[BID ON THE BOOK HERE. SERIOUSLY. IT'S FOR CHARITY.]

Realize: this is the best copy of this book in existence. Period. Bar none. And at a ceremony when the books and authors being honored have the sales of their books disproportionately inverted by their quality, it only seemed appropriate to get everybody in on The Big Joke of the evening: that more people would read Sarah Palin's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bullshit than any of the nominees' and winners' books, combined.

We offered the book up to some of our favorite literature and media luminaries that were in the house that evening. Dave Eggers—that asshole!—was very nice about refusing to sign our book, probably because it wasn't for his 826 charity. But he was kind. How's that for an endorsement?

Not good enough? What about super awesome sleepy Columbia MFA graduate and Freaks and Geeks actor James Franco signing our book?

Yes, this man signed our book. Okay, Jim. Maybe you made our photographer cry. But you did this one for the children. You're okay, today. Also, the nerds at Slate think you're The Sexiest Man With A Pulse, for what it's worth (read: the most ostentatious pillow talk ever). Congrats. But what if an awesome hunky dreamy movie star with an MFA from Columbia isn't enough reason to spend lots of money on a book people drew on?

Maybe 2009 National Book Award winner Colum McCann signing this bad boy is! YES THAT IS COLUM MCCANN SIGNING THE PALIN BOOK. This took a lot—a lot—of convincing. Charity, huh? But it's Sarah Palin's book! Sarah Palin! I can't put my name on anything of hers! Are you sure this is for charity? What charity?!

Funny you should ask, Mr. McCann. I've picked a charity so great, you can't even say their name out loud without feeling awful for never having done something for them until now: Save The Children. Yeah, you're gonna stiff these guys?

They've done great work bringing literacy programs to kids in need across the country, among other great things they've done for kids that otherwise don't get things done for them that should be. If I were running these programs, I would have them all reading Gawker Weekends and Calvin and Hobbes, because that's what I grew up on, but I'm not, and these people are, and we're all better off. You don't have to buy the book to give a buck. Oh, and if you complain about the charity I picked, I'll come to your house and personally beat you with an unsigned copy of Ms. Palin's 2010 NBA Fiction Winner. But yes, people actually signed this thing.

You want proof?

2009 NBA Fiction Prize winner Collum McCann (fourth page, center) really, actually did take this much convincing. He wrote: "'For we must love this poor earth, for we have not seen another...' Go Obama!" Awesome.

Ricky Van Veen and Neel Shah marvel at how incredibly awesome this book is, while Jessica Coen is laughing to herself imagining Sarah Palin read her fabulous, fierce nugget of wisdom.

Here's the guy who I thought was Toph Eggers, right. I got everyone's name wrong that night. At one point I think I remember identifying Keith Waldrop as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Jeff Bercovici signed the book as Dave Eggers, since Dave Eggers doesn't care about Saving The Children so much as making them read George Saunders or whatever.

Here're the first two pages:

And here're the second two:

And here's the full list of who we know we got:

2009 NBA Fiction Winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann.

Spider Man 2 actor and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco wrote (third page, top-right): "FUCK YEAH!" with a strange vampire-smiley face.

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Salvatore Scibona (second page, middle-right) gave her "hugs."

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Rachel Kushner (second page, bottom-left) offers her insight on context clues regarding snowmobiles.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake author by night and Random House book publicist by day Sloane Crosley offered her encouragement "storming the castle." True story: Sloane had no idea what she was signing.

The Seymore Hersh of the Sunday Styles, New York Times writer Allen Salkin took up the entire bottom-third of the fourth page ensuring that I wasn't conning him. He also drew a fairly accurate drawing of himself.

Dave Eggers! As performed/signed by former Portfolio and current Daily Finance media columnist Jeff Bercovici (fourth page, top-right).

Columnist Katie Bakes tried to start a #hashtag, while the New York Observer's publishing beat gangsta Leon Neyfakh wrote...something.

Vice and New York Press writer Jamie Peck (second-page, bottom-right, I think) talked to her about wolves. Someone who isn't Vice writer Jamie Peck, apparently, talked to her about wolves. Claim your identity here!

College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen gave Sarah a big CHILL, BABY, CHILL while Former Radar, Gawker, and Page Six writer Neel Shah got tactful.

The Awl writer Alex Balk.

Flavorwire's Kelsey Keith had more sage advice for Palin's future career aspirations.

