Aaron Nail
Post #3277 – 20130212
February 12, 2013
Mr. Pinkwater,
I just wanted to let you know, I wrote to you in elementary school 10-12 years ago and you wrote back on a picture. It really had a great impact on me and I thank you for your great stories Borgel and Lizard Music. I haven’t read anything of yours in some time, but due to a post on www.reddit.com about what inspired us to be readers, I realized that you were a big part of my inspiration. Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing and being who you are.
Daniel replies:
You might want to consider that being a writer can be pleasant, but it doesn't begin to make sense if no one reads the stuff. So it is for me to thank you. Thank you.
Steve
Post #3276 – 20130208
February 8, 2013
My Dear Mr. Pinkwater
I just picked up a copy of Bushman Lives! and just a few pages in I already feel like I did as a 12 year old in 1982 reading The Snarkout Boys. Even though I am now a forty-something year old man I have no problem what-so-ever saying I love you Daniel Pinkwater. Most people have something they hold sacred. For me, the holy trinity is Pinkwater, Bradbury and Vonnegut. Thank you for everything.
Daniel replies:
Nice company...but there's a bit of a gap between me and those guys. But in the matter of having the best readers, I take first place.
Emma
Post #3273 – 20130205
February 5, 2013
I loved your books The Neddiad, The Yggyssey, and The Adventures of a Cat Whiskered Girl. I am super excited to read Escape to Dwerg Mountain. I was wondering when it was going to come out?
Also, by accident I read the books int the wring order….whoops! I went book 3 book 1 then book 2!
Thanks for your time!
Daniel replies:
Never. It is never coming out. Instead, BUSHMAN LIVES! is out. You can read these books in any order, also from back to front. This is an extra service I provide my readers.
Dave Lawrence
Post #3271 – 20130131
January 31, 2013
Senor Aguarosa,
Why did you select early Medieval painters as the aliases for the Chicken Man? I recognized Peter Bruegel the Elder and was shocked. And highly, highly impressed. I had to look up the rest. Lucas Cranach? Awesome. I especially liked the name Lawrence Lawrence.
Daniel replies:
Wait! They're medieval painters?
Jo S
Post #3270 – 20130131
January 31, 2013
Hey there!
I’m a cartoonist who grew up reading your books. But I never realized that you had at one point a syndicated comic called Norb. I’d like to read it now but that neat book compilation thing you have is it out of print, isn’t it? Oh well. Maybe I’ll stumble into the comics library at Ohio State one day and dig it up, since they apparently have one.
Bushman lives,
Jo S
Daniel replies:
Out of print doesn't mean there are no copies around. But I want you to patronize the Ohio State library--they, or some entity at Ohio State, gave me an award...it is cool, and made of plastic. I think there are samples of NORB somewhere on the web.
GRAHAM
Post #3263 – 20130126
January 26, 2013
HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Happy New YEAR 2013!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Daniel replies:
That is a lot of !s. Happy New Year back.
Dave
Post #3268 – 20130126
January 26, 2013
On this cold day, I send you an excerpt from James Beard’s “Delights and Prejudices” wherein he recalls the benefits of a childhood by the ocean:
“Clam broth we had by the quart. The portion of the clams [my mother] didn’t use for sauteing were tossed into a large pot together with their shells, onions, celery, carrots, parsley and water to cover. She allowed this to steep for an hour or so till the flavor of the clams had permeated the broth. This was strained and served hot in small cups or served chilled with a tiny bit of very salty whipped cream on it. And it was also used as a base for soups and sauces, bestowing a flavor that was wonderfully delicate.”
Stay warm!
Daniel replies:
Thank you for these bivalvular remarks.
Carl Linich
Post #3266 – 20130126
January 26, 2013
A friend of mine told me that you had referenced The Squirrel Cage, Gene Ahern’s brilliantly surreal Sunday comic strip (which featured The Little Hitchhiker: “Nov shmoz ka pop?”) I am researching this strip, and would love to know what your connection is to it; is it simply your recollections of reading it in the paper? Or do you have any strips yourself? At this point I’ve tracked down about 7 years’ worth of the strip (it ran 1936 – 1953) and I’m determined to find the complete run. I do hope eventually to put a book collection together, though that’s definitely on the slow burner until I can find more of the strips. Thanks so much & very best wishes! – Carl
Daniel replies:
It is simply my recollections. If you have a strip or two in digital form, we'd love to see!
