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The Verge
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Tech / Creators / Art Club Box art What is the Vietnamese diaspora? McSweeney's latest issue tries to answer that question with a fake cigar box. by Kevin Nguyen May 5, 2025, 3:15 PM UTC Link Facebook Threads Courtesy of McSweeney's
Literary journals might have a stuffy reputation. But since its conception in 1998 by author Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Quarterly has been anything but, opting instead to be an endlessly mutating delivery system for writing and art. It has been a hardcover book, a paperback, a newspaper. Once it was a bundle of mail; another time, a deck of playing cards. Imagination and capriciousness have defined McSweeney's for nearly three decades. The latest issue, edited by Rita Bullwinkel and guest-edited by two celebrated writers — cartoonist Thi Bui and novelist Vu Tran — attempts to capture the messy and disparate nature of the Vietnamese diaspora with a package that is, by design, messy and disparate. The 78th issue of McSweeney's, 'The Make-Believers,' arrives in a cigar box with painted illustrations by Bui containing several unique booklets of stories, essays, and illustrations that try to pin down the elusive trappings of Vietnamese identity. Curious about the tremendous effort of putting together such a unique package, The Verge spoke with Bui, Tran, and art director Sunra Thompson about how 'The Make-Believers' came together. It turned out that although it might sound like this issue was planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, that was actually a coincidence. In the spirit of McSweeney's — and perhaps any ambitious creative project — it was equal parts hard work, serendipity, and chaos. How did the project come to be? Thi Bui: It was conceived on a hilltop in Marin County. I was taking a hike with Dave Eggers, who became a friend after we worked on a screenplay together. That movie is never going to get made but we have a friendship out of it. Occasionally we'll take hikes and talk about art and life. I had just come back from DVAN, this incredible residency in the south of France with these other Vietnamese writers. This was one of those really special experiences where everyone fell in love with each other, and it was highly productive and magical. So I was just trying to describe that to Dave. I think he's always like canvassing his brain for how to uplift people. Out of the blue, he was like, 'Do you guys want to take over an issue with McSweeney's like one of you could be the guest editor? You know, it wouldn't be that much work.' I took the idea back to the group and only Vu really knew that much about McSweeney's. Vu Tran: I remember when McSweeney's first came out. Back then, if you pitched them a story, they sent you rejections — little slips of paper as rejections. I still have my six or seven rejections. That was like 20 years ago or longer. And it's so funny. I would have never thought that the way I would actually get into the magazine is to guest-edit it. From the jump. Did you guys know you wanted to do an issue timed to the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon? TB: No, we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants with that one. 'I had all these amazing enablers.' VT: The issue just happened to coincide with a spring 2025 publication date. It was completely unplanned. Sunra Thompson: The way they aligned was kind of by accident. VT: It was a great coincidence. What were the early ideas for the issue like? Was it always a cigar box? TB: It was always a box. I wanted something really nice that's evocative of old Vietnam. It would be some sort of treasure box. Other people were like, 'But if it's too expensive, no one will be able to afford it. And then they'll be afraid to open it, because it's too fancy. You're so scarred in your refugee-ness. VT: Yeah, yeah, it was very Vietnamese. When Thi described it to me, it just implicitly felt right: that kind of nostalgia for a beautiful past, but also an understanding that history is filled with all this other stuff that's not quite as elegant and and not quite as neat. So it's elegant and weird. ST: Yeah, Thi really did have a very clear vision of what this would look like, which was especially helpful for an issue like this that has a lot of different components. We've done issues that come in a box or something, but for each different component, you need a different cover design. But Thi knew what every cover was going to look like right away. She had artists in mind for each of these covers, too. Her vision of this issue made a lot of these decisions pretty quick. TB: I think this is why it just felt like such a dream project because all I had to do is imagine it. And then I had all these amazing enablers. Courtesy of McSweeney's As the designer, what was your first impression after being told about this idea with all these different components? ST: For the Quarterly, the idea is that every issue is packaged in some unique way. So if I go into a stationery store, and I see some weird notebook or something, I will sometimes just take a picture and ask a printer like, 'Can you make this thing?' That's a big part of my job. How can I package a book in a different way? So usually when an editor or an artist has a packaging idea, I just immediately email a printer to see what they can make. It's kind of my favorite part about doing projects. At the beginning, when you're just asking printers to make dummies — it's just pure potential. TB: It's such a different experience to get to work with a publisher who says yes. This was such an incredible opportunity to keep making the project weirder and fancier. Were there production challenges? ST: On the printer side, there were some pretty run-of-the-mill issues. For example, there's a lot of foil. The first sample I got, the foils misregistered with the ink of the lettering. I got spooked, and I just abandoned that idea. TB: I think we had one idea that we couldn't execute, which was like having different kinds of paper stock in the same bound book. 