sailboat in wild things

10 Fun Facts About Where The Wild Things Are

In Maurice Sendak 's 1963 children’s book, Max, a little boy in a wolf costume, is sent to bed without supper. So he sails on a boat to a faraway land where he tames the Wild Things, becomes their king, and leads them on a wild rumpus. Here's what you should about about this spare, strange, classic book.

1. The book was originally called Where the Wild Horses Are.

Sendak was working as a children's book illustrator when editor Ursula Nordstrom (who also did Charlotte's Web , Goodnight Moon , and Harold and the Purple Crayon ) offered to let him write his own book. He came up with the title Where The Wild Horses Are , which Nordstrom thought was "so poetic and evocative," according to Sendak . Then Sendak, who was a self-taught artist, discovered that he couldn't draw horses. When he told Nordstrom his problem, she said, "Maurice, what can you draw?"

"Things," he replied.

2. The “things” were based on Maurice Sendak’s relatives.

When developing the monsters for the book, Sendak drew on his childhood memories of his immigrant relatives. His uncles and aunts would come on Sundays and "all say the same dumb things," he recalled :

"How big you are, how fat you got, and you look so good we could eat you up. So the only entertainment was watching their bloodshot eyes and how bad their teeth were. You know, children are monstrously cruel about physical defects—the hair curling out of the nose, the weird mole on the side of the head. And so, you would glue in on that and then you talk about it with your brother and sister later. And they became the Wild Things."

3. “Wild Thing” references a Yiddish term.

As a child, when Sendak was driving his mother nuts, she would call him " vilde chaya ," or wild animal in Yiddish. In the book, the mother calls Max "Wild thing!" and he says, "I'll eat you up!"

4. Where the Wild Things Are was about Sendak’s childhood.

Sendak repeatedly said he didn’t try to write for children, he just tried to write about himself and people he knew. The books were a form of self-expression for him. Where The Wild Things Are was based on his experiences living as a child in Brooklyn with his hard-working father and a mother who, in his words, “had problems emotionally and mentally.”

"That’s what art is. I mean, you don't make up stories, you live your life," he said in a 2004interview with Bill Moyer , adding, "I was not Max. I did not have the courage that Max had, and I did not have the mother that Max had."

5. Like Max, Sendak did go to bed without his supper—voluntarily.

"I often went to bed without supper because I hated my mother’s cooking,” he said. “So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she were going to hurt me, she would make me eat.”

6. A prominent psychiatrist denounced the book without reading it.

Where The Wild Things Are was an immediate popular and critical success, winning the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Most Distinguished Picture Book. It was also frequently banned for having scary or dark undertones and for a lack of moralizing. In 1969, psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim mentioned the book in his column for Ladies' Home Journal , saying that it would cause fear of desertion in children . He asserted that Sendak didn't understand "the incredible fear it evokes in the child to be sent to bed without supper, and this by the first and foremost giver of food and security—his mother."

Although Bettelheim later admitted he hadn't read the 37-page book, the criticism stuck with Sendak. From then on, he called him "Brutal-heim."

7. There’s a Wild Things  opera.

Composer Oliver Knussen wrote a one-act opera based on Where The Wild Things Are , which premiered in Brussels in 1980. Since the Things are unnamed in the book, for the opera, Sendak gave them the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard.

8. Disney animated a short cartoon featuring Max.

In 1983, Disney owned the film rights to Where The Wild Things Are . While an animated feature never materialized, they did make an animated short about the book to demonstrate 3D animation. There’s also a 1973 cartoon of the book, directed by Gene Deitch .

9. The live-action film was more for adults than kids.

The 2009 movie, like the book, was criticized for its darker tone. Director Spike Jonze said his goal "wasn't to make a children's movie. I wanted to make a movie about childhood." The struggle over tone led Jonze to move the film from Universal to Warner Bros., where there were more arguments over how to translate the book into live action. When the film came out, it was marketed to adults rather than to children.

10. Despite being Sendak’s biggest book, he hated the idea of writing a sequel.

Sendak didn't know why Where The Wild Things Are was such a hit, but one thing was for sure: He sure as hell wasn't going to write a follow-up. "People say, 'why don't you do  Wild Things 2 ?' Wild Things 1 was such a success!" he said in an interview with the Tate . "Go to hell. Go to hell."

A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2022.

It's where the wild things are! Five things you'll learn at the Maurice Sendak exhibition at Skirball

"Where The Wild Things Are" has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide and has been translated into dozens of languages since it was published in 1963.

The book follows a boy named Max who, after getting into mischief one night, is sent to bed without supper. While he’s cooped up in his room, a forest begins to grow around him. Trees and vines take over, and the walls give way to the outside world. Then, Max hops on a boat and journeys across the sea. When he disembarks, he finds himself in a land of giant beasts, with “terrible claws” and “terrible teeth.”

Now, the children’s classic and its author and illustrator is at the heart of “Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak,” an exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center in West L.A., on view through the start of September.

With over 150 sketches, storyboards, and paintings, it’s the largest collection of Sendak’s work to be exhibited, after his death in 2012. It also solidifies the writer’s role as an artist who continues to shape minds across cultures and generations.

Sarah Daymude, the exhibition’s managing co-curator, said she appreciates that Sendak “never shied away from telling dark or complex stories.”

“Something that a lot of us, even as adults, can learn is that it's ok to talk about difficult things with children. And it's ok to tell these stories, because it's important to validate children's emotions,” she said.

She also loves that the main characters in Sendak's work are always bold, “even though they may be placed in frightening situations.”

I recently visited this gorgeous exhibition. Here are some of the things you’ll learn there:

ONE: Sendak, a New Yorker who was the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, had a “desperate loathing” for high school and didn’t do well in class. But he was already a skilled artist: Despite failing physics, his teacher hired him to illustrate a book on the atomic bomb.

TWO: Sendak and his partner, Eugene Glynn, saw their dogs as part of the family. Their dogs made frequent appearances throughout Sendak’s work. To help visitors spot them at the exhibition, Skirball provides a gallery guide that includes cutouts of one of the pups and a sailboat, like the one Max took to see the Wild Things.

THREE: Sendak loved Mickey Mouse, and the Disney character’s big head, big feet, and little body influenced his work.

FOUR: Sendak enjoyed classical music and developed a drawing practice called “fantasy sketches,” in which he’d listen to a piece by Beethoven or Schubert and challenge himself to draw a story that had to be complete before the final note.