Roger Pekor
Post #3261 – 20130124
January 24, 2013
I called your phone number today. Or so I thought. I thought it would be extremely clever to call your number, say “neeble neeble” and hang up. A woman answered and while I was disappointed it wasn’t Daniel Manus Pinkwater (and I have heard this man on the radio–he does not sound anything like a woman) I blurted “neeble neeble” and hung up. Minutes later I got an email from my wife. “You idiot,” she wrote. “I was in a business meeting and you called just so you could say “nibble nibble!?” I fessed up and she got the best laugh. Moral:
NEVER try to prank the DMP.
Daniel replies:
You're old enough to have a wife and you did that? And she laughed when you told her about it? No, don't explain or tell me any more. I don't want to know.
Nate Braveman
Post #3252 – 20130119
January 19, 2013
Greetings. I am Nate Braveman and I am from Mars. I am 9 years old, and my dad is one of your oldest fans. He wrote you when he was my age, and you had lunch with him in New York. He read me Lizard Music and Worms of Kumkumlima. They were both good. Why did the Lizards play music? Do you think that UFO’s are real? I do.
Sincerely,
Nate Braveman
Daniel replies:
It is always nice to hear from someone from Mars. How was Mars the last time you were there? Do they still talk about me? The Lizards play music because dancing would look silly without music. I think real UFOs are real.
Amanda
Post #3251 – 20130116
January 16, 2013
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
I have always wanted to know what Walter Galt, Winston Bongo, and Rat did next. How do their lives turn out? Does Uncle Flipping ever finish his inventions? I wish they had another adventure! Is Wallace Nussbaum ever defeated? What happens to his orangutans?
I am almost 40 and these questions have eaten away at me for years. Please let me know!
Daniel replies:
There was supposed to be at least one more book, _I Snarked with a Zombie_ but during the time I've been writing publishers became more like today's kind of corporation that has gone such a long way toward spoiling EVERYTHING...it is not OK to just make a profit, it has to be an obscene profit...and if a project doesn't hit high numbers right away it's instantly abandoned in favor of something else, and they publish way way way too many books so the individual publishers wind up competing with themselves and books push each other out of the way. So, because even though I am a serious artist and everything, I'm also a commercial writer and make my living by doing books, I have to accommodate the insane way things are done by the industry...and that is why you never saw the sequel. I suggest you read _The Neddiad_ and the three books that follow it, maybe you'll get addicted to those like you did to the Snarkout books, but I have to warn you, the publisher bailed on the fifth book in that series, so you will end up being eaten away at by similar questions. Personally, I think that may be a good thing. I sort of like it that you've been thinking about stuff I've written for years and years.
Christina O'Sullivan
Post #3250 – 20130116
January 16, 2013
Our whole family is enjoying _Bushman Lives!_. I’ve been a fan since _Young Adult Novel_ (30 years back) and am so happy my kid is at an age where he can enjoy _The Neddiad_ and its companion novels, _Lizard Music_ and _Bushman Lives!_. (He’s enjoyed the picture books too.)
Daniel replies:
How can you have read _Young Adult Novel_ 30 years ago, when I, the author, am only 22? Oh...wait. I was confused. Please buy multiple copies of _Bushman Lives_ and give them to everyone you know, post favorable reviews, bring it up in conversation until people begin to avoid you, and help save it from obscurity.
Zan McGreevey
Post #3248 – 20130115
January 15, 2013
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Sometime before November, 1997 when their article was published, my parents Joanne Yeck and Tom McGreevey interviewed you for an article in senior magazine titled “Prolific Writer Well-Kept Secret”. Your face and hand which adorns the cover of 5 Novels appears there above an ad for a full-care Alzheimer’s home. They had corresponded with you briefly before you agreed to do the interview, I recall (I was eight at the time) and after a visit to Roswell, NM, we sent you a box of UFO cookies that I conjectured resembled the lacertilian vittles in Lizard Music. You sent your thanks along with a lovely drawing of yourself eating said cookies in, I believe, a vampire cape.
I have probably read Borgel at least a dozen times. It is easy to lose count when you persuade your father to record himself reading the book aloud, stick it in your red walkman and press rewind as many times as magnetic tape can bear. In addition to believing that it contains the essential tenants of most major world religions, I have always dreamed of road tripping as close to the fraying fringes of time-space as is possible for most of us.
