Where The Wild Things Are

In my mailbox, for one...

One of the advantages of living in an apartment- and there aren't many- is the joy of opening the mailbox everyday to an abundance of letters and packages. Now I know what you're thinking, but no, I do not have a fan club or a warrant or any friends. The mail is always for past tenants who have since moved on, leaving their paper trail behind for me to deal with. I am aware it is a federal offense to rifle through someone's mail. When sealed envelopes arrive for people that are clearly not me, I refrain from snooping, returning them to my mailbox with notes to the mailman that are small and friendly but in imminent danger of becoming neither.

Until said mailman figures things out, I can at least continue to learn tidbits of information about strangers I've never met. For instance, I know Ms. Alvarez is walking around in Victoria's Secret, and that she was due for a free pantie of any color or style had she forwarded her address. I know the Rosa family has a boy that went or still goes to the local public high school, and it was perhaps there where he made the unfortunate mistake of giving the armed forces his contact information. And I know that Mr. School subscribes to GQ, which I previously believed to be a magazine consisting of 70% adspace and 25% smut. Mr. Schools from coast to coast subscribe however, so I thought I'd give the magazine a fair chance. After actually reading it, I must say my numbers were off. It was more around 75% ads, 20% smut.

Now for all those math geniuses out there, yes there was a remaining 5% which I enjoyed. You have to work at it, but there are actually a couple of articles wedged between the underwear models. Once found, you need only ventilate the room and clear your lungs of expensive cologne to read them. This particular issue's 5% featured an interview with Spike Jonze, director of Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, and most recently, the highly anticipated Where the Wild Things Are.

Which is what this whole post was to be about, believe it or not. ANYways.

A month or two ago, chances are, you, like me, saw the Wild Things trailer with Max and the monsters scampering about to a re-recorded version of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up". And chances are, you, like me, began salivating heavily before leaning over to every person you were with, saying, "That's gonna be awesome" as if you were an expert on the matter. And now you've been anxiously awaiting its release, youtubing the trailer every couple days to ease your shakes. For those of you who inhabit a cave or the space under a rock, here it is.



And for those of you with parents who never loved them, Where the Wild Things are is a children's book by Maurice Sendak that is fantastic and magical and was at some point read to to all of us by our parents who loved us. The film is an adaptation of that story- a story which is only about 40 pages and comprised mostly of illustrations. Which has led most to wonder and speculate how it will work on screen- or if it will work at all. In the GQ article, Jonze explains the difficulties along the way, dealing with movie producers and adaptation expectations and deadlines and what have you. The interview also provides additional information about the movie and Jonze's life in general, which is very interesting. You should probably just read it. On a side note, it was recently announced that Yeah Yeah Yeah's frontwoman Karen O and Deerhunter's Bradford Cox among others will be included on the movie's soundtrack, which should make the film all the better. Some of the score can be previewed in this article that also contains some chilling interview footage. Be excited. The soundtrack is set to be released on September 28, with the movie being released on October 16th.

The last bit of useful information I found in GQ, which I'll share in hopes that Mr. School should see it: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO GENTLEMEN'S QUARTERLY, P.O. BOX 37675, BOONE, IOWA 50037-0675