I, too, went to Camp Kiowa, in 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1951. I would enjoy reminiscing about your and my experiences.
I was there one summer a bit later on. The lake had dried up, there was quicksand, the temperature was over 100 most every day, the kids in my cabin were moral defectives, and I encountered insects of unusual size. Needless to say, I had a good time, and was sad to go home.
It has been thirty years since I have read, "Slaves of Spiegel" and this week I am reading it to my class. The chapter, "The Great Fair at Blintzni Spamgorod" is right up there with that one about the glorious whitewasher!
Praise a little exaggerated, but I did have fun writing that. Thank you.
Hello, Captain! Wasn't there recently in the podcast a chapter of a new book which featured cats that were specially trained to act as hat surrogates? Or did i dream it? If i didn't dream it, how's the book going? It's going to be winter in Chicago soon, and we could use cat hats.
That was the whole story. Unpublished, as is so often the case nowadays. I have a few like that lying around, and plan to read them on the podcast from time to time. Neddiad coming up soon!
You and Jill are our favorite authors and illustrators. The section from The Artsy Smartsy Club (or is it one of the Hoboken Chicken books?), where the kids go to the museum with Henrietta and the museum guard mistakes her for Sister Wendy, is the funniest thing ever written. We are excited that Yetta had a new adventure. Will Larry ever have more? You and Jill have brought us so much joy! Thank you!
You are some of our favorite readers! (All our readers are favorites!) You are thinking of The Artsy Smartsy Club, with the chicken mistaken for Sister Wendy. No more Larry books are planned at present--have you seen the Irving and Muktuk books, Two Bad Bears, Bad Bears in the Big City, etc.? Larry appears in some of those.
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Well, my son has gone to the great white north for college after all. No polar bears on campus so far, although I did tell him not to roam the city late at night–wolves, you know. I was saddened that he did not take any of your books with him, so I am reading them, which isn't such a bad thing.
Do you have any favorite Canadian authors I may recommend to him?
Is Farley Mowat a Canadian author?
I just wanted to say that "Lizard Music" is the one book that I still have from my childhood. I bought it with my own money from a school 'book order' and I've kept it to this day, waiting for my own kids to read it soon. I remember feeling like I could have an amazing adventure if my parents would just leave me to my own devices for a weekend. Any time I see something strange on TV late at night, I remember this book.
Thanks! I like that book too. It was some kind of beginner's luck. It took me around 30 years to learn how to write stuff I liked as much, but because it was first, Lizard Music is still my favorite.
I've been thinking this one through, and believe that it will do us both good if I add my sense of loss over Tom Magliozzi's passing to yours.
Listening to Tom & Ray has always been a joy, but it reached its zenith during those times when you were their prized guest on "Car Talk". Just as your presence on the show added to their happiness, so must Tom's departure (and the attendant cruelty of it, the throes of Alzheimer's Disease) be a toll upon you. To the extent that my telling you this may be of some scant comfort, this why I write today.
Thank you, Daniel, for the joy you have brought to this world. May it continue for a great many years to come.
Walter Lipman
No, it's not a toll upon me. I accept that things change, and things come to an end. Just before the internet flowered into a world of discrete communities, public radio, speaking of things reaching a zenith, had a special significance for some few millions of us. The broadcasters were generally listeners, and the listeners felt connected to the broadcasters and one another. In the years when All Things Considered used to air a commentary by me roughly once a week it was usual for the phone to ring when the program ended, and some listener would comment on my commentary, and tell me a story, always better than mine. They felt they knew me--I'd been talking to them on their drive home week after week--so the calls had the quality of a conversation between acquaintances being continued. Car Talk, more than any other program, exploited this aspect of commonality--because of the friendliness and charm of the brothers, and the skill of the producer/editor...you see, it was a work of art of a sort, and informal as it seemed, it was crafted by talented people making the most of an opportunity to do high quality work. And that's what it meant to me, a chance to do a bit with professionals who would not let me down--and naturally, I tried my best not to let them down. It was great, and I'm happy I had the chance to listen and participate--but mutatis mutandis, now we go on to the next things.
Sad News:
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/11/03/car-talk-co-host-tom-magliozzi-has-died/?hpid=z6
I think these guys were/are good friends of yours? Condolences to all who knew Tom, RIP.
They were good friends to all of us.
So sad to hear about Tom Magliozzi's passing. I liked when you called in to the show not only for your own inimitable wit, but it made Tom laugh more. Humbly appeal to you to pen and present an appreciation of Tom for NPR. I'm sure you will be better at putting into words how so many of us feel.
You know, I am very common-sensical about death. I mean, we all do it. I refuse to be surprised. But in this case, my response was, """"Hey! No! We need this guy!"""" Recording bits with the brothers was a complete joy for me.
