Starting on Saturday, I began blogging a summer-work-week in the life of an academic — specifically, me.  We are now up to day 5.  The goal is simply to show — in as much detail as I can — precisely what I do in the summer. Indeed, if all academics who have a blogs did this, perhaps we could put to rest once and for all the myth that professors “have the summers off.”  Well, it’s a nice thought, anyway.

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

12:00 – 12:44 am.  Posted yesterday’s chronicle, and then realized that I’d failed to include a song.  Added the song.  Shared the post via Facebook & Twitter.  Composed the above.  Watched the first five minutes of Isao Hashimoto’s Time Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion since 1945.

Educational, elegant, and alarming.

12:45 – 1:45 am.  Prepared for bed, read another chapter of Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?  Why can’t I seem to get to bed before midnight?

1:45 – 8:00 am.  Ah, sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life.  And so on.

8:00 – 8:25 am.  Got up, did jumping jacks, stretched, checked email and Facebook.  Answered one professional email.

8:25 – 9:10 am.  Ran 4 miles & at playground en route did chin-ups (still only one set, due to hand) and upside-down push-ups.  (See Saturday for explanation of upside-down push-ups).

9:10 – 9:30 am.  Read email, checked into and responded to Facebook.  Read “Revenge of the Liberal Arts Major” — good news for English and other Humanities grads.  Hat tip to Libby Gruner.  And thanks to Gwen Tarbox, read publisher Weldon Owen‘s amusing (but also mostly accurate) chart, “How a Book Is Born.”

(Click for slightly larger image.)

9:30 – 9:45 am. Email: professional correspondence.

9:45 – 10:15 am.  Post-running exercises.  Abdominals and modified push-ups (due to wonky left hand, done on fists instead of on palms or on weights).  Also answered one professional email.

10:15 – 10:45 am.  Breakfast!  Also business phone calls.

10:45 – 10:50 am.  Aggle Flaggle Klabble!  Watched brief video clips of my 13-month-old niece, Emily.  My sister just sent ‘em!  ♥!  Which reminds me: dear readers, watch for a new installment of Emily’s Library in the next week or so.

10:50 – 11:00 am.  Made doctor’s appt for a physical on Monday, at which time I will also inquire further about left hand (I did get it checked out after the accident, but it’s recovering more slowly than I’d like).  The 10-minutes’ time here, incidentally, reflects the need to coordinate my schedule with Karin’s (since we share a car).  I would bike to the appt., but the left hand still isn’t up for biking.

11:00 – 11:50 am.  Shower, shave, dress.  Also answered one business email, and wrote two more (both re: Complete Barnaby).  So, let’s say 25 minutes to ablutions and the other 25 to work.

11:50 am – 12:35 pm. Back to the comics/picture books essay!  Edited & revised what I did last night, added some new examples.  Oh, and a little more business email.

12:35 – 1:25 pm.  ”Lunch break!  Lunch break!” (as Lucy says in A Charlie Brown Christmas, when Snoopy arrives with his supper dish).  Also finished Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?  It is, as her mother says near the end, “a metabook.”  It’s as much about Fun Home as it is about her mother.  It’s more interior than Fun Home, which (for me) in part accounts for the many references to Virginia Woolf.  While Fun Home will continue to be taught in undergraduate and graduate classes, Are You My Mother? will more likely appear in the graduate seminar, as a companion piece to Fun Home.

1:25 – 1:40 pm.  Some business correspondence.  Also, Jules Walker Danielson sent me a link to this Rolling Stone snippet, which includes the following video.  At 1:42, you will hear rapper El-P say, “Rest in peace, MCA.  Rest in peace, Maurice Sendak.”

How many children’s authors get name-checked in popular songs?  There are several examples in which Dr. Seuss makes an appearance (R.E.M.’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight,” O.C. Smith’s “Little Green Apples,” to name two).  A moment like this suggests the degree to which Maurice Sendak is embedded in our cultural consciousness.  His passing is a major event, acknowledge not just by fans and friends, but people from many walks of life.  I think, too, that, taken together, these many tributes tell us what Sendak signifies in the popular imagination.  (See my page of artists’ tributes, the New York Times‘ collection of artists’ tributes, The Comics Journal‘s page, and then the links at the bottom of this page.)  I should write about this.  We children’s literature people need to organize a panel on Sendak for the 2014 MLA (the 2013 MLA is already set).  Someone needs to edit a collection of essays on him.  Me.  Or if someone else is already doing this, then I need to contribute to it.

1:40 – 2:24 pm.  My mind is on Maurice. Kristy (from The Comics Journal) has just sent me the marked-up version of my Comics Journal essay (I adapted and abridged it for my TCJ obituary.)  I’d asked to revise the piece in light of his passing.  Since I am thinking about him, I decide to do this now.  Such a genius, such a loss. In his honor, I’m listening to Mozart’s Wind Serenades (K.375 & K.388) as I revise.  During this process, was interrupted by two different telemarketers.  Are their charitable organizations that respect donors’ rights to privacy?  If so, I’d be interested in learning who they are.

2:20 – 2:24 pm. Updated Sunday’s blog post with small parenthetical & responded to my sister’s comment on same.

2:24 – 3:24 pm.  Revised TCJ Sendak piece.  Listened to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K.581 (“Stadler”), Quartet K.378, and Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Viola K.498 (“Kegelstatt”).  Sent it back to Kristy at TCJ.  I think we can now call it done, at last!

3:24 – 4:30 pm.  Back to the comics/picture books piece, starting with a brief analysis of the Krauss-Sendak collaboration I’ll Be You and You Be Me, and then on to Will Eisner! Chris Ware! Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich! Crockett Johnson!

4:30 – 4:35 pm.  Watched the (brief) video of Emily aggle-flaggle-klabble-ing several times. Karin thinks Emily’s glottal sounds reflect a German influence. This seems possible, though I haven’t listened to enough non-German babies babbling to either verify or refute that hypothesis.

4:35 – 5:00 pm.  More work on the comics/picture books piece. Ian Falconer! Lane Smith! Wanda Gág! Leo Lionni! I’m quite pleased with how this piece is turning out, if I do say so myself.  Also: this is the kind of intellectual labor that I find particularly rewarding. I can (and always will) do administrative tasks, but the thinking part is most interesting.

5:00 – 5:15 pm.  Responded to a few comments on the blog.  As all of these conversations were academic in nature, I’m counting this towards the day’s total “work time.”  I note also that I’ve had a tendency to underreport work time because I often forget that the fun parts of my day (such as conversation with a colleague) include work & work-related matters, too.

5:15 – 5:35 pm. Guitar break!  Left hand is improving — able to do those E-string major barre chords a bit better today.  Played: Cure’s “Friday, I’m in Love” (and, yes, I know it’s only Wednesday), the Brecht-Weill composition “Mack the Knife” (lyrics translated by Marc Blitzstein, made popular by Bobby Darin), the Ventures’ “Walk — Don’t Run,” the Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle with Care,” and the biggest hit of the 1890s — “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Made for Two).”  Incidentally, if you’ve never heard Blur’s cover of that song, check it out.  My own version oscillates between traditional and a slightly more football-hooligan-esque (i.e., Blur-like) rendition of the chorus.

5:35 – 6:35 pm. Iced my left hand (something I also did yesterday after the guitar-playing, just for good measure), and paced around the house, thinking: if one were to edit a collection of essays on Maurice Sendak, who should be in it?  Came up with a tentative list of names, plus several ideas for a co-editor.  Also would include extracts from my interviews, perhaps at the back.  Had idea for second book on Sendak, which would go into UP Mississippi’s Conversations with… series, and thought about which interviews should be included in such a series.  Also, it’s always worth remembering that I have far more ideas than I’ll ever be able to act upon.  So, I need to be judicious in choosing my projects.  Currently, I only have one book (well, series) under contract — The Complete Barnaby.  In sum, I would like to do this, and I will make enquiries.  However, the most important thing is that someone should do this.  It doesn’t have to be me.  But it should be done.

6:35 – 7:15 pm.  Checked into Facebook. Among other things, read Michael Patrick Hearn on Maurice Sendak at Monica Edinger’s blog (Educating Alice) & added the link (to bottom of this page). Wrote Jules back (re: the name-check of Maurice Sendak by El-P, above).

7:15 – 8:25 pm.  Read Going Bovine to Karin, watched the only Daily Show we’d yet to see from last week, watched a bit of Rachel Maddow.

8:25 – 10:15 pm.  More on the comics-and-picture-books essay.  Am I nearly done with this revision?  I might be.

10:15 – 11:00 pm.  Wrote back to Jules Danielson (again, check her excellent Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, the best blog about picture books).  Oh, speaking of good children’s lit blogs, I was delighted to see The Carrot Seed make Betsy Bird’s poll of the top 100 children’s picture books.  Sure, it should be higher than 100.  But at least it’s there!  She calls it “picture book haiku.  Not a word out of place.”  Also started to compile list of essential Sendak-books-that-I-don’t-already-own-copies-of.  And, yeah, ordered a few — all out of print — via AbeBooks.com.  At present, I own around 35 to 40 of the over 100 books he illustrated.  I don’t need them all, but it seems to me that a children’s literature scholar can never have too much Sendak!

