Last night I saw Far Out Isn't Far Enough at the Bloor. It's a documentary about Tomi Ungerer, who was a well-regarded artist and writer of children's books but then turned to kinky erotica and got banned from American libraries. The children's book reviewer at The New York Times refused to review his books. One of his books, No Kiss for Mother, got the DUD award for the year's worst children's book! It's quite a coincidence that I saw this just before an ROLT event devoted to banned books. Maybe I'll read No Kiss for Mother.
I do know that I want to reread all his books. I remember reading books like The Three Robbers and Zeralda's Ogre in my youth. The latter was about a child-eating ogre who gets tamed by a little girl with advanced culinary skills. On the last page he shaved off his beard, became respectable, and married the girl when she grew up. After seeing the movie Beauty and the Beast, which ended with the Beast overcoming his curse and becoming a normal man, Greta Garbo said "Give me back my beast!" I felt like saying, "Give me back my ogre!"
The other night I dreamed about getting on a bus to take me downtown, falling asleep and waking up only to find that the bus had taken me out into the country. (John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans.")
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