Christel Gause
Post #505 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Dear Mr. P.
Well, it’s been a while since i’ve written so I guess I’ll write again. How is your diet going? I noticed that the main (human) character in Mush: A Dog From space is distinctively female. Is this the first book of yours with a female for the main character? I thought it was kind of strange. Also, I’m sure you’ve been asked this for the last twelve years or so but are you or did you already finish Young Adults? I just had to ask because I just read Young Adults for the first time and although I read Young Adult Novel in high school I enjoyed the subsequent chapters even more. I’m looking forward to the publication of The Education Of Robert Nifkin. I have it pre-ordered from amazon. I’m doing my best to keep ratatouille on your table.
Daniel replies:
Christel Gause -- I wish to emphasize the important distinction between eating a healthy diet, and being on a diet. Many people think that my insane consumption of ratatouille, and guzzling of the product of my 40 horsepower industrial juice extractor, have as their ultimate end making me a little skinny-boy stick-figure of a lightweight wimp. This is not so. I remain round, just terribly healthy. Young Adults? Is that something I wrote? I'm starting to forget things. Have to bulk up on the zucchini.
Chris Bruzzi
Post #642 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
I am a 23 year old musician. I don’t know if you’d say I was aspiring, but I’m having fun. I am also a big fan of your slightly warped mind. It has greatly influenced my own slightly warped mind since elementary school when my 5th grade teacher Mr. Hibbard would read us your stories. I am in the process of writing a song based on Lizard Music and was wondering: A) is this legal, and B) if so, would you mind? If you would like to screen my lyrics/music first, they can be internetidly reached at
www.concentric.net/~bruzzi/cuscus.html
Daniel replies:
Chris, as far as I know, it is not illegal to write songs. However, I am no lawyer. There are many local laws on the books. It is illegal to converse with chickens, or other poultry, in North Carolina, and to do so on Sundays in Delaware, for example. It may not be legal to write songs in your community. Before putting pen to paper, I would seek counsel, or visit a law library. You are prudent to raise these questions before undertaking the arduous work of composition.
The Famous Chicken Guy of
Post #656 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
When I read Lizard Music when i was a kid I got to the part about the gorilla eating the guy “like a cookie” and physically lost control of myself. I distinctly remember jumping up and then hurling myself headfirst at the sofa.
Today I am a professional juggler and magician named The Chicken Guy. My chicken is stuffed and doesn’t do tricks, but she does sit on my head during every performance.
Is the story you tell in Chicago Nights/Hoboken Days about a “boy from mars” causing a riot at your school true?
Thanks a million times over-Tom A. The Famous Chicken Guy of Akron, Ohio
Daniel replies:
Chicken Guy--you carry on a noble traditon, as a chicken-entertainer. That is to say, one who entertains incorporating a chicken in his act, not one who entertains chickens, which is another matter entirely.
Kirk Brewer
Post #727 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Of the 120 or so books you’ve written, have you ever considered one on the experiences of an NPR commentator? Or are you just going to skip all that now that you’ve progressed to Chinwag Theatre? By the way, is Chicago one of the markets where Chinwag is broadcast? Just how many books do you write every week?
Daniel replies:
Chicago is, in effect, a market where Chinwag Theater is broadcast, as it is distributed by satellite and goes pretty much everywhere. Of course you can't hear it because there has not been sufficient pressure brought to bear on WBEZ...letter-writing campaigns, group visits to the offices, persons chaining themselves to the building, sky-writers, and full-page ads in the Trib have not yet been employed to persuade the conservative administration to carry the program, which is free of cost to the station. Notwithstanding, in at least 26 cities, none of which are Chicago, listeners are delighting in our droll antics. Programs Numbers 13 and 14 are in preparation as I type these words.
PS: I write eleven books, except for those weeks with national or religious holidays in them.
Dennis, I will send Ailer
Post #640 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
I’m a 43 year old teenager who’s relived his childhood reading the wonderful adventure novels of Daniel M., especially the Snark Out Boys, Kukumlima, Lizard Music. If Goosebumps can kick out dozens of schlocky stories, why can’t you do the same with the Snark Out Boys? The Snark Out Boys and The Bagel of Doom, The Snark Out Boys and the Very Scary Rhododendron. Son of Lizard Music. Get to work, Pinkwater!