FIVE: Sendak also worked as a set designer. At the exhibition, there’s a tiny stage model for the opera “Brundibar,” a nod to Sendak’s time at the Chicago Opera Theater. This opera was also performed by imprisoned Jews at a concentration camp in the Czech Republic in 1943, and nearly every child involved was killed.

BONUS: The exhibition concludes with a living room, complete with comfy couches and a faux fireplace. There, visitors can curl up and read books that Sendak authored and illustrated, as well as books that inspired him.

“I thought it was important to give folks an opportunity to sit and really immerse themselves in the stories,” co-curator Daymude said. When visitors go to museums, she added, they’re often left with a longing to touch and feel the objects, so she and her team made it a point to provide a space for that.

The end of the exhibition also includes a professional drawing desk, with lots of paper and pencils. Daymude wants visitors who are feeling inspired to help themselves to these instruments.

“Who knows? Maybe we'll have the next Maurice Sendaks on our hands,” she said.

Brilliant children's books

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

‘An ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.’

The moment Maurice Sendak’s wolfish hero escapes the confines of his bedroom prison and into the world, there is a boat waiting for him. A sharp, red sailing boat – appropriately also called Max.

He spends just a few pages of the book in the boat, but Max sails for an entire year –  a practically Homeric duration. Sendak declines to fill in the gaps and the reader is left to wonder about the events of his journey.

There is something very Odyssean about his departure too. Having tricked the wild things and become their king, he is once again in his boat, cocking a snook at the love hungry monsters. He is Odysseus, in his guise as ‘Nobody’ taunting the wild cyclops Polyphemus.

In his fascinating essay, ‘ Introduction to Picture Book Codes ’, William Moebius explains how Sendak plays with the picture book format in Where the Wild Things Are. When we first get to know Max he is confined not just to his bedroom but inside an internal frame within the book.

That picture slowly grows as the room fills with vegetation. As the final traces of the bedroom are consumed by jungle, the frame vanishes entirely.

His boat then appears, and the imaginary world spreads out over two pages. By the time Max’s boat reaches the island of the Wild Things, the widescreen effect is complete. The fantasy world is given complete domination of the book.

Sendak talked about giving his fantasies a ‘physical form’, around which he built ‘a kind of house around them – the story – and the painting of the house is the picture making’. This use of framing as a fantasy gateway is also used to great effect in C.S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In his house there literally hangs a framed painting of a ship at sea, which magically expands to become the ‘real world’, drawing our heroes and the reader in with it. Sendak is more subtle, but just as effective.

‘Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day’

The voyage home is one of the best spreads in the book. Max looks a little mournful, perhaps even contrite as his red boat skips over moon lit water. He is given time to stop and think. The luminous seas and sky dazzle and the soft, cross-hatched palms soften. We’re rapidly winding down towards that perfect, sleepy ending.

Where the Wild Things Are is published by Random House

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Wild Things Ending Explained: Breaking Down The Layers Of The 1998 Movie's Big Reveal

Twists on twists on twist on twists.

Wild Things is a movie often talked about because of its famous threesome scene. However, we should remember it for all of the wild twists. Wild Things starts with rich teen Kelly ( Denise Richards ) attempting to seduce her guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon). Things escalate from there and continue to build until it becomes so complicated, you'll need the Wild Things ending explained. 

The film doesn’t take itself seriously, which helped make it one of the defining movies of the ‘90s. It may not be one of the best movies of that decade , but it leaves an impression. People may have watched Wild Things for some explicit content but found themselves engulfed in the many twists and the Wild Things ending. 

Warning Wild Things Spoilers Ahead. Proceed with caution.

What Happened At The End Of Wild Things

Ray Duquette ( Kevin Bacon ) is dismissed from his job after killing Kelly in an alleged self-defense shooting. The investigation finds him innocent of no wrongdoing, so no charges are filed. The next scene reveals that Ray and Sam have been working together. The men go sailing on Sam’s boat. Sam attempts to kill Ray by making him fall off it. Ray manages to climb back on. Then Suzie ( Neve Campbell ) reveals that she faked her death.

She kills Ray, kills Sam, and rides off on his boat. A few mid-credits scenes explain how Suzie masterminded the entire scheme. She blackmailed Sam by obtaining photos of his affair with Kelly. Then she orchestrates Sam and Ray becoming friends. This is to get Ray involved in the many crimes. Suzie also stages her death, including removing her teeth. 

We also see that Ray killed Kelly not in self-defense but purposefully. Suzie meets with Kenneth ( Bill Murray ) and gives her a briefcase full of money and a check. 

All The Reveals  

Wild Things has so many plot turns that you may need a recap of all the crazy twists leading up to the final one. The first twist is the rape accusation. Kelly clearly tries to seduce Sam, so her accusations of sexual assault come out of nowhere. The next twist is Suzie corroborating Kelly’s story. We know the girls don’t like each other, so this seems strange for both of them to lie.

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The next twist is the courtroom scene where the teen girls confirm their lies. The fact that Sam, Kelly, and Suzie are all working together is the next twist. After that one, the next is that Sam is trying to kill Suzie and Kelly, and Ray suspects everything. Ray working with Sam offers another twist. Then we have Suzie still being alive. The final twist is that Suzie masterminded everything. Some may consider that Ray killed Kelly in cold blood a twist, but it seems fairly obvious. 

The twist about Suzie orchestrating everything puts Wild Things in the same league as some other crime thrillers with shocking twists. However, the twists become one too many. By the time you get to the Ray and Sam working together twist, you know a few more are coming. In an Independent interview, Wild Things screenwriter Stephen Peters revealed that all the twists were aimed as a satire of movies like Basic Instinct, trademark ‘90s erotic thrillers. 

Not that I don’t like those films. But I thought I could write a film with a couple of twists and keep laying it on until it’s a joke – a fun one – so you get caught up in it.

Wild Things' many twists add to the experience and make it more fun than some similar movies that take themselves too seriously.

Suzie’s Revenge  

The Wild Things ending reframes the story. It starts as this confusing tale of young girls trying to destroy an innocent man for rejecting one of them. Then it turns into this crime drama. Finally, it ends as a revenge tale. The film establishes that one of the motivations for Suzie is to get revenge on Ray for killing her friend Davey. The opening scene sets up a lot of what comes later in Wild Things . Suzie storms out of the assembly when she sees Ray and even expresses disdain for him.

