Jordan Beck
Post #4370 – 20170115
January 15, 2017
Dear Mr. Pinkwater and Associates Who Read His Forum Missives,
My name is Jordan Beck. I am 27 years old.
When I was six my mother and I read Blue Moose & Return of the Moose for the first time. At the time, my parents had recently divorced and I saw my mother on only weekends, then eventually only holidays after my father moved me across the country. That first read through we howled with laughter until tears streamed down our faces. We read that dog eared copy of the book every single I visit, even now as an adult. Quotes from the story remained an important part of our communication as I became a teen, and clandestine humor for silly social situations as I entered adulthood. Though I grew to love your other work (Young Adult Novel defined large swaths of my Middle School years), nothing can compare to the deep connection forged between my mother and I through Blue Moose.
I am currently studying to be a theatre teacher. This semester I'm taking a Dramatic Literature for Youth class. Our final project is to adapt a beloved story into a play script. I am by no means an accomplished or talented playwright, but I tingle with anticipation as I think of living in the world of your story as a writer, and revisiting those characters for the stage.
Thank you for your stories, and the enduring impact you've had on me as an artist and a son.
All the best,
Jordan Beck
Daniel replies:
You seem to be saying that you contemplate adapting the moose for your project. I have no objection, providing that you agree to use your work for class only, not to make or distribute copies in any medium, & not to sell tickets. Have fun!
pietro
Post #4364 – 20170115
January 15, 2017
does this site work the way it is designed to? specifically, when trying to listen to an audiobook (and not to download it) one hears one chapter and then … nada!! you have to actually remember which chapter number you just listened to and then back up to the prior menu page and then click on the next chapter in the sequence … using chrome, anyway. is it me? given the limited attention span that your books engender in my brain, it would be easier just to go by chapter duration, but time times listed in the selection page tend to not match those of the chapters themselves. should this be fixed, you think?
i don't suppose there's a way to listen to an entire ouvre, without this little de facto robot check after every chapter? not a real robot check i have to say…
thank you for your ouvres tho. i once sent you a case of h and h bagels what? maybe 25 years ago! ha! 😀
Daniel replies:
From Webmaster Ed -- we've improved the download section! Check it out!
Jacoby Holleman
Post #4371 – 20170115
January 15, 2017
Hi. My name is Jacoby Holleman. I am doing a project in school on The Big Orange Splot for my STEAM project. I have a few questions for you, if you are able to answer.
1. How did you come up with the idea for the book (Orange splot)?
2. How did you learn to draw?
3. How did you get started with writing?
4. What is your favorite book that you wrote?
Thank you for the good book. I hope to hear from you soon. Have a great day.
Daniel replies:
1. I was temporarily living in a boring housing development. I looked out the window, and I thought """"What if something happened to make this view more interesting?""""
2. I took a pencil in my hand and made a scribble. With practice, the scribbles got better.
3. Pretty much the same way as I learned to draw. Same pencil, actually. I made a sort of A then a sort of B, after a while the letters started to look like letters. Later I got so I could write words. The rest is history.
4. The one I am planning to write will be a good one....finally!
Falonious Chester
Post #4362 – 20161217
December 17, 2016
Do you prefer to remain something of an enigma so that readers are more likely to "construct meanings of their very own, in their very own brains"? Do you deny that your work is often a gateway to a lifelong affection for and fascination with the surreal (and if so, why have so many people I know had that experience with your work)?
Daniel replies:
Can it be that many people you know tend experience things in a way that reinforces their affection for and fascination with the surreal? I don't know why you suggest that I am an enigma. I think I am the opposite of an enigma. I think I am a non-enigma. I don't think it's my job to influence readers. I've explained this already. My responsibility is to write it so it's not painful to read. After that, you're on your own.
Alyssa Foos
Post #4359 – 20161214
December 14, 2016
Hello, dear sir. I very much enjoyed your recent (re?)reading of "Kat Hats" on the podcast. Cat hat production of the knitted sort continues here, though it has been a bit anemic of late. I am working on that. Anyhow, I came across this artist musician person named Tom who does a daily birthdays cartoon that he publishes on Instagram. You were immortalized on this past Nov. 15. Happy belated birthday! Cheers! www.instagram.com/p/BM1VR6pgIrF/?taken-by=au.tom.an&hl=en
Daniel replies:
Thank you. You are the foremost cat hat designer/manufacturer in the civilized world. Feel free to let podcast visitors know where they can obtain your fashionable product.