Cartoonist Laurie Sandell drew a woman holding a smoking gun on the third page. Get it?

Gawker Past and Present: Media Overlord Nick Denton and current Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder both thanked her for pageviews—heh—while founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers wished her luck, and Gawker J²-era/New York Magazine editor Jessica Coen gave her hair tips.

Oh, and me, lending to this the extent of my own profound, political insight.

We also got Gawker's Altarcations writer Phyllis Nefler. and some guy who looks like Dave Eggers brother, who turned out not to be Dave Eggers' brother after I thought he was Dave Eggers' brother. His name is Alec Friedman.

[Alas, because we were drunk, there may be signatures in here we missed. Seriously! If you see your John Hancock—heh: cock—please email me with it. It's for charity. You don't want children growing up to one day actually think that was funny, do you? Right. Neither do I.]

The book's sanctity has been preserved by only having been signed on the night of the 2009 National Book Awards, by attendees of the ceremony. That said, if you win it and want to have anybody else in the Gawker Media offices sign it, sure, fuckit, I'll get them to sign. Hell, we know people who are experts on books that are imaginary that are supposed to be real, and I bet we could get them to sign if that's what you wanted. Or I could eat the book, or I could drop-kick it, or I could detonate it with whatever fireworks you send us, or I could read it, but who's that awful? Not you, potential charity-giver. Anyway. You could do any of those things, or none of them, and just keep it as one of the most awesome literary collectibles ever. You know? You know.

Because one day, you can show this to your children's children, and tell them: I bought this so you could see how happy the people were before it was like this. Now that James Franco is the new Daniel Mendelsohn, and every book published is full of shit, and they all come from blogs, and they're the only things that sell, and they are read on calculators, there was this. There was this night. There were these drunk people signing Frau Palin's book.

And then you can blame it on this guy:

But seriously, it's for charity. Buy the goddamn book. Now. Please. Our auction is here.

[Photographs via Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz.]

A tipster tells us that three assistant managing editors have been laid off at Fortune magazine, presumably as part of the ongoing companywide Time Inc. layoffs. Mediaite confirms that the company did do a round of layoffs today. If you have more details, email us.
UPDATE: We hear five staffers were laid off at SI.com: Two associate producers, a copy editor, a producer, and a production editor, according to our tipster.


Gary Weiss got a peek at a BusinessWeek corporate post-layoff memo, in which the people not fired are referred to as "Individuals ineligible or not selected for inclusion in the restructuring program." Well. How Bloombergian.


Dave Eggers continues to save print! This time by producing a $16, 300-page "newspaper" with content "ranging from Stephen King's reporting on the World Series to explanatory graphics on subjects as diverse as the conflict in eastern Congo and how to make the perfect bowl of ramen." The whole thing sounds great. Except, of course, this six-month long niche literary project has absolutely nothing to do with newspapers or with the continued viability of print, which is dying as a mass medium, naturally, due to its obvious limitations.


From Roy Greenslade: "Twelve journalists were among 46 people murdered yesterday in the Philippines in what is thought to be the greatest loss of life by news media in a single day. Several of the victims were beheaded or mutilated in the massacre carried out by a huge force of gunmen."

"Look up, see that?" An editor at Reagan Arthur drunkenly smiled during the boozy, Bat Mitzvah-y after party held on the balcony overlooking the ballroom of the Cipriani Wall Street, and woozily pointed up to a perch some 25-feet above the dance floor. "See where the DJ is?" We stared above us. "Next year, it's not going to be a DJ. It's gonna be a Kindle." Brilliantly wasted drunkspeak that it was, she had a point. And she couldn't have been the only one thinking it.

Just like film, TV, and music, everything's going digital, and some of the people in that room might be scared shitless that their product's going the way of the buffalo. Hence, the hysterical irony of Google sponsoring the party. The guys hoarding — and then giving away for free — the beautiful words that should cost money to buy, those fucking guys who call it "content" and are mainlining it into concentration camps of data, those were the guys holding the party.

Every year, media industries have their traditional back-patting ceremonies where they heap upon their products awards saluting their best and brightest. Cynics see it as a way to drive sales to products that need it (see: The Oscars, The Tonys, etc). The pompous, starfucky nonsense put in plain view at awards for film, TV, and music doesn't stick, here, and it shouldn't since basically everyone in the room more or less knows each other. The dance floor's raging and you get the feeling that people are genuinely humbled by winning. Truly, it's nice. And the general consensus was that it was a fun, fun party. That always helps.