11:00 – 11:40 pm. Back to comics-picture-books essay, briefly.  Then wrote back to Michael Patrick Hearn, whose tribute to Maurice Sendak you really must read.  Then back again to the essay.  I think it might now be done.  I’m not sure.  I want to re-read parts of Nathalie op de Beeck’s book, which I’ve left in my campus office.  I also need to compile a list of all the literary works to which I refer.  And re-read Moebius’s classic essay, which informs what I’ve written but is not specifically cited anywhere — same is true of Nodelman’s Words About Pictures.  It’s an influence, but might be acknowledged.

11:40 pm – 12:00 am.  Set up tomorrow’s post. Put some books away (books I’d been writing about). Washed dishes.  Started dishwasher.

Total work time: 9 hours, 30 minutes.

Right!  Time to conclude with a little music. From Disney’s Enchanted, here’s Amy Adams introducing (and then performing) “Happy Working Song.”  Dancing rats and cockroaches!  What’s not to like?

What, you say?  Even after reading this, there’s still not enough tedium in your day?  Well. I can help you there:

• The full “What Do Professors Do All Summer?” series (May 2012): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, … in progress (I’ll add links each day).
• The full “What Do Professors Do All Day?” series (Feb. 2011): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & What Do Professors Do All Week? (the final post).
• Other posts tagged Academe, Advice, or Autobiography.

It’s hard to imagine that this is even slightly interesting to read, but it does (at least) make visible the work that academics do in the summer.  Or this academic, at least.  If you’re just tuning in today, I should say that this week — and this week only — I’m keeping track of what I do during the summer.  And, if I may be frank (instead of Phil?), I’m glad it’s only for a week.  Although I think it a useful experiment to undertake, I dislike living in the panopticon.  I will not be doing this again.  Anyway.  Here’s what I did today.

12:00 – 12:30 am.  Posted yesterday’s chronicle of mundanity, responded to a few comments on Sunday’s post, wrote the above and began constructing this post.

12:30 – 1:30 am.  Did dishes, prepared for bed, read another chapter of Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?

7:45 – 8:05 am.  Breakfast.  Read email, checked into Facebook.

8:05 – 8:15 am.  Checked Twitter.  Read this and this.  Regarding the latter: Anita Silvey’s Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac does a great public service, educating readers about children’s literature.  Regarding the former: efforts to censor & ban literature for children interests me.  In the case of Tintin in the Congo (the earlier link), the movement to censure derives from (what I read as) a progressive impulse.   The book does traffic in racial stereotypes.  It’s not a book I would give to a child.  Yet, nor would I be willing to ban it.  (I wrote a blog post on this subject a couple of years ago.)

8:15 – 9:20 am.  Finished a Routledge report that I started last night, and sent it in to Routledge.  And started on another Routledge report.

9:20 – 9:50 am.  Hat tip to Lori Sabian (via Facebook), which led me to this orchestra flash mob, playing Peer Gynt on the Copenhagen metro.

Things like this make me glad to be alive, glad that there are such people in the world.

In addition to checking into Facebook, also wrote one professional email, and listened to a very long automated speech to try to fix my Working Assets credit card: the new card’s three-digit security code doesn’t work on the USPS website, and so I’ve been unable to use the card.  (I haven’t tried it on other sites.)  Also burned a few CD mixes for friends.

9:50 – 10:00 am.  Prepared for a jog out to the car.  (It’s on campus, and Karin and I share a car.  Ordinarily, I would bike to the gym, but left hand still a bit wonky.  Bleah.)

10:00 – 11:10 am. Jogged to car, drove to gym, worked out at gym, drove back.  Really prefer cycling to gym.  It seems silly to drive somewhere for exercise.  Makes much more sense to bicycle there for exercise.

11:15 – 11:30 am.  Drank water.  Read some email.  Professional correspondence re: Oslo conference.  Nothing yet from Eric re: Barnaby.  Expecting a list of still-missing strips today.

11:30 am – 12:00 pm.  Shower, shave, dress.  Burned more mixes.

12:00 – 12:10 pm.  Read piece on Sendak from New York Magazine.  George (agent) sent it to me.  Wrote back to him.

12:10 – 12:30 pm.  Walked down to the Credit Union (money), and then on to Bluestem to meet friend & colleague Dan Hoyt for lunch.

12:30 – 2:10 pm.  Lunch with Dan Hoyt.  Now, this is something that never (or almost never) happens during the school year.  Lunch out with a friend!  Highly unusual.  I work with a lot of great people, but we’re all usually too busy to spend much time with each other.  So, to all who wish to criticize academics for “goofing off” during the summer, feel free to use this long lunch as evidence.

2:10 – 2:30 pm.  Walked back home, read a few emails en route, and then wrote the preceding.

2:30 – 3:45 pm.  Reviewing for Routledge.  Also answered professional emails, including one re: recent scholarship on children’s lit and politics.

3:45 – 4:00 pm.  Guitar break.  Still have difficulty with E-string major barre chords, but left hand is recovering.  Played “Pretty in Pink,” “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” ”You Meet the Nicest People in Your Dreams.”  In case you don’t know that last one, here is Fats Waller’s rendition: You Meet the Nicest People in Your Dreams.  It’s one of my favorite songs, hence its inclusion on this jaunty mix from a month or so back.

4:00 – 5:35 pm.  Routledge, continued. Finished review of prospectus & chapters.  Also sent email to Eric re: Barnaby, and received reply with promise of that required info. would be forthcoming.

5:35 – 6:55 pm.  To Claflin Books to pick up some books I’d ordered.  (Whenever possible, I’m trying to buy from local bookshops, rather than Amazon.)  Other errands.  Also picked up Karin from campus.

6:55 – 7:05 pm.  Facebook.

7:05 – 8:20 pm.  During dinner prep, read more of Going Bovine to Karin.  Then, dinner with a Daily Show (from last week, & one that we hadn’t seen).  Washed dishes.

8:20 – 8:30 pm. Read email, wrote one (professional), and added New York Magazine piece on Sendak to links (at bottom of my tribute page).

8:30 – 8:50 pm. Printed some labels for & burned a few mixes. Will send these out tomorrow.

8:50 - 11:20 pm.  There’s more Routledge stuff to do, but I’m turning to something that I really want to complete this week.  Revising, expanding, restructuring an essay that theorizes the difference between comics and picture books.  It’s me at my most formalist, and it’s a question I’m very much invested in.  I’m doing a lot of restructuring, both within paragraphs (the version I gave at MLA had a more deductive structure, and the argument is clearer if I give it an inductive structure) and in the larger body of the piece (changing the order of paragraphs).  I’m also bringing in examples. For the conference-paper version, I simply showed the images up on the screen.  For this printed version, I will not be able to rely upon images. (If I can summon the energy to do so, I may seek rights for a few, but… certainly nowhere near as many as I used in the talk.)

11:20 pm – 12:00 am.  Checked into Facebook, and read Jon Scalzi’s excellent “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.”  It uses video games as a metaphor to explain privilege, and it does so brilliantly.  Hat tips to Jonathan Beecher Field and Laine Nooney.  At this point, I think we should also add that Paul Karasik’s Master Class in Comics Narrative looks fantastic.  Thanks to Bridgid Shannon, watched this recent piece, in which Maurice Sendak talks about Melville, Blake, comics, “the strangeness of childhood,” and why his favorite books (of his own) are all considered “inappropriate.”

Total work time: 7 hours, 25 minutes.

And… concluding with a song.  Was hoping for the Pogues’ “Tuesday Morning,” but couldn’t find a YouTube video I liked.  So, we’ll go with the classic Dropkick Murphys number, “Workers’ Song.”

If you found a day’s work in (my) academic life to be of little interest, then it’s hard to believe that you’d want to read any of these posts:

• The full “What Do Professors Do All Summer?” series (May 2012): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, … in progress (I’ll add links each day).
• The full “What Do Professors Do All Day?” series (Feb. 2011): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & What Do Professors Do All Week? (the final post).
• Other posts tagged Academe, Advice, or Autobiography.

The week’s ongoing experiment in trying my readers’ (or “reader’s,” singular?) patience continues.  In a (possibly misguided) attempt to make academic labor visible, I’m documenting how I spend my days during this first week of summer, when academics are allegedly “on vacation.”  Here is day 3.

Monday, 14 May 2012.

12:00 – 1:55 am.  Caught and fixed a few typos in yesterday’s post.  Responded to some Facebook stuff.  Also responded to kind note from comics scholar extraordinaire, Prof. Charles Hatfield.  Whenever I have questions about comics, I always turn to Charles.  Washed some dishes, put others in dishwasher.  Prepared for bed, read another chapter of Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?

1:55 – 8:00 am.  Sleep.

