'makes me want to save people'

Great article on Whitman in the NYRB. This is probably everything I now know about him. Did Leaves of Grass really come from nowhere? Really?

Also, from elsewhere, this, which is sitting next to the Stephen Fry interview in the jumble on my mental desk:

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it’s corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I’ll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no’s you’ve said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

…

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

Excerpted from a Dave Eggers interview available in full here. Hat tip here.

more wild things

The NYT review of 'Zeitoun' is here. As I say above, Dave Eggers has never quite hit the promised mark for me (see this for a particularly striking example of the product not matching the promise - though 'the writing has some humor and charm'). But I admire what he has done with his his renown and was really impressed with him the one time I saw him speak.

And that said, I also continue to have high hopes for 'Where the Wild Things Are'. I love this featurette, in which Maurice Sendak extols the artistic virtues of Spike Jonze (and Eggers makes a brief appearance - there's a longer version at the official website):


And here's the newest trailer: