here & now

Well, it’s kind of wrong to call McSweeney’s a magazine, it’s more of a book series, really, or rather a quarterly collection of short stories, but then again, nothing is that simple with McSweeney’s, so their forthcoming issue comes in the shape of a broadsheet newspaper, with short stories, yes, but also investigative journalism, sports pages, and even comics by the likes of Chris Ware or Daniel Clowes. And even in the forerun to being published, The San Francisco Panorama, as they’ve called their 33rd issue, is causing quite a stir in newspaper offices around the world, struggling to attract a young audience away from their computer screens. Could a young, fresh and design-based approach to newsprint be a way forward? And what would an obscure literature project such as McSweeney’s know about that? Well, for one they managed to revive the all but dead genre of the short story. And they get kids to read a rather abstract literature magazine like The Believer. How do they do it? Because they make it fun, as simple as that. Anyway: very, very good. You should subscribe, really. They’ll make you want to turn off your computer, immediately.