8:00 – 8:31 am.  Rose, 50 jumping jacks, stretched.  Posted link to yesterday’s post on Twitter.  Checked into Facebook as well.

8:31 – 9:15 am.  Ran 4 miles.  In playground en route, included both upside-down push-ups (see Saturday for explanation) and chin-ups, without further injuring left hand.

9:15- 9:20 am.  Turned on sprinkler to encourage new grass.  Also removed some brush/weeds that I’d been meaning to remove.

9:20 – 9:50 am.  Inside.  Drank water.  Checked Twitter.  Gary Groth has posted an excerpt from his forthcoming (in The Comics Journal) interview with Maurice Sendak.  Must read this after finishing exercises.  His description of Maurice as “gregariously grumpy” is exactly right.  Wrote two professional emails, and one personal one (to my sister).

9:50 – 10:20 am.  Post-running exercises. Did abdominals, as per usual.  For the first time since injuring my left hand, experimented with push-ups.  The only way I can do them is to make a fist, and use my fists to hold me up — but the fists aren’t quite as resilient a structure as flat hands or hands holding onto weights. I could not do the usual number: muscles capable, but left hand starts to spasm (& so I stop).  Disappointing, but at least I’m doing these again.

10:20 – 10:50 am.  Breakfast!  Also responded to some people on Twitter.  Took a second look at the NYT‘s collection of artists’ tributes to Maurice Sendak.  Art Spiegelman, Tomi Ungerer, Marc Rosenthal, Bob Staake, others.  Here’s Spiegelman’s.  (Click for a larger image.)

And check out the others artists’ work on the Times‘ page, too.  Have added this and Michael Rosen’s tribute (hat tip to Susan Marie Swanson on Twitter) to collection of links at bottom of my tribute.

10:50 – 11:30 am.  More business correspondence, including following up with Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics.  Having received updated meeting notes from Lori Cohoon, I also updated the Children’s Literature Association MLA liaison’s report & sent the new version into Kathy at ChLA.

11:30 – 11:35 am. Wrote back to my cousin, Caro.

11:35 – 11:50 am. More  business correspondence, including note to Jeff Smith’s assistant at Cartoon Books.  So great we’ll be able to use (in our article on Moby-Dick and Bone) pristine images from the artist himself.  Thanks, Kathleen!

11:50 am – 12:20 pm.  Shower (& shave & dress) at last!  (The problem of checking email before finishing exercises means that I also end up answering it before showering.)  Listening to Fake Natives’ Fake Natives.  Local band influenced by late 1970s / early 1980s new wave.  Good stuff.  Check out title track and “West Is Best” for starters.  After seeing them last Friday, I promised the lead singer that I’d send him a mix of Robyn Hitchcock — I think he’d like Hitchcock.  Need to do that.

12:20 – 12:40 pm. Business correspondence: good response from Eric at Fantagraphics. I’m finding out ways I can pitch in to help move The Complete Barnaby Vol. 1 more swiftly to press.

12:40 – 1:20 pm. Lunch!  Also read another chapter of Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?… which extended my lunch for another 10 minutes or so.  I think the chapter “Mind” is where this book is really coming together for me — and not just because it makes extended use of the plexiglass dome in Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book (!).  One of my tasks for this summer (I would like to say “for this week,” but let’s be realistic, shall we?) is posting a sampling of my Seuss students’ “Sighting Seuss” projects.  Really interesting work.

1:20 – 2:00 pm.  Barnaby-related correspondence.  Also, revised that ChLA-MLA liaison report yet again.  Oy.

2:00 – 2:30 pm.  Personal-professional correspondence.  Well, in truth, this one is more personal.  But Jules Walker Danielson (who runs the BEST picture book blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) is one of my children’s lit buddies.  And music buddies!  Speaking of, during this time period, also burned that Robyn Hitchcock mix for Dan (lead singer of Fake Natives).  Gotta burn Jules a mix, too.

2:30 – 2:35 pm.  Prepared to leave for campus to attend meeting.

2:35 – 2:50 pm.  Walked to campus.  Wish my left hand had recovered enough to work the bicycle’s brakes.

2:50 – 4:30 pm.  Arrived 10 minutes early so that I could get a seat.  Meeting: “Special Session of the Faculty Senate: Faculty and Unclassified Salaries. How Do We Align Salaries with 2025?”  Room was packed.  Excellent turn-out from faculty and staff.  At Kansas State University, we receive no cost-of-living raises, and only get merit raises when there’s money (last one was 5 years ago).  In January, we did get an across-the-board 2.5% raise — which President Schulz described as a de facto “cost-of-living raise.”  But that’s a one-time event.  In sum, the meeting was to address the long-term salary compression problems faced by those who work for the university — a side effect of the nationwide movement to privatize erstwhile public higher education.  (Kansas State University receives 23%-24% of its budget from the state.  The legislature and governor prefer an indirect tax on the students — in the form of tuition increases — to keep the university going.  Kansas favors tax breaks for businesses and the wealthy, and increasing the costs that everyone else has to pay.)  The meeting was worth attending, and our President is an effective administrator and communicator.  However, whether anything will come of this discussion remains to be seen.

4:30 – 4:45 pm.  Walked home.

4:45 – 5:30 pm.  Wrote the preceding, undertook more business correspondence (including Barnaby/Fantagraphics and invited talk in Missouri next spring), & sent off FINAL version of that liaison report.

5:30 – 5:50 pm.  Personal correspondence.  Quick note back to Jules Danielson, & note to my mother.

5:50 – 6:50 pm.  Routledge editorial work.  I have been meaning to get to this all day.  I became editor of Routledge’s Children’s Literature and Culture series last June, which is proving to be more time-consuming than I’d anticipated.  I think I was last caught up on these in… March.

6:50 – 7:15 pm. Read Going Bovine to Karin during dinner preparation.

7:15 – 8:25 pm.  Watched last night’s Mad Men: “Dark Shadows.”  Also read this and this.  I love learning about the research that Matthew Weiner & co. build into the episodes.  The New York Times piece that upsets Pete was a real article.  Oh, and if you enjoy the “Inside Mad Men” pieces, here’s the one for that episode (with, yes, spoilers).

8:25 – 8:35 pm.  Professional correspondence — which, like all such correspondence, is partially personal.

8:35 – 9:00 pm.  More Routledge work. Also snuck in a tiny bit of professional correspondence.

9:00 – 9:10 pm.  Added this Mo Willems piece to my Sendak links (at the bottom of this page).  Hat tip to Jules Danielson.  Also added this reminiscence from Alec Baldwin.

9:05 – 11:05 pm.  Routledge work, which is: reading sample chapters, proposals, & writing responses to same.

11:05 – 11:45 pm.  Checked into Facebook, read Libby Gruner’s Sendak tribute, which I’ve added to my Sendak links (bottom of this page).  I think it will take all of us children’s literature people quite a while to work through the loss. It’s so huge, so vast.  Immeasurable, really.  Also looked at these beautiful sheet music covers by René Magritte from the 1920s (HT to Bill Genereux).  Magritte is one of my favorite artists.  Never seen these before.

11:45 pm – 12:00 am.  More business correspondence, all Barnaby-related.  Some connected to volume 1, and some connected to volume 3.  (It’s a 5-volume series, & the goal is to publish 1 per year.)

Total work time: 7 hours, 45 min.  Main problem today was all of that email.  I predict a decline in email volume tomorrow, during which I will get up to date on Routledge stuff, and get cracking on this piece theorizing comics and picture books — needs to be restructured, developed, etc.

Concluding with a song.  Predictably, it’s New Order’s “Blue Monday” (1983).

If you found this tour through the mundane to be alarmingly bland, then I suspect you’ll want to avoid:

• The full “What Do Professors Do All Summer?” series (May 2012): Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, … in progress (I’ll add links each day).
• The full “What Do Professors Do All Day?” series (Feb. 2011): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & What Do Professors Do All Week? (the final post).
• Other posts tagged Academe, Advice, or Autobiography.

Continuing what I started yesterday, I’m continuing this week’s chronicle of what a professor does in the summer. As noted, it’s an attempt to make visible the work that academics do when most people think we’re on holiday. So. If you found yesterday’s post dull and yet slogged through it anyway, then you’re in luck: today’s post will continue to be disappointingly mundane.

Sunday, 13 May 2012.

12:00 – 1:15 am. Tooled around a bit more on that mix, started dishwasher, washed dishes-that-don’t-go-in-dishwasher, checked in on Facebook, prepared for bed.  Read another chapter of Fun Home.

