It's Open Mic Day at The Honest Broker—Tell Us What You're Doing
As promised, I'm offering readers a chance to pitch their own projects—music, writing, business, charitable, whatever
A few weeks ago, we had our first open thread at The Honest Broker, and it was a big success.
I’m now wondering why I didn’t do this before.
For our first ‘Open Mic’ I asked for recommendations of new music, books, movies, etc. And we got 300 responses.
But the quality was even more impressive than the quantity. I spent the next several days listening to your music recommendations. Some items on my end-of-year list of best albums will be the result of this input.
(By the way, I will share this list of my 100 favorite albums of 2022—all styles, all genres—next week. But only for paid subscribers. So if you’re considering a paid subscription, now might be a good time to do it.)
The Honest Broker is a reader-supported guide to music, books, and culture. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. If you want to support my work, the best way is by taking out a paid subscription.
When we did the first open mic, I asked you NOT to promote your own projects. And I promised I’d give you a chance to do that in the future.
That time has arrived.
So feel free to give us an update on what YOU are doing in the comments. Many of you are writers and musicians, so use this chance to promote your work. Quite a few of you have launched Substacks of your own, so let us know about them. But you can also tell us about other projects—maybe you have opened a restaurant or created a cool app or are working with a charity that deserves support.
If you want, you can even tell us about your ten-year-old’s school holiday show. (But can you get us discounted tickets?)
In other words, this is the time for your best elevator pitch. Jump in. This open mic is in your (capable) hands.
I have a hunch that readers will be pleasantly surprised by the scope of activities of our subscribers. It’s a cool and creative cohort.
My hobby for the last few years has been transcribing liner notes and reviews of jazz albums. Succinctly put, my goal is for digital listeners to have the same access to knowledge as analog listeners once did. I've found that the best place to publish these notes is at Rate Your Music, a popular music database that's been around for 20+ years. I've learned a lot from typing out the notes, and I've had several people reach out and thank me including someone who was able to use the liner notes in their doctoral dissertation on politics and jazz in the 1960s.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/grogg/the-liner-notes-for-this-jazz-album/
Thanks for the opportunity, Ted.
I'm a huge fan Ted! Yours was one of the first Substacks I paid for. I write a weekly newsletter called Thought Bananas: www.thoughtbananas.substack.com where I cover a lot of different stuff. This is my best stuff so far:
> A Requiem for Sean in D Minor https://thoughtbananas.substack.com/p/requiem-for-sean-in-f-minor This is an essay about friendship, shame, addiction, helping the ones we love, and living with complex regrets. (TW: addiction, suicide)
> A Dirge for Eastern Redwoods https://thoughtbananas.substack.com/p/a-dirge-for-eastern-redwoods A meditation on family and how who came before us shapes who we are, told through the lens of an homage to the extinct tree that built America.
> The Masculine Urge to Visit a Psychic Giraffe in Khartoum https://thoughtbananas.substack.com/p/the-masculine-urge-to-take-marzipan An original short story in the magical realism genre inspired by a Twitter bot.
> Making, Not Finding, Your Way: Review of The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd https://thoughtbananas.substack.com/p/reflections-on-the-pathless-path Are we are jobs? Paul Millerd things not and I'm inclined to agree--but where does this leave us in how we define ourselves, successes, failures, worth, and all?
> What Becoming a Father Taught Me About Self Care https://thoughtbananas.substack.com/p/what-becoming-a-father-taught-me A reflection on how learning to love a child made me re-cast my own role in my life as someone who needs to "take care of himself."