Daniel replies:
Brad, it takes me some little time to crank out a schlocky story. That's why there is no Snarkbumps series, and why the creator of Goosebumps deserves his wealth. Speed is everything, and I am not built for speed. (See my response to Jason, above). You can write fast and well, or you can write slow and lousy. I prefer the latter, and so do my readers, who also tend to like spam with cream sauce, and off-brand toothpaste. There's room for everyone in the Great Democracy.
Michael J Barnett
Post #593 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Dear Mr Pinkwater,
It is hard for me to write this but I truly wish you had been born and bred southern. Your outlook on the slight unpleasantness of the 1860’s as a result of the Northern invasion of the fair south would be delightful.
Seriously, I enjoy your contributions to NPR and your writings. Thank you– you would have made a great southerner ( a fairly delightful compliment from a Tarheel ).
Yours truly,
Michael J Barnett
Daniel replies:
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, sir. Spoke with a drawl, and used to stand to attention when Dixie was played. However, I was taken to Chicago when still a child, and rehabilitated. My comments on the Woah are encapsulated in the forthcoming novel, ""The Education of Robert Nifkin,"" Farrar Straus and Giroux, scheduled for spring of '98. I won't quote myself out of context, but I will tell you that my remarks about General Lee are unlike any you will have read or heard.
mra
Post #643 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
In my youth, I was a graduate student in literature, and assumed that my path in life would be profoundly influenced by Henry James, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. And others.
So now I am a whole lot older. My 13 year old son spends hours writing Kevin Shapiro stories and my cat is named Borgel, causing a rift in our previously warm relationship with the veterinarian. I just thought you should know.
With affection, JR and family
Daniel replies:
Borgel is a traditional name for cats, like Puss, Tom, Moggy, and Shlomo or Shloime. I submit it has nothing to do with me, or my work. Probably your kid is heavy into Joseph Conrad, and you do him an injustice.
Ian Stoba
Post #530 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
I’m one of the people who runs the Hoboken Chicken Emergencyclopedia and I thought you might like to know that the site has been getting a lot of traffic from employees of the federal government over the last few days. In the last two days alone, there have been visits from the EPA, the Patent and Trademark Office, the Bureau of Land Management, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and, (most ominously) the Navy’s Space and Sea Warfare Systems Command.
I don’t get it. Is there something subversive in your books (alien invasion, plastic fish, Walter Cronkite) that it would attract attention from all of these authority figures? Or is it just that, now the Cold War has defrosted itself, the guys hunched over the screens in the war room have the time to diddle on the web and look up pages devoted to their favorite nuclear-holocost-is-inevitable predicting author?
Daniel replies:
Are you kidding? Do you really not know why the goverment types are hitting your site? They're backroom boys. They think it's code. Is it? I thought it was.
Carol Morrow
Post #551 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Dear Mr. Pinkwater — I heard you talking on NPR the other day about your new web page, and logged on the first chance that i got — how wonderful — of course i love listening to you on NPR, but i first became a fan of yours when i read ‘the big orange splot’ to my daughter about 10 years ago — it remains one of my most all-time favorite books — my husband and i (both anthropologists) are in the process of planning to take off the roof of our old 1940’s bungalow in our cosy little neighborhood of tiny homes — and having a grand second story built on top — sometimes our ideas seem a bit radical for our street — but i always have in the back of my mind — ‘i am my house and my house is me — maybe i’ll check into some frangipani for the backyard
Daniel replies:
Anthropologists, roofs...you remind me of the time I was living in an African village, and there was an anthropologist studying the tribe. She didn't know how to ask questions without prompting a specific answer. She asked a bunch of young men, ""You never lived in thatched huts, did you? They were gone in your grandfathers' time, right?"" Naturally, they told her they never had. Then when she left they began talking about how they'd steal bits of kindling from the roof, and their mothers would holler at them. ""So you all lived in thatched huts,"" I said. ""Why did you tell the anthropologist you never did?"" ""Well, what's the difference?"" they said. ""Besides she wants to think of us as modern people--so why disappoint her?"" I think she wrote a book about the tribe. Tricky business, anthropology.
E.S.
Post #608 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Hi, Mr. Pinkwater. Are those Yeti still eating your crayons? I need to say thanks for the reply. Your answers earned me an “A” in my Art Institute classs! Forever grateful, E.S.