8:00 – 9:30 am.  Watched CBS Sunday Morning, in anticipation of seeing a tribute to Maurice Sendak.  The show did a brief piece on three people who died this week: Nicholas Katzenbach, Sendak, and Vidal Sassoon. Too brief, but they got Sendak right, noting that he didn’t uphold the romantic ideal of childhood.  I checked into Facebook & Twitter. I read Maria Nikolajeva’s family chronicle (part 1, part 2, part 3). I think these chronicles have a particular interest for me because my own family is diasporic: my immediate family lives in New England, Mexico, and Switzerland; extended family (cousins, aunts & uncles) in South Africa (mostly), England, California, and Australia (though, to be honest, I’ve long since fallen out of touch with the cousin in Australia). I read pieces on Maurice Sendak by Steven Heller and Shirley Hughes, and updated my links of Sendak tributes (at the bottom of my own reminiscence).  Read Anita Silvey’s piece on Kevin Henkes’ Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse. So glad she does this blog.  For Mother’s Day, posted (on my blog) a clip of Bruce Springsteen dancing with his 90-year-old mother (planned weeks ago, when I found the clip). Speaking of Mother’s Day, today’s Cul de Sac (a repeat from 2008) is great, as always. On list of books I need to get: The Mighty Alice, the latest Cul de Sac collection.

9:30 – 9:40 am. Read Sunday comics.

9:40 – 9:50 am.  Answered email (academic).  Found notes Lissa and I made (back in January) for our Oslo Keywords talk.

9:50 – 10:50 am. Actually wrote up and turned in my ChLA-MLA liaison report, thanks to Lori Cohoon’s meeting notes.  (Thanks, Lori!  And thanks to Jennifer Miskec, who sent them to me.)  Also, more email.  And spent a few minutes fiddling with that mix I mentioned last night.  And made plans to talk to Lissa re: Oslo Keywords talk this afternoon.  So, mostly but not entirely work during this period.

10:50 am – 12:00 pm.  Finished mix, burned it, made label. In the shower, I came up with a promotional idea for the bio of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss.  Have proposed this idea to press; we’ll see what they say.

12:00 – 12:30 pm. Wrote personal emails. Added another Sendak link to my reminiscence (at bottom of page).

12:30 – 1:35 pm. Lunch. Also caught up on the last 2 weeks’ worth of daily comics. The Kansas City Star runs 2 pages of comics, but I sometimes fall behind.  Usually, I catch up on the weekend, but last weekend was too busy, evidently.

1:35 – 2:05 pm. Nap.

2:05 – 2:30 pm.  Spoke with Lissa Paul re: our Oslo Keywords talk, and friendly conversation, too.  My work conversations tend also to be conversations with friends — which makes it hard to separate work from non-work.

2:30 – 2:55 pm.  Wrote up description of our Oslo talk, and sent it to Lissa for review. Also responded to my sister re: visiting her (& Michel & my niece, Emily!) prior to that talk. I booked my ticket for a day later than she’d advised me to. (To arrive in Zurich on a Friday, one would need to lave Kansas on a Thursday. D’oh!) I seem highly accident-prone in booking international travel. I once arrived a day late to a conference in Japan because I forgot to factor in the fact that I would be crossing the International Date Line.

2:55 – 3:15 pm.  Spoke/typed via gmail chat with Jennifer Hughes. This was mostly friendly conversation, though we did talk a little bit about our article on Moby-Dick and Jeff Smith’s Bone. We finished revisions last weekend (it was accepted with revisions by The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics), and have been waiting on permission from Jeff Smith.  That was granted (thanks, Jeff!), and now his assistant is preparing to send us the images we’re going to use — this will ensure that only the best quality images of his work appear in print.

3:15 – 6:00 pm.  Professional correspondence — though, here, too, these colleagues are also friends.  So, though it’s correspondence with more of a “business” purpose, it’s also friendly.  Also, in my capacity as ChLA-MLA liaison, sent in to the Children’s Lit Association’s Kathy Kiessling the ChLA MLA Call for Papers 2013, edition.  Reviewed copy-edited book review for South Atlantic Quarterly — it’s of Eric Tribunella’s Melancholia and Maturation, which is really good.  My review (which says that & more) will appear in SAR … well, I don’t know when.  Fall, perhaps?  Received Lissa’s comments on our description, and sent it off to Nina Christensen (one of the conference organizers).  I’ve never been to Norway before, and am looking forward to going.

6:00 – 6:50 pm.  Phone call to Mom.  Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there!

6:50 – 7:00 pm.  Checked Facebook.

7:00 – 8:00 pm. With dinner, watched last week’s Mad Men: “Lady Lazarus.”  Also folded laundry and watched the extra “Inside Mad Men” bit (it comes with the iTunes subscription).

8:00 – 9:30 pm. Watched this week’s Sherlock: “The Hounds of Baskerville.”

9:30 - 10:45 pm.  Folded & put away laundry.  Finished weekly email to family that I started at around noon.  Called United to see if I could make my August flight a day earlier, in order fix my mistake.  I can.  Annoyed at myself for being an idiot (costs me a couple hundred bucks to make the change), but this is the better option — the trains I would have had to take instead would be comparably expensive.  Perhaps someday, I will learn how to use these travel websites.  (True, on that day, I could save myself further money by just hitching a ride on the nearest flying pig.)  Also read Tim Goodman’s analysis of the Mad Men ”Lady Lazarus” episode.  And worked on this blog post.

10:45 – 11:25 pm.  Thinking about my graphic novel class in the fall, read Michael A. Chaney’s “Is There an African-American Graphic Novel?” in Stephen Tabachnick’s Teaching the Graphic Novel (2009). The only book I’ve read that might “qualify” is Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro (2008). Chaney mentions four books I need to read before ordering my books for the fall: Ho Che Anderson’s King; Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin, and Kyle Baker’s Birth of a Nation; Lance Tooks’ Narcissa; and Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington’s Static Shock.  The books by McGruder and Tooks are out of print.  King is in print, but only in hardcover.  The descriptions, on-line, look excellent.  This article also led me to Christian Davenport’s discussion of black superheroes.

Looked at some other essays in Tabachnick’s book.  Also emailed Charles Hatfield (who, incidentally. wrote the opening essay in Teaching the Graphic Novel) re: the essay-length version of my contribution to his “Why Comics Are and Are Not Picture Books” panel.  It’s on the docket for this week.

11:25 – 11:40 pm.  Answered some queries re: the Children’s Literature Program.  People want to know whether we have a doctorate or an on-line version.  We do not have either.  Usually, I answer these queries within 24 hours, but — since all were asking for something we cannot provide — I’m a bit tardier than usual.  One query was from a few days ago, but another was from April 26.  What happens is emails to which I can offer a helpful reply get priority; other, less urgent ones, get buried in my in box.  This is not an excellent system, I admit.

11:45 – 12:00 pm.  Logged into Facebook, answered professional email via Facebook — friend putting me in touch with possible book-promotion event this fall.  Need to follow up again with Fantagraphics: Until I have a definite date on The Complete Barnaby Vol. 1, it’s too early to schedule anything.  Really hope that they manage to bring this book out by September (they’d originally said June, but delays in finding strips have slowed the project down).  If this book and the bio. can come out more or less at the same time, then there are potential cross-promotional opportunities.  If they don’t, then there aren’t.  Also checked Twitter.  Watched this lovely short (3-minute) animated film:

Believe it or not, it’s a student project.  Hat tip to Rebecca Coffindaffer on Facebook.

Total work time: 5 hrs, 40 min.  Not the most productive Sunday I’ve ever had, but I’m OK with that.  It’s been a busy term.

In conclusion, here’s today’s musical number: the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (1967, written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin):

If you found this exercise in educational exhibitionism to be unbearably tedious, then you’ll also want to miss:

• The full “What Do Professors Do All Summer?” series (May 2012): Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, … in progress (I’ll add links each day).
• The full “What Do Professors Do All Day?” series (Feb. 2011): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & What Do Professors Do All Week? (the final post).
• Other posts tagged Academe, Advice, or Autobiography.

In honor of Mother’s Day (May 13), here’s some footage of Bruce Springsteen dancing with his 90-year-old mother.  The clip, recorded on March 29, comes to you here courtesy of Springsteen fan TheMagikRat.

Happy Mother’s Day!

For a week in February of 2011, I blogged exactly what I did each day — the goal being to show precisely how academics spend their time. Starting today, I’m beginning the summer edition of the same experiment. From today through Friday the 18th, I will publicly keep track of how I use my time as a Professor of English at Kansas State University… who is ostensibly on “summer vacation.”

My motive? Professors often hear, ”How nice that you get summers off!” It is true that we do not teach in the summers — if we elect not to teach, and there are plenty who do teach.  One gets paid for teaching, and if you’ve received no raise in (for example) 5 years, then that’s a way to pick up “extra” money.  I elect not to teach, and instead continue the unpaid work of service and research.  I say “unpaid” because I do not receive a salary from the university in the summers. But I do other work.  And, since I gave my last final yesterday, today would be the first day of my summer.

Saturday, 12 May 2012.

12:00 – 12:45 am.  Preparing for bed.  In bed, started reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (2012), which is great — and, incidentally, connected to my field (I teach and study children’s literature and comics/graphic novels).

12:45 – 8:00 am. Asleep. First time I’ve gotten over 7 hours of sleep since — well, since the previous weekend.  Night before, I only got 4 hours.  5, the night before that.

