We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

90% of the time, the internet seems like a great idea. Other times, not so much. Not for what it is, precisely, but rather for what it replaces.

Exhibit A: Letter-writing. Much has been made over the decline of formality and care that has accompanied the rise of email. Fine, agreed. But what about the craft of writing itself? And, more importantly, the delightful accessories that made it an artful process rather than just a matter of conveying data?

An insistence on the magic of pen and paper is what gives Enormous Champion’s whale letterpress cards their charm. Six cetaceous buddies are printed on cards ripe for scribbling cheery missives (above left), though any one of the prints is fine enough to frame and hang.

There’s also the San Francisco-based outfit Yellow Owl Workshop, which produces achingly beautiful materials fit for all kinds of correspondence by hand. The Imperial Correspondence Set (above right) looks like something Max might have dreamed up if he’d decided to stay in the land of the Wild Things––a perfectly boyish set on which to dash off notes back home. The kit includes a crest to customize and a cherry-red pencil for mark-making; the comprehensiveness of the set is a sweet homage to the act of writing a letter.

Email can’t touch this!

The bottom of this vintage Sendak poster got cut off by my scanner, but it says:

READING IS FUN!
International Year of the Child 1979

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Went by Urban Outfitters on Cahuenga tonight. They gave us a gallery space to hang some still from the movie and some of Sonny’s creature design drawings. The proceeds will go to our friends at 826 LA. Lance is currating the images as you can see. And they also are doing a pop up Wild Things shop in the store which we saw in progress and looked great. They are also showing/selling(?) some very limited one of a kind Wild Things outfits that our good friend Christian Joy made. We’ll be posting a Christian Joy interview soon with all the pics. The opening is on Saturday night.

Doleful romance, antiquated daydreams and rococo beasts characterize the lovely work of illustrator Carson Ellis, The Decemberists’ resident artist and wife of frontman Colin Meloy. A flair for the fantastic must run in the family: the above sketches are awesome collaborations with her three-year-old son Hank, drawn while they traveled on tour with the band this summer. “Hank dictates and I illustrate,” writes Ellis on her blog, noting that their shared travel journal seems to focus on everything but travelling.

Our good friends and photography tag team duo Jeremy and Claire Weiss AKA Day 19 are having a show of photographs in San Francisco. The show includes beautiful pics of what it was like to spend a summer raising kids, hanging out with skateboarders, traveling the world and listening to really loud music… you know… the essentials. You should go to it if you are in the area – and if you aren’t in the area, you should go to their blog and brush up on the aforementioned lifestyle.

1262 Mason Street San Francisco, CA

One of the hardest things about childhood is coming to terms with the fact that adults control everything. Pretty much up until your pre-teen years, adults determine where you go, what you do, when you eat and whether or not dessert is an option. The consolations are few––which makes them, of course, all the more important.

By “consolations” we mean small-scale triumphs and tiny deceits. Things like these Ceramic Crinkle Cups from A+R, which look like disposable Dixie cups that mom might scrape off the kitchen floor after a birthday party but were actually made by Netherlands ceramicist Rob Brandt in 1975 as a comment on our consuming culture. Give the set to a kid for his birthday and he’ll treasure the visual trickery it wreaks.

Then there’s LACMA’s Sarcophagus Backpack, which is a ladybug-hued replica of a tomb from the 21st Dynasty (about 1070 – 945 B.C.). You wouldn’t mistake this for an actual relic––it’s far too cuddly for that––but the likeness is deeply satisfying to tote around on your back. It carries the additional pleasure of being an accessory that a non-awesome adult could NEVER pull off, which, as all kids know, is always a sign of quality.

Here is a small sprinkling of some of the great entires we’ve gotten for the “Where The Wild Things Ought To Be” contest that we are running in conjunction with Crailtap.

Hall and Oates vs. Wild Things

Obama loves the wild rumpus

Wild Einstein

Homecoming king of the wild things

Max on Wire

For your chance to win a complete set of Wild Things decks, just send us a picture, gif, or video letting us know where you think the wild things ought to be. email hidden; JavaScript is required

Speak the words “Archie McPhee” and you’ll get one of two reactions. The first is a blank. The second is an instantaneous metaphysical transfer back into the realm of childhood obsessions. There is no middle ground.

Archie McPhee is the catalog of a novelty store based in Seattle––a catalog that found its way into the homes of several generations of American youth and greatly influenced the mischief careers of many. Allow us to explain.

The idea for the company belonged to Mark Pahlow, who points to his dull childhood in Ohio as the impetus for launching the enterprise. “In 1963,” he wrote in Who Would Buy This? The Archie McPhee Story, “the two most exciting things in my life were my $3.98 ‘Made in Japan’ transistor radio with a fake leather case and Whitey, my albino hamster.” Growing up, Pahlow nourished himself on MAD Magazine and the alluring ads for x-ray specs and Sea-Monkeys that he spotted in the back of comic books. Eventually, he decided to launch his own emporium of novelty goods. “Archie McPhee was created because reality wasn’t quite living up to my expectations,” he explains.

And there the legend began. Pahlow set about collecting the things he craved as a child: rubber chickens, potato guns, fake mustaches, giant underpants, mutant cockroaches, punching nuns, ninja figurines, squirting rubber brains, and so forth. He produced a catalog that found its way into the homes of impressionable young children, who hoarded the catalog and squandered their allowance on realistic latex poo.

Eventually the rest of the country caught on to what us kids already knew, which was that Archie McPhee was a crucially important index of our innermost devious desires. The Smithsonian now maintains an archive of Archie McPhee catalogs, preserved in the catacombs for future generations to discover. In the words of Pahlow, “Never have your tax dollars been better spent.”

… Thumb cut off by Sonny

Woah, it’s a total dream team of stupendously talented and darkly funny illustrators! Matt Furie (check out our interview with Furie), Aiyana Udesen, and Albert Reyes have come together for a show at Giant Robot’s San Francisco gallery, and their new work looks beyond the boundaries of rad. This triad of titillating artists have covered the walls of GRSF with hot dogs, wombats, babes, and B-list celebrities. What more could you ask for? Maybe a picture of a Wild Thing leering at Denise Richards? Your wish is Aiyana Udesen’s command. Check it out before the show closes on September 16th!

Photos via Fecal Face.