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Shel Silverstein Dies 83

Posted by Hemos from the he-found-where-the-sidewalk-ended dept.
cluening writes "I was shocked to see that one of the best poetry writers, Shel Silverstein, had died. Although not really technical in nature, I am sure his poems and drawings were enjoyed by a whole lot of the Slashdot community... " I've enjoyed several of his coffee tables books over the past winter-it's sad to see people like this go. Update: 05/11 04:25 by H :Thanks to Jesse Berney for sending us the Washington Post write-up about Shel.
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Shel Silverstein Dies More

Shel Silverstein Dies

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  • the sidewalk ended... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's sad to see Shel go... His books were well read by myself as a child, and still have a place in my regular-use bookshelf.

  • Re:... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You know I'm 19, while reading this, I had no clue at ALL who this was. I was like, what in the hell is this doing here?? But I do remember now, I remember those books very well.
    Sigh is right
  • lived a girl named Pearly Sweetcake. You probably knew her well,
    She'd been stoned 18 of her 21 years, and her story's still widely told,
    how she could smoke 'em faster than any dude could roll.

    How'd the rest of that go? Man, it's been years since I first heard this on the Dr. Demento show in L.A. (back when his show was 4 whole hours long on KMET).
  • Um, well, I remember one of his Playboy cartoons where a woman and a child in a series of panels asked for and were given a man's wings.

    Somehow I was profoundly affected by the metaphor, but that was back when I had wings.

  • Because he was one of his (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Shel Silverstein was an original a one of a kind, someone who lived his life doing what he lived, and his style was recognizably his and his alone. i think most of his can relate, at least indirectly, to someone who stood out in the crowd.

    also, considering all of us was once a child, most of us read Shel Silverstein's poetry, and no matter how much of an outcast we felt like, or how sad or rejected we were, his poetry was and still can bring a smile to your face.

    this is news for nerds, and there is more to life for most of us geeks then just technology. most of us also have a creative side, which is touched by other things other than a new linux kernel release.

  • Re:Doubt it. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, yes, but instead of feminist-historical, try feminist-hysterical, perhaps?

    A feminist is a woman who has never had root. I mean that with no pun. Or a woman who has never had a gun, or a friendly Doberman, or a real dose of how well you can do in life, as a woman, with out a crutch. Like feminism.

    Think that being a geek is tough? Try being a female geek. The feminists hate you as much as the prom queens for not being so weak that you need a dogma, like a boyfriend or a hatred of men.

    I didn't see any insight there. None. Just whining like the secretaries that I occasionally deal with out of courtesy to the VPs who feel that the only reason that they aren't in the corner offices and making six figures is because they are a woman. Try because the people in the corner offices are twice as smart and work twice as hard.

    I'm sorry, but I liked Silverstein a lot and I found that the only women who esposed screwed-up philosophies like the above were the pretty ones who went out with bad guys (in fact, who pursued bad guys against all reason and advice) and had the predictable terrible things happen to them and the ugly fat chicks who couldn't get a date. People like me (average weight, looks, and an abiding interest in computers and taking things apart from the time I was little) managed to do just fine, despite all those "awful men". I wish that these people would stop trying to rewrite the past to conform to their own twisted view of the world.

  • Here's the whole thing, "The Smoke Off" (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @06:03AM (#1898181)
    C'mon, let's see if we can take an AC's post to Score==5!

    "The Smoke Off", by Shel Silverstein.

    Now in the laid back California town of sunny San Raphael
    Lived a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob'ly knew her well.
    She'd been stoned fifteen of her eighteen years and the story was widely told
    That she could smoke 'em faster than anyone could roll.
    Her legend finally reached New York, that Grove Street walk-up flat
    Where dwelt The Calistoga Kid, a beatnik from the past
    With long browned lightnin' fingers he takes a cultured toke
    And says, "Hell, I can roll 'em faster, Jim, than any chick can smoke!"

    So a note gets sent to San Raphael, "For the Championship of the World
    The Kid demands a smoke off!" "Well, bring him on!" says Pearl,
    "I'll grind his fingers off his hands, he'll roll until he drops!"
    Says Calistog, "I'll smoke that twist till she blows up and pops!"
    So they rent out Yankee Stadium and the word is quickly spread
    "Come one, come all, who walk or crawl, price - just two lids a head
    And from every town and hamlet, over land and sea they speed
    The world's greatest dopers, with the Worlds greatest weed
    Hashishers from Morocco, hemp smokers from Peru
    And the Shamnicks from Bagun who puff the deadly Pugaroo
    And those who call it Light of Life and those that call it boo.