8:00 – 8:15 am.  Up, checking weather.  Light rain.  Run or not?  While dithering over that question, checked into Facebook.

8:15 – 8:30 am. 50 jumping jacks, pre-running stretches, dressed for running.

8:30 – 9:15 am.  Ran 4 miles (I’m not very fast), during which I also stopped at a playground for a set of what I call upside-down push-ups (keeping body in plank position, head facing up, do chin-ups on bar close to ground) and one set of chin-ups.  Especially pleased about the latter: it’s the first time I’ve been able to do them since injuring my left hand in a bicycling accident on the 1st of the month.  (I seemed to have pulled/bruised some muscles in the hand. It’s recovering, but slowly.)

9:15 – 9:30 am. Drank water, read email, wrote the preceding.

9:30 – 9:45 am.  Post-running exercises.  Restricted myself to abdominals. Since injuring left hand, have been avoiding the push-ups.  Think I might be able to manage them again, but am wary of exacerbating injury.  Decided to reintroduce them after Monday’s run.

9:45 – 10:00 am.  Breakfast!  Also read Gail Collins’ “The Anatomy of a Jokester” (found article via Facebook feed, HT to Toni Tadolini).  Though Mr. Romney changes his political positions with the shifting political winds, I think he may be telling the truth when he says he doesn’t remember bullying people in high school.  People on the receiving end of power remember acutely the injustices done to them; powerful people can more easily forget the injustices they inflict.  The bullied have longer memories than the bullies.

10:00 – 11:30 am.  Shower, shave, dress, recycling, lamp, talk.  To explain the last half of that, despite its population of over 50,000, Manhattan Kansas has neither municipal trash service nor recycling pick-up.  We (as do most residents) pay an independent company for trash pick-up, but take in the recycling ourselves.  ”Lamp” = “took in lamp to be repaired,” and “talk” = “chatted with Karin, who had returned from graduation” (as Dept. Head, she is obliged to attend).

11:30 – 11:35 am.  Answered email (business).

11:35 am – 12:45 pm. I intended to finish grading my last finals yesterday (this final took place yesterday afternoon).  I did start grading them, but I instead got involved with other business (professional emails & my blog, mostly).  So, first task is to finish this last set of finals.

12:45 – 1:40 pm. Brought in supplies (purchased by Karin), read to her from Libba Bray’s Going Bovine, which is just entering its “road trip” phase.  If you haven’t seen the trailer for this book, you should go and watch it.  With lunch, we caught up on the Colbert Report — Wednesday’s episode.

1:40 – 2:40 pm. Lissa Paul and I are invited speakers at a children’s literature conference in Oslo, late August.  I’ve been meaning to buy my plane tickets (for which the conference will reimburse me) since… February.  Assisted by Karin, I’ve got the tickets, which also includes a visit (prior to the talk) to my 1-year-old niece and her parents (in Basel, Switzerland).  Always a challenge plotting travel from Manhattan Kansas to, well, to anywhere.  Also contacted conference organizer with my travel, and tried to see if Lissa and I had made notes for a description of our talk (it’s on Keywords for Children’s Literature, which she and I co-edited).

2:40 – 3:00 pm.  Checked into Facebook, read about Gov. Brownback’s plans to bankrupt the state, allowing him to further cut funds to public schools and social services. Also read this great piece on a company that makes toys based on children’s drawings (hat tip to Brian Herrera).  Couldn’t find notes for talk, so dropped Lissa a line re the talk description.  Emailed my sister re above-mentioned travel plans.

3:00 – 5:20 pm.  Resumption of grading.  Music: Buddy Rich Quintet & Max Roach Quintet’s Rich vs. Roach (1959).  Those drums keep me awake and focused!  Also listened to a “Different Rhythms” mix-in-progress of drum-based music.  And finished grading.

5:20 – 5:40 pm.  Calculated final grades, entered final grades, checked them, and then submitted them for this.  (Turned in grades for other two classes on Thursday.)  Also helped Karin cart in the groceries.  So, excepting the odd complaint, that’s it for the term!  I’m hoping there are no complaints, but — since the gradebook is electronic — students have been this week kvetching about their grades, sending me emails.  Perhaps that’s gotten it out of their systems.  I don’t know.

5:40 – 6:10 pm.  Re-read some of Maurice Sendak‘s books: Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water (1965), Alligators All Around (1962), What can you do with a shoe? (words by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, 1955), How Little Lori Visited Times Square (words by Amos Vogel, 1963).  Recently, I decided that I should, over time, collect the Sendak books I didn’t have.  A couple of months back, I picked up a used copy of Marcel Aymé’s The Wonderful Farm (1951, though my copy is a 1994 reprint): that’s the first book he illustrated for Ursula Nordstrom, who would be his editor for so many of his greatest works.

During this period of time, I also responded to a professional email.

6:10 – 7:10 pm.  Read Karin Going Bovine during dinner prep.  Watched a Daily Show with dinner.

7:10 – 10:10 pm.  To the movie theatre for… The Avengers!  A clever adaptation.  Joss Whedon‘s script supplies ample wit, and his direction brings the action.  SPOILER ALERT: I want to read the death of the fan (Agent Phil Coulson, played by Clark Gregg) as a comment on the fans who’ve threatened to boycott The Avengers over Marvel and Stan Lee’s poor treatment of those who actually created the work.  You know: Kill the fans!  But I suspect I’m locating themes that Whedon didn’t weave into it.  The film was a great example of its genre.  I wouldn’t say that it fully overcame the limitations of the contemporary superhero film, but it did a fine job working within those confines.  Whedon understands the characters, their relationships, and gave Black Widow a real role in the film; she was an equal with the other Avengers.  Oh, and since I teach and write about comics, I could officially count this as “work”!  Ha!  Often, I think that the lack of a boundary between my professional life and personal life can be a problem.  In this instance, I’m actually quite delighted.

10:10 – 10:30 pm.  Wrote the preceding and watched the CBS Sunday Morning profile on Whedon.

10:30 – 11:15 pm. As liaison between the Children’s Literature Association and the Modern Language Association, I was asked to send in a report (to the former) this past Monday — the beginning of exam week, likely the busiest week of the term.  The other cause for my delay is that I no longer have time to execute my duties as well as I would like: I manage to get all essential stuff in on time (i.e., MLA deadlines are met), but I’m otherwise just too overwhelmed.  When I started in 2007, I could keep up.  Now, I find that impossible.  Unfortunately, my term as liaison doesn’t end until 2013.  BUT my larger point is: I worked on the report.  Tried and failed to locate my notes from the meeting; have contacted Executive Committee of MLA Children’s Lit Division, since they will have meeting notes.  I’ve asked if I can step down before 2013 (when my term ends), but I’ve been told that I cannot.

11:20 – 12:00 pm.  Wrote up some of the preceding (I’ve been keeping track all day).  Noodled around on a mix.  I make mixes for fun.  This one is a gift for a friend.  (Ain’t sayin’ who!)

Total work time: 6 hrs, 40 min.  I didn’t include The Avengers, but I did include ten minutes each time we read Going Bovine, and the re-reading of Sendak.  Thinking about and reading children’s literature (& culture) is my job.

For the previous “What Do Professors Do All Week?” experiment, I used a children’s book for each day of the week; this, time, I’ll include a song.  Here’s the Godfathers’ “Birth, School, Work, Death” (1986)

If you found this post tedious, then you certainly won’t enjoy:

• The full “What Do Professors Do All Summer?” series (May 2012): Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, … in progress (I’ll add links each day).
• The full “What Do Professors Do All Day?” series (Feb. 2011): Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & What Do Professors Do All Week? (the final post).
• Other posts tagged Academe, Advice, or Autobiography.

Fitting that the passing of an artist should inspire so much art.  Here are a few tributes to Maurice Sendak that I’ve enjoyed. (I’ve assembled links to prose tributes at the bottom of my reminiscence of Maurice; The Comics Journal has its own page of mostly prose tributes, too.)

Pat Bagley

This is easily my favorite, and the one that I think Sendak himself would most have enjoyed. Pat Bagley dos a great job in representing Sendak’s un-sentimental approach to death. Sendak often spoke of his own mortality, and accepted the inevitable with a dark sense of humor.

Hanna Freiderichs (a.k.a. AgarthanGuide)

Under her Deviant Art pseudonym ArgathanGuide, Hanna Friederichs has created Avengers in a Sendakian parade.  You can find it on her Deviant Art page and Tumblr.  The image calls to mind Sendak’s many parades — in Ruth Krauss’s A Hole Is to Dig (1952), and his own Where the Wild Things Are (1963). The above image derives from a less well-known source: his 1961 mural for Larry and Nina Chertoff that now resides in the Rosenbach Museum.

The photo of Sendak’s mural, above, comes from The History Blog‘s great story about it, which I recommend.

Update, 13 May, 9:30 am: Thanks to Roger Sutton’s post, added Hanna Friederichs’ full name.