Daniel replies:
Answers which earn A's are always available at this site at competitive prices. Ask about specials on term papers and Master's theses.
Bob Nagel
Post #697 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
You spoke on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday (the April 4 show) on a couple of new poetry books for children. I thought they were great, so of course I cannot find the titles I wrote down. Could I get those titles again? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Daniel replies:
Answer to your query a few down. Thanks for listening.
William Carmichael
Post #647 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Mr. Pinkwater-
This message, long overdue, is prompted by my recent re-discovery of your work while browsing at a local bookstore. They had copies of “Lizard Music”, “The Blue Moose”, and “Young Adult”. I was thrilled, because I’d come to believe that I had imagined the whole thing about the lizards named Reynold.
I read LM as a third grader, at the behest of a desparate public school librarian who was running out of new things to recommend for me to read. I’d been through Dr. Seuss long before that, and Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy novels, and the Doctor Doolittle books, and so on…so I had already developed a mild taste for the strange. Which was too bad for the librarian, a kindly woman without a non-linear bone in her body. She gave me “Lizard Music” without (I am sure) having read it herself, just to fend me off for another week, and I loved it. It was my first encounter with a deliberately “odd” piece of art. Now, at twenty-eight, I listen mostly to music that my live-in girlfriend doesn’t understand, and enjoy movies that most people here in Omaha have never heard of. But I LIKE it that way. Thank you so much.
Daniel replies:
Another life ruined. Your sarcastic thanks sting like a whip. But isn't it really the librarian's fault? I can't help what I write. And I have to sell the stuff to publishers, because I'm not qualified for any honest work. For one thing, I'm too fat to be on my feet in Burger King all day. Besides, I present an unsanitary appearance, not suitable to a place where food is served. But I decry the practice of giving my books to young people. Look what can happen. Look at you. Your poor girlfriend! It breaks my
Jean-David Beyer
Post #549 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
I first heard of you late at night on NYC Pacifica station WBAI. I think Bill Watson was the host and you read the entire “Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars” Perhaps it took more than one night. I could not find it anywhere, but I found the publisher in “Books in Print” and got a copy direct. I have been prosyletizing you since then, too successfully. A friend wants a copy and I understand none are available. Sigh. I ordered “5 Novels” to get an extra copy. Then you read “Lizard Music” on the same show, but it was much easier to get. I have just ordered a few more of your books from Amazon Books.
Thank you for writing them. (I am physically older than you, but I hope about the same spiritual age.)
Daniel replies:
Another case of tricks of auditory memory. It was Watson himself who read those books, not me. I did write them though. Why do you sigh? 5 Novels not only has A.Mendelsohn, but four other books--and it's a paperback. You can easily remove the back cover, slice off the remaining four, then reattach the back cover, change the title with a magic marker--and presto! A copy of your favorite book, and something to start the fire with come chilly nights.
Anne Newton
Post #497 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Mr. P did you narrate the movie “Christmas Story?” I enjoy your commentaries on NPR immensely and think I recognize your wonderful voice!!
Daniel replies:
Anne Newton -- Such a compliment! That's Jean Shepherd, a radio great, who wrote and produced the movie. He comes from the greater Chicago area, as I do--so the accent may be similar, and the rich baritone may be the result of breathing the pure air of the stockyards and the steel mills. When I was growing up in Chicago, he was more or less a legend--we couldn't hear him on the radio, (he broadcasted on WOR in NY), but when I moved east, I used to listen to him. This guy could extemporize a complete, and pretty good, short story, live in 45 minutes, five nights a week! I wish he hadn't quit doing radio. It might have gotten too small for him. (It's not too small for me, though. Stand by, all for an interesting announcement on that very topic, soon).
Andrew Livingston
Post #717 – 19970101
January 1, 1997
Mr. Pinkwater,
I just read the Magic Goose. It is the best book I ever read. You are a really funny guy. Your writing is good for kids. What other books like the Magic Goose have you written? My older brother likes you too and is reading 5 Novels.
Andrew Livingston
Grade 2
Daniel replies:
Andrew, I have written around 70 books more or less like The Magic Goose. Maybe more. I don't know. I never count. Someone wrote somewhere that I had written 70 books, so that is the number I use. Anyway, there are lots of them out there--maybe you will find one or two. I hope you do.