We don’t know their history, but we know it isn’t good. The opening moments also start with Sam giving a lecture on sex crimes. This foreshadows that the main part of the storyline revolves around sexual assault or the appearance of it. The first confrontation between Ray and Suzie establishes the importance of the volatility between them. It's what drives Suzie. 

Suzie isn’t just getting revenge on Ray, but Sam, and maybe Kelly as well. She mentions during the trial how Ray abandoned her when she needed him. This action makes her drag him into this plan and blackmail him. We don’t know Suzie and Kelly’s real relationship because most of what we see is part of the whole act.

However, we can assume that Kelly had been cruel to Suzie in the past. Therefore, this could have been revenge on her for her past behavior. Even if Suzie has no direct grievance against Kelly, she could just want revenge for what she represents: the rich.

Classism plays a major part in Wild Things . Minus Kelly, all the main players aren’t wealthy. They’re the others of this world. That’s partly how they’re enticed into this money scheme. Suzie is the poorest of them all. In a Flashback Files interview, Wild Things director John McNaughton discussed the political nature of the film because of Suzie becoming the victor. 

Who wins? The girl from the trailer park! She’s all alone on the ninety foot sail boat, out on the Caribbean. Pretty much everyone else is dead. That was the nineties, with the concentration of wealth. But the girl from the trailer park takes ‘m all down.

Suzie gets revenge on Ray, Sam, Kelly, and the rich. Therefore, this action gives Wild Things a sort-of eat-the-rich vibe, but not quite since Suzie also eats the middle class.  

How Wild Things Plays With Misdirection 

Wild Things has a lot of twists, but it tells you about them. So much of the dialogue points to what’s to come. In one scene, Ray casually tells Jimmy (Cory Pendergast) that you never know the true self or intentions of someone. This is a not-too-subtle wink to the audience because everyone is lying. However, you see hints of people’s true identities and intentions throughout. Wild Things just tries to make you doubt your instincts. 

For example, Ray comes off as shady, especially when interacting with Suzie. Then he turns into “the hero” of the film by trying to save the girls and expose Sam. Sam is a known womanizer and wannabe social climber. However, at the start of Wild Things, he comes off as innocent. Someone with an upstanding character. This is to make you trust that he would never sleep with teenagers, especially students. Suzie never seems dumb, but suddenly, she becomes anxious and a liability when Ray questions her. 

Wild Things often misdirects the viewers to make the twists land. It works because you start to believe things, despite them not going along with your initial perception of characters and situations. 

Wild Things is one of the best sexy thrillers . It’s also one of the films that succeeds because the twists are fun and the ending adds to the craziness of the movie.

Stream Wild Things on Netflix. 

Spent most of my life in various parts of Illinois, including attending college in Evanston. I have been a life long lover of pop culture, especially television, turned that passion into writing about all things entertainment related. When I'm not writing about pop culture, I can be found channeling Gordon Ramsay by kicking people out the kitchen.

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Where the Wild Things Are

Fiction | Picture Book | Early Reader Picture Book | Published in 1963

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Where the wild things are — film review.

Director Spike Jonze fearlessly weaves some whimsical movie magic to bring Maurice Sendak's 1963 "Where the Wild Things Are" to the screen.

By Kirk Honeycutt , The Associated Press October 11, 2009 7:00pm

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An illustrated children’s book that consists of nine sentences and 20 pages does not immediately suggest a feature film adaptation. Nonetheless, Spike Jonze has fearlessly plunged ahead to weave whimsical movie magic to bring Maurice Sendak’s 1963 “Where the Wild Things Are” to the screen.

The story, as millions of children and grown children know, tells of a rambunctious boy, sent to bed without his supper, who then encounters fearsome-looking but surprisingly gentle creatures when his bedroom turns into a mysterious forest. The film does surmount one of its two difficult challenges: Through puppetry and computer animation, the filmmaking teams have successfully put a world of childhood imagination on the screen. Where the film falters is Jonze and novelist Dave Eggers’ adaptation, which fails to invest this world with strong emotions.

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Children might enjoy the goofy monsters and their fights and squabbles, but adults likely are to grow weary of the repetitiveness. In the end, the book probably was too slender to support a 102-minute movie. Without a quest to propel the story, such as Dorothy’s journey in “The Wizard of Oz,” the movie turns into an afternoon-special with an easily digested moral that fails to grab youngsters by the collar and shake them up with an exciting adventure.

A viewer is encouraged to see that Max’s (Max Records) rough play with the family dog and his snowball fights with neighborhood kids are angry reactions to a home life that disturbs him. His single mom (Catherine Keener) must juggle demanding work assignments and a new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) while perhaps neglecting her impressionable son.

An older sister’s self-absorption and a science teacher’s declaration that one day the sun will die don’t help matters. Nonetheless, the boy is too much of a brat to elicit much sympathy. And his adventures with the Wild Things never captivate a viewer.

Rather than being exiled to his room, the boy, clad in only a wolf costume, runs away into the night. He discovers a sailboat that transports him to the faraway land of Wild Things, creatures that nurture childlike ambitions and grudges.

It is not long before he declares himself a Viking king. Swallowing anything the wee lad says, the monsters nominate him to be their king, too. He readily accepts and promises to keep them happy and safe. Max is about to learn the first lesson of a politician: Be careful about what you promise a potential constituency.

The monsters carry on like children themselves. They wish to sleep in piles of furry bodies, think and behave with a child’s self-righteousness and are swift to perceive any slight. The large costume suits, courtesy of Jim Henson Co.’s Creature Shop, achieve a remarkable semblance to the witty illustrations of Sendak (who as one of the film’s producers was heavily involved in overseeing the page-to-screen transition).

The Wild Things are overgrown dolls with expressive, feral faces and often lighter-than-air bodies. (Sendak reportedly based his monsters on family members studied intently as a child.) They rather like to bash things but are quick to realize that little gets accomplished by such actions.

The voice actors couldn’t be better. James Gandolfini plays the pack leader, Carol, who looks avidly for purpose in life and thinks Max might provide the key. Catherine O’Hara is the sardonic, pessimistic Judith, all mouth and one horn growing incongruously out of her nose; Forest Whitaker is her patient and possibly adoring companion, Ira; Paul Dano is a put-upon goat; Chris Cooper plays the birdlike, kinetic Douglas; and Lauren Ambrose is the aloof KW.