Mo and I showed up to Cipriani's Wall Street ballroom around our invite's stated start time of 10pm, along with all the rest of the media folk there to get fucked up on the cheap. We were turned away immediately: The ceremony's running long, it'll be another half an hour 'til the after-party. We stood outside with a bunch of publishing assistants while I decided whether to put on my tie, which was rolled up in my pocket. "There're people in tuxes in there, goddamnit" Mo warned me. The invite said "festive attire." I decided to put my tie on. "You look like a Young Republican," Mo warned me.

The reason for the delay? The explanation I got was that Gore Vidal gave a "sad, rambling, 20-minute speech." His opening salvo: "'Most Presidents fear assassination. It is my impression I shall vanish from your view because I have been fired,' said Roosevelt." It's bad enough that your industry's fighting for its life. Letting your keynote speaker deliver an unintentionally sad requiem couldn't have been the best move.

We were let in to bum-rush the party just as host Andy Borowitz introduced the final award: the prize for the year's Best Fiction Book. I'd been having a cigarette with a guy who'd introduced himself as a member of James Franco's Columbia MFA class before we walked in. "$20 on McCann," I thought to myself, except, I said it out loud. Whoops. Sure enough, Colum McCann's book Let the Great World Spin, won. Someone knocked over a chair standing up applauding for him. Franco's classmate laughed at me. "What?" I looked at him. "It's the only book anybody's heard of." How could McCann's book not have won?

But maybe that's why my woozy, wobbly-footed editor friend was smiling when she stared up at the DJ and made her draconian prediction of a Kindle telling us how to dance instead of the Jersey DJ bumping Top 40 hits all night. Because there's still some esprit de corps amongst book authors, because they still care, because there's still a reason to get crunk. Books might be fucked, but at least they're worth saving. It's not all bad.

Mo and I got drunk and took pictures. We also got people to sign a magical book for charity, which you'll learn about later. In the mean time: here's who we saw. All of these people are drunk.