    See the dealers and their ladies wearing turquoise, lace, and leather
    See the narcos and the closet smokers puffin' all together
    From the teenies who smoke legal to the ones who've done some time
    To the old man who smoked "reefer" back before it was a crime
    And the grand old house that Ruth built is filled with the smoke and cries
    Of fifty thousand screaming heads all stoned out of their minds.
    And they play the national anthem and the crowd lets out a roar
    As the spotlight hits The Kid and Pearl, ready for their smokin' war
    At a table piled up high with grass, as high as a mountain peak
    Just tops and buds of the rarest flowers, not one stem, branch or seed.

    Maui Wowie, Panama Red and Acapulco Gold.
    Kif from East Afghanistan and rare Alaskan Cold.
    Sticks from Thailand, Ganja from the Islands, and Bangkok's Bloomin' Best.
    And some of that wet imported shit that capsized off Key West.
    Oaxacan tops and Kenya Bhang and Riviera Fleurs.
    And that rare Manhatten Silver that grows down in the New York sewers.
    And there's bubblin' ice cold lemonade and sweet grapes by the bunches.
    And there's Hershey's bars, and Oreos, 'case anybody gets the munchies.
    And the Calistoga Kid, he sneers, and Pearley, she just grins.
    And the drums roll low and the crowd yells "GO!" and the world's first Smoke Off begins.

    Kid flicks his magic fingers once and ZAP! that first joint's rolled.
    Pearl takes one drag with her mighty lungs and WOOSH! that roach is cold.
    Then The Kid he rolls his Super Bomb that'd paralyze a moose.
    And Pearley takes one super hit and SLURP! that bomb' defused.
    Then he rolls three in just ten seconds and she smokes 'em up in nine,
    And everybody sits back and says, "This just might take some time."
    See the blur of flyin' fingers, see the red coal burnin' bright
    As the night turns into mornin' and the mornin' fades to night
    And the autumn turns to summer and a whole damn year is gone
    But the two still sit on that roach-filled stage, smokin' and rollin' on
    With tremblin' hands he rolls his jays with fingers blue and stiff
    She coughs and stares with bloodshot gaze, and puffs through blistered lips.
    And as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
    The Kid he gasps, "Goddamn it, bitch, there's nothin' left to roll!"
    "Nothin' left to roll?", screams Pearl, "Is this some twisted joke?"
    "I didn't come here to fuck around, man, I come here to SMOKE!"
    And she reaches 'cross the table And grabs his bony sleeves
    And she crumbles his body between her hands like dried and brittle leaves
    Flickin' out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds
    And then she rolls him in a Zig Zag and lights him like a roach.
    And the fastest man with the fastest hands goes up in a puff of smoke.

    In the laid-back California town of sunny San Raphael
    Lives a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob'ly know her well.
    She's been stoned twenty-one of her twenty-four years, and the story's widely told.
    How she still can smoke them faster than anyone can roll
    While off in New York City on a street that has no name.
    There's the hands of the Calistoga Kid in the Viper Hall of Fame
    And underneath his fingers there's a little golden scroll
    That says, Beware of Bein' the Roller When There's Nothin' Left to Roll.
  • In my 9th grade English class we just finished up a unit on books that have been banned. For the most part, schools and libraries banned such moderm classics as Brave New World and The Catcher in the Rye. Also on the list I was dumbfounded to read that "A Light in the Attic" was banned in numerous places, one of which is a town not more than 15 minutes from me. When seeing this, I asked my teacher the reason for the ban, and she said that the book was banned based on the drawing for the poem "Spelling Bee". In this poem, a bee signs a rather amusing message on someone's bare bottom. It saddens me to see that children will not get to read the great poems because of that. In 4th grade our class loved our Shel Silverstein books so much that our teacher let us act out a Silverstein poem of our choice. We toured the school to different classrooms showing our appreciation.

    Sad.
    Dyslexic.
  • Ah yes...I've entertained quite a few people at parties with dramatic recitations of "The Smoke-Off," which I learned from his recording of it that was played on "The Dr. Demento Show."

    My fiancee Pamela has many of his books, and she was extremely saddened to learn of his death. Well, so was I, for that matter.

    And to anyone complaining about this item appearing on Slashdot...well, I think it matters, and apparently so did Rob. And surely a lot of nerds read and/or listened to his poems while growing up? I know I did.

    I agree...sigh.

    Eric
    "Beware of bein' the roller when there's nothin' left to roll..."
    --

  • The Giving Tree is not an instruction manual. It provides an example reflective of reality, but it does not promote it as right or good.

