Tuesday, May 17, 2011

McSweeney’s Display


McSweeneys
Originally uploaded by Pesky Library
The end of the semester is drawing near. To offer a respite from finals cramming, we put together a display highlighting the quirky, unique McSweeney’s series.

McSweeney’s, or more properly, Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, is a journal unlike any other. It has been published quarterly by McSweeney’s publishing house and edited by Dave Eggers from 1998.

McSweeney’s Quarterly often plays around with both content and physical appearance. As Village Voice writer Matt Goldberg puts it, it’s a journal that “comprises killed articles and odd, obliquely humorous experiments”. Eggers himself describes it as “a weird, esoteric thing.” The issues can appear in a cigar box (Spring 2006), as an 8-volume set that sits in a tray (Summer 2008), or as a cubic human head (Winter 2010/2011), for example.

Inevitably, there’s also a web page. As a cheap and timely way to publish, Eggers uses the web to distribute “sarcastic, ephemeral rants about pop culture and the media,” to quote Goldberg. The web site is updated regularly in between issues, with jokes, columns, memories, humor, sarcasm, and more.

Visit our display in the Bragdon Reading Room!

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