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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.
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WEB SPITE.BY JIM STALLARD- - - - Sadie, Sorry about my little lie in the subject line. No, this isn't an e-mail from your mom, but it's the only way I could get you to open this. You ignore my phone messages, my poems get sent back to me, and the re-enactment I tried to perform at your office parking lot almost got me killed. (Thanks for almost running me over, by the way.) Because you've cut off all communication, you still haven't come to grasp how thoroughly you've wrecked my life. So I've tried to get the point across by making it interactive. If you go to www.sadiesux.net/beta you'll see exactly what I mean. I know you'll resist at first, but sooner or later curiosity is going to get the better of you. The site ties together the spatial, auditory, and visual elements of your 15-month crime against me. I've laid out the architecture so that it's really intuitive. I'm quite proud of this. Let me walk you through some of the sections: 1. Click on the drawing of a compass in the upper left quadrant, and it will bring up a map of the city. Roll your mouse over a street or intersection, and a blurb will pop up describing how you humiliated me at that particular spot. At the northwest corner of 28th and Walker, you'll see a brief recounting of the time at Harvest Brew Pub you sat on that rugby player's lap for a half-hour in front of 10 of our mutual friends while I talked to your boring cousin. And on the south side of Willis between 25th and 26th (where Lulu's is), you'll get a recap of the Mardi Gras incident. Or is it incidents? 2. On the lower left is a graphic of a radio. Click on this to bring up a list of sound files of the songs I put on that mix CD I burned for you in February. (I put my heart into that thing; the songs articulated what I was feeling but was embarrassed to say. It was ... interesting discovering two days later that you had already copied over it.) What's really cool is there's an option to have it launch one of the songs randomly when you first land on the site. 3. If you click on the cartoon of a couple holding hands, it will launch a brief animation that sums up the dynamics of our relationship. (You may need to download Flash.) This was tricky because I'm new at using the application, and it was hard to get your hand to vanish so that it really looks like it's reaching inside my chest. Your hand still looks kind of big, so I may play with this a bit more—amateur-looking graphics are a pet peeve. 4. On the lower right is a movie reel. After watching a brief ad from our friends at Ray's Tire Mart, you'll be treated to three episodes of ... Sadie and the Frat-Boy Flavor of the Week! (And, yes, they all were filmed from more than 100 feet away, so don't go running to Officious Lawyer.) I admit, it's mainly you and them getting into/out of cars and walking to restaurant doors, but it's enough to convey your love of SUVs and sushi. After ditching me, you really hit the ground running, didn't you? There are a few other ideas I'm playing with—a weekly trivia contest, an e-newsletter, maybe a running blog about my latest attempt to self-medicate. I don't want you to get overwhelmed and not come back. I can hear you now: This is a perfect example of my creepy, obsessive blah blah, mixed with my nerdy blah ... Well, guess what? I'm stuck with the wreckage from knowing you, so I'm reminded of you constantly whether I like it or not. It cost me $1,200 to get that tattoo removed (insurance wouldn't cover it) and it hurt like hell. My therapist (yes, another new wrinkle) says I'm a "Sadie masochist." I can't walk by Olive Garden without breaking down into sobs. And there's one thing you did that can never be forgiven. You ruined that Beatles song forever. - - - - Jim Stallard's - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Web Spite By Jim StallardThe Recording Industry Will Destroy You By Brendon Lloyd I Fought Piranhas By A.J. Packman Perhaps I Should Stop Naming the Protagonists in My Semi-Autobiographical Fiction After Myself By Teddy Wayne An Extremely Patient Producer Works With an Aspiring Pornography Scriptwriter By Ryan Dilbert |
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