4 ms·

Wild Things author Maurice Sendak dies at 83

67 points by peteforde 15y ago

jacobolus 15y ago
RIP. The two-part interview with Colbert a few months ago was amazing: (1) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406796/ http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/40679... (2) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406902/ http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/40690...
- b_emery 15y ago
  As was the interview retrospective on fresh air this morning: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-...
jleader 15y ago
The New Yorker just released their 1993 interview of Sendak by Art Spiegalman from behind their paywall. "Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!" http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/09/27/1993_09_27_080_TNY_CARDS_000364070 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/09/27/1993_09_27_080_T...
- joejohnson 15y ago
  Wow, if you click on the cartoons, if brings you to a fullscreen view of the magazine (print edition). And from there, you can right click on each page and save a copy.
ColinWright 15y ago
I submitted this story 8 hours ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3943379 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3943379 It did really well for a time, getting 10 votes in fairly quick succession. Then in the space of about 15 minutes plummeted from about 35 in the rankings to about 470. Clearly a few people flagged it, and that was that. The same story was then submitted 2 hours ago here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3945323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3945323 That got a solitary upvote, and that was all she wrote. Now here is the same story, currently number 8 on the Front Page. Somehow I feel that things really ought to "work better", whatever that means. But having said that, I'm pleased to see the story doing well again, and I've upvoted it. Again. His work was fascinating and entertaining, but having read the interviews with him one wonders if he was ever really happy. Makes me hope he's now found the peace that seemed to elude him in his life.
- scott_s 15y ago
  With the enormous number of submissions, I think there's just always going to be a large amount of randomness in what makes it to, and stays on, the front page.
- swordswinger12 15y ago
  Who gives a fuck about upvotes? A guy who was special to a lot of people is dead, give the bullshit a rest.
  - ColinWright 15y ago
    Let me start by saying that Sendak's work was a large part of my childhood and he was special to me too. I wanted to reply privately, by you don't have contact details in your profile, so I'll have to reply to you here ... You may find this hard to believe, but I really don't care about the upvotes. What I care about is this. An article that the general HN community seems to care about had to get submitted three times (at least - there may have been others) and endure flags and indifference before it got noticed and promoted to everyone's attention. It nearly got lost. To me, that's evidence that good items, items I care about, other items that "the HN community" cares about, items that you would care about, are now being lost in the noise. And that's my point, that HN is in some sense "broken," and items like this, about someone who was special to me, and to others, get lost. I hope that helps explain my point. If not, <fx:shrug> I tried. Added in edit: I've had several out-of-band replies from people who clearly feel the way I do about this, so despite the downvotes here expressing disagreement, I feel encouraged that my feeling that HN is "broken" in this sense is shared by others.
    - swordswinger12 15y ago
      I don't disbelieve you, but the way you phrased your original post gave me pause. You wrote 5-6 sentences comparing the different submissions, making special mention that yours didn't gain much traction, then you added a perfunctory-seeming Sendak tribute in the last sentence.
mistercow 15y ago
That's sad but does it really belong on HN?
- bitops 15y ago
  Yes, absolutely. You are encouraged on HN to bring heart to your life.

67 points by peteforde 15y ago

RIP. The two-part interview with Colbert a few months ago was amazing: (1) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406796/ http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/40679... (2) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406902/ http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/40690...

b_emery 15y ago
As was the interview retrospective on fresh air this morning: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-...

jleader 15y ago

The New Yorker just released their 1993 interview of Sendak by Art Spiegalman from behind their paywall. "Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!" http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/09/27/1993_09_27_080_TNY_CARDS_000364070 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/09/27/1993_09_27_080_T...

joejohnson 15y ago
Wow, if you click on the cartoons, if brings you to a fullscreen view of the magazine (print edition). And from there, you can right click on each page and save a copy.

ColinWright 15y ago

I submitted this story 8 hours ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3943379 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3943379 It did really well for a time, getting 10 votes in fairly quick succession. Then in the space of about 15 minutes plummeted from about 35 in the rankings to about 470. Clearly a few people flagged it, and that was that. The same story was then submitted 2 hours ago here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3945323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3945323 That got a solitary upvote, and that was all she wrote. Now here is the same story, currently number 8 on the Front Page. Somehow I feel that things really ought to "work better", whatever that means. But having said that, I'm pleased to see the story doing well again, and I've upvoted it. Again. His work was fascinating and entertaining, but having read the interviews with him one wonders if he was ever really happy. Makes me hope he's now found the peace that seemed to elude him in his life.

scott_s 15y ago
With the enormous number of submissions, I think there's just always going to be a large amount of randomness in what makes it to, and stays on, the front page.
swordswinger12 15y ago
Who gives a fuck about upvotes? A guy who was special to a lot of people is dead, give the bullshit a rest.
- ColinWright 15y ago
  Let me start by saying that Sendak's work was a large part of my childhood and he was special to me too. I wanted to reply privately, by you don't have contact details in your profile, so I'll have to reply to you here ... You may find this hard to believe, but I really don't care about the upvotes. What I care about is this. An article that the general HN community seems to care about had to get submitted three times (at least - there may have been others) and endure flags and indifference before it got noticed and promoted to everyone's attention. It nearly got lost. To me, that's evidence that good items, items I care about, other items that "the HN community" cares about, items that you would care about, are now being lost in the noise. And that's my point, that HN is in some sense "broken," and items like this, about someone who was special to me, and to others, get lost. I hope that helps explain my point. If not, <fx:shrug> I tried. Added in edit: I've had several out-of-band replies from people who clearly feel the way I do about this, so despite the downvotes here expressing disagreement, I feel encouraged that my feeling that HN is "broken" in this sense is shared by others.
  - swordswinger12 15y ago
    I don't disbelieve you, but the way you phrased your original post gave me pause. You wrote 5-6 sentences comparing the different submissions, making special mention that yours didn't gain much traction, then you added a perfunctory-seeming Sendak tribute in the last sentence.

mistercow 15y ago

That's sad but does it really belong on HN?

bitops 15y ago
Yes, absolutely. You are encouraged on HN to bring heart to your life.