Today is Dr. Seuss’s 100th birthday - Seussentennial!

The kids informed me when I got home from work yesterday that today is birthday of Dr. Seuss and of course our cats Rex and Ruby.

Dr. Seuss is getting a United States postage stamp, a statue and, on March 11, a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. It's all part of a bicoastal celebration of the centennial of Theodor Geisel, best known as Dr. Seuss, the man responsible for the Grinch, the Cat in the Hat and the Lorax, among other unforgettable creatures.

In his hometown of La Jolla, Calif, the University of California, San Diego, has a Geisel Library, which today will unveil a bronze statue showing "Ted sitting at his desk, one of his legs plopped on its top with `The Cat in the Hat' standing behind him," his wife, Audrey, said. "It's perfect because that man never had both feet on the ground. One leg represents reality, the other his imagination."

Geisel died in 1991, at 87, after a life that traded in the imagination. Son of a zookeeper father, Theodor Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in the factory town of Springfield, Mass. At an early age he began to draw animals, often adding an extra hump in a camel's back or a long snout on a hyena's face for comic effect. While attending Dartmouth College he edited Jack O'Lantern, a humor magazine. But it was his Latin classes that had the most enduring influence on his future art. "It allows you to adore words," Geisel once said about Latin, "take them apart and find out where they came from."

Today Dr. Seuss's 44 books have been translated into 21 languages, selling more than 500 million copies. "We're even in Braille," Ms. Geisel said from her home here, an old observation tower overlooking the Pacific, where her husband did his illustrations. A private man, during his lifetime Geisel never sold his art; he was a pack rat who hoarded everything. "No house could hold all of Ted's stuff," Ms. Geisel said. "So I'm happy it's all found the perfect home."

The home she is referring to is the postmodern Geisel Library at the university, where the Dr. Seuss Collection is now open to scholars. There are more than 8,000 archived items on file, including a 1921 program from a minstrel show written by a precocious 17-year-old Geisel, "Chicopee Surprised," and the original sketches of "The Cat in the Hat."

Ms. Geisel, a former nurse who today oversees Dr. Seuss Enterprises, is quick to point out that if you cannot make it to La Jolla — or Springfield for that matter, where the museum is currently exhibiting "The Art of Dr. Seuss" — you can follow the centennial happenings on the Seussville Web site (www.seussville.com), maintained by his publisher, Random House, and which receives some 100,000 hits daily.

Official Seussentennial Web site

Laughter's Perennial at the Doctor's Seussentennial (NY Times)

Posted by Ron at March 2, 2004 08:31 AM