The extremely unconventional 36th issue of McSweeney’s quarterly magazine is a box-shaped head filled with short stories, art postcards, a “lost” work by Michael Chabon, and a tiny scroll.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius author Dave Eggers founded McSweeney’s independent publishing house as a forum for indie literary-fiction authors to articulate progressive ideas. Issue 36 is a “275-cubic-inch full-color head-crate” filled with booklets and other objects, ripe for the sifting.

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iTunes’ App Store is probably the only place on Earth right now where Dan Brown is not number one. Although The Lost Symbol sold enough copies for every man, woman, and child in Chicago in its first week alone, the Da Vinci Code author’s iPhone app is currently lagging at #18 in the Books section. The number one spot instead belongs to a new app by McSweeney’s. It promises new work by Spike Jonze, Chris Ware, and Jonathan Ames — which was enough to get us to stop fiddling with I Am T-Pain for a minute and check it out. Here’s what we thought. Read More »

If you’ve never heard of Wholphin before then you’re going to thank us for introducing you to this cinematic gem. The quarterly DVD magazine — now seven issues old — is the brainchild of Dave Eggers and Brent Hoff; it features short films, documentaries, animation, and instructional videos that have not, for whatever reason, found wide release.

If you live in New York, check out a screening of Wholphin No 7 and the Best of Wholphin Volume 1, at 92YTribeca this Saturday, November 29th.

After the jump, our IM interview with The Hoff about the origins of the magazine, the short film he’d love to track down, and his top secret scoop on Spike Jonze’s upcoming Where the Wild Things Are — which Eggers wrote.

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