    The book was not meant to be "nice." It illustrates a problematic and flawed relationship. I understand the boy as a presentation of bad behavior, not an example to emulate. He abuses the tree. Only in old age does he understand what he has done.

    You ought to notice how little choice the tree has, too. You assert that the tree "willingly gives up each and every bit of itself." How can you write about the willingness of an entity that cannot reject or stop the actions of the boy? How much will have many women had historically? All the tree can do is emote, and it choses to love the boy.

    The Giving Tree itself is a criticism. Perhaps he chose the female gender for the tree as part of a social commentary against the mistreatment of women. I would not put it beyond Silverstein. Critics with agenda must neglect this idea to write particular reviews. To do so misses an underlying theme of his work, honest consideration of alternatives.

  • Shel was very good in his prime, the era which he wrote "A Light up in the Attic". Probably worth rereading again as an adult now.

    Sigh...

    Shel, Theo... Will the last one out please turn off the light?



    ---
    Spammed? Click here [sputum.com] for free slack on how to fight it!

  • One more death of a great artist. (Score:3)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:05AM (#1898186)
    Posted by jimmylin:

    From Kubrick to Silverstein, it seems like all of the bright writers/directors/artists are just dying off. I remember seeing 2001 at school and all of the great things it inspired. I remember having one of Silverstein's books read to me in elementary school. Hearing news like this just saddens all the great childhood memories I had. (sobbing)
  • Shel Silverstein was truly something else. I remember reading his books when I was just a little kid.
    I still have A Light in the Attic on my bookshelf now, as well as Where the Sidewalk Ends.
    Maybe I'll open them up and look through them again, just this once.
  • I loved his children's poetry as I was growing up and I will definitely miss him, as I can see many of us will.

    Peace be with you, Shel.




    "There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
  • When i was a boy, i had a copy of the 25th Anniversary edition of Playboy. What do i remember most about that issue? A long Shel Silverstein poem called "The Devil and Billy Markham".

    And now, in the deepest bowels of Hell, Shel is forcing the Devil to either keep his own promise, or bend over and get buggered. The thought warms my heart.

    Someday, my children will be old enough to be allowed to read Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book.

    Goodbye, Shel.
  • Shel Silversteins books have given many children
    a love of reading, of literature.

    I used A Light in the Attic extensively during my
    tutoring of a 3rd grader this semester, and gave
    my student the book at the end.

    I grew up on his poems, loved them as a child because they were cute and silly. And I've found new appreciation for them as an adult, with the breadth of emotion and meaning in many (not all, but many) of them (The Giving Tree, Old Man and Little Boy, Deaf Donald, and Hitting come to mind), and their ability to draw in children who wouldn't read otherwise.

    I'm sitting here at work, eyes watering, about to cry. :(
  • Oh, we're big rock singers.
    We got golden fingers.
    And we're loved everywhere we go.
    We sing about beauty,
    And we sing about truth
    At ten thousand dollars a show.
    We take all kinds of pills
    To give us all kind of thrills,
    But the thrill we've never known
    Is the thrill that'll getcha
    When you get your picture
    On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

    Rolling Stone...
    Wanna see my picture on the cover.
    Stone...
    Wanna buy five copies for my Mother.
    Stone...
    Wanna see my smiling face
    On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

    I got a freaky old lady
    Named Cocaine Katy
    Who embroiders all my jeans.
    Got my poor old grey-haried daddy
    Drivin' my limousine.
    It's all designed to blow our minds,
    But our minds won't really get blown
    Like the blow that'll getcha
    When you get your picture
    On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

    We gotta lotta little teenage bue-eyed groupies
    Who do anything we say.
    We got a genuine Indian guru
    Who's teaching us a better way.
    We got all the friends that money can buy,
    So we never have to be alone.
    And we keep getting richer,
    But we can't get our picture
    On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
  • _The Great Lafcadio_, definitely my favorty. Also features Uncle Shelby.
  • I haven't heard Smoke-off, although I have heard of it. I have recordings of him singing some of his poems, and of course who could ever forget "The Freaker's Ball."

    I always liked to bring that one out for people who thought Shel did just kid stuff.
  • Dude,

    You are getting bent out of shape over an imaginary tree.


    -k
  • Let's see...if you'd read my profile, you'd see that I am a) female, b)have been a nerd since the cradle, and c)fairly feminine. I'm fat now, but wasn't then. I didn't date at all in high school....does that make me an "ugly fat chick"? (Interesting how those words all fit together, these days...) Coward, I'd love to know how I could have survived without a "crutch" like feminism...if I'd been born a few years earlier, I would have thought that the highest thing I could aspire to in the field of office work was to type and file for the menfolks while spending 3/4ths of my salary on looking as if I'm looking for a quick fuck on the reception room couch...Don't look at me, that's what I was more-or-less told when I looked into "business school" after high school. My father, who worked for the local telco did everything to discourage me, and my mom was one of those "Maybe if you didn't think so much..." women.Meanwhile, in the Computer Lab I was surrounded by MEN! (yum.) and far more interesting things to think about than losing five pounds.