This fucking guy. James Franco was surrounded by a gaggle of women all night, and yes, he was awake. He was kind enough when we approached him, he even helped us with out secret project for the evening. But as I turned the corner, he started asking questions of Mo: Who was that? Who're you from? Mo sheepishly told him. And Franco, who Mo has swooned over since Freaks and Geeks, told her to fuckoff. Mo was sad, James Franco.
Matt Berninger, lead singer of The National, will not fuck you over. At least this month. He's Mr. November. And he was also totally shocked when I recognized him. So was I! But also: elated! Someone whose shit I knew comprehensively! Him and his wife Carin Besser, who—the more you know!—among other places has written for the New Yorker, were ridiculously nice. And showed up right before the party started, probably for the booze. But seriously: The National! This picture is awesome.
2009 National Book Award Fiction winner Colum McCann was all smiles. He took the subway to the ceremony. He can now pay for his cab ride back home with the giant piece of gelt around his neck.
And Then We Came To The Bar. Gawker Status Galley author Joshua Ferris was a very nice person. This is how Scott Rudin taught him how to hold champers: two at a time, while you crush the competition into the next dimension with your other hand.
Dave Eggers not only didn't want to pose for a picture, but he didn't want to contribute to the Gawker Charity Book Project! Asshole! [Actually, he was nice about saying no. But still: Asshole!] Probably because it wasn't for his own set of nonprofit kids' reading centers, 826. Gotta admire him for sticking to his guns, though. The man knows a dollah holla, amirite? BUT!
Heh, we did get little brother Toph "I May Have Had Sex With Julia Allison" Eggers, too. Note the flames in the background indicating the convergence of supernatural forces as Toph Eggers signs a piece of Gawker Media, LLC property. Did we tell him where we were from? No. Did we tell him Dave signed the book? Maybe. But is it for a good cause? Hell yeah! (For the record, Jeff Bercovici signed it as Dave). You've got to be kidding me. I've been informed via email that this isn't Dave Eggers' brother. I'm now going to find whoever told me it was and punch them in the face. For the children. Apparently, it's this guy, Alec Friedman. #GonnaGoCryNow.
Left to right: Jonathan Lethem's assistant Fred, who's first name I finally remembered but who's last name I still can't! Center is R.K. Ghansah, and to her right: James Franco's aforementioned MFA classmate, the very affable Mr. Mike Spies. Names! We didn't get 'em. Party reporting is hard work, people, especially when there's drink to be drank. But let me assure you all of these people are very nice despite how badly I totally screwed the pooch on IDing them.
Sloane Crosley was told there would be booze. Instead she got New York's Boris Kachka. Eh? [*Makes scales with hands*.]
The Seymour Hersh of the Styles Section, Allen Salkin, with rum scion Jeffrey Zarnow. Salkin made me promise I wouldn't talk any shit and that we'd have an armistice for this one night, so long as he did me a solid. And he did! Stickin' to my word here, Allen. Allen was very nice and didn't punch me in the face and he was not celebrating any made-up bullshit holidays that evening.
Former Gawker Intern turned Page Six reporter Neel Shah with Vice's executive editor (or however they title their employees over there: "King Kong BigDick of Editorial," etc) Chris Cechin. Where are the drugs, Chris? I asked him. He didn't know. I believed him.
Founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers, with friend.
Neel Shah, New York Magazine's Magical Princess of Online Domination, former Gawker editor Jessica Coen, the pixilated Alex Balk, and former BlackBook EIC and Maxim editor Steve Garbarino. Balk told me he'd "rape (my) kittens" or something if I didn't obstruct his face. I believed him.
College Humor's Ricky Van Veen thinks you should look at some funny shit going down....
....which was New York magazine busybody Chris Wilson and former BlackBook/Maxim editor Steve Garbarino getting kicked out by Cipriani security for smoking inside. Whoops! I was later informed: This is how Chris finds out that the sun is down. By the way, this is my new favorite Party Exit Strategy: just light up in the middle of the room until you're forced to leave, and be like, What? I though that shit was cool here? Y'all are lame. Peace. Brilliant!
Daily Finance media reporter Jeff Bercovici lends his signature to a very special book, with Jamie Peck, who recently wrote about this crazyass fairy convention for VICE. Jamie also writes for the New York Press, The L, Suicidegirls, and a bunch of other badass indie fuck you and The Pope rock places like those. Her writing resume is basically like, if you're a dude and you live in New York and you have a blogger fetish—which is kind of really fucked up, like, really—than Jamie Peck is definitely your "Dream Weaver Moment" girl. And I also feel like an asshole for forgetting her name. But hey, look, Jeff Bercovici, who writes about the media, is signing a book.
Bonnie Jo Campbell, who was nominated with Colum McCann for the Fiction Prize for her book American Salvage, didn't win. But seriously, no joke: does that not look like someone who's legitimately happy to be there?
Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder, in the default. "You clean up well!" He exclaimed. Jesus, man, thanks for the supreme vote of confidence. These people who manage writers, they think we have an existential crisis every time we try to put pants in the morning. It's unreal. WE KNOW HOW TO PUT ON PANTS.
Blogger/columnist extraordinaire, Katie Bakes, with the New York Observer's Status Galley Gangsta Leon Neyfakh.
The Mark of the Beast isn't 666. It's this guy's signature. He might not be drunk.
James Franco, you dick. You made Mo sad. She's not even part-time. Asswizzard! Mo was going to cry, but not because she was drunk, even though she was.
I try on the future of literature: Facebook! UGHHH. Seriously people, if you let books die out, you'll have to live with the proliferation of writing at this level.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
The Story: Based on the Maurice Sendak book, little Max leaves behind his gloomy family and travels to a land of giant forest creatures.
The Pitch: Spirited Away meets Rushmore
Who It's For: Man/boys who dream of fleeing their dismal existences where they are surrounded by people who don't pay them enough attention, and sailing off to a land where they can spend the whole day riding skateboards and throwing things with cool but sensitive dudes like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers.
Cause for Hope: The monster suits look pretty neat.
Cause for Concern: This is not a Spike Jonze movie based on a Charlie Kaufman script; after spending years teaching writing to children, Dave Eggers appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and believes that grown-ups should write like six year olds rather than for them.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 3

