As some of you may know, we lost another cultural icon today. Maurice Sendak, author of several beloved children's books including Where The Wild Things Are. Along with the loss of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (who was the subject of many a tribute this weekend), it's been a sad week for pop culture. However, these two were connected in another way besides their close passing-- Yauch helped produce a documentary on Sendak created by his good friend, Spike Jonze (director of many a Beastie Boys music video). Jonze spent six years following Sendak, preparing interviews to distract him from the grueling production of his film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (which spawned its own contributions to the musical conversation). The result was hours of intimate footage of Sendak, full of the same insight and wonder as the work he did.

Jonze assembled the footage into a documentary called Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak. He then sought out his old friend Adam Yauch, and together with Yauch's Oscilloscope Laboratories, released the full doc to HBO and later on DVD and Blu-ray. You can still purchase the whole thing on the Oscilloscope website.

Sendak is extremely poignant, especially when discussing his work, death, and the important people in his life. Of death, he says: "clearing the decks for a simple death, you're done with your work, you're done with your life...and your life was your work."

Here's a clip, make sure you've got some Kleenex at the ready: