Dave Eggers (1 Viewer)

[TenRabbits]

I really liked you shall know our velocity.. it just started to grip me when you realised all the bad stuff that had happened before they went travelling, which was only being hinted it earlier.

Loved the corrections too - the bit where yer man is being chased around the room by a turd.. genius. They're both fairly depressing though, in a 'real life is depressing' kind of way.

 

[bloopitybloop]

His new book 'What Is The What?' is finally out here. I think the RRP is like €30 but it's in Border's (Blanchardstown) for €14.

I hope it's good!

 

[avernus]

ya I love Dave Eggers.

 

[Nate Champion]

I found the short story collection disappointing and inconsistent when I finally got around to reading it.

Liked the one where he's talking to the moon.

 

[MDR]

I read his first two books, but gave up on the short stories. The new book seems to be a much more serious affair.

Egg's point about eggers (no relation) and sufjan stevens is one of my favourite thumped nail-on-the-head moments.

 

[CitySickness]

McSweeney's distributor went tits-up a short while ago - wiping out $130,000 they owed to McSweeney's, so they're having a huge sale to try and keep the wolf from the door. Lots of limited edition artwork from Chris Ware, Tony Millionaire and so on up on Ebay right now too.

So if you've been considering taking out a subscription to one or another, now might be a good time. I just got me a Wholphin/McSweeney's/Believer combo. Mild warning: international subscriptions add on a flat rate of $32 for shipping.

http://store.mcsweeneys.net/

 

[cephalopod]

Isn't there a whole 'scene' of earnest hip young writers of whom Eggers is some sort of figurehead? I enjoyed his first long-titled book, but haven't read any of his other work. Except for a piece he wrote about Joanna Newsome which was creepy in its worshipfulness. Something tells me there's a lot of nonsense written in that miscellany or whatever that he edits..too cool for school writing that's self aware to the point of paralysis

 

[hugh]

Really liked the Staggering Genius one .... just remembered I have read the Know Our Velocity one too but that didn't make much of an impression on me. What's Why Are We Hungry like? It's another novel yeah?

The new one, What Is The What sounds pretty interesting. It's a fictionalization of the life story of a Sudanese refugee that Eggers befriended. I hope he tells the story pretty straight and lays off on the post-modern literary tricksiness becuase he's a really good writer when he just, well, writes.

What's the story with books coming out in these stupid oversized paperbacks these days? I want a hardback or a normal sized paperback ... not this halfway house bollox.

 

[Space]

What's the story with books coming out in these stupid oversized paperbacks these days? I want a hardback or a normal sized paperback ... not this halfway house bollox.

That's the very reason I passed on his new book today.

 

[hugh]

That's the very reason I passed on his new book today.

Same here. Gonna wait for the regular paperback ...

 

[Pantone247]

The new book is great. Incredibly harrowing, I feel like everytime I pick it up I need to take two or three deep breaths. I like A Hearbreaking... and disliked You'll Know Our Velocity... and I'd agree with Egg_ a talent who had nothing to say. Well I think with Valintino and The Lost Boys of Sudan's story he found his "something to say". Top stuff.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

@Lili Marlene

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Canceled.


I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT MY WEDDING TO CAPTAIN VON TRAPP HAS BEEN CANCELED.

BY MELINDA TAUB
- - - -
Dear friends, family, and Austrian nobility,

Captain Von Trapp and I are very sorry to inform you that we no longer plan to wed. We offer our deepest apologies to those of you who have already made plans to travel to Salzburg this summer.

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-best-of-mcsweeneys-internet-tendency
Those of you on the Captain’s side of the guest list are probably aware of the reason for the change of plans. I’m sure by now you have received that charming “Save the date!” card in the shape of a mountain goat from the Captain and his new fiancée, Maria.

I must confess to being rather blindsided by the end of our relationship. It seems Captain Von Trapp and I misunderstood each other. I assumed he was looking for a wife of taste and sophistication, who was a dead ringer for Tippi Hedren; instead he wanted to marry a curtain-wearing religious fanatic who shouts every word she says.

But I don’t want you to be angry at him. We are all adults here. “But Baroness,” so many of my friends have said, “you must be devastated. You yourself are fabulously wealthy, so you cannot have wanted the Captain for his money—you must have truly loved him.” It’s true. But so, I am sure, does his new fiancée, his children’s nanny. Her wardrobe is made of curtains. She’s definitely not a gold digger or anything.

I’m sorry. That was crude of me. She seems like a lovely person, and she and the children have a great deal in common.

A great, great, great deal.

Since I will no longer be a part of their lives, I do hope you will all keep an eye on the Captain’s children. I am not terribly maternal but I was very fond of them in my own way and I must admit I am worried what will become of them now that I have gone. I had planned to send them to boarding school, since their education at the moment seems to consist mostly of marching around Salzburg singing scales. I think it would have been particularly helpful for the eldest daughter, who seems intent on losing her virginity to the mailman.

Please, friends, don’t worry about me. While I was a bit startled to be thrown aside for someone who flunked out of nun school, I assure you that I will be fine, and my main pursuits in life shall continue to be martinis, bon mots, and looking fabulous. You’ll also be glad to know I have retained custody of the Captain’s hard-drinking gay friend, Max. Anyone who gets tired of sing-a-longs should feel free to look us up.

Again, my deepest apologies for this disruption to your plans. I am currently sorting through the wedding gifts we’ve already received and I will send them back as soon as possible. The Captain would help, but he is busy learning to play a song about cuckoo clocks on his guitar.

Sincerely,
Baroness Elsa Schraeder

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: I Want to Make Love to You Like In the Movies.


And the eternal classic

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.

IT’S DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

BY COLIN NISSAN
- - - -
[Originally published October 20, 2009.]

- - -
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I’m going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, “Aren’t those gourds straining your neck?” And I’m just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, “It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.”

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that’s upsetting, but I’m not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I’m going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I’m going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it’s not summer, it’s not winter, and it’s not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it’s fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you’re going to fucking love my house. Just look where you’re walking or you’ll get KO’d by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you’re going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

 

[Lili Marlene]

I see.

Maybe it's just not my kind of joke.

Apologies to the New Yorker so.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

More of a general introduction than anything

I'd have thought the fake professor look wouldn't be complete without a rolled up copy of McSweeney's under the elbow-patched arm

 

[Lili Marlene]

Maybe that's why they won't let me be a real professor? This is what i've been doing wrong all these years

 

[CinnamonBoy]

Those two pieces are marvelous. What point, if any, was trying to be achieved here?

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

No real point. Just thought John would be down with this sort of thing.

 

[Lili Marlene]

It's Lili, and the point was here - Minor complaints thread | Page 831 | thumped.com

turns out it's maybe just not my kind of comedy. Any excuse for a moan.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

I'm down with it, so thanks 7 - N T