THE STEPFATHER
The Story: A young man (Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley) returns from school to find his mother has moved in her new flame (Dylan Walsh), a man whose helpful nature may hide some terrible secrets.
The Pitch: Shadow of a Doubt meets Poison Ivy
Who It's For: People who are too young to remember the dregs of the 80s — 90s sexy thriller era.
Cause for Hope: Well, um...the Executive Producer is friends with Madonna? Does that count?
Cause for Concern: Your great-grandchildren will do the math on how much the money you spent on a night out at The Stepfather would be worth a hundred years hence, with interest, and curse your spirit forevermore.
Bonus Fact: J.S. Cardone, the screenwriter, has one of the most thrilling IMDB pages ever recorded. A secret giant of Hollywood.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 2

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
The Story: When a man (Gerard Butler) sees his daughter's murderer get off easy thanks to The System, he takes justice into his own hands, first killing the murderer and then from behind bars, attacking The System while an ambitious young prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) fights to stop him.
The Pitch: Death Wish meets The Dark Knight meets Silence of the Lambs meets a bunch Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford movies whose names we can't remember.
Who It's For: Those who want to be jolted into forgetting their troubles.
Cause for Hope: Seems at least ambitiously pulpy; director F. Gary Gray made the cult classic Set It Off.
Cause for Concern: How many minutes of screen time will it take just to portray the set-up described above before the actual film starts.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU
The Story: A series of short film homages to the Big Apple.
The Pitch: Manhattan meets Hotel Chevalier
Who It's For: Manhattanites who love to love themselves
Cause for Hope: Some very great film makers involved including Fatih Akim.
Cause for Concern: There is also a segment by Brett Ratner. And honestly, (and I say this as a frequent visitor from California) isn't every second of every day in Manhattan the time that New Yorkers devote to telling themselves how much they love themselves and their quaint little island. Does there really need to be a special film devoted to that? Isn't that basically, every film made by every New Yorker ever? Isn't that why the world took your filmmaking capital status away from you and gave it to California in the first place?
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

BLACK DYNAMITE
The Story: A satire of 70's blacksploitation fims.
The Pitch: Shaft meets Airplane
Who It's For: Comedy nerds
Cause for Hope: Hilarious trailer; very strong buzz when it debuted at Sundance.
Cause for Concern: One joke premise walks down well-trod lane.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8

What is catastrophic about this app?

• It is a mere "weekly sampler."
  
• It is a "weekly sampler" from "all [annoying] branches of the [Eggers/]McSweeney's family" (emphasis added), including The Believer, McSweeney's Quarterly, and the DVD quarterly Wholphin, plus books by various annointed authors.
  
• It is a "weekly sampler" that you pay $6 for.
  
• It is a "weekly sampler" that you pay $6 for that nevertheless expires after six months.
  
• It is officially called "The Small Chair." Oh, so cute.
  
• Typing "Small Chair" into iTunes gets you nothing, because this app is actually just called "Mc Sweeney's."
  
• The app bills itself as "a half-year of surprises, delivered straight to your pocket."
  
• From the FAQ: "Q. Why do I swipe right-to-left to turn the page, but then the page flips upwards? A. Yeah, that's kind of weird."
  
• Ibid.: "Q: Why do some pages scroll and other pages flip? A. We're trying to echo the original format of the content, with a balance between convenience and design. Text from the Internet Tendency (and other informational bits) scroll; books and stories flip."

How much do we have to pay to make sure no McSweeney's ever gets on our iPhone? Is There An App For That?

Responding to the question, "If I were to write to you and say, 'Dave, cheer me up about the future of writing,' what would you say?" Eggers said the following:

Our students at 826 Valencia still have a newspaper class, where we print an actual newspaper, and we do magazine classes and anthologies where they're all printed on paper. That's the main way we get them motivated, that they know it's going to be in print. It's much harder for us to motivate the students when they think it's only going to be on the Web.

The vast majority of students we work with read newspapers and books, more so than I did at their age. And I don't see that dropping off. If anything the lack of faith comes from people our age, where we just assume that it's dead or dying. I think we've given up a little too soon. We [i.e., McSweeney's] have been working every day on a prototype for a new newspaper, and a lot of what we're doing is resurrecting old things, like things from the last century that newspapers used to do, in terms of really using the full luxury of the broadsheet newspaper, with full color and all that space.

I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web, and should do what they can do better, which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art, and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper. You know, including a full-color comic section, for example, which of course was standard in newspapers years ago, when you'd have a full broadsheet Winsor McCay comic. So we'll have a big, full-color comic section, and we're also trying to emphasize what younger readers are looking for, what directly appeals to them. It's hard to find papers these days that really do anything to appeal to anyone under 18, and the paper used to do that all the time. I think there will always be — if not the same audience and not as wide an audience — a dedicated audience that can keep print journalism alive.

