It's been a while since I've read a McSweeney's and it's a bit like coming home. This issue was extra ingenious as the issue comes in a box that looks like someone's head that you open up and pull out all of the contents. The concept is that they wanted to represent what it would be like to look into someone's head.
The book of short stories began with a letter section that was amusing. Jessie Eisenberg's was funny about wanting sleep medicine. John Brandon wrote Occurrences a story about a town with a lot of abductions that was well written and interesting. The other story that stood out was The Street by Colm Toibin that was about a couple of male Pakistani immigrants living in Spain who fall in love. They face some pretty severe consequences and one of the characters struggles with his homosexual feelings.
I enjoyed Michael Chabon's unfinished story Fountain City as we wrote a lot of interesting notes as to why it didn't work and some insight into why he wrote certain things he did. The story itself was pretty dull.
An except from The Instructions By Adam Levine was ok. He gets pretty good reviews online often drawing comparisons to David Foster Wallace but I'm not interested in pursuing the book after reading the chapter.
An oral history of Ma Su Mon recorded and edited by Maggie Lemere & Zoe West was interesting as she told her story of political resistance in Burma which I know next to nothing about.
I love a quick story by Sophia Cara Frydman that had drawings done in red ink. The sketches were amazing.
Tim Heidecker and Greggg Turkington wrote a fake screenplay for Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey that made fun of all those stupid comedies. Smart and well done, it ripped on all the corny jokes and was an excellent parody.
I was really excited to read Jungle Geronimo In Gay Paree as it looked like another amazing story making fun of those old campy novels and shows about Tarzan but it was just ok. It felt like they were trying a little too hard, a near miss to be sure but still a miss.
I ended up really liking a play The Domestic Crusaders by Wajahat Ali about a modern middle eastern family living in the US. It was realistic, made fun of how most middle easterners are portrayed as stereotypes in a smart way and didn't pull any punches. Great ending which I didn't see coming that made it really memorable and my favorite piece in the issue.
Ok on a side note, I'm boring the shit out of myself. I like writing a review but I'm sucking ass here. I need to step this shit up.
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