A call for photographs of toddlers in action (or in inaction) for Stephany Aulenback’s book project, Beckett for Babies:

[W]e’re still looking for the perfect photograph (preferably two or three perfect photographs, actually) to go with this text:

First baby: That passed the time.

Second baby: It would have passed in any case.

First baby: Yes, but not so rapidly.

Originally I wanted a series of photos of two toddlers stacking blocks and then knocking them back down to accompany that dialogue. I am no longer so rigid. If you have a couple of shots of two babies or toddlers doing anything baby-or-toddlerish that would be suitable for that text, we’d love to see them. stephka at maudnewton dot com.

The winning story has been published online: “Untitled,” by David Kennerly. It is so short and tied together that it seems a shame to excerpt any of it, but I post the first sentence to help draw you in.

He had always tried to be a gentleman, courteous, respectful in the most thorough way, and believed he was doing his utmost to continue this philosophy when he realized he was having a heart attack, there was no way he could land the plane anywhere else, and he saw the beautifully ordered expanse of backyards open up before him like a shining path, the center line composed of fences and lit by the glint of the sun.

My copy of McSweeney’s Issue 13 arrived while I was out of town, and this evening I did something unusual and special: I unwrapped it, and read a few pages.

My key beef with the McSweeney’s publications, the Quarterly in particular, is that they are too beautiful to touch, let alone read. Each issue is different from every other, and they are printed by some fantastic but yet affordable printer in Iceland — for all I know they are hand-bound by beautiful and well-paid Icelandic maidens — with preciously-designed covers, often with special dust covers and exotic lettering and gold ink. Often I look at my subscription copy for a few minutes when it arrives in the mail, then set it on a shelf in my living room, next to the past issues, where guests can see it and note that I’ve been a subscriber since issue five (although sadly not since issue one, and that I haven’t been able to acquire first edition of the first four issues, of which I suspect only one hundred highly-prized copies remain).

This issue is the comics issue, which means the dust cover itself is a work of art by Chris Ware, the special guest editor, and tucked into it are little comics booklets that just ask to be bent in funny ways accidentally and then lost.

For a book lover, it’s a kind of torture to receive a book so beautiful and precious that one fears to hurt it through enjoying it.

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