Jersey Noir

Maus banned by the McMinn County School Board

“I’m kind of baffled by this,” Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” told CNBC in an interview about the unanimous vote by the McMinn board to bar the book, which is about his parents, from continuing to be used in the curriculum.

“It’s leaving me with my jaw open, like, ‘What?’” said Spiegelman, 73, who only learned of the ban after it was the subject of a tweet Wednesday – a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He called the school board “Orwellian” for its action.

Spiegelman also said he suspected that its members were motivated less about some mild curse words and more by the subject of the book, which tells the story of his Jewish parents’ time in Nazi concentration camps, the mass murder of other Jews by Nazis, his mother’s suicide when he was just 20, and his relationship with his father.

“I’ve met so many young people who ... have learned things from my book,” said Spiegelman about “Maus.”

Or maybe it's because I spent time over the last few weeks listening to THE PLOT THICKENS,where Ben Mankiewicz interviews TLPS director, Peter Bogdanovich in which he paints the picture of the guts of that film...and an interesting career in Hollywood. But these snaps remind me of that lonely Texas town described in Larry McMurtry's book (which I read, and liked).

Even though its Central New Jersey.

Maybe its the clouds.