Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
The NY Times Picks the Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2009

Some brilliant books in there – if you’re at all a fan of picture book art, you’ll have to check out these suggestions.

I’d have to say “The Odd Egg” is my favorite, followed closely by “A Penguin Story”. “Tales From Outer Suburbia” is new to me, though – I can’t wait to check it out.

Nov 07, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

David Brooks: "Where the Wild Things Are"

A great column from David Brooks about “Where the Wild Things Are”, from which I shall now excerpt from copiously:

In the movie, Max wants to control the Wild Things. The Wild Things in turn want to be controlled. They want him to build a utopia for them where they won’t feel pain. But in the movie, Max fails as king. He lacks the power to control his Wild Things. The Wild Things come to recognize that he isn’t really a king, and maybe there are no such things as kings.

In the philosopher’s picture, the good life is won through direct assault. Heroes use reason to separate virtue from vice. Then they use willpower to conquer weakness, fear, selfishness and the dark passions lurking inside. Once they achieve virtue they do virtuous things.

In the psychologist’s version, the good life is won indirectly. People have only vague intuitions about the instincts and impulses that have been implanted in them by evolution, culture and upbringing. There is no easy way to command all the wild things jostling inside.

But it is possible to achieve momentary harmony through creative work. Max has all his Wild Things at peace when he is immersed in building a fort or when he is giving another his complete attention. This isn’t the good life through heroic self-analysis but through mundane, self-forgetting effort, and through everyday routines.

This rings so true for me – there’s an incredible peace in the mundane, in the busyness of creation. It allows you to temporarily forget about the chasms and strains of being, of not knowing who you really are, and just get caught up in a singular act placed in front of you. I suspect their beautiful acknowledgement of this is a big reason why I loved Dave Eggers’ and Spike Jonze’s vision for the film so much.

Oct 20, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #