Tom Barker
Post #3071 – 20120805
August 5, 2012
“Yobgorgle, mystery monster of Lake Ontario” was my introduction to your fantastic books. My son, Greg, read this to me as I built a cottage on an island in the Thousand Islands in 1985. He was 12 than and it was one of the most memorable times in our life. I live in Webster (a suburb of Rochester) and often wondered if you ever lived in Rochester. Your descriptions of the city are so realistic and crazy!
Now my grandsons (8 & 10) are into your books. I am the adult who conducted the Movie Camp in Amherst, Mass. where the adaptation of “The Neddiad’ was produced. Thanks!
Daniel replies:
I have spent all of two days in Rochester. I liked it quite a bit. The occasion was the first time I went on a trip as an author. I had this old agent at the time, and she said, """"The county librarians have invited you to come to Rochester and give a talk. It's important. You should go."""" So I went, and was met at the train by a nice librarian who asked me, """"Why did you come? It's quite unimportant. Nobody else was willing to come."""" I had a fair amount of time to myself, in between giving my talk, and being treated to chop suey by the librarians, so I wandered around the city, observing and enjoying.
The movie was great. Next time you should do Yobgorgle.
Sarah Ruszczyk
Post #3066 – 20120801
August 1, 2012
I am (really) opening a small bedroom size restaurant which will only sell Chili. Would you be upset if I called it the Bermuda Triangle Chili Parlor? Thanks either way, it was my favorite book as a child and is now my sons favorite!
Daniel replies:
I think it would be utterly cool if you called it the Bermuda Triangle Chili Parlor. Where will it be? Maybe some visitors to this website, or I, might visit sometime.
Matt McCambridge
Post #3061 – 20120730
July 30, 2012
Unwillingly wide awake at 4am (my mind unable to relocate from China to California as fast as American Airlines could physically deliver my skull and contents), I was reading some of your National Public Radio pieces via a stained secondhand paperback which I’d procured and stockpiled for such a contingency. I had splashed tomato basil marinara on it recently and was comforted to see how in color and consistency the book’s other red stains matched this new one. Although I’d kind of liked my “tubercular prospector who couldn’t get NPR in his silver mine” theory as well. I had been anxious fearing the impaired cognitive performance sleep deprivation would bring to my Important Tasks. But your work caused reinterpretation of this pre-dawn alertness as delicious opportunity. My sleepless brain soon found itself rattling in a BART carriage through glowing fog towards bagels–bagels which were said to be boiled, hardly a given on this coast.
Lifting mist and newly-spilled sunshine, clouds of actual pink water–fat, even–presiding regally, irregularly lighting and thus curating with uneven emphasis the details of 24thst. Poetic license should allow me to say that such a beam spot-lit the steam-fogged windows of the bagel shop but on this plane its glass doors don’t face that way. Three middle-aged Chinese men and women had finished boiling bagels and were efficiently scooping enormous regular spheres of cream cheese from a plastic vat into two-dimensional countertop arrays of takeout containers. They were so unobtrusively magician-quick at getting incoming customers resupplied and ambling out that each one or two of them who strolled in could imagine if they chose that they were among a select few who knew about this place. I started with a single cinnamon raisin, untoasted, and some coffee. It met spec.
Daniel replies:
Cinnamon-raisin? Nisht du gedacht! What an anticlimax!
Gal Giberstein
Post #3056 – 20120725
July 25, 2012
Hello Mr. Pinkwater
I'm very happy and privileged you've decided to use
my music for your podcast : The exciting finale of "Slaves of Spiegel!"
(you've made my day:)
Daniel replies:
It is a swell tune...but your thanks should go to the talented Webmaster Ed who chooses the music, and does all the work on the Pinkwater Podcast. I am just an enthralled listener like so many others.
Tim Miller
Post #3058 – 20120725
July 25, 2012
This could be a fan letter, but I don’t really know much about you so how could I be a fan? I’ve heard (and enjoyed) you on NPR, especially the encounters on “Car Talk” where the guys measure car comfort in units of Pinkwaters.
I thought of you while driving this morning and once safely seated at the office, I opened Google. More than just a commentator, I see now that you’re an author. Though I’m 50 I see now that I’ll have to look into some of your children’s material.
All the energy around the Pineapple / eggplant controversy makes me smile. Reading the original here on your blog presents a humorous style I will appreciate more. Once I dig in.
