McSweeney's No. 1; Gegenshein; the Ski Instructor

McSweeney's began in 1998 as a literary journal that published only works rejected by other magazines. That rule was soon abandoned, and since then McSweeney's has attracted work from some of the finest writers in the country. Articles in the issue include "Man's Fat--98: Learning to Love Again, A Story in Three Parts" by Neal Pollack, "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VIII)" by David Foster Wallace (mothers, spiders), "Mollusks" by Arthur Bradford (friendship, love, mollusks), and the epic finisher, "Wooden Duck Decoys of the Heart," made up of many vignettes by a number of authors, including Todd Pruzan.