Virtually plotless escapades in monster land feature the building of a fort and a dirt-clod fight, all things that Max instigates without any thought about how these activities will fulfill his promises to the gang. They don’t, causing him to realize that “it’s hard to be a family.”

The Australian production takes huge advantage of the hills, sand dunes and shores of the outer Melbourne area to create the changeable landscapes of this other world. Cinematographer Lance Acord, Jonze’s collaborator on “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation,” superbly integrates the imaginative with the real, and K.K. Barrett’s design further enhances this “real” fantasy, a far cry from the studio-bound phantasms of old. A rock-pop score by Karen O and Carter Burwell tries too hard and at too loud a pitch.

Opens: October 16 (Warner Bros.)

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Revisiting All of the Double-Crosses in ‘Wild Things,’ 20 Years Later

The 1998 movie is famous for its bountiful backstabbing plot twists—oh, yeah, and that one scene

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The most accidentally funny scene in 1998’s Wild Things , an exaggerated, swampy, saxophone-y, extremely humid cult classic that celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, happens 31 minutes into the movie.

Matt Dillon, who plays a slimy guidance counselor named Sam Lombardo, is driving by himself one evening after he’s been accused of raping the high school daughter of an ultra-rich woman. A car’s headlights are seen pulling up quickly behind Lombardo. The car catches up to Lombardo, then runs him off the road, causing Lombardo’s Jeep to roll over into a swamp. Lombardo gets out (the water is about waist high), and as he’s composing himself, the car that’s just run him off the road stops and backs up to the water. A guy gets out (it’s the boyfriend of the ultra-rich woman, but Lombardo doesn’t know it), and he pretends like he didn’t mean to do what he just did.

“Hey, are you all right?” the guys asks, walking into the water. “I’m fine,” says Lombardo. “You cool?” the guy asks as a follow-up but also as a confirmation, and then he cocks his fist, punches Lombardo in the face, and then shouts, “That’s too bad, motherfucker!” The guy grabs Lombardo, the camera cuts away to an alligator on the shore, and in the background, we hear the guy pounding on Lombardo’s face. As it’s happening, though, and this is so funny to watch—but as the beating is happening, the camera, after staying on the alligator for a second, cuts away to a raccoon in a tree, and it looks so, so, so much like the raccoon was surprised by the commotion and is now watching the fight like, “Aye, what the fuck?” Look:

The camera stays on the raccoon for a full beat, and then it fades to black as we watch the raccoon watching Lombardo get beat up. It’s my favorite part of the whole movie, which is an impressive thing because there are so many favorite parts to be had, most of which are plot-twist double-crosses. There are a bunch. There are so many. There are a lot.

Here’s a list of all the double-crosses:

• Sam Lombardo is accused of rape by a high school girl named Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards).
• When the news comes out that Lombardo has been accused of rape, another high school girl, Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), calls the police investigating the case and tells them that Lombardo raped her, too.
• Lombardo hires a strip mall lawyer named Kenneth Bowden (somehow Bill Murray) to defend him at trial. (The Van Ryan family is powerful enough that none of the high-powered lawyers who know them are willing to help Lombardo.)
• BUT THEN: During the trial, Suzie, a dolt, breaks under pressure. She admits that the accusations are false and that she was talked into it by Kelly. (Suzie, we find out, was mad at Lombardo because she felt like he abandoned her when she needed him the most. Kelly was mad at Lombardo, we find out, because he’d had an affair with her mother.)
• BUT THENN: We find out that Kelly and Lombardo were in on it together. (Kelly’s mother had a trust in place for Kelly, but Kelly couldn’t touch it until her mother was dead. Rather than kill her mother, she and Lombardo came up with a plan that would allow for Lombardo to sue her mother, which he did after the rape case was dismissed. The Van Ryans settled out of court for $8.5 million.)
• BUT THENNN: We find out that Suzie was in on it, too. (Suzie is poor and dumb and basically does whatever Kelly tells her to do.)
• All the while that this is happening, one of the people who investigated the case (Sergeant Ray Duquette, played by Kevin Bacon) is sniffing around because he’s pretty sure that Kelly, Lombardo, and Suzie plotted the whole thing so they could get that money from Kelly’s mom.
• Duquette confronts Suzie about it because she’s the weakest link of the group.
• Suzie panics, calls Lombardo, then goes to Kelly’s house. Duquette follows her there, videotaping the conversation from a bush. (The Van Ryans are super rich, but apparently they have a shit security system.)
• Kelly tells Suzie to relax and that they’re not double-crossing her.
• BUT THENNNN: Turns out, they are double-crossing her. (Kelly calls Lombardo, who tells her that he’s going to murder Suzie so they don’t have to worry about her anymore.)
• (This, by the way, is when that famous make-out session happens between Denise Richards and Neve Campbell, which, and I’m just guessing, was the result of the writer of the movie sitting around one day thinking, “Oh, man. I’d like to see Denise Richards and Neve Campbell make out in a movie,” and then writing a movie around that one situation.)
• (Also, can I just say real quick that in a movie filled with ridiculous things, probably the most ridiculous one of all is that Matt Dillon is supposed to be some very sexy, impossible-to-resist stud.)
• Suzie and Kelly are hanging out a day or so later, and it seems like things are good.
• BUT THENNNNN: Lombardo shows up, and he murders Suzie by beating her to death with a champagne bottle. He buries her in a swamp.
• The police find a couple of Suzie’s teeth at the scene, and also some blood, and so they know she’s dead and they suspect it was Lombardo who did it.
• BUT THENNNNNN: Lombardo gives the police a school file on Kelly, which shows that she is mentally unstable and has been off the rails since her father committed suicide. Turns out, he was setting her up all along.
• Duquette goes to see Kelly to talk to her about Suzie’s disappearance. She shoots him in the arm. He shoots her twice in the chest, killing her. (This happens offscreen. We only see Duquette walk in, then we hear a ruckus, then we see him stumble out of the house after he’s been shot.)
• Duquette is fired from the police (he’d been given explicit instructions to leave the Van Ryans alone), and the police decide that it was Kelly who’d killed Suzie, which means that Lombardo not only dodges the murder charge, but also since both Suzie and Kelly are dead, he doesn’t have to split the money with anyone. He leaves to a beautiful island.
• BUT THENNNNNNN: Turns out, Duquette and Lombardo were the ones who masterminded the plan. Duquette knew about everything from the jump (even Suzie’s murder). It was this long plan that they’d apparently put in place to get rich.
• (Also, and this is just an aside, but the way we find out that Duquette and Lombardo are working together is Lombardo walks into his beach resort room and Duquette is in there taking a shower, a thing I mention because when he turns around to greet Lombardo, we get to see dick.)
• (Another also: I read a thing at Mental Floss that said originally Duquette and Lombardo were supposed to shower together and kiss in the scene. It ended up getting cut. “One twist too many, man. One twist too many,” said Dillon .)
• Lombardo and Duquette go sailing the next day. (Duquette is hanging out with Lombardo because he’s waiting for a bank transfer to clear his half of the money.)
• BUT THENNNNNNNN: Turns out, Lombardo was setting up Duquette, too. He asks Duquette to check a thing on the side of the boat, and when he does Lombardo turns the boat the opposite direction, causing Duquette to fall overboard, lost in the middle of the sea with no life jacket or chance at survival.
• BUT THENNNNNNNNN: Turns out, Duquette was able to grab a rope as he was falling over. He climbs back aboard and tries to kill Lombardo.
• BUT THENNNNNNNNNN: Turns out, Suzie wasn’t actually dead. Her and Lombardo were working together because they were in love. She shoots Duquette in the leg with a harpoon, then shoots him in the chest with the harpoon. He falls overboard again, this time drowning.
• As Lombardo and Suzie celebrate, she hands him a drink. He looks at it, then makes a distrustful face. She laughs, telling him that all of the double-crossing has made him paranoid, that if she was going to kill him, she was at least going to have to wait until they got to shore because she doesn’t know how to sail a boat.
• BUT THENNNNNNNNNNN: There actually was poison in the drink. Lombardo drinks it, and then he dies. Suzie taught herself how to sail beforehand. She escapes with all of the remaining money, as well as the boat. She was working alone the whole time.
• BUT THENNNNNNNNNNNN: She actually wasn’t working alone. She was working with the strip mall lawyer that Lombardo hired when all of this started. He meets her at an unnamed location on an unnamed island, hands her a briefcase full of walkaround money and a check, and then she vanishes. As the movie is ending, it gets explained that she actually has an off-the-charts genius IQ. Then we see a bunch of cut shots as the credits roll of her setting all the pieces of her plan in place, the most compelling of which is her and Lombardo faking her murder because we get to see her yank her own teeth out with a wrench.

