a monster named moishe

i remember one of my grown-up neighbors passionately denouncing In the Night Kitchen - i didn't know why, but my mom told me it had something to do with her not liking the fact that Mickey is partially naked in one of the scenes. I wonder what my neighbor would have said about some of Sendak's otehr books. Anyway...

today i saw the maurice sendak exhibit at the Jewish Museum.

i liked it a lot. it was much heavier than i expected.
at times, the commentaries seemed a bit too psychoanalytical about sendak's "anxieties" and whatnot, but by the end of the exhibit you get the real sense that he uses children's (and other, somewhat) literature to work through his own, err, "issues." (who would have thought In the Night Kitchen had holocaust references?) anyway, Sendak's preoccupation with global suffering combines with an intense persnalization of suffering via the holocaust experience of his family (though not him or his parents) to leave one seriously traumatized fellow. is it good to spend your entire life trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible evils of the world by drawing to mozart? or is it a little to much? in either case, if you live in new york i recommend going to see the show.
the best parts: comparing early and late version of the same scenes ; the room in the middle with a rug and copies of the books for story time (i recommend going back to the reading room after you have learned about the stories in depth in the rest of the exhibit) ; the brundibar room is intense.
the worst part: each room features a recording of some peformance of a sendak work - from a ballet of Where the Wild things Are to a cartoon about Rosie. They all add to the exhibit, but the Rosie clip is rather short and, while cute, hardly something you want to listen to 10 times over as you look at the rest of the stuff in the same gallery.

but go - it's good.