Maurice Sendak: Laughing at a Funeral

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. March 12, 2004 | PBS
When the trailer came out for Where the Wild Things Are I was amused to realize the Wild Things were Jews. Of course, as a huge Sendak fan, I knew he was Jewish, and the darkness of his work was distinctively Eastern European, and Jewish to me. But Judith and Ira? A little research turned up this hysterical story about drawing the monsters after cutting up with his siblings while sitting shiva (a Jewish ceremony when someone has died). Love him more than ever.

Carl Jung's Red Book

The Red Book goes on exhibit today, and the New York Times has a gorgeous layout online. Who knew Jung could draw like that? I particularly enjoyed the Deco influences: this is no scribbley notebook à la Cobain, but an uncelebrated document of the Craftman, or Arts and Crafts sensibility.

Electric Literature: New Approachs to Fiction

The online magazine Electric Literature has just launched a new blog called The Outlet. I'm looking forward to their posts: the EL series of single sentence animations on YouTube are tempting teasers for the stories they publish, not to mention an innovative promotion of digital media.