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

The epic ride that has been We Love You So simply cannot be done justice in bullet-point form, but we’ll give it a shot anyway. Here are some great memories from these past 14 months–and 1000 posts–for you to revisit in our absence:

And then of course there are the hundreds of artists and musicians and writers who’ve inspired us along the way– go back through the archvies and rediscover them whenever you feel lonely! We’ll always have these moments, and one day we will meet again.

Well everyone the time has come for We Love You So to take a much needed rest. When we started this project last year we had no idea how much fun it would be and how much support we would receive from so many places around the world, but like anything this site must also end.

This coming Tuesday, June 15, WLYS is going to be going to sleep for a while. With any luck we will be back, in some form or another, soon enough. Meanwhile, to celebrate the final week we’ll be revisiting some over our favorite articles from our time here and also announcing one FINAL giveaway for all the fans out there.

Stay tuned and thanks again for everything!

Wow! Over the weekend we received e-mails from more than 350 We Love You So readers across the globe, from Colombia to Bosnia and small towns in Missouri. Your e-mails were so overwhelmingly filled with an outpouring of love for Where the Wild Things Are, Spike, and the blog that it was terribly hard to choose just three winners. We wish we could give copies of the DVD to each and every one of you! But since we can’t, here are the three lucky fans who we chose:

Paul D. of Philadelphia, PA wrote in to say he loved Lance Bangs’ documentary portrait of Family Bookstore in L.A.

While it is a little tough to know that so much land lies between that little hub of creative energy and my lonely mountain perch near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it is encouraging to know that scenes like the one that has developed around Family and The Smell are happening contemporarily. It is easy to get discouraged about the present state of the creative movement when looking at the cliques and happening spots that one missed witnessing first hand by decades (punk rock’s first squalid notes, the abstract expressionists redefining New York, the Algonquin roundtable, the Bauhaus etc.)

However, fetishizing the past is easily kept in check when there are ample reminders that art and culture are kept alive / re-imagined in new and unexpected ways by individuals striking out on their own or in packs. The We Love You So blog has provided ample encouragement that beautiful things are always being made and that one only needs boot straps and elbow grease to step up into the ranks of those pushing culture forward.

We like your attitude, Paul! And apparently ardent reader Danny H. appreciates our attitude. He kindly complimented us on the overall “voice” of the blog:

…hands-down my favorite thing has been the way reading the blog has always seemed like an excited friend telling you about this great new _______ that they just discovered. You’ve never sounded like taste-makers or scenesters or critics….it’s just been one more person whose opinion I look forward to hearing. Thanks!

That made us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but what sealed the deal for Danny was this cute post-it doodle he sent our way:

Finally, 14-year-old Mia R. from Los Angeles told us that when she’s not writing Star Wars-inspired sonnets, she checks We Love You So on the computers in her school library:

I love everything about We Love You So, but some of my favorite things are the knit wolf suit sweater (once I finish knitting some cupcakes, I’m going to start this sweater), Coco Cake Boutique’s Wild Things cake (I started reading the Coco Cake blog after I saw that and all of the other adorable cupcakes- I also became obsessed with cupcakes then too), Pogo, and Happy Socks. But my favorite is probably all of the lovely forts people made!!!!

For everyone else, you can pick up a copy of the Where the Wild Things Are Blu-Ray or DVD online or in stores now!

While we were in London finishing the effects at Framestore, I got to be in a pilot for David Cross created for Channel 4 in Britain. I am in just in a couple scenes in the first episode. I have no idea why David asked me to do it but I had the best role, I just get non-stop verbally abused by Will Arnett in the most scathing hilarious way. I spent the whole day cracking up at two of the funniest people I’ve hung out with. I felt like I had my own private Will and David comedy show. Also, it was directed by the the Russo brothers who directed a lot of Arrested Development. They have a great touch.

We’ve been getting a lot of emails about the merchandise surrounding the Where The Wild Things Are release. In case you were curious, these vinyl gems have been spotted in pre-order all over the internet.

Here is a masterpiece that Cheryl Dunn shot of Mark when some giant fancy museum in Germany asked him to do an art show there and instead of hanging art he did this. This is the footage cut down into a video for Coconut Records.

Stacey Rozich is a Seattle-based illustrator doing nice beautiful things with pens and paints. If you are a fan of paintings of animals, or humans in animal costumes she is definitely worth a look. As Rozich herself notes “Where the Wild Things Are was and still is important to me and generations of individuals.” As for the showings at her gallery space in Pioneer Square – “Not an event goes by where someone doesn’t make a Sendak comparison.”

“Chalk drawings spotted in the schoolyard of a small rural school in Australia. Drawn on an old chalkboard by the principal over twelve years ago.”

Thanks Cameron!

We got this one sent in from a few different places last week. Pretty crafty. Wild Things bento box.

My friend Wyatt spotted this in Tompkins Square Park.