That’s 12 double-crosses in a movie with a runtime of 108 minutes. That’s an average of one double-cross every nine minutes, which is an extremely high DCPM (double-cross per minute) rate. There’s also the raccoon, and a few alligators, and Kevin Bacon’s alligator, and the pool scene, and Bill Murray as a lawyer. It’s a lot. Wild Things is a lot.

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Wild things.

Now on Digital, 4K Ultra HD™ , Blu-ray™ and DVD

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The scheme is far from tame. But whose scheme is it? Assume nothing as you venture beyond Blue Bay's elite beach communities and into the murky waters of the Everglades for a mystery of deceit, sex and greed as unpredictable as a hungry gator. And please, keep your hands inside the boat at all times. Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Denise Richards and Bill Murray star in a swamp-steamy thriller about two high school students, the guidance counselor they accuse of rape and the detective who knows there's more to the story.

© 1998 Mandalay Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

© 2024 Sony Pictures Digital Productions Inc.   All rights reserved

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Max (Where the Wild Things Are)

Maxwell "Max" Records is the main protagonist of the best-selling children's book  Where the Wild Things Are and the critically acclaimed fantasy film of the same name.

In the movie, he is played by Max Records.

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The Book [ ]

We start off with Max making mischief around the house until his mother scolds him and he threatens to eat her up. She sends him to bed without dinner and as Max fumes in his room, it turns into a huge forest. Max enters a small boat and as he sails it, he is led to the land of the Wild Things, a race of huge, furry, troll-like monsters who prepare to eat him. He tames the Wild Things and they make him his king. They rumpus around the forest until Max tells them to stop and sends them to bed without their supper. Realizing he is lonely, he starts to feel homesick and must return home, so he gives up being king of the Wild things. Max decides to return home, only to find his supper waiting and it is still hot.

The Movie [ ]

Nine-year-old Max is misunderstood by his mother and his older sister, Claire. We begin with our young hero playing in his makeshift igloo until Claire and her friends make the mistake of smashing it. Out of anger, Max messes up his sister's room and his fury turns to remorse after tearing up a valentine heart he gave to her.

At dinnertime, Max tells his mother a story about a vampire who is shunned by his friends after breaking his fangs on a building. At school, he is told the sun is going to vanish. The next dinnertime, Max comes down to play with his mother, but she is having a boyfriend. Things get worse when Max lashes out at her and demands to be fed. His mother sends him to his room without supper, but, in a fit of rage, Max throws a hissy-fit and bites her on the shoulder. She yells at him for his behavior and Max, realizing that this time he crossed the line, runs away from home in shame.

Max discovers a boat and goes onto it. The currents pull him into the land of the Wild Things. The huge inhabitants - Carol, the leader, KW, the mother hen, Douglas, Carol's ally; Judith, the neighborhood grump, Ira, the lovable lug, Alexander, a goat, and The Bull, discover Max and prepare to eat him when he stops them in their tracks and tames them. Carol makes Max the king of all Wild Things and they have a huge rumpus.

Later, Max tells KW about his troubles and Carol shows him a special place for him. While spending time with his new friends, Max and the Wild Things have a dirt clod fight that goes belly-up. After a huge fight, Carol, out of anger, chases Max and is about to eat him when KW hides him in her huge stomach.

After a close call, Max discovers that Carol's tantrums have destroyed his home and he gives him a heart made out of twigs. Then he realizes that he must return home and face his mother, so he hops into his boat and rides home, howling a farewell to his friends.

As soon as Max returns home, he and his mother reconcile and he is rewarded with dinner.

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Sailboat Tangrams

Tuesday, September 1, 2015 7 Comments

and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day

Don’t ya just love it when an ocean just tumbles by?!

The boat scene in the book, Where The Wild Things Are, happens to be our very favorite part of the book, after the forest grew, the ocean appeared and Max sailed on his sailboat for weeks, and almost over a year. I think we all wish we could sail away on a sailboat for weeks (or maybe that’s just me ;).

As with every book we read I try to incorporate a little learning into the mix – Tangrams are our new fav thing to do!  Tangrams are “a Chinese puzzle consisting of a square cut into five triangles, a square, and a rhomboid, which can be combined so as to form a great variety of other figures”.  There are so many shapes & images you can create – truly the possibilities in where your tangram creativity takes you, are endless!