Harry Bliss

Harry Bliss‘s graveside portrait of Babar, Madeline, Curious George, and the Man with the Yellow Hat evokes how everyone in the children’s literature community has felt — artists, scholars, writers, librarians, teachers, editors, agents, all of us.  Losing Maurice Sendak has felt like a death in the family.  As Kenneth Kidd put it, “Could be the select company I keep, but my Facebook newsfeed is a virtual wake.”

Debbie Milbrath

Most artists invoke Where the Wild Things Are (presumably because it’s Sendak’s most recognizable work), but Debbie Milbrath references a more thematically appropriate work: Outside Over There (1981), in which Sendak filters the kidnapping (and accidental murder of) the Lindbergh baby through Mozart’s Magic Flute,  and ends up with a work that offers glimmers of hope through its darkness.

Andy Marlette

Andy Marlette imagines wild things paying tribute to Maurice Sendak.  There were many such cartoons — I’ve only included a few here.

Jeff Koterba

Jeff Koterba makes Sendak into Max, apt since — as Sendak has admitted — Max is a version of Maurice himself.  I suspect Sendak intended an allusion to Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz (1865).

Nate Beeler

Nate Beeler imagines roaring terrible roars and gnashing terrible teeth — a first response to Maurice Sendak’s passing.  The first stage of grief.

Sarah McIntyre

Stuart Carlson

Stuart Carlson‘s tribute seems an apt one to end on. First, mourn. Next, hang your teddy bear, threaten the dog, shout at your mother, and board a boat (… to where the wild things are).

More on Sendak from Nine Kinds of Pie (this blog):

• The Most Wild Thing of All: Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012.  9 May 2012.  Remembering Maurice (including an extract from an interview I did with him in 2001).  At the bottom of the page, I’ve assembled links to many other Sendak tributes, obituaries, and so on.
• Eat, drink, and be merry.  8 Oct. 2011.  My review of Bumble-Ardy.
• In or Out?: Crockett Johnson, Ruth Krauss, Sexuality, Biography.  17 Feb. 2011.  I never talked about Sendak’s sexuality with him, and whether it was something Ruth and Dave knew about. Now that he’s out, should I mention it in the  bio?  I wrote this post to try to figure that out.
• Children’s Literature + Music = Great Album Covers.  11 Mar. 2012. A gallery of album covers by artists who also create children’s books, including Sendak, Lane Smith, many others.

Graphic genius Chris Ware designed the cover for my Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (due this September from the University Press of Mississippi). The front cover is above.  The full, wrap-around cover is below.  Click on it for a larger image.  Trust me: you’ll really want to see all of the detail.  It’s beautiful.  It’s perfect.  I’ve never been happier about one of my book covers.  And for those keeping count, there are six previous books (two co-edited), all of which have striking covers.  The other designers were no slouches.

But Chris Ware is a genius. And no, I am not overusing that word.  But, yes, perhaps we should add a few more words to describe the cover itself. Clever. Detailed. Vivid. Art.

He’s done the cover in the style of Crockett Johnson.  In the case of the girl dancing above Krauss’s typewriter, it’s Mary Blair filtered through a Crockett Johnson aesthetic; for the boy sliding own her back, it’s Maurice Sendak filtered through Johnson. (The girl is from Krauss‘s I Can Fly, illustrated by Blair; the boy is from her A Hole is to Dig, illustrated by Sendak.)  Finally, Ware transforms all of these styles into something uniquely his own.

Fans of Johnson and Krauss: Are you getting all of the references here?  Would you like some help?  I could fully annotate this cover, but I wonder if that would detract from the pleasure of exploring it yourself.  The academic in me wants to proceed with the annotations, but the art lover wants to stay silent, so that your eyes can linger on Ware’s art, looking slowly, experiencing it on its own terms.  And… the art lover wins.  (No annotations.)  Enjoy!

And: Thank you, Chris Ware!

But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go—

We’ll eat you up—we love you so!”

And Max said, “No!”

—Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

In June 2001, I went to hear Maurice Sendak speak at Yale University. A couple of years earlier, I’d started working on a biography of Crockett Johnson, and I knew they were close. I had written him to see if he would be willing to chat, but, the previous April, he had declined via a letter from his assistant: “Mr. Sendak does not have any useful recollection relating to Ruth and Dave…. He hopes your research yields more valuable results and best wishes!” So, I thought: I need to try again. I’ll go, I’ll ask him during the Q+A period. When that time came, I was very nervous. He’d already turned me down once. What if he gets angry at me for pestering him? But… I plucked up my courage, and asked.

He looked me in the eyes, and after the briefest pause said Yes. I should talk to him after the Q+A. I did. He wrote his home number down in my notebook, and told me to call.  I did.

I remain astonished at his extraordinary generosity toward me, who (at that time) had published a handful of articles and no books… and yet was going to write a biography. Why even give someone like me the time of day?

This is why. Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson — along with their mutual editor, Harper & Brothers’ Ursula Nordstrom — were the most important people in shaping his early career. In the early 1950s, he began visiting their Rowayton Connecticut home on the weekends, while working on Krauss’s books. They were his “weekend parents” who helped shape him into the great artist he would become. He stayed with them many times during the ’50s, illustrating eight of Krauss’s books, starting with the groundbreaking A Hole Is to Dig (1952).

So, he was willing to help me. I phoned, we chatted, and then set up a time for a longer conversation later that evening.  At 9pm on June 22nd, I phoned him.  We talked for the next two hours.  The phone call began like this:

Philip Nel: Let’s hope the tape works.

Maurice Sendak: Oh, you’re taping it?

PN: Yes, if that’s alright with you.

MS: Yes, that’s fine.  You’re going to hear an odd sound now and then which is my putting a colored pencil into my sharpener ’cause I’m going to try and draw as we speak.

PN: OK.

MS: I have to finish a page a day, a layout a day, for the book I’m doing.

PN: What are you doing?

MS: Well, it’s a book based on an opera, an opera that I’m going to produce.  I have a little children’s theatre which I’m getting rid of, but this is our last thing to do.  It’s an opera that was performed in a concentration camp in Prague, there’s a very famous concentration camp called Theresienstadt.  It was actually Emperor Tieresias’ army encampment right outside the city.  During the war, it became a camp, and it was known as Hitler’s favorite camp.  There was a movie made to impress Red Cross and diplomats coming that all that they were hearing about dead Jews, dead gypsies, dead gays was all a lie.  And a film was made showing volleyball and chess and children, part of a children’s opera, some brief moments.  And the true fact is that there was an opera composed in the camp.  A young composer named Hans Krasa and his librettist wrote an opera for the children in the camp.  And the opera is called Brundibar, and it’s one of the only things we have of Mr. Krasa except for a trio and some songs because he was incinerated when he was about 35 along with the librettist and all the children who performed the opera.

PN: Wow.

MS: We now have the rights to the opera — took us a long time to get it — and Tony Kushner, the playwright

PN: Yeah, Angels in America.

MS: Yeah.  Is one of my very most wonderful friends.  I begged him to take the job of translation because the original English translation is horrible.  The Czech is beautiful, but it’s got to be sung in English, so we translated it, and we got people interested in doing it, staging it.  It has been done, but in schools, in community centers.  It’s never had a real production.  And so in order to raise the money for it, we agreed we would do a picture book.  So, Tony extrapolated from the libretto into a very gorgeous complex story — the first time he’s ever done anything like this.  He’s amazing.  He just adapted it, without any fuss or feathers.  Gorgeous, gorgeous funny language.  And I’m doing the picture book because we need the money for the stage production, and Hyperion will pay for a good part of the stage production and the trade is they get the picture book.  And I was very sick for a year and a quarter, and of course I’m terribly late.  So, I’m trying very hard to catch up.

PN: Wow.

MS: And, it’s beautiful, beautiful work — a perfect way for me to wind up, actually.  So that is it.

PN: Wow.  I’ll be fascinated to see that — the book — when it comes out.

MS: Yeah, the book is evolving because Tony keeps rewriting and I keep rethinking, and we swore we would not make it too dark.  It would be the sweet, little Czech peasant opera.

PN: Well, good luck.

MS: It’s hopeless already.  I have Hitler in it, I have Eva Braun in it, I mean I’m just uncontrollable.

PN: It would be difficult to avoid the darkness.

MS: Impossible.  But, really, seriously must to an extent in order to not obscure what these people really set out to do, which was to write a charming piece to amuse the children.  It’s just that history beclouds it so much.  It is difficult to do.  It is difficult.  But it’s also great fun.  I’m having a wonderful time.

PN: I’m fascinated.  I’ll be interested when it comes out to show it to my class.

He asked about my class.  I had just begun teaching Literature for Children at Kansas State University.  “I always wonder how you teach children’s literature,” he said.  I offered to send him a syllabus.

MS: To me, it’s really a great mystery.

PN: Well, I’m new to teaching it.  I’ve taught it only for a year.  So, I’m pretty close to that sense of mystery.