    I didn't read (or have read to me) Silverstein as a child -- he was a bit after my time as a children's author first. I do remember him as a PLAYBOY cartoonist and staffer -- my favorite feature in my dad's magazine was how he (ugly fat dude) would go to some place (a nudist camp, a Californian experiment in instant consensual sex, a Caribbean resort famous for hot and cold running rum and pot) and report back just how life could be if lived to the hilt and with no inhibitions. Being a sex-positive type myself, I feel nothing but an amused fondness for that part of his career -- the fact that he wrote a book that sounds, on reflection, to sound like a child-version of one of his shamelessly self-indulgent fantasies I thought intersting enough to write about. I don't think it's at all "twisted" to point this out...

    I'm not calling for censorship, just a reevaluation. Many kid's books from the era fall short of positive female images, but many (particularly those from the first half of the century) abound in them. Lots of kids' books get read for a while (even becoming wildly popular), and then get totally forgotten for various reasons ("Rabbit Hill", "Roller Skates", "The Singing Tree", and "You Will Go to the Moon" are some) without anyone issuing a specific ban on them: some are good, very good, some are not worth remembering, and some are just plain bad. "The Giving Tree", to me, just seems to be one of those books that deserves to be on the wane, for kids, at least.

    Wonder what "Shel Silverstein Goes to Heaven" looks like?

  • Thanks for seeing that. So many people do not.
  • People like me? Feminist logic? Right because I say it is? Mentally deficient? Ethically suspect? Pissing on his grave?(Who's slinging mud, now?) Did you even ever read the last paragraph? Yeah, he wrote fairy tales about fucking, which I like better than this book. I'm not trashing him so much as a blind sheepishness among Baby-Boom parents (and their kids) that this book is sacred, while it's based on an attitude that society now disagrees with. It's a good book, it's just not a kid's book anymore. There are lots of kid's books that fit that description

    Gee...Look, I was only trying to voice a different opinion (which wasn't even mine at the outset) of what is becoming to me, a rather tiresome book. I'm glad you don't "need" feminism--it's one measure of our success. I'm sure that you probably don't think of being able to work and have your own money before, after, and during marriage as a feminist triumph, or not having to live with your parents or in a women's residence (with a dress code, a strict curfew, and NO males let upstairs) after college and before marriage, or being able to wear anything from ripped jeans to a Goth gown as anything but an inevitable product of modern times. I'm sorry that you see the feminist side of things as being so thoroughly negative: goodness knows that I've been inclined to regard their cause as a form of "victim chic", where a memory of a chance encounter with a pin-up picture is the same as being painfully raped. There is not one feminist movement, but feminisms, and every single one of the negative issues you've discussed has been promoted by some feminists, and decried by others. You clearly need to find some other way to find men than work--the kind of regulations you discuss are as much an institutionalization of pre-feminist chivalry as a response to a bunch of whiners. Women's medical issues are very much in the feminist platform, and the problems that you talk about your mother having are now a very hot (flash) issue.


    Think about this: would you feel the same way if you were told, endlessly, in college that your whole mental well-being depended on your function as a source of male pleasure, housewifery, and motherhood? That doing engineering was equivalent to impugning your future husband's manhood? That even using your left brain that much is an invitation to sexual dysfunctions, including lesbianism? That should give in to any man who asks you to have sex, no matter how he feels about you, because otherwise you are sick and neurotic? That you can and should bow to any demands put upon you by your sons, lest they grow up homosexual, stunted in social development, or schizophrenic? This was the reality of most women in 1962, when the book was written. PLAYBOY at that time had a damned if you do, damned if you don't attitude toward women: if they didn't sleep around, they were prudes and should be avoided, if they did, they were cheap trash that could be discarded at whim. Later, they got wise, and actually supported the Equal Rights Amendment, among other issues geared towards realizing that the person on the taking end of the penis is human, too.


    I simply don't get warm fuzzies over Uncle Shel as the author of this book. As I've abundantly made clear, I respect his work for other things. I kind of liked some of his other books for children. He's a good satirist, and a very good artist. For crying out loud, you're young enough to be my kids, most of you! Can't an old lady have her own point of view?

