The Every Day Quarterly

My second blog post from my recent New Mexico trip is here.  I mention an idea I keep having for a new literary-documentary-media magazine or journal.  I know it seems preposterous in this anxious media age.  I’d want the production to maximize the possibilities digitally, foreseeing all the potential of the iPad and other digital readers.  As a periodical hound, the idea of subscribing to something and having it automatically dumped on a digital reader every period, rather than having them delivered by mail truck, excites me.  You don’t stack piles in your house before inevitably and regrettably throwing them out.  Plus, you could have a search function that sifted through all of your personal archive.

The periodical I have in mind would include videos and music, photography,  interviews, fiction, poetry, and traditional long form literary journalism that could be printed and read without looking at a screen, if desired.

One reason this idea keeps popping into my head is that after thirteen plus years of JLP I’ve got a mountain of unused material and leads.  I can’t possibly use all of it.  For example, I’d like to hire somebody to research the jazz scene on Staten Island in the 1950’s.  From the nearly 400 JLP interviews we’ve got some great stories about that scene already.  It was a scene for those who couldn’t make it in Manhattan for some reason (there was a trumpet player who was paraplegic), or who were waiting for their musician union cards.  There were lots of Mob overlaps, Mob-owned dives.  Also, we’ve heard stories about other far flung joints where drug convicted musicians like Sonny Clark could play without a cabaret card, and associated hotels.  I would love to write these stories myself.  But how many projects can I do?  That’s just one example.  I’ve got about a hundred and thirty-seven more.

Don’t ask me how this journal would get financed.  There’s got to be a way to make it good enough so people would subscribe and then we could draw advertising.

The Every Day Review.  Or the Every Day Journal (too clinical).  Or, Every Day Magazine.

We’d deliver the most significant content on a scheduled periodical basis, not every day.  People must wait for the ultimate payoff.  The site will be updated daily with blog entries, calendar notices, and news links.  But the major, long form material would be delivered on a periodical basis, subscription-only.  The heavyweight stuff isn’t free.

So maybe it’s called The Every Day Quarterly (or Monthy or Weekly).

Surely there are some smart people out there way ahead of me on this.  But, then, I still need a place to expunge leftover content.