The annual Believer Visual Issue is here. Inside its pages, Norwegian "seed vault" artist Dyveke Sanne discusses her work, Sheila Heti talks with Frank Stella, and Lawrence Weschler revisits Hockney and Irwin. Also included: an 800-square-inch poster by Robyn O'Neil. - - - -

Short Imagined Monologues. - - - - BIT BIT, SPEAK!: A MONOLOGUE FROM THE CANINE COMPANION OF BRITNEY SPEARS AND KEVIN FEDERLINE. BY KATHY CACACE - - - - I shake with intensity, not fear. My genes have cast me as a bit player in the canine biological pageant, yet I have fought my way to the spotlight. Against all odds, the Chihuahua has reserved its spot amid the Hollywood elite, and I am undoubtedly king. Still, all I can think about as my 15 minutes of fame—though it's an hour and 45 minutes in dog fame—tick by is whether the cell phone she uses 23 hours a day is rendering me impotent. Mercifully, they've left me intact. They think it's funny when I have a tender moment with the wing chair in the living room. I'm a man! Allow me my manliness. I may shake in her arms, but when I make love to their chair there is nothing in the world but the steel of my manliness and my love for a soft behemoth in a world 20 times my size. People envy my position in her heart and in her bosom. They look to my eyes to read the secrets of her anatomy. Are they soft? Are they warm? Are they real? There's never a hint of sadness for my atrophied legs. She carries me everywhere. If I'm not clutched to her breast, I'm trying to find a place to wedge myself against the empty Red Bull cans and crumpled hundreds in her purse. I will tell you this: They are as real as the sun. They are the orbs in my sky, the round shapes on the horizon that mark my dawn, my dusk. - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Bit Bit, Speak!: A Monologue From the Canine Companion of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline By Kathy Cacace The Settings That Would Be On a Blender Today If the Blender Had Been Invented, Say, 100 Years Before Its Actual Invention Date of 1922 By Steve Schneider Are You Falling in Love With Your Excess Body Fat? By Eric Silver The Gay Agenda By L. What I Would Be Thinking About If I Were Billy Joel Driving Toward a Holiday Party Where I Knew There Was Going to Be a Piano By Michael Ian Black

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