It All Started with Cats or How I fell in love with Edward Gorey.

When I was about 8 years old, Renee gave us a huge bags of her daughter's old books. In it was Rumpelstiltskin and TS Eliots Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, both illustrated by Edward Gorey. That same year in school, Mrs. Ensor taught us all about cats, and we studied everything from why cats have whiskers to the Broadway musical. So finding that book in the bag was so exciting to me. This was the beginning of my infatuation with Edward Gorey. PBS had a series called Mystery! and the opening credits were an animation of Gorey characters. I never watched the show, but had the intro memorized. I thought his illustrations were so beautiful. As I got older, I began collecting all of his books- I now have one anthology (because the Glorious Nosebleed is impossible to find and if you ever do find it, impossible to afford) and about 20 individual books. I have postcard books, bookmarkers, calendars, notebooks- it's become one of those things that people like to collect for me as well. Since Mikey found me The Hapless Child- a book I had wanted for years- I've sort of slowed down. Moving to NY also made it much easier for me to stalk his works- one of the first places I visited upon my arrival was Gotham Bookmart, which is where I found my copy of The Shrinking of Treehorn.

I've always loved his cyclists the most. There are a few that I am considering permanently embellishing my body with.

There's Innocence:


There's the brother and sister on the Epileptic Bicycle:



There's also Nellie from The Willowdale Handcar, riding away on her bicycle.



And I think I should also like a Little Prince, but somewhere more hidden. I've read that book a thousand times- it's the only book I've read more times than all of the JD Salinger's combined. I own it in 3 languages. The themes and ideas in it inadvertently get revisited in my life all the time, usually inspiring me to reread it yet again.

But it's not a character that I'd like to have highly visible because he's a little too popular and cliche. The book means so much to me, I don't want it to be bastardized because he's cute and common. If that makes any sense. He's more important to me than just a cute cartoon. Which is why I will probably never get Kitarou. He was a favorite of mine as a kid, but I'm not much for covering myself in cartoons.