  • Ah, not to speak evil of the dead, buuuutttt.... (Score:3)

    by teleny ( 4948 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @06:17AM (#1898200)
    ...he probably died after reading a recent rereview of "The Giving Tree", which was called "the most overrated children's book of the 20th century". The gist of it was that the boy gets older, but never does anything to appreciate the tree: he simply consumes it in stages until it's nothing but a dead stump. The tree, on the other hand, is called "she" and willingly gives up each and every bit of itself -- the boy is happy, the tree is content. This is supposed to sound noble: such self-sacrifice! She's a perfect mother!

    However, it's not so nice when you consider this to be a model of male/female relationships. The tree doesn't have a life of her own, doesn't have much choice over whether she gets carved into or cut down, and even gets neglected for long periods of time while the boy is off "in foreign lands" or wooing a human female: somehow, I can see him telling his wife that he needs to be seeing a younger, prettier, woman, no offence, hon, understand? It's just that he needs someone that will get him over this little problem he's been having in bed... He'll come back, promise!...Meanwhile, he needs your bank account, continued housekeeping and, um, iron my shirts without starch, eh? See you at dinner tonight, six, have it on the table... RIGHT. Or telling that younger woman, sorry honey, gotta dump you, I'm married, and geez, if it weren't for that no-fault divorce law, I'd of paid for that abortion, understand? Uh-huh....Or telling a psychiatrist "You know, all my problems come from having to cater to women all the time, you know my mother never really loved me...Understand?"

    Somehow, it's the kind of thing I'd expect from
    a staff cartoonist for Playboy (which he was) written at the height of the feminine mystique (which it was). Can't really hate him, his adult work was so appealing. Love him, hate him. Bye-bye Shel. Pinch an angel's butt for me.

  • Uncle Shelby's A-B-Zs (Score:4)

    by CarlPatten ( 6233 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:01AM (#1898201)

    The article didn't mention this old classic of his, which is still in print! Shel Silverstein definitely fits under "Stuff that matters." Thanks for posting the article.
  • Don't forget the great smoke off. Shel seemed to have a funy way of releiving tension.

    I think writing cutsy stuff all the time lent him to strange other works. I liked that other stuff alot (uncle shelby.. The great smoke off)

    Sigh... Dr. Seuss Died a few years ago.
    Hehe.. picture Dr. Seuss and Shel in whatever afterlife you believe in.

    Must be quite the bit of work they are writing!
  • ...despite your insight, I seriously doubt that's what Silverstein had in mind.

    I don't think that he wrote this to illustrate such a model. He wrote many other poems and prosaic pieces that illustrate healthy relationships, and the search for balanced ones. The Missing Piece comes to mind, as do numerous poems, albeit on a more elementary, child-like level.

    Without being critical, I'm stymied as to what would lead someone to view this poem from a feminist-historical perspective...
  • Batty

    The baby bat
    Screamed out in fright,
    "Turn on the dark,
    I'm afraid of the light."

    It is dark times, indeed. Rest In Peace, Shel.

  • A Loss... (Score:3)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:01AM (#1898205)

    While I always feel a little morbid doing something like this, I will have to get out my copy of ``Freakin' At The Freakers Ball'' tonight and give it a listen. He was a great songwriter (``Boy Named Sue'', ``On The Cover of the Rolling Stone'', etc.) in addition to the poetry and children's books that he did. Great stuff and too bad that there won't be any more.

  • This poetry isn't just for kids folks. I loved "The missing piece meets big O" when I was 3 and I'm still trying to understand it at 22.

    He will be greatly missed.
  • He was one of the best poets around. I loved him!

    He will be missed.

  • Yeah, I came here to submit it--I wasn't even sure if it was appropriate, but I'm so glad someone already did.
  • You know, it's been probably over 10 years since I've read a Shel poem. But I still remember one verbatim (at least I think it is verbatim, tell me if I'm wrong).

    The homework machine,
    Oh the homework machine,
    Most perfect contraption that you've ever seen,
    just put in your homework, and drop in a dime,
    snap on the switch, and in 10 seconds time,
    your homework comes out quick and clean as can be,
    here it is, nine plus four,
    and the answer is three!
    Three?! Oh me, I guess it's not as perfect as I
    thought it would be.


    A man with a vision of the future, singing the praises of the soon to be windows OS!
  • But you apparently liked it enough to memorize one of his most famous passages....Hmmm.
  • Since when DOESN'T poetry matter for nerds? Every geek friend I've ever had has enjoyed poetry and music of all sorts. Shakespeare has always been popular, too. Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss have been fixtures in my life. I'm 33 years old and I still love the works of both.

