The Clock Without a Face transcends any preconceived notion of what genre is. It’s a hefty, pentagonal hunk of text and image, but it’s also a puzzle/treasure hunt. The storyline is simple. The great detective Roy Dodge teams up with his assistant, Gus Twintig, to solve the mystery of 12 missing emerald-studded numbers from an ancient clock. But here’s where things get interesting: the numbers, designed and hand-crafted by Anna Sheffield, can really be found buried in twelve holes across the country (“an extra bonus for especially energetic or greedy readers”). We interviewed one of the book’s three co-authors, Eli Horowitz, who is also an editor at McSweeney’s, to find out how they came up with this crazy idea.

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Yesterday, Obama visited Iowa City and stopped by the Prairie Lights bookstore, expressing to the public how the now-passed health care plan will help small businesses. He pretended he was there for Karl Rove’s memoir and owner Jan Weissmiller responded: “We believe in freedom of expression so we have to carry the book.” Instead of buying Rover and Mitt Romney’s latest, he went for the following:

1. The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell
2. Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibotson
3. Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Reinhart

That’s right. Star Wars: A Pop Up Guide to the Galaxy. Sure, our geeky Commander-in-Chief claimed that he “purchased it for a friend.” He probably ordered the special edition hardcover on Amazon. We began thinking, “Well, what other books should he have picked up?” This is what we came up with.

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Who doesn’t remember the thrill of playing outside and catching wind of one of those infectious ice cream truck songs? Now in various cities, you can find new and improved versions of the original Good Humor man. But everything hasn’t been sunshine and roses for these truckers. According to the New York Times, Grant Di Mille and Samira Mahboubian of Street Sweets, “…have been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers’…” Let’s forget about turf wars for a minute, and examine a few of the four-wheeled sugar fixes causing all of this ruckus. Read More »

Previously the term “wanderlust” evoked one image in our mind: mushrooms. And, Bjork’s amazing 3-D music video for the track “Wanderlust” directed by Encyclopedia Pictura… which absolutely involved mushrooms. But now it’s our favorite new music festival, too. According to its website, Wanderlust is a new kind of fest that marries yoga and rock n’ roll. Situated in Lake Tahoe in a lush part of Northern California, there were tons of opportunities for eating fruit, shopping for hippie accessories, and going on a hike or two in spite of the surprisingly sweltering weather. Read More »

Yesterday afternoon we sat down with Eli Horowitz, the managing editor of McSweeney’s. The encounter didn’t quite feel like an interview. We just talked. Naturally, we wondered how he got involved with the publishing house. According to the their website, “Eli Horowitz had been a volunteer carpenter when [Eggers et. al] were building 826 Valencia. He and I would talk about books, and he seemed very astute and hard-working, so eventually he became the logical candidate if McSweeny’s ever hired a managing editor.” Of course.

Eventually, we had to begin our interview, so we we started with the obvious and asked him to spill everything he knew about Dave Eggers’s latest, Where the Wild Things Are. Read More »

Last week we visited Rough House in San Francisco and hung out with the three guys who conceived Chasing The Moon, a video podcast inspired by French filmmaker Vincent Moon’s popular Takeaway Shows. After a conversation about the dishonesty of people who wear contacts, the deliciousness of creamy root beer soda, and the slowness of travel during rush hour, we finally got down to talking about the show. Read More »

No, we didn’t make up a verb because we were bored. This sport is a real hybrid — like a liger. And even though you can probably figure out how to play just by saying the name slowly, we are going to tell you the details so you can organize the next match at your family’s Fourth of July barbecue. Read More »

On Friday, we were bummed to read about Nestle’s recall of their delicious refrigerated cookie dough — growing up, those fantastic barrels of instant tastiness were a diet staple. We also started to wonder: What’s going on with all of these recalls lately? After the jump a list of our favorite fallen items from 2009 thus far. Read More »

This week, we came across a post on the Guardian‘s music blog entitled Reader Recommended: Songs named after Towns. Inspired, we decided to compile our own list of songs named after US towns. Gosh, we’re clever. Although the list could have included hundreds of tunes, we had to be selective — you will not find overplayed tracks like “New York, New York” and “Viva Las Vegas” on this list. Sorry. As always, feel free to add to our list in the comments. Read More »

When we first heard “UFOland,” we envisioned skinny aliens with black eyes. Pyramids. The Sphinx. Stonehenge. (There are theories circulating that express beliefs that aliens built these wonders.) But sadly, we were way off. The creators of UFOland are the Raelians, members of a religious group (founded by a French journo/test driver named Claude Vorilhon) who believe that humans were created by extra-terrestrial scientists. They have some very different ideas about what a theme park museum should look like. Read More »