MS: Well, once the mystery settles deep on you, then you’ll know how complex this thing is.  It’s always been considered low man on the totem pole, one page in the New York Times, and it’s all treated like Peter-Pan-ville.

PN: Right.

MS: It’s very tiresome, and it used to irritate me profoundly when I was young and now I just can’t afford the energy that goes to being irritated.

After a little more conversation, he started to tell me about Ursula.  And Ruth.  And Dave. (David was Crockett Johnson’s real first name, and his friends called him “Dave.”)  Maurice was very open, direct, and shared an enormous amount of deeply personal memories with me — tears in his eyes, as he described his visit to Ruth just before she died. I felt like his therapist, mostly listening, asking the occasional question. By the end of the conversation, I felt as if during the course of those two hours we had become old friends. He invited me to visit him in Ridgefield. I accepted.

(I never did manage to get out there, which is something I now very much regret, of course.)

Maurice Sendak became the biography’s third central character.  Dave and Ruth are the two co-stars, but Maurice gets third billing — or would, if the book were a film.  Beyond the decade of the 1950s, when he was collaborating with Ruth and staying with them some weekends, he visited in 1963 when he got stuck working on Where the Wild Things Are.  What should he call the three wordless two-page spreads in which Max and the wild things cavort in the forest?  Dave suggested “rumpus.”  So, just before the wordless pages start, Sendak has Max say, “Let the wild rumpus start!”  Dave and Ruth were so important to Where the Wild Things Are that Sendak has said, “I feel as though Max was born in Rowayton, and that he was the love child of me, Ruth, and Dave.”

Maurice and I collaborated on getting Crockett Johnson’s Magic Beach published in 2005, with an afterword by me and a foreword by him. We kept in touch. Generally, I’d write him a letter, and then a few days later, he’d phone me back. It was always astonishing to pick up the phone and hear Maurice’s voice on the other end. Or to find his voice on your answering machine. I don’t think I ever quite got over the fact that Holy cow, I’m talking with Maurice Sendak.  That, truly, was “the most wild thing of all!”

In the summer of 2008, I sent both him and Nina Stagakis (who knew Johnson and Krauss very well) an early draft of the manuscript up until the mid-1950s. How was I doing? Anything I might improve? Anything missing? As he recuperated from triple bypass surgery, he read what had become a double biography of both Johnson and Krauss.  On September 10th 2008, he left a message on my office phone.  He said he liked it, it was good work, but he had a few questions. Call him back. I did. He was hesitant to criticize, but I wanted to know. So, he offered his critique: “For me, it was me and Ruth.  And, for you, it was you and Dave.”  Ah, I said, so I need to have more Ruth in there.  He said, well, it’s your manuscript and you can do what you like.  I said, no, I want there to be a balance between the two.  He said, it’s “like a missing color from a palette.”

So, after our phone call, I started going back through the manuscript, and creating a map for each chapter that included a one-line summary of each paragraph which I then labeled either “CJ,” “RK” or “CJ-RK.”  I made the same map for all subsequent chapters, too.  This allowed me to see where the book was unbalanced, and to create a balance, trimming “CJ” sections, expanding “RK” sections.

Maurice was a little out of sorts that September night. In addition to being in recovery, he was also in mourning — his partner of 50 years, Dr. Eugene Glynn, had died the year before. And, at the start of our conversation, he alluded to an article about him in that day’s New York Times, which he described as “a very odd interview that’s very frank.” So, he said, “I’m telling you because I may sound odd.” Wondering what he was talking about, I looked it up (on-line) as we spoke. That’s the article where he at last talks openly about his sexuality. The interviewer asks whether there were anything he had never been asked, and Maurice answers, “Well, that I’m gay.” So, I think he may have feeling a little more vulnerable than usual that evening. (I expect that, if I had just told the New York Times a secret I’d been keeping for 80 years, I’d feel vulnerable, too.)

That was the last time we spoke.

He continued to be supportive of the biography, granting permission to use artwork, and sending me a scan of a photo of him in his 20s — I wanted an image of how he looked at the time he met Ruth and Dave. I believe my biography of Johnson and Krauss will mark the photo’s first publication, though I’m not sure.  But this was all done through his assistant, Jennifer.

My sense of his final years was that he was devoting the life he had left to his work and to mentoring other artists. So, though he no longer returned my occasional letters by phoning me, I figured: well, if I were in my 80s, I would also claim as much of my time for myself as I could! And: He’s been so very generous to me. I can’t complain. I could worry about him, though. I did worry about him.  Whenever he talked to the press, he sounded sad. And he’d sounded sad to me, when last we spoke.

I did write him, and thank him for all he’d done. I was planning to write him again, in a few months’ time, sending him a signed copy of the bio. and another thank-you. (Sigh….) Well, at least he got to see page proofs. The publisher sent him those a few months back.

When I heard the news this morning, “No!” was my first reaction. Yes, I knew he was 83, and he’s never been in the best of health. (He was sickly as a child, and had his first heart attack just before he turned 39.) Still, I assumed he’d always be there. I assumed I’d get the chance to write to him again.

But it was time for him to board Max’s boat and sail away.

Farewell, Maurice.  And thank you.

More on Maurice Sendak (last updated 16 May 2012, 7:15 pm Central Time):

• Philip Nel, “The King of the Wild Things Is Dead. Long Live the King. Maurice Sendak (1928-2012).” The Comics Journal, 10 May 2012.  My obituary, adapted from a longer piece appearing in The Comics Journal 302 (coming November 2012).  The Comics Journal has also assembled a page of “Maurice Sendak: Tributes” featuring Mo Willems, Seth, Mark Newgarden, Charles Hatfield, Lauren Weinstein, Peter Blegvad, more.  And I’ve assembled “Tributes to Maurice Sendak: Visual Artists Respond,” 11 May 2012.  The New York Times has also published artists’ tributes to Sendak, including work from Art Spiegelman and Tomi Ungerer.
• Margalit Fox, “Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nigthmares, Dies at 83.”New York Times, 8 May 2012.
• Derick Dreher and John C. Haas, “Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012.” Rosenbach Museum and Library, 8 May 2012.
• Alec Baldwin, “Rest in Peace, Maurice Sendak.”  Huffington Post, 10 May 2012.
• Brian Biggs (featuring Charles Hatfield), Maurice Sendak. Mr. Biggs.com, 8 May 2012.
• Elizabeth Bird, “Wild Thing, I Think I Loved You: Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012.” Fuse #8 (School Library Journal blog), 9 May 2012.
• CBC, “The Many Meanings of Where the Wild Things Are.”  Day 6 with Brent Bambury. CBC. 11 May 2012.
• Nick Clark, “Dead at 83, the beloved writer who showed children where the wild things were.”The Independent, 8 May 2012.
• Julie Walker Danielson, “Be Still.”  Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, 8 May 2012.  She’s gathered some more links at the end of her post “Stories Breathing,” 9 May 2012.
• Dave Eggers, “V.F. Portrait: Maurice Sendak.”  Vanity Fair, August 2011.
• Neil Gaiman, “Maurice Sendak: ‘Cannibals and Psychotics.’” Neil Gaiman’s Journal, 9 May 2012.
• Neil Gaiman, “My hero: Maurice Sendak.”  The Guardian, 11 May 2012.
• Terry Gross, “Fresh Air Remembers Maurice Sendak.”Fresh Air, 8 May 2012.
• Libby Gruner, “Mothering at Mid-Career: Maurice Sendak’s Gift to Mothers (and others).”  Inside Higher Ed, 14 May 2012.
• Michael Patrick Hearn, on Maurice Sendak.  Educating Alice, 16 May 2012.
• Steven Heller, “Thanks, Maurice.” New York Times, 12 May 2012.
• Horn Book, Maurice Sendak 1928-2012, Horn Book, 8 May 2012.  Includes links to several Horn Book pieces by our about Sendak.
• Shirley Hughes, “Maurice Sendak: An Appreciation.” The Observer, 12 May 2012.
• Hillel Italie, “Writers Remember Maurice Sendak.”  Chicago Sun Times, 8 May 2012.  Includes comments from Gregory Maguire, Judy Blume, Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket), Sandra Boynton.
• Kenneth B. Kidd, “Goodbye, Maurice. And Thank You.” University of Minnesota Press, 10 May 2012.
• Gregory Maguire, “Maurice Sendak: King of All Wild Things.”  CNN.com, 9 May 2012.
• Leonard S. Marcus, “Maurice Sendak: An Appreciation.”  Publishers Weekly, 10 May 2012.
• Chris Mautner, “Maurice Sendak, cartoonist: An appreciation.” Robot 6, 12 May 2012.
• Bill Moyers, “Maurice Sendak: ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’”  NOW.  PBS, 2004.
• Stephanie Nettell, “Maurice Sendak obituary.”The Guardian, 8 May 2012.
• NPR Staff, “An Inside Look at Sendak’s ‘Wonderful Magic.’”All Things Considered, 8 May 2012.  Illuminating conversation with Gregory Maguire.
• Aaron Renier, “Maurice.”  Aaron Renier, 9 May 2012.
• Michael Rosen, “Maurice Sendak: My tribute for BBC Radio 4  ’Last Word’” Michael Rosen, 11 May 2012.
• Sergio Ruzzier, “The Sendak Fellowship.”Sergio Ruzzier: A Picture Book Blog, 6 May 2012.
• Paul Schmid, Maurice Sendak, Paul Schmid Books and Illustration for Kids, 8 May 2012.
• Maurice Sendak, “Descent Into Limbo.”  May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture, MIT, April 2003.  Maurice takes the stage at 17:45.
• Kathryn Schulz, “Maurice Sendak: The King of the Wild Things.”  New York Magazine, 8 May 2012.
• Peter D. Sieruta, “Maurice Sendak: How It All Began.” Collecting Children’s Books, 8 May 2012. Great post includes artwork from the first book Sendak illustrated: Atomics for the Millions (1947).
• Laurel Snyder, “Maurice Sendak, Author Who Scared Generations of Kids.” Jewish Daily Forward, 9 May 2012.
• Art Spiegelman and Maurice Sendak, “In the Dumps.” Originally published in the New Yorker, 27 Sept. 1993.  Reproduced on Blown Covers, 8 May 2012.
• Art Spiegelman, Tomi Ungerer, Gary Taxali, Marc Rosenthal, Geoff McFetridge, Bob Staake, “Thanks, Maurice.” New York Times, 10 May 2012.  Beautiful series of artists’ tributes.
• Roger Sutton, “My friend Maurice.”Read Roger (Horn Book blog), 8 May 2012.
• Maria Tatar, “We Are All in the Dumps.” Breezes from Wonderland, 8 May 2012.
• Shaun Usher, image of Sendak-illustrated envelope to Nonny Hogrogian.  Letters of Note, 8 May 2012.
• “Mo Willems Remembers Author Maurice Sendak.” Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen. PRI, 13 May 2012.