I am closer than most people in that I am registered to drive in an event called the Mongol Rally, in which teams in cars with 1200 cc engines drive, roll, hobble, and are pushed from the starting point in London, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and are encouraged to do it in the most lackadaisical way possible (more information here www.theadventurists.com/the-adventures/mongol-rally). This is done both because it is awesome, and because doing improbable things is a good way to raise money for charity. The Adventurists who run the Rally have overseen the collection of almost 6 million dollars for charity in the past 8 years. From now on they officially promote Cool Earth, a charity which is taking remarkable real-time action against the deforestation of the rain forest (www.coolearth.org/). I had no idea before they announced their partnership this year what a devastating effect rainforest destruction has on the climate, and will likely continue to make it a personal cause in the future, so to that extent, their plan is working.
My teammates, one Jessica Datko, co-conspirator of middle-school vintage, and James Dyson, burly kilt-wearer and lifter of heavy objects, and I and all young-y, student-y types, and are thus rigorously trying to avoid paying for the entire trip ourselves, because that would actually be impossible. We also have to raise a minimum of 1000 pounds in money that goes directly to Cool Earth. Money that helps us buy a car and fuel it also kind of goes to charity too, because the car gets auctioned to some lucky Mongol in Mongolia, and that money goes to Cool Earth as well. It also helps us be the biggest badasses we know, which is no small thing. So far we’ve had individual contributions from friends and family towards our trip fund, and are now ready to start accepting charity donations. Corporate sponsorship is allowed, and we mean to get it. But we don’t have great visibility outside of people we know personally (mostly via our page on Facebook) and who doubtless now all feel harassed by us. Having the word about us (and the Mongol Rally and Cool Earth in general, it’s a shame how few people know about them) spread further would be an immense help to us. There is a video made by me on our crowd funding campaign page, and much more information about how all these rallying shenanigans work here (www.indiegogo.com/onesmallsteppe/). We’d be extremely grateful if you just talked us up and made us seem like a proverbial “big deal” (only one of us is actually very big), but our shirts do come in all sizes.
Sincerely yours,
Zan McGreevey
Daniel replies:
Why do I find out about cool things like this when I am old and feeble and could not possibly participate? I could possibly say, ""I cannot myself hope to go along on this nifty adventure, but at least I can contribute and help others do so,"" but, no. However I am bcc'ing this to someone in media, who may or may not find it interesting. I wish you great success in your undertaking, wish it were me, or at least that I was a Mongol falling about laughing at you.
BH in Bethesda
Post #3247 – 20130114
January 14, 2013
Dear Mr. Pinkwater, thanks so so much for bringing “Worms” to your podcasts! It remains one of my favorite of your books, I love it so very much, even after 25 years since I first read it. All the best to you, and thanks again! ps – any plans to bring Yobgorgle to the podcasts anytime in the future? I really really love that one too! And what about Alan Mendelsohn?
Daniel replies:
Right. A quick look at the audio archives in the podcast section of this website informs me that we have not done Yobgorgle, so sure--we'll do it. And thanks. It is neat that having done so many books, over such a long time, and deliberately trying to forget them as much as possible, I get to have fun reading them for the podcast.
Sam Lindsay-Levine
Post #3243 – 20130106
January 6, 2013
Hello Mr. Pinkwater,
I was just looking for a way to spend some Amazon gift certificates I got for my birthday, and remembered the book Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, a treasure from my childhood. I wanted to refamiliarize myself with the various types of atomic chili and Lemurian lore, but I found to my dismay that there is no ebook (i.e., Kindle, epub, etc.) version of Alan Mendelsohn or (even better) the “5 Novels” compilation for sale!
Are there any plans for there to be an ebook version? Can I sign up on a waiting list? Is my only option to buy the hardcopy, and train a parrot to read it and type the book into a word processor? I hope not, because those things can only hunt-and-peck and their WPM is terrible.
Yours,
Sam
Daniel replies:
We are just getting around to creating e-books. So far Jill's wonderful CLOUD HORSE has been kindled.  I think some of my recent novels may be available, put out by the publishers--you could look into that. Older titles, may come along in time. Certain Panamanian parrots are known for superior transcription skills, but you'd need to find one that has been to a reputable business school.