Now, we like Dave Eggers, a lot, but we have to emphatically disagree with his statements here. Children attending a writing center in San Francisco do not accurately reflect the entirety of the modern American youth. Not even close. Sure, we'd love to see web and print co-exist and thrive and compliment each other, but there is no trend suggesting such a thing is on the horizon. It just isn't happening.

Dave Eggers, we like you, we really do, but your staggering genius has failed you and you are horribly, horribly wrong.

Dave Eggers Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Reality [Salon]

The release date for the book is October 1st of this year, which is set to coincide with the release of the Where the Wild Things Are movie Eggers co-wrote with Spike Jonze, which is to debut in theaters on October 16th of this year.

The film has been the subject of some controversy in Hollywood, with rumors circulating at one point last year that Warner Brothers was so disappointed with it that they were going to start from scratch and re-shoot the entire $75-million film.

Regardless, we will probably buy this book, which is being published by Eggers' McSweeney's publishing house, if only because the cover is so damn precious. Look at it—it's just so precious, isn't it? Don't you just want to give it a hug?!

via Gabe Delahaye's Tumblr

Eggers recently sat down with a friend who writes for The Rumpus, and the two had a discussion about the book—its politics, its technique, and its similarities (and dissimilarities) to his previous people-under-duress meta-non-fiction, What Is the What. The most important thing? Zeitoun (which comes out early next month) is firmly a work of non-fiction, with none of the creative blending we saw in What:

With a book like this, I think you get the most accuracy when you involve your subjects as much as possible. I think I sent the manuscript to the Zeitouns for six or seven reads. They caught little inaccuracies each time. They have to live with the book, of course, as much as I do, so I needed their approval. With What Is The What and with this book, I consider the book as much theirs as mine. So they were intimately involved in every step, as were their extended families. We had many months to get everyone's approval over everything, to make sure it was accurate.

So that's that. Eggers is setting up a non-profit for the book like he did with What, through which all proceeds from the book will be given to the ongoing (and ailing) Katrina relief effort.

Dear Person Needing Bucking Up,

Hello and thank you so much for writing. I feel honored that you would takethe time to reach out and in many cases tell me your very real struggles with writing and work and the future of the printed word.

I have a few thoughts to share, though unfortuately in this space I can't detail all the reasons I think we have a fighting chance at keeping newspapers and books alive in physical form. But before I do blather for a few paragraphs, I should apologize for sending you a mass email.

As you probably know, a week ago I gave a speech to about 100 people in New York, and I didn't foresee it getting out there on the web. (Shows how much I know.) And I really didn't expect this email address to be given out. Again, though, that was my lack of foresight. And I'm an infrequent emailer, so I'm unable to respond to most of the (plaintive, beautiful, heart-ripping) emails that have been sent to me these past few days. So I apologize for not being able to answer your email personally. Or at least not in any timely manner.

Anyway. I would like to say to you good print-loving people that for every dire bit of news there is out there, there is also some good news, too. The main gist of my (rambling) speech at the Author?s Guild was that because I work with kids in San Francisco, I see every day that their enthusiasm for the printed word is no different from that of kids from any other era. Reports that no one reads anymore, especially young people, are greatly overstated and almost always factually lacking. I've written about youth readership elsewhere, but to reiterate: sales of young adult books are
actually up. Total volume of all book sales is actually up. Kids get the same things out of books that they have before. Reading in elementary schools and middle schools is no different than any other time. We have work to do with keeping high schoolers reading, but then again, I meet every week with 15 high schoolers in San Francisco, and all we do is read (literary magazines, books, journals, websites, everything) in the process of putting together the Best American Nonrequired Reading. And I have to say these students, 14 to 18 years old, are far better read and more astute than I was at their age, and there are a million other kids around the country just like them.

These kids meet every week at McSweeney's, and things at our small publishing company are stable. We?re a hand-to-mouth operation to be sure, but we haven't had to lay anyone off. To some extent, that's because we're small and independent and have always insisted on staying small and independent. We take on very little risk, and we grow very cautiously. It's our humble opinion that the world will support many more publishers of our size and focus. If you can stay small, stay independent, readers will be loyal, and you'll be able to get by publishing work of merit. Publishing
has, for most of its life, been a place of small but somewhat profit margins, and the people involved in publishing were happy to be doing what they loved. It's only recently, when large conglomerates bought so many publishing companies and newspapers, that demands for certain margins squeezed some of the joy out of the business.