'I think deadlines are nice sometimes, because it forces you to kill your own dreams.' ST: I forgot about that. Like, smash together different aesthetics. TB: A section of the menu called classifieds, and we were trying to print it on newsprint. But I think we maybe ran out of steam at that point. ST: That happens with projects that are very complex. You do sort of have to choose the things you want to focus on. TB: Yeah, at that point I was like, 'I wanna preserve Sunra's mental health.' ST: Yeah, it's true. I appreciate that. I start a lot of projects thinking as extravagantly as possible. And then you're kind of in the middle of it, you become a little less precious when you realize, it's a periodical, too. We have to get four out a year. I think deadlines are nice sometimes, because it forces you to kill your own dreams, which can be like a nice lesson. When I worked in a print magazine, we would joke that the print process would make everything better and better. And like, as you approach the close, you just made everything 10% worse to just get it done. ST: It's so true. But it's probably good. I probably would never get anything done without a deadline. 1/4 What about the challenges on the editing side? VT: For me, the most educational and fascinating aspect of this particular project was the translation. We had to get someone to proofread the Vietnamese right? My favorite, but also the most difficult experience editing for me, was Doan Bui, who writes in English. But English is her third language. And she writes in a very vibrant voice, but it's not grammatical most of the time and it's repetitive. It became too time-consuming to constantly ask her, 'How should we change it?' So we just had an agreement. She said, 'You make the corrections for me.' I found myself in some cases rewriting things in a way, like translating her voice from an imperfect English into a clear, more engaging English that also captured my sense of her intended meaning, but also her: the foreignness, and the personality in her voice. It became this really interesting thing that ended up reinforcing this idea Thi had about our shared imagination of what it means to be Vietnamese. It ended up reinforcing the themes of the issue, which I just found really satisfying, even though it took like a chunk out of my life. TB: Yeah, I definitely got like a new wrinkle in my brain — and maybe on my forehead, too. I was just thinking about the allegory of the three blind men and the elephant? And I think that's us with Vietnamese culture and language. We each know so little, and sometimes have a completely different interpretation of a word or an idea. Sometimes we'd be like, 'Wait! Doesn't it mean this? Wait! What is that?' And we would call our parents to confirm something.
The Verge
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Tech / Creators / Art Club Box art What is the Vietnamese diaspora? McSweeney's latest issue tries to answer that question with a fake cigar box. by Kevin Nguyen May 5, 2025, 11:15 AM EDT Link Facebook Threads 0 Comments / 0 New Courtesy of McSweeney's
Literary journals might have a stuffy reputation. But since its conception in 1998 by author Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Quarterly has been anything but, opting instead to be an endlessly mutating delivery system for writing and art. It has been a hardcover book, a paperback, a newspaper. Once it was a bundle of mail; another time, a deck of playing cards. Imagination and capriciousness have defined McSweeney's for nearly three decades. The latest issue, edited by Rita Bullwinkel and guest-edited by two celebrated writers — cartoonist Thi Bui and novelist Vu Tran — attempts to capture the messy and disparate nature of the Vietnamese diaspora with a package that is, by design, messy and disparate. The 78th issue of McSweeney's, 'The Make-Believers,' arrives in a cigar box with painted illustrations by Bui containing several unique booklets of stories, essays, and illustrations that try to pin down the elusive trappings of Vietnamese identity. Curious about the tremendous effort of putting together such a unique package, The Verge spoke with Bui, Tran, and art director Sunra Thompson about how 'The Make-Believers' came together. It turned out that although it might sound like this issue was planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, that was actually a coincidence. In the spirit of McSweeney's — and perhaps any ambitious creative project — it was equal parts hard work, serendipity, and chaos. How did the project come to be? Thi Bui: It was conceived on a hilltop in Marin County. I was taking a hike with Dave Eggers, who became a friend after we worked on a screenplay together. That movie is never going to get made but we have a friendship out of it. Occasionally we'll take hikes and talk about art and life. I had just come back from DVAN, this incredible residency in the south of France with these other Vietnamese writers. This was one of those really special experiences where everyone fell in love with each other, and it was highly productive and magical. So I was just trying to describe that to Dave. I think he's always like canvassing his brain for how to uplift people. Out of the blue, he was like, 'Do you guys want to take over an issue with McSweeney's like one of you could be the guest editor? You know, it wouldn't be that much work.' I took the idea back to the group and only Vu really knew that much about McSweeney's. Vu Tran: I remember when McSweeney's first came out. Back then, if you pitched them a story, they sent you rejections — little slips of paper as rejections. I still have my six or seven rejections. That was like 20 years ago or longer. And it's so funny. I would have never thought that the way I would actually get into the magazine is to guest-edit it. From the jump. Did you guys know you wanted to do an issue timed to the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon? TB: No, we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants with that one. 