McEggars Response

I feel that Casey summarized it well. I wasn't familiar with Lanham, so I was having trouble understanding his position regarding McSweeney's. At first I couldn't tell if he was making fun of McSweeney's or making fun of making fun of McSweeney's, though I definitely didn't think he was serious (um, talk about over-the-top). Also, I recall John mentioning this essay in regard to what could happen if you let your press be dominated too much by a certain voice. By the end, I felt like this essay was attempting to address annoying things about McSweeney's to kind of blow off some steam, so that this idiosyncratic literary super-star press could be viewed more impartially, or, less obscured by the hype. Does that make sense?
I think the problem with it could be that in making fun of something seen as pretentious you might have to necessarily come off as a little pretentious, as some of the people you are making fun of it to don't know what you're talking about. Really I don't think it's much of a problem, because this essay is pretty clearly written for the appreciation of those more familiar with McSweeney's than it is an attempt to warn newcomers away.
It does remind me of the critiques of the blogging world in the "Amazing Paper Weblog" article. One thing I like about McSweeney's is that it actually is pretty accessible to people who aren't on the way to getting MFA's in creative writing. Back in high school I knew kids who read and talked about McSweeney's, none of which went into writing, and that's pretty cool. However, these kids did tend to have a sense of humor that was very much aligned with what the article was satirizing, very much the McSweeney's style. Yet, that's a pretty fine balance to strike. Most small presses that I know of that get a lot of attention do have some kind of defining character or style--people like that. Without it you can seem pretty obscure, inhuman. The problem is that whatever you do, someone's not going to like it just as much as others do. I'm not sure if Lanham was telling McSweeney's to tone it down, or just giving the rest of us a good laugh and allowing us to cool down.

-Richard