McSweeney's as a publishing company is built on a business model that only works when we sell physical books. So we try to put a lot of effort into the design and production of the book-as-object.

If you look over the years the styles have changed - the clothes the hair the production the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself it's really the same.

Because most of my career in the classroom has been at art schools (beginning at Bennington in the 1970s) I am hyper-aware of the often grotesque disconnect between commentary on the arts and the actual practice or production of the arts.

So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on the degradation of the arts will go on and if that system is to last for ever then art is doomed and will surely die that is to say civilization will die.

Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art in which the entire process of work is included... something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality. It's a Gigantic project.

Were I called on to define very briefly the term Art I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation however accurate of what is in Nature entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

At the time 1980 people regarded actresses involved with production with a certain amount of fear resentment and anger.

I mean there are some amazing storytelling being done on the small screen right now. That's what so cool about being in television right now. Studios networks are starting to throw more resources better writers more production values... and to be part of that is awesome.

I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.