Keep up the good work, Mr. P. I look forward to becoming a fan. Some day.
Daniel replies:
Do they know what you do while comfortably seated at the office? Thanks for sharing.
Ann
Post #3057 – 20120725
July 25, 2012
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
I’m a big fan of your books. I tried to come up some impressive questions so you’d think I’m cool and interesting, but that didn’t go very well, so here are some questions about things I’m curious about instead.
1. What book or music album have you had the longest? How long have you had it and why have you kept it?
2. What do you do really well, or like a lot, that other people might not know about?
3. Do you think potato salad ought to have eggs in it?
4. What is something you wish to live the rest of your life without?
5. Do you think I’m cool or interesting?
Thanks very much, Mr. Pinkwater. I sincerely hope that you are having a wonderful, happy life.
P.S. Also, pickle juice. Should that be in the sauce-stuff of potato salad? I could have put that up in the question, but I like the idea of postscripts in electronic media.
P.P.S. Did the bit about postscripts sway you on the cool/interesting front?
Daniel replies:
1. A Sub-Treasury of American Humor, by E.B. and K. S White.
2. I am a fairly good dog-trainer.
3. No. That is excessive. I might favor crumbled bacon, and possibly cilantro, however.
4. Female news-hosts on cable TV.
5. I think you are cool _and_ interesting, but you establish that merely by finding your way to this website.
P.S. 1 Finding more uses for pickle juice is an environmentally interesting idea.
P.S. 2 No. See answer 5.
Jeanne Landers
Post #3054 – 20120722
July 22, 2012
Recently a friend told me he was going to visit a place called Breton Woods (in Canada or I think?) and images of the wanderings of a certain blue moose came lumbering through my mind of the long ago times (oh, some twenty-something-ish number of years) of reading a favorite story to my daughter. And I excitedly informed my friend, "oh, that's where the blue moose lives!"
When I later mentioned this to my daughter, she mused that she was of the belief that the woods of blue moose tales were somewhere in Maine… though she couldn't recall or dispute that they were called the Bretton Woods, so of course I now have to track this down…
What I discovered is that Breton, actually was from Mr. Breton and not the name of the place, which is described in the book as the great North Woods(?)… So now i have to know please where is the place of the blue Moose adventures.
PS – Thought you might enjoy knowing that when I was cleaning out my house last year and sorting through the collection of my (now grown) children's books, my daughter specially requested that I look for one of her favorites, about the "Blue Moose'. Still got it! 🙂
Daniel replies:
I don't answer questions that are answered, or to which there is a clue in the book. So I will not tell you. Bretton Woods is in New Hampshire and has historical significance. Your daughter seems to have turned out very well.
Mase and Meredith
Post #3049 – 20120719
July 19, 2012
We are a brother (8) and a sister (4) who want to know if Irving and
Muktuk are Bear Number One and Bear Number Three. We have read every
Irving and Muktuk story (except the one about Two Bad Bears and a
Bunny because it is not in our local library), and we still can’t
figure it out. Is there a book that explains this part of the story?
Thanks!
Daniel replies:
Hello Mase and Meredith --
You know, Bear #1 and Bear #3 MIGHT be Irving and Muktuk...or they might be bears who happen to be a lot LIKE Irving and Muktuk. You see, the problem is this: To us humans, polar bears look very much alike. We can tell them apart, but not always. Of course, bears have no trouble knowing who is who. So, if I were a bear, I could definitely answer your question. But there is this...sometimes bears will refuse to answer questions. Besides, I am not a bear. It's complicated, isn't it? I think we have to decide for ourselves if we think Bear #1 and Bear #3 are Irving and Muktuk. You are very good readers to have noticed this problem.
Daniel
Steve Van Hook
Post #3047 – 20120716
July 16, 2012
I'm a huge fan of your books, particularly the Big Orange Splot and give it out to anyone I can! (Some of my other favorites are Chicago Days/Hoboken Nights; Borgel – I think the classic line was something like "never bet on an eggplant" – and The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.)
I recently started playing around with songwriting for fun (my day job is a physics teacher) and one of my first projects was to make a song out of "Big Orange Splot" because I loved it so much. If you have any interest in seeing/hearing it, I'd love to share it with you. I tried to stick as close as possible to your text, with just a few changes to fit in into the song form. (I see elsewhere on your website mention of other songs written based on your books.) I've never played the song for anyone but my son (who also loves the book), but before I were to share it with anyone else, I'd want to get your permission.
