Wellyn Blakeslee
Post #1227 – 20001126
November 26, 2000
Dear Mr. Pinkwater:
As I’ve listened to you and Scott Simon on NPR portray new gems in the children’s bookscape, I’ve noticed that you pay special attention to the illustrations and explain how they help to convey the plot and characters. So may I ask you for an expert opinion on the drawings displayed on my website ~ www.wellynworld.com ~ especially as to how well such styles and subjects may be applied to children’s literature? I would very much like to do drawings for this genre, but have done little so far. Of course anyone else who reads this message is also welcome to visit the site and weigh in.
Thank You…
WB
Daniel replies:
I don't feel qualified to comment on whether another's work has potential--and really, you don't need anyone to do that. You know whether your stuff is appropriate for illustration, (if you've looked at lots of kids' books, that is). Good luck.
Mike Crowe
Post #1223 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
I hear you frequently on our public radio station WSLU in Canton NY, the REAL “Upstate New York” – 18 miles from the Canadian border, Eh? Often you are said by the host to live in “Upstate New York”. As a New Yorker, you appreciate that there can be more descriptive words to describe the wonderful variety in the state than just “The City” and “Upstate” ( being everything North of the Throgs Neck Bridge.) I was hoping you could use your considerable weight (wrong word) – influence – with the NPR folks to educate them about New York having places like The Hudson Valley, The Champlain Valley, The Capital Region, The Mohawk Valley, Central New York, The Finger Lakes, The North Country, The Adirondacks, Western New York, The Genesee Valley, The Niagara Frontier and the Southern Tier, The Adirondacks and the Catskills. Perhaps a nice NPR segment on Upstate New York would help the host, reporters and listeners learn that things that happen outside the City happen in a variety of quite different places and not just Non NYC “Upstate”. Or, if they are obdurate and want to use just two geographic references for the State, suggest Canton, NY and “Downstate.”
Daniel replies:
You should take this up with wesat@npr.org. I don't know anything about it, being a lundsman, pure and simple.
John Kaputa
Post #1213 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Hey Daniel,
I enjoyed yours and Scott’s reading of “The Little Brown Dog…” this morning on Weekend Edition.
Again I was reminded that I wanted to tell you that I am one of the (two?) people who still miss “Norb”. Sometime in the last two decades of this last century of the current millennia (I get around the ‘no year zero’ controversy by calling this year MM which is shorter than Y2K and because it has one less “I” than last year’s MCMXCIX and next year’s MMI, and as such, is still the twentieth century–how’s that for convoluted logic?) Anyway, at that time, the newspaper to which I used to subscribe, and is now the subject of a major non-work action (strike), dropped your comic strip. Thinking back, it may have been you who dropped them; how-some-ever-it-may-be, I was really getting into the story when it was suddenly gone.
As a product of the prewar period (I was conceived prior to August 1939), I grew up in the heyday of comic books, pulp fiction, radio, and Saturday matinee movie serials (we didn’t get TV until I was in high school) and I looked forward to each and every upcoming episode of “Norb”.
Is there any place that I can revisit those long lost (hidden) episodes of “Norb”?
We thank you for reading our mumble and apologize for the inconvenience.
John Andrew Kaputa
Bremerton WA
ES: The breadth of is sixty year old’s sits-spot on his wheelchair is approximately a three-fourths pinkwater.
Daniel replies:
There is a collected Norb, but it's really rare. If you find some, snap them all up, and tell us.
Steven Zaitz
Post #1214 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Simply arriving at your site after finding out of it this am brings joy to eye and heart. Glad to see you and think of you in your Hudson Valley shangrila. I imagine you have a farmlike spread and maybe even red barns and hay and all. You may even make your own dirt by composting as does a great friend over in clinton corners…
Catskill and Adirondack type that I am, my flavor for place is strong and I like listening to you and the signoff tag of where your eminence eminates from. My lovely wife Jane hasn’t even said a word to me after arriving back with the morning’s bagels (both sons are home for holiday), as if she knows that what I might be doing in here (we recently got hooked to this amazing knowledge source called internet) is almost solemn. Ah there she is, “Bagels have arrived”. So add your site to favorites and the NPR site linked, thank you. You’ll hear more from me and Jane too as she is a children’s literature specialist and a great elementary teacher and …
more later and I thank you so far for smiles and the chance to write a note and send it without even having to find an envelope and stamp. Warm regards, be safe and well and keep up the doing of good work. Steven Zaitz, Wilmington,NC
Daniel replies:
Thanks for checking in. Yep, farmlike Specially lovely this time of year, as we look forward to frozen horse-poops and the wind whistling through the trees.
Angela
Post #1221 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
As you were introduced this afternoon on NPR, I sat bolt upright in my seat. Surely this “Daniel Pinkwater” couldn’t be the very same “Daniel Manus Pinkwater” who wrote one of my all-time favorite books, The Big Orange Splot . Happily, you are. I have been an elementary school teacher for 30 years, and have used your book with my classes since the late 70s. Last year, my third graders used it as a springboard to writing an original play based on your plot. (We had a Ms. Plumbean since one of my girls had the best voice in the class.) I’m so happy to have the chance to thank you for writing such a charming and important book.
Daniel replies:
Thank you for writing such a charming and important email.
Ed Wilk
Post #1215 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Dear Daniel,
Several years back I heard you on NPR tell of the marvels of your ratatouille soup, and the wondrous tool it was in helping you loose weight (Should I assume the 400 pounds so proudly described on this site is the post-diet You?). Please point me to the recipe. This is the time of year for soups, and I could certainly stand to shed a few pounds myself.
