Gave a shout to 826 Valencia: The Writing Center in my post before last (scroll down or click here), a worthy venture founded by author/editor Dave Eggers and educator NÃnive Calegari. Well, it seems that Dave Eggers is a busy and enterprising bloke, because McSweeney's is also his brainchild. Apparently it began as a literary journal that only published articles rejected by other journals (which is a great idea in itself), but, like one of those gloriously rambling Gothic edifices that has extensions built onto other extensions, and little bridges and staircases linking one extension to another, so that you're never quite sure where the original building begins and where the various extensions might lead to, McSweeney's too has grown in all directions. And, like the 826 Valencia site, this is reflected in its website. It's part of the fun of exploring what's there, getting lost amongst all the options, wandering from one part of the site to another, pressing button after button, enjoying every little quirk along the way, until you discover you're looking at fifty open windows on your monitor and have forgotten what you were looking for to begin with. Phew! As you can probably tell from my own website, I like magic buttons and trapdoors - surprise sounds and images - but there's something a bit Gormenghast about this one. As you wander (and lose your way), you'll find the original journal, a publishing house, a monthly magazine called The Believer, a quarterly DVD magazine called Wholphin... a whole mansion of interesting literary rooms and passageways, too numerous to map out here. Go on, take a look... get lost!
