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The Small Chair (The McSweeney's iPhone App)

Article published 1st Oct 09
The Small Chair (The McSweeney's iPhone App) Read

What:
The Small Chair (The McSweeney's iPhone App)

Where:
Via here

When:
Out this week! Sign up today to get Maurice at the World's Fair, a short film by by Spike Jonze, starring Maurice Sendak

How much:
AUD $6.80 for six months of weekly updates

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McSweeney's, those bleeding heart suppliers of hope to disenfranchised hardcover-speciality-dust-jacket-book-lovers of the world, have come up with an iPhone app. It's called 'The Small Chair' and it costs $6.80 from iTunes. What the hell is going on? Jeremy spoke with Eli Horowitz, publisher and captain of the good pirate ship Valencia, to find out.

Jeremy Wortsman: The chair looks really great at that size. Almost equine. Very strong frontlegs. Does this chair exist? Where can I sit in it? What I'm trying to say, is your app is hella sexy. Who is responsible for this sexiness?
 
Eli: The app is a project of me and all of McSweeney's and Russell Quinn, an Englishman living in Zurich who really knows what he's doing. We started collaborating in June, I think. So far, so good. The chair exists everywhere, at all sizes. You're probably sitting in it right now. Spiritually, I mean.
 
Jeremy: The in-app purchases for subscriptions is a stroke of capitalistic genius. Will any other in-app purchases or features be rolled out?

Eli: They will! December, I expect. Longer things, colorful things, tumbling things. Hopefully. We'll see. But yes, there are plans. The more people that sign up, the more ambitious we'll be. 
 
Jeremy: What about the other departments we know and love from the McSweeney's site, such as lists, McSweeney's represents, etc. It seems like the short and narrow format suits your content very well, and the typefaces look good enough to eat. Will the archives be integrated into the app?

Eli: Well...maybe? The archives are really big - that would be a lot of cutting and pasting. At the moment we've got our hands full with the present and future - we might have to put the past on hold 'til later.
 
Jeremy: Can you tell us about what is planned for The Small Chair?
 
Eli: This week, Maurice at the World's Fair, a short film by by Spike Jonze, starring Catherine Keener and Maurice Sendak himself. Next week, an interview with Jonathan Ames. Soon, arobotic arm searching for an underwater flower. After that, unknown wonderful things. At the moment, though, this is only a week old! We're still learning how to walk, just trying to get this week sorted out. 
 
Jeremy: Sometimes when I'm alone in a restaurant, waiting for someone to arrive, I will pretend to write a text message to someone so I look busy, but in reality I am writing scathing self-critical flash fiction to myself in my stickies, or goth poetry. Be honest, what are these 'certain' statistics about my device that are being sent to your evil server farm? Are you going to blow our cover?
 
Eli: I was curious about these statistics myself - I was excited to crack into your phone and read your "Quantum Leap" fan-fiction. Unfortunately, however, these stats turn out to be a bit on the dull side. Here's adirect excerpt: "bc3c7e37f816a38a38 b1a90c4b4004e52f5a2d11". It begins promisingly, sure, but I totally lose interest around the "16a3" part.
 
Jeremy: I don't know what an ASIHTTPRequest wrapper is, but it makes me hungry. Is that wrong? What is it wrapping? Can I eat it?
 
Eli: We only have the one, so no, please don't eat it.  

By Jeremy Wortsman

Format: Other

Genre: Other

Keywords: McSweeney's, iPhone, Online

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