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The San Francisco Panorama.
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M c S W E E N E Y ' S N E W S . This page will be updated occasionally, notifying readers of developments, special offers, etc. from McSweeney's. All offers are real, unless they are obviously not real. - - - - JANUARY 18 We have been in Iceland, and we are back. We spent last week there, overseeing production of the next print version, and we return with the following news items: - It is approximately thirty degrees warmer in Reykjavik than it is in New York. In Reykjavik, it was cold and slushy, but the air there did not feel as if it were tearing, rapidly, continually, one's skin from one's face, like tape from the mouth of a hostage, which is more than we can say for the air in some cities. - On the other hand, in Reykjavik, as close as it is to the Arctic Circle, there is but four hours of daylight a day, which does weird work on one's sleep schedule. - Speaking of schedules, we are now calling Bjorn by his nickname, "Bjossi." During previous trips to the printer, Oddi Printing Company, we did not feel it right to use with our production supervisor, Bjorn S. Vidisson, the familiar form of his name. But this time we did, and he seemed to like it. - However: he is still Bjorn to you. - Production on No. 4 went exceedingly well. - So well, in fact, that we added more and more bells and whistles while there, to the point where, by the end of it all, we had run up the print bill to an absolutely ridiculous level -- to the extent that we had to raise the cover price not once but twice, while there, in the offices of the printer, called Oddi. You will be shocked by the new cover price. - The new cover price -- for this issue only -- is $22.00. This does not affect existing subscribers. It does, however, affect new subscribers (see subscription link for more about this), and it affects those buying the journal in stores. - $22.00. Does it sound like a lot? Look at it this way: you are accustomed to paying more than that -- often much more than that -- for a simple hardcover book, which costs its publisher no more than $1.40 or so per copy, if that. The new issue of McSweeney's, in sharp contrast, costs about five times that per copy to produce, and outdoes a simple hardcover book in so many ways that when you see it you will gasp and wonder how it is that we can charge so little for something of such tremendous value. We do not kid you here no. This is what you will think. After you gasp. - In the coming weeks, as the issue is bound and packaged (hint) and put on a January 28th boat to Boston, we will be revealing tidbits about it, to arouse curiosity and loosen wallets. - Here is one hint: staples. - Here is another: G.S. - Here is the name for it that we did not use: Timothy McSweeney's Canyon of Let Go. In other news, we would like to alert readers that the editor of this site and its sister journal will be out and about, on a sort of tour, in support of a book he wrote, starting around February 8. There is elsewhere a link on this site which lists the dates and locations, to which he hopes you will come, even if -- especially if -- you have not read his book. McSweeney's, by then, will be in many stores, and he would just assume talk about that than about the book, which is weird to talk about, for obvious and not-as-obvious reasons. - - - - JANUARY 6 [Short, grunting sound indicating great frustration.] We have just gotten off the phone with an upset staff member. The upset staff member was upset because a submittor of writing today accused the staff member of anti-Semitism. And from what we here at HQ can deduce, this freelancer is right, because this staff member did a very anti-Semitic thing: the staff member told the submittor that the submittor's submission was difficult to understand. Oddly enough, the submittor's submission, we are told, had something to do with anti-Semitism. Whatever its subject matter, according to our staff member, the piece was not working on a number of structural levels, and our staff member told him so. (And yet, being a nice staff person, the staff person encouraged him to resubmit the piece if he revised it.) Still, the freelancer ignored the staff member's comments about the piece's structure and instead leapt ahead, expressing his belief that the reason his submission about anti-Semitism was not accepted was because... our staff person was anti-Semitic. Don't laugh. Why are you laughing? Please stop. This is not funny. This follows a strange spate in the past month of angry missives from submittors of writings. Some submittors become upset when they are given feedback, others are angry when they are not given enough feedback. [Big sigh.] You should have seen the note our staff person sent back to he who accused this staff person of anti-Semitism. It was a marvel of restraint. It was thoughtful and generous and even-handed. But we say the staff member was far too kind, that the accuser deserved no such restraint. Instead, the accuser should have something heavy dropped on him. What depths of boredom must one reach before he finds his enemies in the associate editors of small magazines? Perhaps nothing is so gruesome and absurd than when well-educated media professionals in New York -- and both the accused and the accuser are so-defined -- lacking the courage (here we are speaking only of the accuser) to address real enemies in actual situations where prejudice is at play, instead look to their peers, reading between their lines, playing 'gotcha' with their emails. It is a child's game, born of laziness, and it's appalling when practiced by adults. Didn't we have enough of this bullshit caviling in college? Yes. Yes we did. So. McSweeney's would hereby like to issue the following request: Henceforth, only good people are allowed to email us. If you are not a good person -- if, for example, you think the enemy of the Jewish faith is reading McSweeney's web submissions -- then please send your work elsewhere. Then perhaps consider having yourself a nice ice cream sandwich. Then maybe a nap. That can be a lifesaving combination, ice cream sandwich + nap. - - - - In other news: because the trip will be free and the need is great, two (other) McSweeney's staff members will be in Iceland next week, finishing Issue No. 4, which means they will return with myriad souvenirs for future orderers of Lifetime Subscriptions. So that's good. - - - - JANUARY 5 We would here like to announce that Paul Collins, whose series of profiles of history's eccentric failures began and will continue in the pages of McSweeney's, has come to an agreement with a publisher, called St. Martin's Press, which will in a year or so bring out Losers: A Brief History of Notable Failures, Mr. Collins's book-length collection of such profiles. We congratulate him on not only this but the just-as-exciting news that a film-making company, who shall remain nameless for now, has retained the rights to his last piece, "Banvard's Folly," which concerned the maker of a three-mile painting and appeared in Issue No. 3. We do not know how much Collins was paid or who will play Mr. Banvard, but we expect it was millions and that it will be either Joaquin Phoenix or Vince Vaughn, with Beau Bridges reprising his role as P.T. Barnum. Look for Collins's next piece, we think his best yet, in our next issue. Other things: It happened sort of suddenly, but after taking a look into the kitchen pantry of the McSweeney's HQ and then, up the road, in the hallway of McSweeney's staff person Diane Vadino, we have discovered that we are now fairly officially sold out of Issue No. 3. There now exist copies only for those who subscribe relatively soon, and those who can find the copies which still haunt bookstores. We now have precisely 54 copies left in Ms. Vadino's hallway, so act soon if you would like one mailed to you. Issue No. 1, of course, is long gone. As for Issue No. 2, we are down to the last 30 or so. Now, about Issue No. 4: We urge anyone who would like to get Issue No. 4 in the mail that they must put forth their subscription order very very soon. This next issue is currently at press, and will be shipped from you-know-where in three or so weeks. So, subscription orders that come within the next two weeks will be included in the Issue 4 database. Those received after January 17 will not make the first shipment, and will thus be delayed a little while. More incentives to pre-order: - Issue No. 4 is 324 pages long, up from Issue No. 3's paltry 288.
So if you have been hesitating, please do so no more. Thank you. - - - - Read McSweeney's News:
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