More on Sendak from Nine Kinds of Pie (this blog):

• Tributes to Maurice Sendak: Visual Artists Respond. 11 May 2012
• Eat, drink, and be merry.  8 Oct. 2011.  My review of Bumble-Ardy.
• In or Out?: Crockett Johnson, Ruth Krauss, Sexuality, Biography.  17 Feb. 2011.  I never talked about Sendak’s sexuality with him, and whether it was something Ruth and Dave knew about. Now that he’s out, should I mention it in the  bio?  I wrote this post to try to figure that out.
• Children’s Literature + Music = Great Album Covers.  11 Mar. 2012. A gallery of album covers by artists who also create children’s books, including Sendak, Lane Smith, many others.

David Bowman — the writer, not the character in 2001: A Space Odyssey — died on February 27.  He was 54.  His obituary ran in this past Sunday’s Times.  He and I have had an on-and-off correspondence since the fall of 2000.  Upon reading his obituary, I realized (guiltily) that I’d failed to answer his last email (from November 2011).  It was a brief query, sent without much context.  I’m tempted to say that its pithy, unexpected appearance is representative of his work, but I may be oversimplifying.  He wrote:

Dear Phil,

Do you have kids?

I write to you to inquire about an experience that many children crave:

Being re-read the same story.

Have you ever come across a writer, esp. a child psychologist, who has explained just ‘why’ a child would want to hear the same story over & over?

Much thanks!

yrs. David Bowman, Manhattan

I’m not sure if he was just curious or whether this was for an article he was writing. I know that my delay in responding stemmed from needing to think about the question: had I come across such a piece?  Where would I look to find that information?

My David Bowman email folder has other queries, most of them similarly brief & thought-provoking.  He once said he would send me chapters of a novel-in-progress he was writing.  That never came to pass, but he did send me a description of the planned book — a detective novel told by an ex-KGB Russian defector named Simon Odarchenko who now works for Yoko Ono, cataloguing John Lennon’s thousands of hours of studio tapes.  And he sent me the table of contents for Why Don’t We Do It in The Road?: Encounters with the Notorious & Renown, a book that (as far as I know) was never published.  He also sent occasional verse, and brief observations, such as this one, from a 28 May 2007 email:

A. I am finally reading Proust.

B. Last week a New Yorker named Harvey Weinstein died at age 82. In 1993 Weinstein was kidnapped & kept for 12 days in a “barrel-shaped” pit near the Hudson river. He appears to had a little water & some crackers, but that was it. He had no light.

C. His obituary quotes his son as saying, “Dad said he maintained his composure during those 12 days in the pit by writing what he called the ‘greatest autobiography NEVER written.’ Every day he took a year in his life & recounted it out loud.”

Was Weinstein not the reincarnation of Proust minus the cork-lined walls?

That, I think, is more representative of David Bowman: Insight drawn from absurdity.  Succinct, strange, and true.

We “met” via email, and apart from one or two phone conversations, always communicated via email.  I taught his Bunny Modern (1998), a dystopian satire featuring gun-toting nannies and dwindling fertility rates, in my Fall 2000 “Readings in Contemporary American Novels” class.  He came across my syllabus on the web, and sent me an email:

Dear Prof. Nel,

I am honored to discover that you are including my novel BUNNY MODERN as reading material in one of your English classes. Will students be tested on BUNNY MODERN? Will they have to write papers? If I can do anything to help you present my novel to your students, please let me know.

All the best,

David Bowman

I asked him if we might send him some questions.  He very graciously supplied detailed answers — he was quite expansive, and the email must have taken him a long while to compose.  Also, it was really cool.  Here I was, my first semester on the tenure-track, corresponding with a contemporary novelist.  Wow!

Since I was then a DeLillo scholar, one topic of conversation was DeLillo’s work.  Indeed, prior to The Body Artist‘s publication, he sent me bound galleys c/o “the Mystik Brotherhood of Don DeLillo” at my office address.  I sent him photocopies of the Uncollected Short Fiction of Don DeLillo (some of which were collected last year in The Angel Esmerelda: Nine Stories, but many of which haven’t been collected).

A couple of years later, when I was writing Dr. Seuss: American Icon, I asked him about Bunny Modern‘s dedication to “Dr. Spock, Dr. Seuss, and Jonathan Lethem, M.D.” because I was (and am) interested in how Seuss circulates in popular culture: When people talk about Seuss, what do they mean?  He responded:

As for Dr. Seuss–– I knew that I was going to dedicate the book to Lethem. And I do not know anything about children, so I was referring to baby books––including Dr. Spock. Lethem and I took drugs one night and decided that everything we saw was going to be from Dr. Seuss. Later on, I just thought about the “Dr.” bit––Dr. Spock and Dr. Seuss. Then I decided to dedicate the book to Dr. Spock, Dr. Seuss and Jonathan Lethem MD.

In the book, I connected his response to the tendency to associate Seuss with mind-altering drugs, and then to Seuss’s own many jokes about same (mostly booze, for Seuss).

David Bowman was an original, a unique voice in American letters.  In the Times‘ obituary, Jonathan Lethem wisely cites Nathanael West as Bowman’s closest literary kin.  That’s an apt comparison: both have a fondness for odd juxtapositions and surreal imagery.  I’m sure West influenced Bowman, but what’s striking is how he absorbed and transformed so many very different influences: West, Richard Brautigan, Emily Dickinson, Dashiell Hammett.  That such different people could have such a deep influence on one creative mind is key to what made Bowman’s work so compelling and unusual.

Is that unusualness, then, why the third Bowman novel has yet to arrive?  After Let the Dog Drive (1992) and Bunny Modern (1998), he published a non-fiction title: This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (2001).  The British title, his preferred title, is even better: Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century. (His U.S. publisher scotched that idea, fearing it was too absurdist, and thus un-marketable.)  He did a lot of journalism, publishing pieces in Salon, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and elsewhere.  But no other books appeared. Were his book-length works too absurdist for mainstream publishing?  Will they published posthumously?  Also, will there be an archive of his papers?  I’d be glad to donate our email correspondence.  (To whom should one pose these questions?)

To conclude, a brief response to Mr. Bowman’s last email to me.

Dear David,

Apologies for the delay in my reply.  Busy-ness has made me a delinquent correspondent. I’m sorry about that. I’m especially sorry that this reply is so late that I’m sending it when you yourself are “late” — though I expect you’d appreciate the irony.

To answer your question: no, I do not have children. I think child psychology is a place to seek the answer to your query. I also think that childhood studies might be a route to pursue. Is this question for an article or book you’re writing? I’d be glad, on your behalf, to make some queries to friends who work in childhood studies.  Just say the word!

Finally, thanks for our epistolary acquaintance. Your emails arrived in my inbox as welcome bursts of surreality and insight. I’m tempted to ask you whether (as David Byrne sings) the band in Heaven is playing your favorite song, playing it once again, playing it all night long.  But, then, if Byrne is right: “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”  I’ve never been sure quite what that line means — Heaven as solitude, Heaven as imaginary, or Heaven as boring.  Any hints?

Thanks & godspeed,

Phil