Today we created the many sailboats of Max, eight Sailboat Tangrams to be exact.  And I’m positive there are a ton more ways to make many more sailboats designs!

• printable tangram template

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I bet I know, you and your kiddo(s) can come up with a ton more too!

MORE AWESOME CRAFTS & ACTIVITES INSPIRED BY

for this month’s for Virtual Book Club for Kids .

Monster Hands Alphabet Match   ::  Toddler Approved

Name Crown Craft   ::  The Pleasantest Thing

Where the Wild Things Are Counting Game   ::  Mom Inspired Life

Wild Things Scented Monster Playdough   ::  Preschool Powol Packets

Where the Wild Things Are Monster Glyphs   ::  Inspiration Laboratories

Where the Wild Things Are Treats   ::  I Can Teach My Child

Where the Wild Things Are Color Fun with Feelings   ::  The Educator’s Spin on It

Where the Wild Things Are Action Word Rompus   :: Growing Book by Book

Make a Wild Thing Shape Craft   ::  Still Playing School

Where the Wild Things Are Mapping Our Backyard Habitats   ::  Rainy Day Mum

Where the Wild Things Are Gross Motor   :: 3 Dinosaurs

Where the Wild Things Are Sand Tray Activity   ::  Study at Home Mama

Sailboat Tangrams   ::  Mama Miss

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All work by Mama Miss is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License .

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Crushers suffer 4-2 defeat to Wild Things

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The Wild Things led, 2-0, after the top of the first but Lake Erie (47-40) tied the game at 2 in the bottom of the fifth.

Jarrod Watkins and Jack Harris — who was 2 for 4 — each had RBI hits in the inning.

Darrien Ragins started and took the loss that dropped his season mark to 7-3. He went 5 2/3 innings, allowed five hits, three earned runs, walked four and struck out eight.

Caleb McNeely and Tyreque Reed each hit home runs for Washington.

Zach Kirby notched his ninth win of the season and struck out 11 in six innings of work.

The team continue their series in Avon on Aug. 24. First pitch is 7:05 p.m.

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13 Times Famous People Just Said Whatever They Wanted On Podcasts And Left Us Completely Shocked

Justin Long pooped the bed next to his wife, Kate Bosworth. He said that her patience made him love her even more.

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1. Justin Long shared that he pooped in bed next to his wife, Kate Bosworth. On the PIE with Kurt Sutter and Katey Sagal podcast, he recalled the experience of getting food poisoning during a service trip to Mexico City. "I was hooked up to an IV, and she was having to follow me to the bathroom with the thing, so I was having to just — it was like Dumb and Dumber, " he said. "I was just, like, really, like, comically unloading and um, and then at one point that night, I woke up, and there's no other way to say this. I can't dance around it. I had shit the bed."

"I had shit the bed, and she was in the bed," he continued. "And I had to just face all of these fears, and by the end, I was like not even thinking about it." He added that he fell in love with her even more as he watching Kate "patiently" hold his IV bag and assure him it'd all be okay. 

"I was like, 'I just love this person. I’m so grateful to this person,'" he said. "She was not judging, not making me feel weird or bad, and I just felt so lucky, you know? I was shitting my brains out, and she was looking at me like lovingly, and I thought, 'This is really romantic.'"

2. Claudia Sulewski spoke openly about the time she had her boyfriend, Finneas O'Connell , fish a tampon out of her vagina. On their podcast, We Bought A House Finneas said, "I was a gynecologist for, like, 30 minutes. I was just performing an exam." Claudia explained that she had him do that because one time in high school, she was convinced she left her tampon in and was terrified of getting toxic shock syndrome. "I woke up in the morning, convinced I had a tampon in my body. So scared of toxic shock syndrome, all this stuff. I was in the shower and I was trying to reach in there, thinking that I would pull out a tampon or something...So, I pass out. I fainted."

3. The Chainsmokers shared that they've had threesomes together with fans, but also noted that it's been "a long time" since their last ménage à trois. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Alex Pall said that the encounters were "never planned" and added, "It's weird, I'm not gonna lie."

4. John Mayer shared that he sometimes likes to play guitar naked after having sex. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, he said, "No, you should never play guitar to have sex with someone, but a little naked guitar playing after is very memorable. ... With a little gut hanging over, sitting Indian-style on the edge of the bed. It’s nice! … I like seeing the way people fold up all weird when they sit up. No matter who you are, you look weird when you sit up. And it’s cute.”

5. Tori Spelling once "vajazzled" herself for her then-husband Dean McDermott, and he thought it was the "sexiest thing ever." She didn't do it more often because "it can become a choking hazard." Also, on Dean's podcast Daddy Issues , Tori revealed that in bed she's an "aggressive bottom and very competitive."

6. Meghan Trainor revealed that she and her husband have two toilets in their bathroom and have pooped next to each other. On Nicole Byer's podcast Why Won't You Date Me? , she said, "We just got a new house and we did construction. Nobody knows this, but in our bathroom, there was one toilet, and a lot of time in the middle of the night when we’re with the baby, we’ve got to pee at the same time. So I was like, 'Can we please have two toilets next to each other? And we’ve only pooped together twice. We pee at the same time a lot.'"

7. Joe Jonas shared that he once pooped his pants during a concert, and according to him, nobody noticed. On the Will & Woody Show , he said, “I was with a few friends yesterday and we were just talking about there is a point in your life as an adult where you can remember the last time you shit your pants." He explained that the incident had happened four years prior, and he was wearing white pants. "I think it might’ve been a little toot," Joe added. "Might’ve been something else, something a little extra. So it was a mid-wardrobe shit change during the set. If you go in the archives, there is a wardrobe change halfway through a show and it’s a little bit like that’s a bit interesting choice to change clothes that quickly."

8. Lindsey Shaw and Devon Werkheiser spoke openly about several of their hookups behind the scenes of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. On an episode of their podcast Ned's Declassified Podcast Survival Guide , Lindsey tried to be discreet about bringing up their sexual history, to which Devon responded, "What are you going to ask on this podcast? What are you going to ask on this public podcast, Lindsey?" They went on to talk about the many blowjobs she'd given him.

Lindsey mentioned one where she "felt like a failure" because Devon couldn't finish, and he snuck off to the bathroom afterward. And while Devon didn't remember that one, he did remember one that happened in the backseat of Lindsey's car. "For me, the first blowjob was where I fucking came," Devon said. "And then you got scared, and you go, 'Oops! Sorry!' And then I'm just coming if your fucking car, dude."