'I had all these amazing enablers.' VT: The issue just happened to coincide with a spring 2025 publication date. It was completely unplanned. Sunra Thompson: The way they aligned was kind of by accident. VT: It was a great coincidence. What were the early ideas for the issue like? Was it always a cigar box? TB: It was always a box. I wanted something really nice that's evocative of old Vietnam. It would be some sort of treasure box. Other people were like, 'But if it's too expensive, no one will be able to afford it. And then they'll be afraid to open it, because it's too fancy. You're so scarred in your refugee-ness. VT: Yeah, yeah, it was very Vietnamese. When Thi described it to me, it just implicitly felt right: that kind of nostalgia for a beautiful past, but also an understanding that history is filled with all this other stuff that's not quite as elegant and and not quite as neat. So it's elegant and weird. ST: Yeah, Thi really did have a very clear vision of what this would look like, which was especially helpful for an issue like this that has a lot of different components. We've done issues that come in a box or something, but for each different component, you need a different cover design. But Thi knew what every cover was going to look like right away. She had artists in mind for each of these covers, too. Her vision of this issue made a lot of these decisions pretty quick. TB: I think this is why it just felt like such a dream project because all I had to do is imagine it. And then I had all these amazing enablers. Courtesy of McSweeney's As the designer, what was your first impression after being told about this idea with all these different components? ST: For the Quarterly, the idea is that every issue is packaged in some unique way. So if I go into a stationery store, and I see some weird notebook or something, I will sometimes just take a picture and ask a printer like, 'Can you make this thing?' That's a big part of my job. How can I package a book in a different way? So usually when an editor or an artist has a packaging idea, I just immediately email a printer to see what they can make. It's kind of my favorite part about doing projects. At the beginning, when you're just asking printers to make dummies — it's just pure potential. TB: It's such a different experience to get to work with a publisher who says yes. This was such an incredible opportunity to keep making the project weirder and fancier. Were there production challenges? ST: On the printer side, there were some pretty run-of-the-mill issues. For example, there's a lot of foil. The first sample I got, the foils misregistered with the ink of the lettering. I got spooked, and I just abandoned that idea. TB: I think we had one idea that we couldn't execute, which was like having different kinds of paper stock in the same bound book. 'I think deadlines are nice sometimes, because it forces you to kill your own dreams.' ST: I forgot about that. Like, smash together different aesthetics. TB: A section of the menu called classifieds, and we were trying to print it on newsprint. But I think we maybe ran out of steam at that point. ST: That happens with projects that are very complex. You do sort of have to choose the things you want to focus on. TB: Yeah, at that point I was like, 'I wanna preserve Sunra's mental health.' ST: Yeah, it's true. I appreciate that. I start a lot of projects thinking as extravagantly as possible. And then you're kind of in the middle of it, you become a little less precious when you realize, it's a periodical, too. We have to get four out a year. I think deadlines are nice sometimes, because it forces you to kill your own dreams, which can be like a nice lesson. When I worked in a print magazine, we would joke that the print process would make everything better and better. And like, as you approach the close, you just made everything 10% worse to just get it done. ST: It's so true. But it's probably good. I probably would never get anything done without a deadline. 1/4 What about the challenges on the editing side? VT: For me, the most educational and fascinating aspect of this particular project was the translation. We had to get someone to proofread the Vietnamese right? My favorite, but also the most difficult experience editing for me, was Doan Bui, who writes in English. But English is her third language. And she writes in a very vibrant voice, but it's not grammatical most of the time and it's repetitive. It became too time-consuming to constantly ask her, 'How should we change it?' So we just had an agreement. She said, 'You make the corrections for me.' I found myself in some cases rewriting things in a way, like translating her voice from an imperfect English into a clear, more engaging English that also captured my sense of her intended meaning, but also her: the foreignness, and the personality in her voice. It became this really interesting thing that ended up reinforcing this idea Thi had about our shared imagination of what it means to be Vietnamese. It ended up reinforcing the themes of the issue, which I just found really satisfying, even though it took like a chunk out of my life. TB: Yeah, I definitely got like a new wrinkle in my brain — and maybe on my forehead, too. I was just thinking about the allegory of the three blind men and the elephant? And I think that's us with Vietnamese culture and language. We each know so little, and sometimes have a completely different interpretation of a word or an idea. Sometimes we'd be like, 'Wait! Doesn't it mean this? Wait! What is that?' And we would call our parents to confirm something.