Here I am living in Tulum, Mexico and streaming WAMC live this am only to hear your name mentioned on the Car Guys show. This must be a repeat from time long ago because I realized that I have not heard your melodious voice on NPR in a while. I have been of course living out the country, but I do get public readio. Where are thou?
Besos
Aline
So there you are on the Mayan Riviera, listening to Dr. Alan Chartok hold forth about scuzzy NY state politics on WAMC? That is some contrast. I stopped contributing to NPR a couple of years ago, and went to doing stuff on the Bob Edwards Show on SiriusXM satellite radio, until the beancounters there canceled the show the other month. You can hear my melodious voice on the weekly podcast right here on this website, and also as the anglofone announcer on radiomozart.net, radiobach, radiochopin, and ABCclassicalpiano. I have sent in a written-in-blood self-criticism to NPR and am waiting to know if the central committee will consider a pardon for my recent defection.
I'm interviewing Fat Kids author,Rebecca Weinstein…she's 'kvelling' about Mr Pinkwater.
"Louie, it was like my own , personal Daniel Pinkwater NPR show!!!…he's wonderful…."
I ,also, love his interview in the book
Yeh, I'm wonderful. It's well known.
Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I AM THE DOG is Book of the Week at LearnCreateLove.com. My daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Thank you!
Thank you right back!
I'm a Librarian in an elementary school and have just had one of my readers ask if I could order the sequel to a book called the cat Whiskered Girl. We have searched online bookstores with no success and are wondering if "Escape to Dwerg Mountain" is out yet??
Actually, that book never got written. Instead, I wrote a book called Bushman Lives. After that, the publisher changed its policy regarding the manner in which they would consider books of mine--I found the new policy unacceptable, and stopped offering them books...so no Escape to Dwerg Mountain. (However, Molly the Dwerg appears in Bushman Lives!) Maybe your student would like to give it a try.
Hi, I'm that kid who put together that strange song (made up of snippets of your NPR interviews) that you put at the beginning of your first podcast. I was 12 then; I'm 19 now.
I think the most important thing I've gotten out of your books is a sense of the world's persistent absurdity, which has helped me get through a lot of challenging experiences thus far.
Thank you for portraying fat people in your books. It really means a lot. If you haven't already, I think it'd be really cool if you tried portraying a chubby girl who doesn't have a problem with her weight (we're extremely rare in media and literature). I think you might appreciate this scientific explanation about why having fat is a good thing and that the term "overweight" has no medical basis (but things like BMI were invented by the weight loss industry): www.youreatopia.com/blog/2011/11/24/fat-no-more-fear-no-more-contempt-part-i.html It's helped me accept my body a lot more and realize that I'm not going to keel over and die early because I'm a little bigger than other people.
I've been trying meditating recently to help improve my life, and according to your recent profile in the Forward, you're pretty good at it. (Reading Alan Mendelsohn introduced me to the idea of meditation.) Do you have any tips about meditating?
I also got a dog named Henry who's black with a blue tongue. I'm clicker training him and it's clear he's pretty smart. What do you think about the idea of dominance theory?
Also, what are your favorite books?
While Webmaster Ed and I were having fun making the podcasts you were doing the hard work of growing up. Cool
I don't think the world is absurd. Just the humans.
I do have some fat girl characters, in Fat Camp Commandos and Fat Camp Commandos go west, also in the Big Bob books, some of which are pretty funny. I haven't considered a fat girl in a novel since I wrote that adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, and got into a lot of correspondence and discussion with fat activists--and got very bored with the whole business, which can happen if you have contact with activists.
According to all the statistics I know about, it's practically impossible for significantly fat people to become non-fat people. So it would make sense not to make reducing a goal, and instead seek a health-inducing lifestyle. This might include eating intelligently, taking exercise, and avoiding destructive habits including worrying, having a negative self-image, and falling for promotions by the weight loss industry and advertising.
Here is the only tip I know about meditating. The best way to learn it is to find someone who is good at it, and have them show you, simply by doing it with them. If they want to charge you money or join something, maybe move on and find another, or say you left your wallet at home.
Same thing with dog training, although it is ok to pay a reasonable amount for that. I don't know what you mean by dominance theory. I require my dogs to sit and wait before being given a treat, sit and wait until I tell them ok before going through a door, and never going through a door before me. They don't even realize they're being trained. Dogs can read your mind. If you're in a calm state, the dog is likely to match it, if you're anxious, the dog is anxious.
I'm done. I am skipping the favorite books question. I wonder if Webmaster Ed still has that song.
Hi Daniel, being an owner of an indie bookstore we just love your books! One in particular is very popular – Bear in Love, I am reading it to a group of children in November and was wondering if there is a tune the little songs go to – so I can do it justice! Thanks so much! Please email your response when you can!
This is what I suggest--when you get to the songs, just sing them the way you'd sing them if you were a bear. You can't go wrong.
