Content area
Full Text
JENNIFER LUDDEN, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jennifer Ludden.
On a recent rainy day we traveled deep into the New England woods, somewhere near Ridgefield, Connecticut, to meet Maurice Sendak. We waited for him in the barn. It's a lovely guest house and library, actually, with a loft. Scattered about are memorabilia from Sendak's most famous work, "Where the Wild Things Are." But what dominates is his Mickey Mouse collection--a vintage Mickey rocking horse, glass-covered trays of Mickey medallions and pins, in the bathroom a standing Mickey figure.
The door opens and in runs Herman, Sendak's boisterous German Shepherd, named for Herman Melville. A moment later follows the gray-haired, small-framed giant of children's literature. Maurice Sendak is 76. He ambles to an enormous wooden table, sits down, props his cane between his legs. From the mike check, it's clear getting him to talk is not going to be a problem.
Mr. MAURICE SENDAK (Author): Is that right?
LUDDEN: So did we interrupt you working?
Mr. SENDAK: I don't work in the morning, because I work till, like, 3 in the morning. I love late afternoon. I love nighttime. I love it.
LUDDEN: Why?
Mr. SENDAK: Because it's nighttime and the phone stops ringing and all the clamoring of the business world and the jibberings and jabberings of New York fade, fade, fade, and I can listen to music. I could watch tawdry TV. See, when I'm drawing the kind of project that I'm on now, I don't need my brain to draw. It's like automatic driving. You don't know how you got there and suddenly you're there.
LUDDEN: Now see, I've read that you draw to Mozart.
Mr. SENDAK: Yeah.
LUDDEN: And now that I find out it's not just Mozart, it's...
Mr. SENDAK: No, no. I write to (technical difficulties).
LUDDEN: Ah.
Mr. SENDAK: You see, there are so many differentials here. There's writing, which I can't do anything but concentrate on the writing. Any noise is a distraction, even having Herman is a distraction.
LUDDEN: Herman, your dog.
Mr. SENDAK: Yeah. And then there is illustrating, which is concentrating, not as difficult for me as writing. Like a Polaroid in my head. I'll just see a picture....