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. - - - -

LACANIAN JOKES OF THE DAY. BY JAMES WARNER - - - - Knock-knock. Who's there? Lacan. Lacan who? Lacan for whom the signifier is a unit in its very uniqueness, being the symbol only of an absence. - - - - "Doctor, doctor, I keep thinking I'm a doctor." "You cretin, you are talking to yourself in the mirror again!" - - - - Q: What makes a Lacanian joke funny? A: Its signifier by its very nature anticipates meaning, unfolding its dimension before it. - - - - Pablo Picasso had a problem: all he could paint nowadays was salad. Admitting at last that he needed psychiatric help, he took a few paintings of arugula to the rue de Lille, to show to Lacan, his private doctor. When Picasso saw a celebrated art dealer waiting at the Solférino Métro station, he didn't want the word getting around that he could only paint arugula, so he shamefacedly left his work behind him on the train. Reaching Lacan's waiting room, he was astonished to see his paintings already hanging on the wall, beautifully framed and signed with a grandiloquent flourish. "You should know by now," Lacan beamed, "that a lettuce always arrives at its destination." - - - - Q: What is the difference between a Lacanian and an elephant? A: A Lacanian resituates Freudian concepts in a context that is not biologically determined, while an elephant has a huge trunk. - - - - A genie tells a man he can have three wishes. "First of all," the man enthuses, "I want to be Slavoj Žižek." "You cretin!" the genie replies. "You already are Slavoj Žižek!" - - - - Lacan once had a patient who believed he was a chicken. At last, the man was cured. When he was released from the asylum, he crossed the road. Lacan called out, "Why are you crossing the road?" "To get to the other of the Other," the patient replied. "You cretin!" Lacan said. "The other of the Other does not exist." "I know," the patient replied, "but tell that to the fox!" "I guess he's cured," Lacan thought to himself, "at least by Parisian standards." - - - - Q: How is a Lacanian psychoanalytic session like a penis? A: They are both of variable length. - - - - Lacan is in bed with two of his former patients. "Isn't this unethical?" they ask him. "No, but it is a bit perverted," Lacan replies, "considering that I've been dead for 27 years." - - - - A Freudian, a Jungian, and a Lacanian walk into a bar. The Freudian orders a cigar. The Jungian orders an Etruscan mask to conceal his face. "You cretins!" says the Lacanian. He then orders a beer, which, however, he does not desire. - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Lacanian Jokes of the Day By James Warner The Opening Act From the Original, Unused Teleplay of Lost's Pilot Episode By Andrew Bridgman What the Wonder Twins Would Take the Form of and the Shape of If They Were Sent to Correct the Subprime Mortgage Crisis By Ben Greenman How Me Breaking Up With You Is Like Jon Lester Pitching a No-Hitter Against the Royals By Michael Nelson Price Traditions in White Culture By Kevin Erickson

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