Heeb Magazine + Kafka

The generous folks at Heeb Magazine just put up a review of My First Kafka, and they seem to like it:

[T]here’s a sense of childlike wonder that permeates even the strangest of Kafka’s parables. That’s a tricky proposition to pull off effectively –especially for Roth, who is tasked with the unenviable job of transposing Kafka’s prose into child-sized morsels. Fortunately for weird kids (and their weird parents) everywhere, Roth is more than up to the task, reconstructing three of Kafka’s works into the sort of stories that would fit nicely alongside the Shel Silverstein’s stranger works.

My favorite part is the description of Rohan's illustrations, though: "His ‘Nobodies’ in Kafka’s “Excursion into the Mountains” call to mind Maurice Sendak’s eponymous “Wild Things”, transforming what was originally a passage about Man’s isolation into a whimsical adventure with imaginary friends. Similarly, his Gregor Samsa-bug in “Metamorphosis” is at once monstrous and sympathetic."

Okay. My day is made. Now I'm gonna go and read and stay up all night.

You, on the other hand, can read the review or buy the book (and then stay up all night with me, if you want).

Matthue's David's Music Poll

David Levithan is my occasional editor and sometimes back-and-forth fan (I love his stuff, he says he loves mine, which I'm pretty okay with trusting him on). He co-wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which you've probably seen, too. Also -- much less well-known than his film work -- he runs this funny yearly blog in which he asks people to list their favorite albums of the year. Here's what I came up with.

(You know how the music that you're listening to influences what you're writing? I'm pretty sure it works the other way, too. Ordinarily I'd choose something happy and poppy, like Mista Cookie Jar, but I'm working on this story that's dark and moody and angsty. And so:

Most essential album
Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
I'm not even from the suburbs. I've never lived there and have no way, save a few memories of reading The Outsiders, to verify whether it really is this bleak and beautiful. But this album is.

Other essential albums
Nikki Minaj, Barbie World (or any other non-Pink Friday mixtape)
The Roots, How I Got Over
Regina Spektor, Live in London
Kim Boekbinder, Impossible Girl
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
They Might Be Giants, Here Comes Science

Best moment of music:
Nicki Minaj switches between four different personas and about seven completely different vocal styles in under a minute during her guest appearance on Kanye's "Twisted Dark Fantasy." There are so many distinctive styles of genius in that moment, I can't even begin to fathom it. I think it's influenced my whole best-of list.

Best album of 2010 that wasn't actually in 2010: The Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack. Overflow from last year. Only realized it was awesome this year.

Best new album of 2010, according to my 3-year-old: The B-52's, Cosmic Thing. It's a new discovery if you were negative 20 years old when it came out.

This is Where I Was This Weekend

This is where I was this weekend:

We didn't see the Wild Things. Or, we might have. No Spike Jonze, though.

And this is one of my three favourite places in the world.

That's it. For now. New story coming, as soon as we (it and I, that is) stop fighting with each other.

An Interview and a confession

Marjolein, of the wonderful Marjolein Book Blog, just interviewed me. She's both one of the most voracious readers on the interwebs, and one of the most devoted. I honestly think she's one of the thirty-six secret pillars holding up the world of young adult literature. She just read and reviewed Goldbergs, so she gets to a bit of Hava analysis:

If you could be a character from your books for one day, who would it be?
Without a doubt, Hava from Never Mind the Goldbergs. I'm an Orthodox Jew, and when I wrote the book and I was single, everyone thought that Hava was my ideal girlfriend. The truth was more like, Hava is my ideal for myself. She's weird and awkward and very cool, and everything that she does, she takes the time to think about. She believes in doing it. She's purposeful about its execution, and she makes it rock. She's like the person version of Sleater-Kinney, my favorite band. Even when they cover B-52's songs, they put, like, 110% of themselves into it.
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The Yiddish Alphabet, as sung by Spider-Man

I have no idea what's going on here. But a secular Israeli in a Spider-Man outfit and a shtreimel -- who seems to be accompanied by a giant llama and the Village People -- singing the Yiddish alphabet...well, you can't not watch it.

As far as I can tell, Gimel stands for a fat goy. Vov is a vildechaya, which is one of my favorite books, and an English expression ("Wild Thing") that comes from the Yiddish slang for wild children. Zayin is a shotgun. One letter stands for getting punched in the face, but I can't tell which. And I'm pretty sure lox, bagels and beer made cameos.

One could try to deeply analyze this video for hidden messages and for subliminal attitudes of secular Israelis toward religious Israelis (or "dosim," which is what Dalet stood for.) But really, my instinct (as someone who isn't Israeli, but has spent a bunch of time there) is to chalk it up to a combination of making fun of the Orthodox, making fun of themselves, and a healthy amount of totally random imagery of hedonism and violence. What do you think?

Make my heart sing.

Q: What does it take to make me burst into tears at work?

A: The trailer for Where the Wild Things Are.

I could be critical. I could start second-guessing what the rest of the movie is going to be like, and whether the Wild Things will have the same voices that they did in my head as a child (they won't) or that I give them when I read out loud to my daughter (probably not). Somewhere in my head right now, I'm thinking about it from the perspective of Maurice Sendak, and whether he would have expected the film version to be anything like his book (no) and whether he would be happy anyway (I really, really believe yes).

But at this very moment in time, I don't care. I just want to run out of here and not stop till I get to the ocean.

Vilde Chayas

I'm the first person to 'fess up to my Maurice Sendak obsession -- Where the Wild Things Are is the only book that my daughter actually asks for on her own. (The fact that I toss her around during the Wild Rumpus probably has a lot to do with it, but I think she admires the strong narrative tone, too.)

Anyway, I kept telling everyone that the Wild Things themselves were given traditional Yiddish names from the 1940s and '50s: Moishe, Emil, and Tzippy, but no one seemed to believe me -- even when I tracked down references).

Anyway, here's a site where you can buy mini-Wild Things of your own -- named, as it turns out, after Sendak's uncles and aunts. Even the term "Wild Things" comes from the Yiddish vilde chaya, which is what your grandmother called you after you had a little too much salt water taffy and were leaping on the furniture.