    C'mon kid, creativity is where you find it. The hallmark of a good code-grinder is creativity. Laziness is the other main one! 8)
  • Funny you should mention it. I had the same issue when I was young and the part that I kept coming back to was the poem. For those who have never read it, it's work the read.

    http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/3495

    Strange thing is that last Thursday I was struck by the desire to search out this poem on the web. Took an hour to find. I'm glad I did.

    It's hard to explain to my 6yr that the author of his favorite books and CDs is gone.

    Anyone remember "Free To Be You & Me"? He played a strong role in that record/CD as well.

    Goodbye Shel.
  • ...especially after re-reading "Where the Sidewalk Ends" again - thanks for the post. I look forward to reading "Sidewalk" to my daughter when she's 5 and "The Perfect High" [banned-width.com] when she's 15.

    Jason Dufair
    "Those who know don't have the words to tell
  • Man you're in a bad mood. Maybe killing yourself would fix all your problems.

    Of course, I never read Dr.Seuss; maybe if I had, I'd be hating life too.

    Then again, everyone dies, so no need to feel badly because of it.


    -AS
  • Nerds are people too. Some of us take humanities courses along with our engineering/CS stuff.
  • Tonight when I put my five-year-old daughter to bed (actually she won't be five until next month) we read a handful of Shel's poems (including her favorite, Benjamin Bunn) and then said a prayer.

    I first bought a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends for my daughter for Christmas a couple years ago. She liked it so much that when I was working out of town for a year I recorded myself reading the entire book.

    I consider Silverstein more than a great artist, he was one of my heros. He will be missed but I'm sure he'll never be forgotten.
  • I dunno... I read The Giving Tree (and had it read to me) at an impressionable age, and I don't think it predisposed me toward noble and thankless self-sacrifice.

    There are plenty of other forces pushing noble and thankless self-sacrifice (and expectation of same) on girls and boys today. It doesn't make it okay, but neither does it seem fair to pick on The Giving Tree for promoting this (probably inadvertent) message.

    Sure the tree could have been referred to as "it" or "he" instead of she. Would it have made much difference? "It" would be most technically accurate, but to most people it seems kinda impersonal. If you're gonna anthropomorphize a tree, it helps to avoid the pronoun "it". Using "he" solves that problem, but adds another. Now there's NO women (or she-trees) in the story. As I'm sure you're aware, the female perspective is sorely lacking in kiddy lit already. Maybe the boy in the story should have been a girl!

    In any case, the impression most folx seem to get after reading The Giving Tree is "how sad". Indicating (to me anyway) that the message this story most effectively communicates might be that noble and thankless self-sacrifice is not all that wonderful after all.

  • i loved that poem when i was a child.

    *sigh*

    somehow, and i'm not sure why, this is sadder
    than dr. suess dying.
  • Don't forget: "The Unicorn."
  • I used to judge high school forensics. Heard that
    poem perhaps 7 times/day every weekend.

    Actually I was being kind of a bastard there, it sucks that he died really, I was more venting at
    bad readings of his kid poems than the man.

    /me fwaps himself
  • AFAIK, he wrote every lyric that Dr. Hook performed. I had no idea (tho it makes sense in retrospect) that he wrote "Boy named Sue"!

    Have to find the lyric site that I was able to get text copies of various ones of his.. loved the classic "The Great Smoke Off"...

    Such an amazing range of style... he did masterful childrens poetry/songs, and hysterical "adult" topic stuff as well. Hugh Hefner used to have him as a musical guest at parties in the Mansion.

    Ah Shel... we'll miss ya!
  • Hmmmm...
    I didn't know that he wrote books too. I only remember him from the lyrics he wrote for Dr.Hook and His Medicine Show.
    I loved Dr. Hook back in the 70's..

    I guess I have to look up his books now!

  • "A Light in the Attic" has just gone out... (Score:5)

    by Anti-Sean ( 21722 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:05AM (#1898225)
    My uncle gave me this book when I was 7...I spent countless hours reading and re-reading this book until i had broken the binding. A few months ago while moving, I happened upon it in a stack of old books. Time to give it another read. "Nobody" was a favorite poem of mine - helped ease the pain of being a 9 year old geek with no friends :) My oldest nephew is 4 - it'll be time to pass it along to him soon. Thanks for everything, Shel...we'll miss you.

    -Sean
  • Boy, I had forgotton that one, but what seems like ages ago, that was probably one of the more read ones in my book.
  • I usally try not to post long quotes, but this is such a great piece, I have removed most of the formatting to conserve space, if you never read Shel Siverstein, This is just a small piece from his great wealth of works. *thanks to deborah [mailto] for the silver silverstein link from her post below*

    Where The Sidewalk Ends
    There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind.
    Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

    The place where the sidewalk ends

  • Its been a long Time (Score:3)

    by digitaldaniel ( 24033 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:09AM (#1898228) Homepage
    Shel Silverstein, there's a name I have not heard for some time. When I was in elementry school, I think I owned every one of his books, if I remember correctly, Where the Sidewalk Ends was my favorite. I still can vividly remember the covers, simple, white with black lettering. There was an elegance to his works, that they could be written to please a child, and yet still convey a feeling of well being that seemed to stay with you forever.

    This is truely a great loss. I would hope that someday I will get to read his books to my children, along with other unforgettable childrens works (where the wild things go, wrinkle in time, Narnia crhonicals...)
  • He will be missed! In the little community I'm in very few have heard of Silverstein, but I read and reread his books as a child...even performed a few of his poetry pieces in grade school. I'm glad to know other Slashdotters appreciated his influence as well...
  • Quick Trip

    I've been swallowed by a quick-digesting gink,
    And now I'm dodging his teeth,
    And now I'm restin' in his intestine,
    And now I'm back out on the street.

    (sorry if the line breaks are in the wrong place, I'm doing this from memory)

  • Not off topic (Score:4)

    by Finitistic ( 29532 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:49AM (#1898231) Homepage
    Sad news...If anyone thinks this is off-topic, I would like to let them know that there is a Shel Silverstein poem entitled "The GNOME, the Gnat, and the GNU"!


  • I always bought his books three or four at a time just so I would have extras to give away.
  • I'd encourage people who like Shel Silverstein to look at Jeanne Steig's works. My favorite is her Old Testament Made Easy, illustrated by her cartoonist husband, William Steig (also a great children's book writer). Here's her poem about the Flood:
    Said God, "This contemptible race

    Had proved itself shockingly base.
    Such rascals! Confound them,
    I fear I must drown them.
    They're sinning all over the place.

    "You, Noah, deserve to be saved.
    For you're not even mildly depraved.
    Build an ark. Make it huge,
    To withstand the deluge,
    Lest you sink to a watery grave."

    Then Noah (his family, too)
    Assembled an unabridged zoo.
    "What a stench!" Noah cried.
    Hanging over the side.
    "Every one of them needs a shampoo."

    Forty days, forty nights, how it poured!
    They were itchy, rheumatic, and bored.
    But they weathered the flood,
    And debarked in the mud.
    "Last one off is a slug!" said the Lord.
    Unfortunately, this book is out of print, but her Handful of Beans: Six Fairy Tales is still available.

  • i'm being eaten by a... (Score:3)

    by deborah ( 32113 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:39AM (#1898234) Homepage
    the ultimate lesson in optimism under duress:

    i'm being eaten by a boa constrictor (oh no! it's up to my toe!)

    http://www.ezy.net/~quix/shel.html [ezy.net]
  • God, every nearly every poem I read here I remember, which is really amazing. I think every school had Shel's books read to the students in the school library.
  • And with a 15-year-old son no less. Ok maybe 51 is a bit old to be having a son...
  • God's Wheel

    God says to me with a kind of smile,
    "Hey how would you like to be God awhile
    And steer the world?"
    "Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
    Where do I set?
    How much do I get?
    What time is lunch?
    When can I quit?
    "Gimme back that wheel," says God.
    "I don't think you're quite ready yet."
    - Shel Silverstein

  • Thank you to the man that taught me to read. (Score:4)

    by telos ( 34293 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @07:46AM (#1898239) Homepage

    One of the world's most wonderful poets has died. He wrote many things that meant a lot to many different people. He will be missed.



    When I was just starting third grade, I was one of the very few students that could not read. The "see dick run, run dick run" books had not quite worked for me. I just could not grasp the see and say method of reading. I cannot do phonics in the English language to this day. I could woo my teachers into believing in my intelligence through my extensive vocabulary and my musical ability, but I could not read more than three words in a row consistantly. Spelling tests were my nightmare.



    Our teachers read to us every day, either a poem or a chapter from a children's novel. I loved to listen to the poems from Where the Sidewalk End's or the delicious tales by Roal Dahl in his novellas. I could not read, but it was not for a lack of wanting. My mother read to me at night. I read the OZ books through the sound of her voice, a chapter a night. I could draw, I could speak, and I could sing well ahead of my peers, but they could read.



    One day, I decided that I wanted my mother to read a book by Beverly Cleary to me. It was mid-afternoon. My mother had other things that she need to get done, so she told me no. Being stong-willed, I decided that I was going to try to read it myself even though I knew only a few words on sight. Curled up on the couch in the sunlight, I started to get comfortable so that I could try to read the book.



