When the Artistic Impulse becomes an Uncontrollable Urge

(or: yet another Where The Wild Things Are post)

The impetus was innocent: I wanted a Where The Wild Things Are glove. You know, like those giant, green Hulk hands that they sold in toy stores a few years ago, the ones that the lead singer of the Flaming Lips used to wear during concerts while pouring copious amounts of fake blood over his head. Yeah, one of those. Unfortunately, no one was making them. I mean, if you wanted a $600 set of Max pajamas, you could pull out and a credit card and let the wild rumpus start. But if you wanted to terrorize your tots with an over-sized ogre hand, you were poop outta luck.
"Then make your own!" the little Jiminy Cricket voice inside my head said.
While this voice has been the cause of much grief and considerable court costs over the years, I figured, what the hell. After all, I've always been a sucker for peer pressure, and I'm especially susceptible when it comes from my imaginary friends.
So with some scissors, packing tape, and a couple of small cardboard boxes, I made the glove shown below. While I was aiming for a monster hand like the main character, Carol's, fate (and an alarming lack of talent) intervened, providing me with a four fingered, feathered-looking fin that more closely resembled the Douglas character's dairy-colored digits. Still, it had come together so quickly and with so little fuss that I decided to make a second one for my other hand. That, too, was a piece of the proverbial cake. Admiring the handiwork adorning my hands, I thought, this must be how Jesus felt when he built his cross made wine outta water.










In all honesty, this should've been enough for me. I'm not a particularly crafty fella, preferring lifting weights and having sex with Hollywood starlets to the world of construction paper and glue sticks. Yet for some strange reason, it wasn't. The more I looked at my monstrous mitts, the more I felt...incomplete.
That's when the Jiminy Cricket voice inside my head spoke up again. "What better way to waste a workday than by making even more cardboard costume pieces?"
How right you are, Jiminy!
Fast-forward several large boxes and two and a half cash register shifts, and I had the pullover chest piece, shoulder wing flaps, and sweat lodge/Halloween mask pictured below.


Staring into the backroom bathroom's spittle speckled mirror, dressed from head to potbelly in my cumbersome cardboard couture, a familiar voice spoke to me once more.
"I sure hope you're happy with your construction paper and your glue sticks, cuz as soon as the photos of you wearing that thing hit the internet, you're never getting laid again!"
Ah, how right you are, Jiminy.

Well, that's my story, my Where The Wild Things Are costume, and my pride, all laid out before you like a self-serving sacrificial offering. Handle with care.
















Related: My mini WTWTA store display