J. Raphael Shaul
Post #4361 – 20161211
December 11, 2016
A few years ago, an abrupt educational disjunction (read: I tried to switch programs and my university told me to get lost) resulted in several years of surrealism. Events include:
– Pedaling through New York on a tiny collapsible bicycle to buy allen wrenches from an all-night third-story hardware store
– Accepting an anonymous internet solicitation to pick up a woman at the Las Vegas airport and deposit her in the desert near the California border. (She had to meet a horse.)
– Photographing a pirate wedding in a geodesic dome erected by the groom in the center of a giant psychedelic party in the Mojave.
I credit your literature for preparing me for the realities of adulthood.
Daniel replies:
My position, which I state frequently, is that authors create works according to the Rules of Art, (whatever those may be), and readers construct meanings of their very own, in their very own brains, often having nothing to do with what the author thought it meant, if anything. Don't blame me for the way your life turned out--I am just a simple teller of tales.
Tim Davis
Post #4357 – 20161205
December 5, 2016
Just read Blue Moose to my four year old in bed. He laughed uproariously throughout, then crashed off to sleep. I think this book should be re-issued, with new, and more, color illustrations. It's a goddamn hit waiting to happen!
Thanks.
Daniel replies:
It's been reissued and reissued over the years with the nice B&W illos. Glad your kid enjoyed. Bard? I think I went there.
ozhekno fielder
Post #4355 – 20161127
November 27, 2016
what are your thoughts on the election of donald trump and the intrusion of white nationalism into the mainstream? do you have any advice for people who are scared?
Daniel replies:
My advice is do not be scared, be active. It is up to us citizens to help the President all we can--this would include helping him understand that it is a job, not the same as being a mogul, and we are his bosses. Oppose any act or statement that you feel does not reflect the character and interests of the nation. Get in the habit of writing and calling your congressional representatives, following the news, and participating in organized protest when called for. I don't believe """"white nationalists"""" are really part of the mainstream, the big meeting they held last week in Washington was attended by around 200 sick men. They remain a minority, and one of the things we have to help our President with is understanding that decent Americans despise their views, (and possibly his).
Greg Crystal
Post #4337 – 20161115
November 15, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater:
Your delightful books help cheer people up and are like cool neighbors who brighten your day. Also, salad spinners are indeed time machines for mice and insects. Bye!
Daniel replies:
You know, if you carefully inspect the produce at the market, you won't have so many mice and insects in your salads.
glauber
Post #4343 – 20161115
November 15, 2016
Hello, Captain, thank you for the special message. It was very good to hear that story again. It's humbling to think that the small stuff we do may be the most significant in the end. Although i thought there would be an ironic ending this time: "… and the name of that student who visited me that night, so long ago… was… Donald Trump!" (quick cut).
Always good to hear your voice. Happy almost birthday.
Love, glauber.
Daniel replies:
It's a completely true story--in fact, I'd forgotten I ever told it before. Thanks for appreciating.
henrietta the giant chicken
Post #4336 – 20161112
November 12, 2016
I was just thinking and I wanted to let you know that when I was a chubby little kid I was abused, by some of the people who were supposed to love and nurture me, about my weight. (It ended up making me pretty sick and now I'm dealing with the consequences, and healing.) But I just wanted to say thank you for giving me, with your books, a little shred of positive representation of fat kids to hold onto, for planting the seed in my mind that if these kids were cool and happy and interesting and wonderful, then I could be too.
I'm crying a little. You're a bright light in this world!
Daniel replies:
Sorry if this applies to family members or anyone you're supposed to like. People who make a point of disapproving of people because of their size/shape are no different from people who disapprove of people because of the shade of their skin, or their religion, or where they or their ancestors came from. They have a problem. I don't. I choose to be a happy person, and I've had a wonderful life so far--I doubt the people who make up my world ever even think about my size. As for me, sometimes I'm driving and I notice a great big guy making his way along the sidewalk like a ship under full sail, and I think, """"Damn, that's a handsome guy."""" Then I realize he looks just like me.
