last week

Max Records in the movie "Where the Wild Things Are"

Last week all five of my kids' grandparents visited (fortunately not at the same time). The visits were great—and now I have to admit I'm enjoying the lack of company. The silence in my house. The nobody trying to "help" in the kitchen. And I'll try to make up for the fact that I didn't get to write about two amazing people from Brooklyn we all were thinking of last week:

MCA, looking so happy, right?

In Adam Yauch's memory, Terry Gross re-broadcast some of a great interview she did with all three Beastie Boys. Surprising that she could talk to them and not sound ridiculous, right? Gross also played a condensation of her truly amazing interviews with Maurice Sendak: yet another example of what a brilliant, gracious, curmudgeonly old man he was. Listen to his stories about not wanting to scare children at book signings; about being "in love with the world"; about his missing partner of 50 years; about his personal gods, Mozart, Dickenson, and Keats. And—so sweet—his fondness for Terry Gross herself: "There is something so special in you," he says—and rather than just a fawning fake interview friendship, you can hear their true affection for each other. "Live your life, live your life, live your life," he tells her. Good advice. That, and re-read this.