    With painful slowness, I silently played with each typed word untill I knew what it was. If I did not know the word at all, I figured it out from the context. At some point in this ardous endevour, something a little bizzare happened. I stopped seeing the words on the page or even hearing the sounds of the sylables. The meter and the letters, everything on the page was gone. All that was left, all that was really necessary, came forth to me as images in my mind. A complete realm flowed forth from this book. I understood in silence, what it meant to read.



    I could not prove that I had discovered the secret to most people. I still could not, and honestly to this day cannot, read aloud without faltering and stuttering through the words on the page. I would skip articles and prepositions when asked to read. I still have to ask someone else how to pronounce a word if it is not familliar to me. I do not know phonics, but I do know meanings.



    From that day on, I read everything that I could. I needed to catch up to my peers in school. I discovered just how much fun reading can truely be after I finished that 250 or so page book and took up the book that every single person in my class loved to read out of during our playtime. I was reading Where the Sidewalk Ends. I learned meter and time. I also learned the exceptions to the grammatical rules we were taught.



    I loved those books more then anything. They were written with little children in mind filled with the good humor of the gross and disgusting stuff. I read from it all of the time. Through those poems, I learned to read and be able to say the words on the pages. It is still very difficult for me, but with out them, I would never have been able to do it at all.


    --telos

  • The ABZ book is awesome. It's a gift I give to all my friends who are parents-to-be.
  • I did not know he wrote "Boy Named Sue" or "On The Cover of the Rolling Stone." I happened to like both songs as well as Shel's books. I especially liked the book "The Giving Tree."

  • Re:... (Score:3)

    by gonzocanuck ( 44989 ) on Tuesday May 11, 1999 @05:02AM (#1898242) Homepage
    sigh is right. It worries me when I see some of our best writers die and no one to replace them. Barbara Kingsolver would be the only writer from the 80s and 90s that sticks out in my mind - where are the warrior wordsmiths? Writers can be heroes too.


    I used to work for the public library and it always made me so happy to see his books circulate a lot. Sometimes they didn't, but now and then we wouldn't have a single copy in the whole place :-)


    The Giving Tree should be required reading for everyone.

  • Oh *please*... whilst this may well be "News for Nerds", Slashdot is also "Stuff that matters".

    Go out there, pick up a few books, and be enlightened.

    (mind you, I still prefer John Betjeman)

  • One of my favorite books. And yes, it makes much more sense as a mother/son metaphor than as a husband/wife metaphor. Sheesh, why reduce everything to sex? :P

    And the radical-feminist (I make the distinction because I consider myself a feminist, yet disagree with what follows) "criticism" of this is so much tripe. Much like the people who want Huck Finn banned because "it's racist!" Um, the POINT is that this is an unhealthy situation for all parties involved, no? Silly critics who are perfectly willing to read evil WhiteMalePatriarchialConspiracy into everything and yet are unwilling to see the satire that is often being done to said "conspiracy." :)

    R.I.P, Shel. You'll be missed.
  • I don't think it's fair to judge "The Giving Tree," which was written in 1964, by today's politically correct standards. I'd say there were relitively few works written during that era that would make that cut. It was a different society with a different culture.

    Shel's poems were a big part of my childhood. I can still remember sitting down in my mother's lap being read his works night after night. I personally think "The Giving Tree," "A Light in the Attic" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends" should be part of any canon of children's literature. Any comments?

    -- The Derek
    deman@vt.edu
    ICQ: 13433264
    "Question everything, but listen for the answer."

  • Ummm...I hate to rain on the parade in any way, but I think there's more than one questionable picture in Silverstein's opus. I hesitate to elaborate further than this: look through his two books, "Light in the Attic" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (I forget which one), for pictures of an anchor. Then LOOK at the anchor. Then flip through more of his work and LOOK at the pictures.

    It spooked me a little. Still, that didn't kill my appreciation of his talent with words, and his death hit me with about the same impact as Dr. Seuss' did (although neither was as powerful as Jim Henson.) Like many others, I'll put a poem in the mix (from heart), one of the greatest introductions to a book I've ever read.

    Welcome (?) (From LITA or WTSE)

    If you're a dreamer, come in.

    If you're a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
    A hoper, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer,
    If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire.
    For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
    Come in!
    Come in.
  • I also give a copy to all my friends who are new parents. Although I am disapointed that the last time I bought a copy the P.C. enforcers had managed to ge a disclaimer put on the front cover. I beleive it's a great book for children and Adults.
    On another topic; how many folks knew Shel Silverstein wrote the Jonny Cash clasic "My Name is Sue". I just found that out last year. What a guy.

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