9. AnnaLynne McCord shared that she treated her body "like a brothel" and was heavily involved with an S&M lifestyle before meeting her boyfriend, Danny Cipriani. On the Braving The Way With Dr Fletch podcast , she said, "I used to say to people, 'Yes, your body is a temple, my body is a brothel.' I had a morbid sense of humor about it. ... I got off on the fact sex is this thing I could have all day, every day, and never get tired of, and no one could keep up with me." She added, "I needed sex like a bottomless pit. I was ravenous."

10. Bradley Cooper spoke about how his family was very comfortable with nudity while growing up. He added he would even take showers with his dad. On an episode of Armchair Expert , he said , "And by the way, I was like that. Not with my mom but with my dad. My dad was always nude, always took showers with him." Dax asked, "And you're quite comfortable nude?," and Bradley replied, "Totally."

11. Rachel Bilson said that she missed Bill Hader's "big dick" following their breakup. She shared this back in August 2022 on her podcast Broad Ideas , just a couple of months after opening up about how painful that breakup was.

12. Jenna Fischer revealed that she doesn't wash her hands after she pees. On the Office Ladies podcast , her cohost Angelia Kinsey said she always washes her hands after she pees, to which Jenna gave her a "Hm" response. Jenna added, "I feel like it's really clear now that I don't always wash my hands after I pee at home. I feel like maybe we were going to bond over something that now we're not bonding over. Oh no. ... I guess now you're going to have to worry when you come over to my house. Did I wash my hands after I pee? I always wash my hands after poop. Always. I never wipe a poop and then not wash my hands, everybody. I feel like I want that to be clear."

13. Finally, Jana Kramer said that she was ghosted by Chris Evans because he smelt her "asparagus pee." On the Whine Down with Jana Kramer podcast, she recalled the time she was casually dating Chris. "It was a fun time, but I was getting a little sleepy and so I was like, 'I'm gonna go to bed,'" she said. "I had asparagus for dinner that night. So I went to the bathroom and he immediately went after me… And so that's the last interaction that I remember, is him going into the bathroom after I just went to the bathroom with asparagus pee." She added that she "never" heard from him again after that and called her exit from his home "the asparagus walk of shame."

"I don't remember cuddling that night," she said. "That's always been in the back of my mind whenever I think about or see Chris Evans or Captain America, and I'm like, 'I had stinky pee.'"

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Mets take brutal loss to padres as paul blackburn exits early with hand injury.

SAN DIEGO — A bad night for the Mets turned potentially brutal as Paul Blackburn sat on the mound in Friday’s third inning examining his right hand. 

Moments earlier David Peralta smashed a 100-mph line drive that deflected off the Mets pitcher and turned into the first out of the inning with Jose Iglesias fielding the ball and throwing to first.

Blackburn’s pitching hand, as he shielded his head, caught the brunt of Peralta’s line drive, forcing him to depart on a night that was already worth forgetting, with the Padres on his pitches almost from the start.

The Mets lost 7-0 at Petco Park and fell 2 ½ games behind Atlanta for the NL’s third wild card, but in the larger picture there is the question of filling out a rotation.

Blackburn, according to the Mets, departed with a contusion on the hand. Initial X-rays were negative and Blackburn will receive a CT scan on Saturday.

“It’s definitely swollen and there is some pain in there, but I have full mobility in my hand,” Blackburn said.

The Mets’ starting pitching depth is limited because of injuries.

Tylor Megill, who has struggled in two stints for the team this season, is the primary option at Triple-A Syracuse if Blackburn can’t take his next turn.

But manager Carlos Mendoza said he wasn’t looking that far ahead yet.

“It’s too early to tell, but there’s a lot of names and [Megill] is one of them,” Mendoza said.

Blackburn was acquired at the trade deadline from Oakland by the Mets after Kodai Senga (calf) and Christian Scott (elbow) hit the injured list.

Blackburn allowed 10 hits and five earned runs over 2 ¹/₃ innings.

Luis Arraez homered leading off the game against him and Kyle Higashioka delivered a two-run blast against him in the second.

“The good pitches I made got hit and I thought the bad pitches I made got hit,” Blackburn said. “It was just one of those days I felt I was searching for anything to create some swing and miss … all and all just not good.”

The Mets dug into their bullpen after Blackburn’s departure, with Ryne Stanek pressed to pitch 1 ²/₃ innings in which he allowed one earned run.

Danny Young worked the next two innings scoreless and Adam Ottavino worked the seventh and eighth and surrendered one run.

All the while, Joe Musgrove — who dominated the Mets in Game 3 of the 2022 NL wild-card series at Citi Field — was close to untouchable.

The right-hander allowed just one hit over seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts.

Starling Marte and Francisco Lindor accounted for the Mets’ only two hits, both with doubles.

“We had a hard time picking up [Musgrove’s] breaking ball, the spin,” Mendoza said. “But the cutter and the location, he was on today.”

The Mets missed an opportunity to move seven games above .500, which would have matched their season high.

There are still eight games remaining on this road trip, with the sizzling Diamondbacks awaiting after the Mets finish their series with the Padres on Sunday.

David Peterson and Jose Quintana are the starting pitchers the next two days as the Mets look to recover from Friday night’s shellacking.

The Mets won Thursday’s series opener with strong bullpen work and late-inning offense.

Blackburn on this night allowed three hits in the first inning, falling into a 1-0 hole on Arraez’s homer leading off. Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts each singled in the inning, but Blackburn escaped by retiring Jackson Merrill.

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Peralta singled leading off the second and Higashioka’s homer gave the Padres a 3-0 lead.

But the Padres ignited another rally in the inning against Blackburn, with singles by Mason McCoy, Arraez and Jake Cronenworth, the last of which extended the Mets’ deficit to 4-0.

Machado singled for the Padres’ sixth hit of the inning before Blackburn struck out Bogaerts for the final out.

Merrill’s grounder to first base leading off the third should have been the first out, but in an apparent miscommunication with Blackburn covering the bag, Pete Alonso kept the ball and was beaten to the base.

Peralta’s shot off Blackburn’s hand followed.

“I just went into defense mode there and kind of deflected it,” Blackburn said.

The Mets didn’t get a base runner until the fifth, after Musgrove had retired the first 13 batters he faced: Marte smashed a double to right field, but was left stranded.