I just found this site this morning, after catching the reference on Weekend Edition. I enjoy your work immensely and look forward to savoring the goodies to be found here. Thanks for so much!
Daniel replies:
Soup? More of a melange or stew or macedoine. Anyway the recipe is somewhere around here. And I never diet, never dieted--I did take off some weight before surgery, but diet? No. That word is....weighted.
Bonnie
Post #1219 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Mr. Pinkwater,
My husband and have so much fun listening to you read with Scott Simon. Your laughs are infectious! Thank you!!!
We recall listening to you read a book about Henry and his slow trip to wherever-he-went, in competiton with a fast moving friend who hurried to the destination. However, we cannot recall the exact title and thus, have bveen unable to obtain the book.
Could you please provide the title and author?
Thank you,
Bonnie
Daniel replies:
It's Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, by D.B. Johnson, published by Houghton Mifflin, and you will love the magnificent artwork! Possibly the best single book we've reviewed so far.
Scott Matheson
Post #1220 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Hello,
I’m a long-time fan. I have recently left Alaska to attend library school (no kidding– I have been called lulu, but only in reference to my mental state) and would love to be able to read along with DP and Scott Simon when they do the great book reviews on WeSat. Is there a way that the book to be shared on the air could be announced in advance? Then we could see the pictures. “Small Brown Dog…” this morning was particularly wonderful.
Daniel replies:
In the interest of fairness, and to sustain the fiction that non-commercial radio isn't commercial, titles of books to be reviewed are kept in a mason jar, sealed with wax, until the day of the broadcast. Actually, we usually don't know what book we're going to do until the day before. Small Brown Dog's Bad Remembering Day does have very good pictures.
Terry Silberman
Post #1222 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Lundsman,
Just wanted to add my “voice” to the chorus that affirms how much you add to the life we all share.
You routinely touch the very best part of us all.
Daniel replies:
I'm just a simple lundsman, doing my simple job.
Margaret Hampton
Post #1216 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
So THATS what you look like. The image does not match the voice. The voice is a lot messier.
Daniel replies:
I tidied up for the picture.
Sterling Rocafort
Post #1217 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
My dearest DP,
For years I’ve had a story you narrated, regarding your dog Snowflake, her life and her passing, deep in my memory. I can’t tell you how that impacted me. Is there a tape of that multi-part story? A print version perhaps? I am also a dog lover and have 2 large puppies of my own, a German Shepard and a Golden Retriever. That story of the love for your pets and how they affected your life was a masterpiece and tore my heart open (in a good way). I consistently find your appearances on NPR delightful and uplifting. So Mr. Pinkwater, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so glad to finally have had the opportunity to express my appreciation for your work.
Very sincerely yours,
Sterling Rocafort
Newburgh, New York
Daniel replies:
I think you allude not to our great dog Arctic Flake, but to another wonderful animal, Arnold. His story, and a number of others are to be found in Hoboken Fish and Chicago Whistle, published by xlibris, and available from xlibris.com or amazon.com.
Lisa & Matt Freund
Post #1218 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Several years ago, a book of children’s poetry was highlighted on NPR. Does anyone remember the title.
Daniel replies:
I think it was 10 Second Rainshowers.
Judith and Robert Kahn
Post #1211 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Dear Daniel Pinkwater,
We tried to reach you some time ago by snail mail. Now, being electronically updated, we send e-mqil greetings. We are longtime fans and Pinkwater devotees. We are also fellow Chicagoans, Nettlehorst and Anshe Emet alumni. During our two year tenure in Nairobi a year after you were there we had our own hot chili experience. As an artist I over enthusiastically garnished our Nile Perch with green chilis. This penetrated the fish so pervasively that our four sons declared it inedible.
The extended Kahn family reads and loves your work and especially love your safari in The Worms of Kukumlima.
Kwa Heri, Ya kuonana
Judith & Robert Kahn
Daniel replies:
I passed through Nettlehorst, and especially through Anehe Emet (day camp) practically untouched and uncivilized. My esteemed colleague, Scott Simon, however, remembers the Anshe Emet song, and will sing it at the drop of a yarmulke.
Oliver Crichton
Post #1212 – 20001125
November 25, 2000
Dear Mr. Pinkwater.
I have been a fan for years and have turned on countless friends to your sublime wordplay, humor, and musical and culinary taste. So my question is: why are so many of your fine titles out of print? I can’t even find all of them through interlibrary loan (guess I’ll try again). Have you considered buying the copyrights and publishing some yourself so they would be available? I’m thinking especially of impossible-to-find ones like “Wingman”, “Devil in the Drain” and “Wizard Crystal”. I also hope for a re-issue of the more recently out of print “Muffin Fiend”. Or might they reemerge in another collection??
Thank you for reprinting some classics in 4 and 5 Novels.
Daniel replies:
Because very often people who make decisions in publishing houses are more boorish and ignorant than the general public. I thought Wingman was available in paperback.
Jesse Rosse
Post #1210 – 20001122
November 22, 2000
Dear Mr Pinkwater,
While browsing through the archives (working hard this slow pre-holiday afternoon), I noted that you have found the sourdough bread at Musso & Frank, circa 1950, to be the best bread ever, and you ruminated as to whether this culinary temple still exists. Indeed it does, an oasis of dark-panelled wood, etched glass, and cold martinis, in the middle of not-quite-picturesque Hollywood Boulevard. And they still have good bread.
All best,
Jesse
P.S. I’d also like to publicly thank you and Aladdin Books for using my blurb on “Four Fantastic Novels”, all four of which are as advertised.
Daniel replies:
Thanks! I'll have to make a trip to LA and revisit the place.
