05-09-2012, 07:34 AM
Maurice Sendak passed away Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at the age of 83.
I remember reading his books as a kid. Thought some of you might remember him, too. mile:
Articles and interviews to celebrate his life:
Understanding Children, Yet Wanting Them to Grow Up a Bit
Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are
Born to be Wild
This is a two-part video interview:
WATCH: Maurice Sendakâs Last Interview with Stephen Colbert
I remember reading his books as a kid. Thought some of you might remember him, too. mile:
Articles and interviews to celebrate his life:
Understanding Children, Yet Wanting Them to Grow Up a Bit
Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are
Quote:Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, âWell, that Iâm gay.â
âI just didnât think it was anybodyâs business,â Mr. Sendak added. He lived with Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst, for 50 years before Dr. Glynnâs death in May 2007. He never told his parents: âAll I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.â
Children protect their parents, Mr. Sendak said. It was like the time he had a heart attack at 39. His mother was dying from cancer in the hospital, and he decided to keep the news to himself, something he now regrets.
A gay artist in New York is not exactly uncommon, but Mr. Sendak said that the idea of a gay man writing children books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s.
Born to be Wild
Quote:September 1999
Born to be Wild
by David Drake
Childrenâs illustrator and storyteller Maurice Sendakâs writing is on the wall
When the elevator doors open on the fifth floor of the Gay Menâs Health Crisis (GMHC) 12-story building in downtown Manhattan, the unmistakable Where the Wild Things Are images that greet youâMax steering his ship, a sleepy half-moon strung with stars and, of course, a beast or twoâimmediately make you forget the long, hot summer on the 11 other floors of this troubled AIDS organization. Since 1951, Maurice Sendakâs cherished drawings have led us to a place in our collective imaginations where, wellâ¦the wild things are. Now they also guide us into the Child Life Program room, where Sendak, a longtime GMHC donor who has produced more than 80 books, has created a wall-sized mural of his most celebrated scenario, plus a three-dimensional floor-to-ceiling tree under which dozens of kids meet daily to eat lunch, play games, draw, watch TV or just let loose and, as Sendakâs story goesâdo some wild rumpus-ing! Some of the kids have HIV, others have parents who are GMHC clients. All have been affected by the epidemic, which is why GMHC asked Sendak to contribute his most feisty imagery. The result is a visual triumph: an environment that energizes its inhabitants to deal with the difficult realities of their lives.
David Drake: Where the Wild Things Areâone of the top-10 bestselling childrenâs books of all timeâwas a source of controversy when it was first published in 1963. Several psychologists saw it as too âdangerousâ for young mindsâMax being so defiant with his mother.
Maurice Sendak: Iâve been a carbuncle in the childrenâs book world since I began, practically. Now, at 70, everyone rushes to me and says, âOh! Your books are classic! Classic!â America is so vile. Just live long enough in this country and you turn into Helen Hayesâ¦or Charlton Heston.
God forbid.
I think Iâll choose Helen.
Good choice.
So now Iâm a âclassic.â In other words, now I can get away with murder âcause they donât know what to do with me. Like a tick on a dogâs ass, they canât get rid of me until the dog dies!
I understand that the first book you owned as a child was The Prince and the Pauper, and that you loved it so much that you chewed the cover and slept with it at night. GMHC volunteers told me a similar story about the kids and your muralâthat they sometimes attack it! Did you construct it so they could attack it?
Attack it, lick it, grope it, suck it, whatever they want.
Youâve been accused of writing about inappropriate topics, such as sensuality and morbidity, in your childrenâs stories.
I donât think anything is inappropriate to children, except for things that arbitrarily frighten them, or describing the sex act to a child who doesnât know what sex is yet. But largely, there is nothing inappropriate, because kids are confronted every day with inappropriate things. Television is an inappropriate thing. You have to watch about babies being thrown out of windows and horrible stories about the president and his sexuality. And nobody stops to explain that! So to accuse me of frightening children is ridiculousâwhen I introduce any such subject, I carefully craft it so children are not frightened. I donât like to be frightened. So why the hell would I frighten anybody else?
One of the most frightening realities for kids at GMHC is dealing with HIV. Over the years what have you learned about kids and the subject of death?
Children hide their curiosity about death because they know how much it frightens their parents when they ask questions about it. Probably the first vivid thought in any childâs mind is, âWhat do I do if Momma or Poppa dies? Whoâs gonna take care of me?â
Do you think parents with AIDS should talk to their kids about these things?
No question.
Regularly?
Of course. To explain whatâs happening to them.
That probably takes place in the room you created.
I hope so.
And how might parents with HIV talk to their children about it?
Be as fervently honest with them as one possibly can. If youâre dying, tell them youâre dying. Explain it as best you can. We donât understand it any better than children doâweâre as frightened of it as they are. Itâs our responsibility to make children comfortable with it so that afterward they rememberâin their bitterness or unhappinessâthat the dead parent made every effort to comfort them and be honest with them. I think that is essentially itâto allow them to express their mixed emotions.
It must be unbearable for a dying parent to put up with a childâs rage, like, âI hate you for dying. I hate you for being sick.â But you have to live through that and tolerate that, and still embrace the child and allow that this outbreak of anxiety and rage is normal. Even though youâre suffering at the end of your life, you must give yourself to the child. You must allow for their outrageous behavior. Not indulge it, but allow for it.
In creating the room, did you consciously use imagery that allowed them to let go of those emotions?
I hope so. But I canât be certain Iâve achieved that. How could I know? My creative abilities are all crunched together from childhood. I can only recollect from my own childhood, where I had to hide every feeling I had from my parents, and every normal feeling was condemned by me as abnormal and inappropriate. Children pick up signals from their parents. Itâs like blind, deaf and dumb peopleâthey communicate: a look, a hand raised, the shoulder stiffening. And children know: âUh-ohâ¦â
âSomethingâs going to happen.â
Yeah. And thatâs all stuffed and mushed together. Then you grow up and sort of half-assed remember these painful things, and youâre riddled with lies and questions that never got answered about yourselfâyour body, your mind, your penis, whatever.
But Iâm not out to teach; Iâm really out to entertain children. Yet in doing so, to say, âHave spirit and spunk and dare to defy your mother,â like Max [in Where the Wild Things Are]. Dare. If she doesnât love you, she wonât leave that meal for you. If she loves you, she will. But itâs a risk. That is the deep subtext of that book: Youâve got to take a risk. Youâve got to hate herâitâs normal. Youâve got to find out if she hates you! A real relationship is âshe hates youââyes, she doesâfor about five minutes. And thenâ¦she loves you and gets dinner for you.
Dare to take the risk.
Thatâs life. You mustnât lose confidence in her basic love. Children have to challenge that all the time. They need to be reassured endlessly. And that book is about reassurance.
Just as these kids need to be reassured about the strength of their life.
Of course. Iâve lived through the whole epidemic, which as we all know continues apace. And with the circumstances at GMHCâchildren whose lives are shortchangedâthereâs no time to waste. So for meâhaving lived through World War II, being Jewish, having my parentsâ families wiped out in the Holocaust, and then another holocaust later in my lifeâitâs a hideous century. Thereâs no question that this is about the worst century on record. But what do you do? Put your head in the sand? Clog your ears? Itâs just something youâve got to do.
All my books are haunted by holocaust, and now my later books will be haunted by AIDS. And it isnât because of morbidityâironically, itâs because of the need to keep it alive. To keep it up front and to stop it. And do whatever we can. I, as an artist, only have a limited means to express it in my work.
This is a two-part video interview:
WATCH: Maurice Sendakâs Last Interview with Stephen Colbert