Breaking News! This just in!

Apparently, the wild things are at a theater near you and have raked in over $32 million their first weekend.

Now before I get to the meat of this blog post, here's a little side helpin' of some smashed taters with butter and gravy on the side.  After openings for movies like Transformers and Iron Man, am I jaded if my first thought was, "Is that it...only $32 mil?"

Now to the meat wherein I follow up with my last blog now that I have spoken to my son.  The one who inspired me to write about all this wild thing stuff in the first place.

Yes!  He did see it.  Yes!  He was not disappointed and did love it.  Yes!  He was thrilled the film was more about using Muppet-style filming than CGI.  Yes!  He was in shock that I had never read the book before since it truly is one of his most beloved.

And finally, YES! Doesn't it sort of beg the question, "Where the hell was I during his childhood?"  Could be worse.  Could be porn.  Although...

He genre'd the movie as fantasy and reiterated that it is the sort of story he wants to tell with his movies.  The kind of movie where the boundaries of the real are blurred, so anything goes without being questioned. 

It made me think, "what if we are actually asleep when we think we are awake and more awake and alive when we are actually asleep?"  At least in the context of being so much more rigid in the real world about how things are supposed to be or they are not real.  What is real anyway?

Perhaps for a child reading the book "Where the Wild Things Are" for the first time, it is the described and brilliantly illustrated journey that feels like it took years to this place of fantasy that seems so real...so true to the child and child-like experience that ensures this story will hold a perpetually fond place in their heart.

And maybe it's pure fantasy and writer's drivel to believe such a thing.  For me, my appreciation and love will always be extended to anything that allows me to share moments of joy with my boy.

Where the Wild Things Are

I know.  What an original title. 

I find it interesting sometimes...when I allow myself to ponder such things...what ends up in our awareness and why.  Today is the opening day for the movie, Where the Wild Things Are.  My youngest son (soon to be 25 years young) is psyched and I am sure has probably already seen it.  I will call him and ask him soon if this is true.

He's been psyched for months.  He loves this book.  Loves with a capital "L" and not just 'cuz it is at the beginning of this sentence.  I'd never read the book once.  Still wasn't even motivated to read it, although I will see the movie so I can better share my son's experience with him.

Part of me thinks, what's all the fuss?  I mean if it was that big of a deal wouldn't I have already read it.  I'm a reader.  And this book and its being brought to the silver screen seems to have a lot of buzz and a lot of love behind it.  Still, would I care if my son wasn't so in love with it?

While I can't with 100% certainty say that I would care without his excitement about it, I feel in my gut that I just wouldn't.  I mean I don't care about Hanna Montana, but if I had a young daughter who did...I just might.

Even with how much I love, love, love my son and am thrilled always to have ways to share his love, like this movie, it wasn't until I read the review today, which clued me in that the book is less than 400 words that I felt like I just may want to read it. 

I was going to Barnes and Noble today anyway.  So this was an extra bonus.  And if anyone at Borders is reading or Barnes and Noble, for that matter, I'm giving you a heads up why I have been choosing Barnes and Noble lately over Borders (for quite a while either was equally beloved by me).  Barnes and Noble has free wi fi access.  All else being equal...

So I enter Barnes and Noble and assume my best bet for finding the book is heading straight back to the children's section, which in the Manhattan Beach Barnes and Noble is where the children's section is.  And I'm looking and looking for the book and finally think I've spied it.  I pick it up and it is some sort of thinly veiled spoof of the book. Not actually what I am looking for.  So I take a second look around and if it had been a wild thing, it would have bit me.  That's how close I was. 

I had lots of choices.  Small version.  Paperback.  Hard cover.  I chose the hard cover.  Does that say something about me?  Does it matter?

I sat down at one of the kids table on the kids bench and proceeded to read the book.  My first thought...what's the big whoop.  I wanted to like it more.  I want to 'cuz of my son and his love for it.  So, I continued sitting there and thinking about that article in today's newspaper about how the book was controversial because it seemed to somehow show this boy's desire to bite his mother as not being a bad thing. 

The more I thought about the book and the article and my son's love for it; it morphed me to a place of "What if part of our suffering as human's is we are trying to get it right and police everyone else as to what is right, when in the perception of Divine Love right or wrong doesn't actually exist?"  And in under 400 words, (and yes, I have to admit I can certainly respect the artistic nature of the illustrations) the author was able to portray opposite views of what biting someone may mean and what punishment has to mean.  Or technically if we can actually punish someone if they aren't willing to see it that way.  And in that I can certainly respect a brilliance for writing something that can be seen in so many different ways.

I was so lost in thought that it took one of Barnes and Noble's employees asking me if I needed help to snap me out of it.  If she only knew.