Where The Wild Things Are
Ready for next week’s opening of “Where The Wild Things Are”? I am! What kid didn’t love that book? Since its publication in 1963, it’s been a treasured part of the childhood of generations of children. I’m really hoping the movie does it justice.
Since it doesn’t open until October 16, however, we still have a bit of a wait. If you’re looking to psych yourself up for it in the mean time, try checking out the Animazing Gallery in Soho (corner of Greene and Broome Streets). From now through November 8, the gallery is hosting a Sendak in Soho exhibition including more than 200 pieces from Sendak’s own collection ranging from art for the Where The Wild Things Are opera, sketches, art from the book, and limited edition etchings. I stopped in this weekend and was lucky to walk out without a lithograph in my hand. Do I need a Sendak illustration? No. But that was probably the coziest exhibition I have ever been to. All the illustrations you loved as a kid, the pictures that made the book so memorable — they’re there. It was like being in the best decorated nursery in the world. These are possibly the most adorable illustrated monsters in the history of children’s literature.
If you’re not looking to buy and don’t mind the admissions fee, the Morgan Library is also hosting a Sendak retrospective of pieces borrowed from the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. I haven’t had the chance to check that out yet, but the exhibition is designed to show Sendak’s creative process and includes pencil drawings and preliminary sketches for the book.
Let the wild rumpus start!
Also, the current or one of the most recent issues of the New Yorker has a fiction piece by Dave Eggers (he of McSweeney’s and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) entitled “Max At Sea”, which is really the first chapter (or so) of Eggers’ upcoming novel, which was inspired by his script for the movie Where the Wild Things Are, which he co-wrote with Spike Jonze, and which was of course inspired by (meaning, it does not exactly hew to – but then, how could it, and fill 2 hours?) the original Maurice Sendak book.