So a little boy named Max had quite the opening weekend at the box office- 32.5 million bucks as reported by Warner Brothers. I haven’t seen it yet, which some people find weird it because it’s one of my fave books of all time, which is exactly why I stayed away. Please note, here is Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are in its entirety (all 10 glorious sentences):

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another. His mother called him “WILD THING!” and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” so he was sent to bed without eating anything. That very night in Max’s room a forest grew and grew- and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are. And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws- till Max said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with a magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things. “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!” “Now stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go- we’ll eat you up- we love you so!” And Max said, “No!” The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled theur terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him- and it was still hot.

Holy crap! Is this why I am such a criminal when it comes to run-on sentences? Someone tell Cameron! *Anyway* Spike Jonze just released a new short with his wonderfully twisted sense of story telling. Check out his collaboration with Kanye West on “We Were Once a Fairy Tale.” I had to watch it in batches and fast forward parts - I have a hard time watching Kanye offstage, especially when he’s riffing on Kanye. But the hurling pink confetti? Amazing. The opening footage though of bottle service and VIP is perfect. The yelling over the table and missing major points in conversation while making important social exchanges to fleeing the dancefloor to find respite in the bathroom… it’s a big part of my life. That’s kinda effed up. Yikes.

To end things on an upnote, here is one of my fave Spike Jonze spots, 59 seconds of bliss:

Nick Hornby - the patron saint of mixtape dreamers and people with waaaaay too much time on their hands (aka me when I dropped out of high school and was totally ‘over’ my David Mamet and Tom Stoppard phases) - returns with Juliet Naked. To mark the occasion of its release Nick will be reading at Barnes and Noble Union Square at 7 PM tomorrow in NYC. Never being one to deny the iconic rock importance of graffiti ridden venue bathroom photo opps, we’ve snagged an excerpt. Praise the Lord and pass the hand sanitizer if you please.

Juliet Naked - Chapter 1

They had flown from England to Minneapolis to look at a toilet. The simple truth of this only struck Annie when they were actually inside it: apart from the graffiti on the walls, some of which made some kind of reference to the toilet’s importance in musical history, it was dank, dark, smelly and entirely unremarkable. Americans were very good at making the most of their heritage, but there wasn’t much even they could do here.

“Have you got the camera, Annie?” said Duncan.

“Yes. But what do you want a picture of ?”

“Just, you know . . . ”

“No.”

“Well . . . the toilet.”

“What, the . . . What do you call those things?”

“The urinals. Yeah.”

“Do you want to be in it?”

“Shall I pretend to have a pee?”

“If you want.”

So Duncan stood in front of the middle of the three urinals, his hands placed convincingly in front of him, and smiled back over his shoulder at Annie.

“Got it?”

“I’m not sure the flash worked.”

“One more. Be silly to come all the way here and not get a good one.”

This time Duncan stood just inside one of the stalls, with the door open. The light was better there, for some reason. Annie took as good a picture of a man in a toilet as one could reasonably expect. When Duncan moved, she could see that this toilet, like just about every other one she’d ever seen in a rock club, was blocked.

“Come on,” said Annie. “He didn’t even want me in here.”

This was true. The guy behind the bar had initially suspected that they were looking for a place where they could shoot up, or perhaps have sex. Eventually, and hurtfully, the barman had clearly decided that they were capable of doing neither thing.

Duncan took one last look and shook his head. “If toilets could talk, eh?”

Annie was glad this one couldn’t. Duncan would have wanted to chat to it all night.

(Click title for rest of entry)

liv things interview - clay and will and abbey

This event is right in so many ways. Firstly, it’s a free instore for LUKE TEMPLE. Homeboy makes us so weak in the knees it’s embarassing- but it seems he has that effect on Jon Pareles and Sufjan Stevens as well so we’re not alone. Secondly, the store in question is possibly my fave hiding place in the entire city. As much as it pains me to divulge my favorite spots (look what happend to Magnolia Bakery via SATC), HOUSING WORKS deserves a much needed shout out. Here is why:

Housing Works Bookstore Café is an independent cultural center that offers patrons a unique opportunity to join the fight against AIDS and homelessness. Arts-based philanthropy in practice, they operate solely on donations and volunteers. All proceeds directly benefit their parent organization, Housing Works, Inc., the nation’s largest minority-controlled AIDS service provider. Housing Works provides housing, healthcare, job training, and advocacy for New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. As an activist organization, they are committed to implementing the systemic changes necessary to ensure that AIDS and public health policies are sound in concept and equitable in administration.

So, all this, PLUS the awesomeness of the store itself. Tucked away on Crosby Street (Just east of Broadway and south of Houston) it’s one of those old school library setups- we’re talking two stories with the sliding ladders, and don’t even get me started on the inventory. I picked up an dusty copy of the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe once and a pressed four leaf clover feel out of the pages. It was a dollar. My friend bought a photo book from the 50’s there last week, and a letter from J. Edgar Hoover fell out. Housing Works is also the place where I heard Spaulding Gray (RIP) do a reading of a new Chekov translation back in the day. Talking to him over champagne = SURREAL. Long story short: This place is a gem. The music is good. Do whatever you have to do to get there (that is, unless you’re going to Devo). It’s for a good cause!

Ummm, 1 emotionally immature adult please! That counts as a kid, right? ANYWAY, you heard it right, Andrew WK will be reading to the kiddies this Sunday downtown. Homeboy has a special place in my heart- it was a Blood Brothers / Andrew WK show in Jersey years ago that I got my first proper kick in the head in the photopit. It wasn’t malicious, just someone having fun, and after being pummeled even more I TOTALLY called my mom and was like TODAY I am a Rock Photographer. Yup, even in the sanctity of a photo pit there are casualties- when kids start hurling themselves torwards the stage, it’s where security will stop ‘em before they can reach the band, and a lot of the time they will land on your shoulders.

We happened to stumble upon the author and illustrator of the book ONLY IN DREAMS, Parker Jacobs, and his website. He’s the former senior design director at Paul Frank, the man behind the monkey if you will. He has since moved on to other projects- namely Goon Holler on YO GABBA GABBA! (how effing awesome is that)- but we think this dude deserves a shout out- because he wrote this story for his daughters after all, and isn’t the one doing the readings! Congratulations on getting published.