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Terrible news, I don't even know what to say.

Sad news.

Horrible. At least he managed to cram several lifetimes' worth of accomplishments into his 47 years, though.

God....dammit... I coulda sworn it went into remission.

The Beastie Boys were one of those bands that got me through my roughest, most awkward years, a source of unflinching good vibes and incredible rhymes.

A truly sad day.

A good time to revisit one of Criterion's best celebrity top 10 lists.

Jesus, how sad and how scary

R.I.P. MCA

Yeah, sad news. I met him once after a show, he was a cool guy - his Oscilloscope company put out some great stuff.

swo17 wrote:A good time to revisit one of Criterion's best celebrity top 10 lists.

10. Sometimes I get free DVDs from Criterion, but not always. I wanted to get one of each, you know, like the whole collection, but they said, “No, Adam, we don’t do that.”

LOL....RIP MCA.

Matt wrote:Oscilloscope folks, I think I speak on behalf of everyone here when I offer my condolences for your immense loss.

Adam Yauch crammed a lot of life into 47 years. A mindful visionary. RIP.

Terrible news. Adam did great things with Oscilloscope and I hope the company continues to thrive and make available great world cinema, which was obviously a passion for Adam.

Jimmy James' legal defense team just lost its key witness: George "Goober" Lindsey dead at 83

I will never, ever get tired of this.

James Isaac who worked on several of David Cronenberg's projects just passed at age 51. (sorry for the link)

Maurice Sendak

antnield wrote:Maurice Sendak

Loved him for his own irascible personality as much as I did for his books. Oddly, my copy of Tell Them Anything You Want arrived yesterday -- one of a handful of Oscilloscope titles I purchased in the wake of Adam Yauch's death. Guess there's no better time to watch it than now.

That's like a freight truck. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who had Where the Wild Things Are as their first not Seuss literary experience and how important that was for me. Without question he's one of the most important literary figures of the past fifty years and at least he had a hell of an impact to leave on.

Sendak was great not just for Where the Wild Things Are, but also Little Bear, which I read so many times I think I had some of those books memorized by age five.

Don't forget Pierre. Though I don't care.

antnield wrote:Maurice Sendak

Jesus, that's two Spike Jones collaborators in a few days. Sendak was amazing at creating a whole world in a few pages, more than almost any other children's book writer I can think of.

He'd have probably punched you for that compliment though. He hated to be thought of as a children's author and certainly he did much more than that though I think that he felt that designation for his books was insulting.

Hmm, I can see that, though obviously that's not how I intended it- certainly, there are rewards to a book like In The Night Kitchen that apply as much to an adult as to a child. There's an energy to his art that invariably makes me remember childhood, though, and I feel like a child when I look at it.

I certainly think his genius was providing a catharsis for children (and adults in a different way) by allowing them to an honest view of their experience. Childhood doesn't become this sweet little thing of nostalgia, but rather this big thing filled with fear and violence where the reaction to it sometimes can only be that.

Absolutely, and I think that's something the Jones movie got across wonderfully well- not the sugary conception of childhood from someone who's safely decades removed from it, but the raw and fragile state of being totally unable to control your own emotions and unable to understand how things work and how one is expected to fit oneself in with them. Jones got that across in an hour and a half or so, and his movie is remarkable because of it. Sendak got it across in 48 pages.

Most definitely. I'm going to steal a quote from Sendak (who was really one of the greatest interview subjects ever) and say that it is impossible for someone removed from their childhood to write for children, but he succeeded because he wrote from subjects that could actually enthrall children and stick with them because the situation is so interesting. In a weird way I think that a lot of his work takes on new dimensions for adults because he knew to write as an adult even when kids are the intended absorbers.

This really deserves a listen if only because I'm pretty sure this was his last interview (either that or the Colbert ones) and is just an emotional roller-coaster. He was an amazingly complex man.