted me to say she required all her subordinates to read the book. I asked why. She then explained the book to me. "That sounds like a pretty good book," I told her. I later learned the book has sold more than a million copies. I never understood the book, and still may not understand it well, so there is no reason for you to feel bad if your thinking and mode of expression should change at some later date.
With best wishes,
Daniel
Scott Hicks
Thank you
November 21, 2023
Mr Pinkwater,
I discovered “Lizard Music” on the PBS “Cover to Cover” show sometime around 4th grade. This was a magnificently difficult time for me – ostracized, uncomfortable in my skin, being raised In a fundamentalist home that I didn’t feel any connection with. This was probably my first introduction to the concept of being “different”, and I read It over and over again as a great source of comfort.
Now a 50 year old musician and computer programmer with a great family, I still think of this book often and try to re-read It every couple of years. I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that you very much touched my life In a positive way.
Happy Thanksgiving!
– Scott Hicks
Daniel replies:
First, thanks for all the kind words. I wish I could say that I had a thought about helping someone when I wrote the book, (or the 130-something others), but the truth is I was just having fun, the exact kind of fun someone gets putting together a model airplane, or repairing Aunt Sadie's table lamp. Naturally, I'm glad the book meant something to you, but I suspect you planted the meaning, and pretended to find it, and you had reasons, unconscious reasons, for doing it that way. Second, SO MANY of us grow up, or are forced to grow ourselves up, under difficult or impossible conditions...and we do it! We build lives, we become musicians or authors, have great relationships, and develop the grace to tell a second-rate writer his book accidentally played a part.