Pretty soon, on the McSweeney's website— www.mcsweeneys.net— we'll be showing some of our work on this upcoming issue, which will be in newspaper form. The hope is that we can demonstrate that if you rework the newspaper
model a bit, it can not only survive, but actually thrive. We're convinced that the best way to ensure the future of journalism is to create a workable model where journalists are paid well for reporting here and abroad. And that starts with paying for the physical paper. And paying for the physical paper begins with creating a physical object that doesn't retreat, but instead luxuriates in the beauties of print. We believe that if you use the hell out of the medium, if you give investigative journalism space, if you give photojournalists space, if you give graphic artists and cartoonists space— if you really truly give readers an experience that can't be duplicated on the web— then they will spend $1 for a copy. And that $1 per copy, plus the revenue from some (but not all that many) ads, will keep the enterprise afloat.

As long as newspapers offer less each day— less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos— then they're giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. The web obviously presents all kinds of advantages for breaking news, but the printed newspaper does and will always have a slew of advantages, too. It's our admittedly unorthodox opinion that the two can coexist, and in fact should coexist. But they need to do different things. To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web. Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive. Again, this is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page. Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they'll pay for it.

We'll keep you posted throughout the summer about our progress with this newspaper prototype, and any other good news we come across.

Thanks for listening for now,
Dave

P.S. The email address you wrote to— deggers@826national.org— was a new one I set up to give to the attendees of the Author's Guild. I won't be able to check it very often, as I'm slow with email to begin with.

[Pic via]

Eggers said the following thing on a Tribeca rooftop this week to a bunch of literati types who were honoring him for his charity work:

The written word-the love of it and the power of the written word-it hasn't changed. It's a matter of fostering it, fertilizing it, not giving up on it, and having faith. Don't get down. I actually have established an e-mail address, deggers@826national.org-if you want to take it down-if you are ever feeling down, if you are ever despairing, if you ever think publishing is dying or print is dying or books are dying or newspapers are dying (the next issue of McSweeney's will be a newspaper-we're going to prove that it can make it. It comes out in September). If you ever have any doubt, e-mail me, and I will buck you up and prove to you that you're wrong.

Should have given out your mailing address dude. We will explain, in the form of a senryu:

Email's electronic
That's killing print
You're losing your twee touch, Dave

[New Yorker. Pic: Portroids]

"But the sad trick of this snark/wonder binary is its shared terror of the serious. The former cannot show weakness for fear of being eaten by its children, the mocking commentariat; the latter, though able to take its own nostalgia seriously, does not want to grow up and deal with grown-up issues, as grown-ups do."

Us poor, poor kids. The fact that we deliver literary opinions as snappy one-liners that insult twee optimistic vegans in a small New York neighborhood on an interactive website is conclusive evidence that the rest of our everyday lives are just as silly.

Also, later is the review, Diamond might be straight-up calling Gessen a douchebag for his belief that he and his friends can save literature—or even write fiction, for that matter—but Diamond screwed up his quotation marks so I can't be sure if he called Gessen a douchebag or if Gessen called himself one. Read the review and let me know.

"I stood outside Apex Art in the hopes of viewing "Lots of Things Like This", an exhibition curated by Mr. McSweeney himself, Dave Eggers. "What's going on?" asked one casual observer, to which someone replied, "It's Dave Eggers' exhibition," as though he were the artist, not the curator. "Is it a club?" the guy continued, unfortunately prompting the kind of response that only fuels the thought that the art world is full of snots, "No!" I said haughtily, "It's a not for profit gallery space"...

I witnessed about five million camera flashes go off at the corner of Church and 6th ave. I assume it was either Mayor Bloomberg or Mr. Eggers, though at that point I didn't care enough to check it out."

Drawing by David Shrigley

Dave Eggers, author and founder of exhaustingly clever literary mag McSweeney's, is curating an art show! It opens next Wednesday at apexart. (We'll be there with bells on; we hear there will be a Basquiat.) UnBeige says, "according Eggers, the show ended up consisting of 'usually very basic or crude' drawings that are accompanied by hand-drawn text that functions like a funny caption." Muses Eggers in the press release, "Is humor allowed in art, and in what forms? Are captions allowed in art, and why?" Captions! If that's not art, we don't know what is. Click to see this work by David Shrigley, writ large. [via UnBeige]

Joke #1: "Holden Caulfield Gives the Commencement Speech to His High School," by Andrew Tan

"You're all a bunch of goddamn phonies."