Yam
Post #4338 – 20161112
November 12, 2016
Dear Daniel Pinkwater,
Today, Google points out that it is Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday, and I wanted to celebrate it as Reynold and Helen and Raymond and Victor and the Claudia and the rest of the gang might. And share it with you, too, of course. Cheers! To Walter!
Yam is a name you gave me, oh, pushing about twenty years ago… my kid sister was dubbed Wuggie Norple as a toddler, and so we each got Pinkwater aliases… mine is just a little bit better, as it was given – awarded? – rather than taken.
OK, so, for the record, Lizard Music is my favorite, but The Big Orange Splot is a Design Manifesto, and I love that, too. The list goes on… thanks so much for all the stories, images, inspiration and laughs.
with great admiration, Yam
Daniel replies:
Do you ever quote Popeye? """"I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam?"""" Happy Walter Cronkite centenary!
Alex From Ann Arbor
Post #4333 – 20161023
October 23, 2016
When I was in 7, my Mom bought me "The Big Orange Splot" and read it with me. I discovered the concept of what it meant to be unique and that accepting that people's differences should embraced. It sparked in me my lifelong identity as a dreamer and introduced me to creativity, I loved it.
When I was 10, my Mom bought me your "5 Novels" book and my personal favorite, "Borgel". She would read them with me at night. Whether it was Borgel, The Last Guru, Alan Meldenson etc…the thing I remember most fondly is that we enjoyed them and laughed together. We bonded over our newly discovered weird sense of humor. I loved it.
Many years later when she was losing her battle with cancer, I read to her. I read "The Big Orange Splot" and "Time of Wonder" by Robert McClousky, two of our favorites. Despite that depressingly heartbreaking situation, reading those books to her brought comfort and an odd sense of serenity to my father, my sister and I. I appreciate your role in that sir.
I suppose the purpose of this is to just say thank you. Thank you Daniel for helping to form my earliest understanding of creativity. Thank you for teaching me about acceptance of the strange. Thank you for being a weirdo (I mean that in the best possible way). Most of all thank you for facilitating some of the best, most fun times my Mom and I ever shared together. I loved them all.
I'm 28 now. I'm sitting here in a comfy chair on a rainy Sunday afternoon drinking a cold beer and listening to your reading of "Borgel". It makes me smile, it reminds me of happy memories. I feel good. I am content.
I owe this moment to you, i figured the least I could do was let you know about it.
Thank you.
Daniel replies:
I've written a lot of things over quite a few years, and this is not the first time I've been told similar things. What always strikes me is that the whole creative undertaking isn't complete until the thing is read, and it's the reader who makes it whatever it is, and makes it worth whatever it's worth. So, while I accept the honor of what you've conveyed, please accept my thanks for taking some stories I put together mostly for my own amusement, and giving them real value in your life.
hemant nayak
Post #4331 – 20161009
October 9, 2016
Hi Daniel
Your awesome fiction has kept us entertained for years, but it was SUPERPUPPY that has saved me!
This super cute terrier mutt from the pound has more energy than all my family combined and I forgot how much energy a puppy has. But she is happily worrying a 3inch beef leg bone as explained in Superpuppy which gives me a few minutes to breath and get a little work done. A great deal of the advice has been helpful though I have not tried the glycerin suppositories.
thanks again and please keep writing!
Daniel replies:
Superpuppy is a little bit outdated, I think, even though we revised it once a few years ago. One thing I would change today is offering the choke chain as the primary choice as a training collar. These are fine when used correctly, but that entails a skill best learned from an experienced trainer. Used wrong, they could possibly do damage. I'm not a fan of the """"gentle leader"""" style nose harness either. They may not really be so gentle at all. Possibly the safest and most humane kind of training collar is the scary-looking prong kind, or """"Herm Sprenger"""" collar. You can try one on your own arm and see that it's not painful, but not easy to ignore. The gylcerine suppositories are helpful as an occasional adjunct to a housebreaking program based on timing as we explain in the book. The main category of stuff I'd want to change or expand if we were to revise the book again is the kind of thing Cesar Milan is so good at conveying--the idea that the dog is reactive to your state of mind, and you can do a lot to form the relationship, and create the dog you want, just by projecting a consistent attitude. Good luck with your dog!