Axios
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Where bay meets brush: Pier 29 reimagined as hub for SF's artists
A new project on San Francisco's waterfront will deliver the city's largest artist studio and exhibition space — a move many hope will be a turning point for the arts community. State of play: Despite SF's rich legacy, the arts scene has largely been overshadowed in recent years by the tech sector and the doom loop narrative. Limited funding and high costs of living, including rent and supplies, have also forced artists out of the city. Yes, but: A vibrant arts and culture scene is critical to San Francisco's comeback, the mayor's office has said. The sector generates $1.45 billion in economic activity annually, a 2017 study found. It also drives conversation around innovation and promotes self-expression. Driving the news: The Community Arts Stabilization Trust's (CAST) new partnership with the San Francisco Port Commission will transform Pier 29 from a long-vacant warehouse to a cultural hub that houses exhibitions, residencies, performances and other creative events. Zoom in: CAST, known for its pop-up activations across the city, will manage a 47,000-square-foot indoor event and art space as well as a 23,000-square-foot outdoor area that overlooks the bay. A residency program called Art + Water will provide "pod" studio spaces to emerging local artists in six-month cohorts, with a focus on providing access to underserved and under-resourced artists. "At a time when studio space is ever-less affordable, and art instruction costs a fortune, Art + Water will bring both together in one radically accessible space," author Dave Eggers, who will spearhead the residency with San Francisco Arts Commission member JD Beltran, said in a statement. Pier 29 has largely remained vacant since its use during the America's Cup races of 2013 and currently serves as a location for occasional parking and infrequent special events. CAST is investing $300,000 of its own funds for tenant improvements, while the Port is contributing $500,000. Key components of the facility include: A walk-in gallery with rotating exhibitions that will allow visitors to view working artists and purchase local art. An exhibition space on the Embarcadero with artworks curated by Rene De Guzman. A publicly accessible venue that will be available for other arts and culture organizations to put on free and low-cost programming. What they're saying: "We've been approached by a number of artists over the years for large-scale open spaces, things they could really imagine building out for these otherworldly experiences that they produce for the audience," CAST CEO Ken Ikeda told Axios. "But of course, they've been cost prohibitive, or there have been other challenges, and that's where we stepped in." Film screenings, music shows and art barges — the possibilities are endless, Ikeda said. "We see this as a constantly reimagined space, and also a space that won't feel stale, because every time you come back ... it's going to look and feel different," he noted. The intrigue: Part of CAST's goal is to enable a "higher level of clustering" so that art spaces become regularly frequented destinations, Ikeda told Axios. It could anchor a whole row of restaurants and help facilitate community development that becomes a district of sorts, he suggested. "It's not just the economic benefits, but it's also for sustainability, which is our focus," he said. "We need to make it difficult to deny the impact of arts, and therefore make it difficult to displace them." What's next: The lease is a two-year term, but CAST will have the option to request a two-year extension once it expires.