When we eat, it's fun to have our manners eat with us! Wear your napkin on your lap and don't hit your sister, even if she throws peas at you. Reason your reasons, razors shave the planet clean. Blood fills the rivers, clogs the tubes. I want to die, eat your ice cream.

"I've been training Winnie for three days now and I'm ready to kill him. I showed him how the spreadsheets are updated on the network, and he just stared at me with this blank expression. I tried to demonstrate the copy machine, but he somehow got his head stuck in one of the slots... Honestly, is the best recruiting could do? Kirk thinks Winnie might be someone's cousin or something. Not a bad explanation, except that we don't have any other yellow bears working here."

Similar to a haiku, a senryu is a short, unrhymed poem of Japanese origin composed in 17 syllables or less, written in three lines. A 5 / 7 / 5 syllabic structure is not mandatory. The subject material of senryu usually concerns human nature, relationships, work, war, etc., and the poems are often humorous and/or cynical, whereas haiku tend to focus on seasons and nature. Here are some examples of senryu:

[excerpt]
Rice formed in the field,
"Beans" formed
On the farmer's hands.

When the school-boy gets home,
He takes off
The lids of the saucepans...

A pantoum is a poem of Malayan origin composed in quatrains, wherein the second and fourth lines of each stanza are reused as the first and third lines, respectively, of the following stanza. In addition, the first and third lines of the first stanza are reused as the last and second lines, respectively, of the final stanza. The repeated lines may be modified slightly upon repetition. There is no set length or required subject matter. Sometimes the repetition can induce a trancelike effect upon the reader. Here is an example of a pantoum:

[Excerpt]
Here we are riding the rail,
Gliding from out of the station;
Man though I am, I am pale,
Certain of heat and vexation.

Gliding from out of the station,
Out from the city we thrust;
Certain of heat and vexation,
Sure to be covered with dust.

—Brander Matthews [McSweeney's]

The leaked footage above, featuring a quiet moment between the fearsome Max and Wild Thing Carol —rumored to be voiced in the movie by James Gandolfini—was the source of much dispute over the weekend. A few frantic dispatches placed by Warner Bros. to various blogspots, however, has led to the consensus that the scene, bathed in golden hour and possessing a near pitch-perfect tone (try imagining the sub-in actors' voices replaced with the sound of Tony Soprano talking to a nine-year-old AJ at a Yankee's game) is, in fact, a screen test. If we start now, we should be able to produce our own offspring in time to accompany us to its opening weekend, at some point in 2009.

• Where the Wild Things Are [IMDB]
• Wild Things Clip [thebadandugly.com]

So, what is it that makes Eggers's empire so influential? The most obvious driving force behind its dramatic rise is the charismatic and indefatigable founder himself, who is not only a beloved author and literary style guru, but has also proved to be a crafty entrepreneur, busily creating a very modern publishing empire.

...The ideal McSweeney's reader (or writer) lives in Brooklyn, wears interesting T-shirts, has a blog he works on in coffee shops, and knows it's cool to oppose globalisation but uncool to go on too much about it

The McSweeney's author is not above playing language games or creating work that is aware of its artificiality, although he is also careful not to let this playfulness detract from the work's emotional impact. There is by no means a house style, but there is something that might be called the McSweeney's tone: a buzzing, mischievous hipness, wrapped around a core of sentiment and hopefulness.

McSweeney's also strives to be socially relevant. It wants to make the world a better place - or at least more like the cooler parts of Brooklyn.

While devotees of the Office might be enthused about the casting of the omnipresentJohn Krasinski as the male lead in the film and fans of SNL will be happy about Maya Rudolph as the lady, one need only to remember back to their most recent films to get a weird feeling in the pit of one's stomach, something akin to acid reflux but more sinister. We're still awaking from the nightmare that was License To Wed starring Mr. Krasinski, Mandy Moore and Robin "I've Somehow Managed to Convince the World I'm Funny" Williams. As for Ms. Rudolph, the last great installation in her oeuvre, Idiocracy, hardly even got released.

We'd advise you just wait until 2009 until when Eggers' adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze comes out from Warner Bros.