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(crossposted to Worcester Poets Asylum)
Sad news this morning from the New York Times (obit below the fold). Beloved poet and children’s author, Maurice Sendak has passed away.
Maurice Sendak has always held a very special place for me. One of my earliest memories from childhood is reading Chicken Soup With Rice in kindergarten – I distinctly remember the librarian at the Ethel McKnight School in East Windsor, NJ, holding the oversized book open for us to all see the pictures as we crowded in to hear her tell the story. I remember being read to when I was small enough to still fit on a lap, and the bright pages of Where The Wild Things Are taking up more space than the room possibly could hold.
And when my own son was born, we read every Sendak book we could find together. We started reading together before he was even old enough to understand that books were more than just delightful on the gums. When he was a couple years old, Where The Wild Things Are*, In The Night Kitchen and Outside Over There became our very favorites.
Just this weekend, I picked up a copy of Bumble-Ardy for my nieces, barely daring to wonder to myself if this would be his last book. In an NPR interview last year, he just sounded so sad – he cried through the interview with Terri Gross (Fresh Air, September 20, 2011), lamenting the passing of his partner of fifty years, Eugene Glynn, as well as other friends whom he had outlived. He said, “I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more,” and I started crying too, there in the car, on I-190, weeping and driving, and hearing how he sounded so lonesome.
Oh, Maurice – thank you for your words, for your pictures, for these beautiful pieces of childhood and parenthood that you gave us. I’ll miss you. The wild rumpus will forever be changed by your passing.
So! I went to make cookies that require a fluffy meringue today. But when I got to Red Mixer with the eggs, Red Mixer told me that zie wasn’t going to be doing anything without Red Spatula, and that was that. I went and got Red Spatula, and we made cookies. All was right in the world. When I told Will about this, we giggled together about the strong state of solidarity in the kitchen (which is also home to Red Coffeemaker and Red Toaster). Then he pointed out the window at the snow covered driveway and said, “And outside? Siberia!” We had a good laugh over that.
Stop what you’re doing and go to the bookstore.
You want to read the hell out of this book.
The Four Conversational Maxims
A. Maxims of quality
1. Do not say what your believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.B. Maxims of quantity
1. Make your contribution as informative as required.
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.C. Maxim of relation
1. Be relevant.D. Maxims of manner
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief.
4. Be orderly.
Grice was so smart.
Full disclosure – I’m having a hard time being careful with this post. It’s a subject about which I have a deep passion, for one thing. For another thing, I’m about up to my eyeballs lately in irritating people, and it’s starting to wear. I tried last night to broach the topic gently and failed, so logged off before I went from sassy to rude, and I may or may not owe an apology to someone for that sassiness – I feel like a bit of a jerk, in all honesty; I was less compassionate than I was statement-making, and it’s bugging me. So I’m going to see if I can work this out here in writing.
***
Dear Rogue who chatted: “People are retarded,” last night;
Yes, Virginia, it’s true. Some people do have mental retardation (MR).* Lots of people. Unlikely, tho’, is the possibility that the hunter in your group who misdirected to you is one of those people. There’s a good chance he made a mistake. Also an outside chance that you just pissed him off.
Oh, Mumble. Oh, Trend Micro.
At least Trend Micro will tell me its issues – it comes and complains, albeit in a fairly unspecific manner (see the title for this entry). Mumble just gives me the cold shoulder and freezes up. What’s most aggravating about Mumble is that there was one time that it did work – and that one time, I really liked it!
Blargh. Ok – back to waiting on Trend Micro customer support and disinstalling/reinstalling Mumble. Please send Good Thoughts.
See also:
ETA:
I just noticed the use of “retarded” on the link page. Color me Deeply Pissed Off that Oatmeal, whom I generally adore, went unthinkingly with ableist language. There were totally better ways to say it.
“Why so pissy, Apple?” you may ask.
Because privilege is freaking sneaky. For a really great post on what privilege is all about, go have a look at John Scalzi’s blog from yesterday. Go have a look – it’s good stuff.
(Just to clarify, I don’t intend for this to become a WoW blog – but there’s some WoW stuff that’s totally blogworthy, and when it pops up, I’m totally gonna blog on it.)
So!
How do I even start – this has been talked to death at this point on all kinds of communities, in PUGs and LFDs, and in g-chat in three guilds I’ve been in, so I know it’s not new. But some people just never seem to get the memo that when they open their mouths [type in-game]the stuff they say matters. It’s not even just in PUG dungeons, either – some days I trip across fuckery enough that I wonder if maybe I’m a magnet for it. Or if the entire player base has collectively lost its sense of propriety.*
I won’t even get into ableism** or homophobia*** – isms are a whole can of worms for another day. What I want to talk about is use of the word rape.