It turned out to be the Mets’ only base runner until the ninth, when Lindor doubled with two outs.

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Things To Do | Orlando Boat Show returns this weekend with 500…

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Things to do | week 1 orlando area high school football scoreboard, things to do, things to do | orlando boat show returns this weekend with 500 boats.

Experienced and prospective watercraft enthusiasts can browse a selection of approximately 500 boats from more than 80 manufacturers at the event Aug. 23-25. While a variety of vessels and on-site seminars are dedicated to fishing, the sport only captures one segment of a large industry.

“We’ll have new 2025 boats coming out that the dealers will be displaying. We have boats from center consoles to pontoons and everything in between,” said Cathy Case, executive director of the Marine Industry Association of Central Florida . “We have people looking to do wake surfing, jet skis, fishing and luxury boats just for cruising. It’s all over the board.”

The fall event presents a good opportunity for prospective buyers to take advantage of special deals only available at the boat show.

“The fall show is a good time to get some good incentives and deals from dealers and manufacturers like extended warranties, service packages, enhanced electronics and accessories,” Case said. “We have 22 dealers in one location. You don’t have to go to every dealership; you can take advantage of having them all on one showroom floor. You can walk around and compare.”

While boats are the main attraction, there are also family-friendly activities for visitors of all ages to enjoy. While Twiggy the Water Skiing Squirrel is absent from this show’s lineup, guests can enjoy a meet-and-greet with animals from Gatorland and attend a clinic with Capt. Don Dingman of the “Hook the Future” TV show. Children ages 5-15 who attend his clinic can receive a rod and reel combo while supplies last.

“We try to entertain the kids while mom and dad shop for a boat,” Case said.

The show also has street performers, a trout pond for kids, a virtual saltwater fishing simulator, a fishing zone, seminars with Capt. Jim Ross and the chance to win a 2024 bay boat valued at $40,000. The event also features a food court, including a cash bar for adult beverages.

“It’s upbeat, lively and it’s very impressive to walk the showroom floor and see all of the beautiful boats,” Case said. “It’s fun for the whole family.”

Following the Orlando event, the Marine Industry Association of Central Florida hosts the Daytona Beach Boat Show Sept. 6-8.

Find me  @PConnPie on Instagram  or send me an email:  [email protected] .

The Orlando Boat Show runs 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Aug. 23-24 and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 25 at 9800 International Drive in Orlando. Tickets are $10 per person; children ages 12 and younger enter for free. Convention center parking is $10.65 with cashless pay only. For more information and tickets, visit orlandoboatshow.com .

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Summer's coming and the time is right for Okoboji. Here are 7 things to do at the lake

With summer just weeks away, it's time to think about relaxing days on Iowa's Great Lakes.

Okoboji, in northwest Iowa, is a favorite summer gathering spot for Iowans. Here are seven ways to enjoy a week or weekend in and around the clear, cool water.

Visit Arnolds Park

Nothing is more classic than Arnolds Park and its boardwalk. An old-school amusement park on the lakeshore, it has entertained and enchanted generations of Iowans since it opened on West Okoboji Lake in 1889.

The park features a boardwalk on the lake with ice cream shops, restaurants and places to buy Okoboji-branded souvenirs. But the centerpiece is The Legend roller coaster. Built in 1930, the genuine wood-framed coaster features a figure-eight layout that covers 2,000 feet of track in one minute. A six-year restoration was completed in 2023, with a new paint job, new concrete and a refurbishment of the first section of the track.

The Legend may be old, but it's mightier than ever. It still has the bumps typical of wooden coasters, but they're gentler than before and the ride is more enjoyable.

Catch a concert

Next to Arnolds Park is Preservation Plaza. Unveiled last year, the plaza features a stage with a unique, wavy roof. A concert deck on the plaza has an outdoor bar and the upstairs portion of the deck is available for rental by sponsors and donors during summer concerts.

For music lovers, the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is just steps away.

The 2024 concert lineup at Preservation Plaza includes:

• REO Speedwagon June 14.
• Chase McDaniel June 15.
• Scotty McCreery June 28.
• Three Dog Night & Little River Band July 21.
• Cole Swindell July 26.
• Russell Dickerson Aug. 16.

Hang out at Miller's Bay

A short cruise or paddle from Gull Point State Park, Miller's Bay in West Okoboji Lake is a popular hangout for boaters. On hot days and on busy weekends thousands of people will cram into the small bay. It can feel claustrophobic sometimes, but it's a fun place to drop anchor, have a cold one and relax in the sun.

Stop at The Barefoot bar

Among the most popular stops on the lake for boaters is The Barefoot Bar on East Okoboji Lake, with its tropical-themed drinks and slushies. Its restaurant has pizza, burgers, tacos and other things that are easy to eat on a boat or on the go.

Most of all, Barefoot is known for its Full Moon Parties starting at 7 p.m. on nights with full moons in the summer.

This year's Full Moon Parties will be held May 23, June 21, July 21 and Aug. 19.

Ride a bike

Iowa is the home of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa and a fast-growing network of trails, so it should be no surprise that Okoboji is bike friendly. The 14-mile Iowa Great Lakes Trail winds its way through Milford, Okoboji and Spirit Lake, with spurs leading to other lakeside attractions.

The system loops around Big Spirit Lake, where it links across the border to the Loon Lake Trail in Minnesota's Loon Lake Park, adding even more mileage for those seeking a longer, scenic ride.

Watch fireworks

There's nothing quite like watching fireworks over West Okoboji Lake. From the end of May through the end of August there are firework displays on most Friday nights and a handful of other nights throughout the summer. Fireworks shows typically begin after Preservation Plaza concerts around 10:15 p.m.

In 2024 fireworks displays will be held:

• June 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29.
• July 4, 6, 13,20 and 27.
• Aug. 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31.

Have a Charlie Boy

All northwest Iowans know the Charlie Boy, a Sioux City specialty. It's also the signature dish at the Okoboji affiliate of a Sioux City landmark, the Miles Inn, the perfect place to hang out when you're taking a break from the lake.

Charlie Boys are like Maid Rites, but better. Wrapped in wax paper, they're loose meat sandwiches with cheese, onions, mustard and ketchup. The meat has extra pepper in it to give it a kick.

Charlie Boys always hit the spot. The trick is not eating more than three at a time.

Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, [email protected] or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

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Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired. Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired. Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired.

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