Either way, I wanted to say how much I love your books and hearing you on NPR!
Daniel replies:
Webmaster Ed and I are discussing a project of which the working title is ""Captain Pinkwater's Amateur, Outsider Art and Felaffel Hour,"" which will be combined with his Orthomolecular Podiatry and Circumcision clinic. (Just now we are arguing about whether it would be considered proper practice to have a tip jar.) But in the meantime we can just put links to expressions in song on this part of the website. Take it away, Ed!
Nora Bloch
Post #3045 – 20120714
July 14, 2012
My husband and I first heard you when you and Scott Simon did that wonderful show and read Lizard Music. Since then we have had two children and avidly gobble up anything we can find of yours. My oldest, who is 9, is lucky enough to go to a dual immersion school – learning all subjects in English and Spanish. Finally – here is my question. We have a bit of a hard time getting him to read books in Spanish for fun. He said he would read anything of yours that is in Spanish. I have been trolling various used book sites and our library but have not had any luck finding any spanish translations – have any been done? If not, that is a shame. Thank you for your help and for all your wonderful stories. We also quite adore your essay on Sandwiches, that we heard in a podcast last year.
Daniel replies:
Thank you for all the nice remarks. Getting books published in translation is pretty much out of this author's hands--in fact when independent translators come forward wanting to do it, the publishers tend not to cooperate. Some of my books do appear in other languages, but how that comes about is a mystery to me. There is something with a bit of Spanish planned for a forthcoming podcast on this website, and having heard it you may want to get hold of the book, but there isn't a whole lot of meat. Your son appears to go to a cool school.
Diane Nosnik
Post #3037 – 20120712
July 12, 2012
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
My husband is a Mexican Jew who is fluent in Yiddish! You can imagine how much we have enjoyed reading Beautiful Yetta to our grandaughter! And although he is Mexican, he does an outstanding Puerto Rican accent!!! I thought you might enjoy hearing him read it! If so, please send us an email and he will email you a reading-accents and all! Thanks for the wonderful book! We are looking forward to more yiddish/spanish books! thanks, Diane Nosnik
Daniel replies:
Oh, send it here to this website so everyone can enjoy it! Another Yetta story with Yiddish and Spanish (also English), is even now being beautifully illustrated by the Great Jill.
Stay tuned to hear this special rendition of """"Beautiful Yetta"""" on the Pinkwater Podcast! -- Ed
Lupe
Post #3040 – 20120706
July 6, 2012
Hi!!! I read about you at class! Btw
your famous!!! Can you really talk back to me because if you can tell me
something!! Btw I need to ask you some questions soooooooooooo talk
back!!!;) thx
Daniel replies:
Yes, I can really talk back--I am a real live person and not a robot or anything like that.
Cordelia Sipper
Post #3033 – 20120627
June 27, 2012
Hello Mr. Pinkwater,
I am so happy to have found a way to contact you.
When I was little, my father (who is a rare book dealer and very fond of good literature) would read me Blue Moose all the time. It has been my great fortune to somehow hang on to that book for many years, and now read it to my own children (4 and 6.) Every time I read Blue Moose I am overcome with such wonderful feelings. Memories, yes- from my father reading it to me. But also appreciation for the sweetness, the funniness, and the reminder that magic does happen.
I love you for writing that book. Thank you. It is well worn, and I shall always have it.
XO
C.
Daniel replies:
You know, I think my zen is pretty good. I must have managed to keep my ego from overtaking my artist-ness, because receiving a statement like this still confuses and bewilders me. In a pleasant way, of course. Thank you.
Hans Learsi
Post #3034 – 20120627
June 27, 2012
While driving my Volvo c303 in my full Ottoman Chief regalia in New Jersey yesterday,
I saw a newspaper stand and stopped for a moment and couldn't help but notice how much the avocado crisis of 1989 is still having an emotional impact on today's politics. Which naturally begs the question: When choosing tube socks for a formal event such as a wedding,
should the male guest choose blue stripes on white or the other way around? It's jsust killing me, if you follow.
Daniel replies:
In today's enlightened fashion climate socks at a wedding are optional, (except for the rabbi, if one is officiating). I would look for vertical striped tube socks for the slimming effect.
