The Thousands

Ah, the McSweeney’s black hole, sucking lovers of trendy literature into its event horizon with its Dave Eggers ‘print is not dead!’ punch-the-air battle cry. It’s easy to assume they’re the only game in town; but wait, what’s this? The director of Apocalypse Now started a San Francisco lit quarterly before them? He did this when? Back in ’97 round about when The Rainmaker came out and Eggers was still in literary diapers? Ooh, do tell.

Now in its 14th year, Zoetrope quietly shows the whippersnappers across town a thing or two. Each issue has a guest designer, with the world’s most famous ballet dancer Baryshnikov here showing off his photos of Merce Cunningham’s company in rehearsals. Not to mention the stories, like Jonathan Nolan’s tale that his bro ended up filming as Memento. Tattooed eyelids, anyone?

Recent designers include Guillermo del Toro, Lou Reed and Marjane Satrapi. Up next is PJ Harvey, though what any of them know about design is a damn fine question. But who cares when you’re out-hipping McSweeney’s? How has corpulent bearded wonder Coppola managed this? If only he put so much effort into his movies.