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culture fest.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Music The following podcast contains explicit language. I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest Wild Rumpus Edition.

It's Wednesday, May 9th, 2012.

On today's program, the truly great children's book artist Maurice Sendak has died,

the state of the art market with the blogger Felix Salmon, and finally, what exactly is hate watching and why is it having a moment? Joining me today, our Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Stephen. How are you? I'm good. You seem well. I'm jolly. Could you radiate a little less of that, please? Sorry, I'll turn it down. Thank you, Dana. Stephen. Nice to see you. Good to see you. Dana, let me begin with you. I think in this instance, those superlatives are in general to be avoided. I think we can indulge them today about Mory Sendak, probably the greatest, I think, greatest children's book artist of our lifetime. I'm certainly one of them. This legacy is truly, really extraordinary.

I mean, he's just influenced and enchanted so many people. It's hard to know even where to begin.

I should say he passed away a couple days ago from complications due to a stroke. And just for

that stray listener

that I can't believe exists, who's not familiar with Maurice Sundack, he's most famous,

of course, for the rumpusing gargoylish creatures conjured by a young boy who's been sent

to his room without supper, the book, Where the Wild Things Are, but so many other extraordinary books, chicken soup with rice. My personal favorite is in the night kitchen. Dana, what do you think his legacy is? What did he mean to you? What are you thinking about in the wake of this loss? Yeah, this is a hard one for me. This is an especially sad loss for me because I knew him very slightly. I mean, I was not close to him, but my partner, Robert, was close to him, who's also a children's book illustrator and author, and went to a fellowship at Maurice Sendak's house two years ago, I think it was, that he invited a bunch of young illustrators to come and live at his guest house and essentially do a sort of McDowell-style writer's retreat, and they had been in touch for the last two years since then. So I've met him only very briefly, but enough to be very touched by what a presence he was, what an incredibly alive and present person he was. We've all seen interviews with him, right? He did a fresh air interview a few months ago, and I've also endorsed here on the Gab Fest, a wonderful, wonderful interview that he did with Bill Moyers a few years ago.

All right. Why don't we listen to a little bit of that, actually, from the Bill Moyers interview? My brother-sister and I was sitting, Shiva, the Jewish ceremony. Someone had died. And all we did was laugh historically. And remember, our relatives used to come from the old country, those few who got in before the gate closed, all on my mother's side, and how we detested

them, the cruelty that country, those few who got in before the gate closed, all on my mother's side, and how we

detested them.

The cruelty of that children, kids are hard, and these people didn't speak English, and

...