San Francisco Chronicle
23-04-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Massive art and culture hub coming to S.F. pier that's been empty for more than a decade
On a mission to claim some of downtown San Francisco's languishing commercial buildings as affordable spaces for the city's artists and culture groups, the Community Arts and Stabilization Trust has set its sights on a vacant pier. On Tuesday, the community-centered real estate organization, known as CAST, scored approval from the city's Port Commission to reimage a roughly 100,000-square-foot warehouse that spans Pier 29 and has largely sat vacant for more than a decade as artist studios and cultural programming. The lease deal is for a two-year activation term, which will begin following a six month construction period in which CAST plans to make improvements to the property. The organization also has an option to request a two-year extension of its lease once it expires. CAST's proposal for Pier 29 includes a partnership with Art + Water, a new organization by the Hawkins Project, which is a local nonprofit associated with the philanthropic endeavors of author Dave Eggers and artist J.D. Beltran, who also serves on the city's Arts Commission. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center located in the city's Mission District. At Pier 29, Art + Water will occupy some 30 'art pods' designed by CAST, which will span just over half of the existing warehouse. Some of the remaining space will be sublet to other arts groups, and a portion will be built out as convertible space for cultural programming and events that can accommodate up to 2,500 people. Once the project is completed, it will become San Francisco's largest combined studio and exhibition space, according to the Port. It will also provide a vacant warehouse that has been empty since the 2013 America's Cup. The building was previously used for storage and parking, and burned down prior to the sailing competition but was quickly rebuilt, said Port Director Elaine Forbes. 'It was an amazing historic rebuild — we did it in nine months. It's a beautiful building that we haven't had much activity in,' she said. Activating the stretch of the waterfront between the cruise ship terminal at Pier 27 and Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39 has been a growing priority of the Port, Forbes said. 'We recognize there's this beautiful historic waterfront that isn't very busy, frankly, in that section and all the way up to Pier 39. We really want these piers to be able to welcome the public more and bring residents in and visitors in,' Forbes said, but added that the warehouse was designed for 'breakbulk' shipping — a method of transporting oversized and heavy cargo — and is therefore limited in regard to its future uses. On the flipside, the warehouse's large, barn-like open spaces and high vaulted ceilings provide flexibility for artistic and creative endeavors. CAST's plan to convert the warehouse into a work and exhibition space for artists was 'just a great fit for us,' she said. The organization will invest about 300,000 of its own funds for tenant improvements, along with a $500,000 contribution from the Port. 'We get two years of low-cost artist studios, with hundreds and hundreds of subsidized artists coming to work in this waterfront venue. There's event space and creative space. And it just feels like such a nice match between what we have in this historic pier and how we could open it to the public for use,' Forbes said. David Keenan, CAST's director of special projects, said that the organization has been working with the Port for nearly a year to secure the Pier 29 building. 'It's 100,000 square feet of open floor plan space that's kind of ideal for arts production, exhibitions and events. But, to actually get through regulation, we had to show that we are not going to impose a lot of impacts on the building … in order to not trigger major building code upgrades,' Keenan said. 'It's challenging for arts groups that are trying to maintain premises but keep them affordable.' Commercial real estate prices in San Francisco have toppled due to the pandemic-induced downturn — in the Financial District, office vacancy reached a historic high of 37% last year. While tech firms and other companies have dumped thousands of square feet of once coveted office space on the market, CAST has seized upon the rare opportunity to own and lease real estate to serve the arts community in the heart of downtown. Earlier this year, CAST purchased the historic Warfield Building in the city's Mid-Market neighborhood — once a tech hotspot that housed companies like Uber, Zendesk and X Corp. (formerly Twitter) and Block (formerly Square), all of which have exited the neighborhood in recent years — with plans to reposition the property as an arts and independent media hub. And at the end of last year, CAST pounced at the opportunity to buy foreclosed property in the SoMa neighborhood that was once earmarked for a 16-story co-living tower. That building, located at 457 Minna St., will now provide space to community organizations serving the neighborhood's Filipino community. 'We are really trying to be an active player in a down market,' said CAST CEO Ken Ikeda. 'Our objective is to participate when we can reset the floor of affordability. We're really busy.' City leaders have been hyperfocused on reviving the city's battered downtown in recent years, and have hailed efforts to support arts organizations taking space in the office-heavy economic core as one part of the solution. It's a stark but refreshing reversal to the years leading up to the pandemic, which saw many arts and culture groups being priced out of the area. Last year, two San Francisco nonprofits submitted plans to build 100% affordable housing specifically for artists at 1687 Market St. The 100-unit housing project is slated to include a community center, studio space and a theater. It is funded by a $100 million gift from an anonymous benefactor. 'Our arts and culture are driving San Francisco's comeback, and this new space at Pier 29 is another exciting step in the right direction,' Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement to the Chronicle. 'By partnering with the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, we're creating the largest artist studio and exhibition space in the city — right on our iconic waterfront.'
Washington Post
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Dave Eggers writes sequel to his prize-winning children's book 'The Eyes & The Impossible'
NEW YORK — After winning one of the top literary prizes last year for his children's book 'The Eyes & The Impossible,' Dave Eggers has a sequel set for this fall. Eggers' 'The Eyes, The Fire, & The Avalanche Kingdom' will be published Nov. 18, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers announced Tuesday. Illustrated by Shawn Harris, the new novel continues the journey of the free dog Johannes, along with friends Helene (a goat) and Bertrand (a seagull).
