First thing’s first:
Look at me!
Look at me!
I’m quoted by the BBC!
It’s been 100 years (!) since young Dr. Seuss–at the time he was simply young Mr. Geisel–set foot on the campus of Oxford University, in pursuit of a doctorate in English, and I was delighted to speak with the BBC about Seuss’s time at their illustrious institution.
Alas, Geisel wasn’t a terrific student and only lasted a year there, leaving Oxford without a degree. His class notebooks are filled with more drawings and doodles than notes on Milton and Shakespeare, though he was clearly trying. Still, you don’t get Dr. Seuss without a stop at Oxford, as it’s where he met someone critical to his story: Helen Palmer, who would become his wife, first reader, fellow Beginner Books editor, and the person who looked at his Oxford notebooks and said, “You should be be drawing for a living.” You can read the rest of the story right here.
Once you’re done reading that, here’s a terrific story in the Santa Fe Pasatiempo all about Jim Henson’s time in New Mexico.
When I started researching Jim Henson for the biography, I knew he had filmed parts of several Muppet movies in New Mexico, but I didn’t know how much the state meant to him, and how often he visited. Imagine my surprise when I learned his father had retired to Albuquerque in the early 1970s and lived about four minutes away from my own childhood home.
New Mexico was so important to him, in fact, that he once told his son John that he felt the mountains near Taos was the “place I’m supposed to be” — and his ashes were scattered there, somewhere in the Sangre de Cristos, in 1992.
Oh, and if you’re planning on journeying to Taos to visit the specific site where his ashes were scattered, you’re out of luck in that regard–as Lisa Henson told me, “I’m pretty sure we were on someone’s private property and I don’t think we could ever find the place again.” But go visit Taos anyway; you’ll quickly come to see why Jim thought he belonged there.
Brian Jay Jones 