Open Mic at The Honest Broker

We're doing our first open thread—and you are invited to share your recommendations of new music, movies, TV shows, and writing

Today we’re doing our first open thread.

I’ve been looking forward to this moment since launching The Honest Broker. I wrote this back in my very first post:

Over the years, I’ve been blessed with the best readers. Many of them are musicians or writers themselves, or passionate and knowledgeable devotees to arts and culture. I am inviting their active participation in this endeavor. My hope is that this will be more than just a newsletter, but a genuine community of people who care deeply about such matters.

That was my dream. But I knew that we needed to reach a certain critical mass before we could operate as a vibrant community.

We now have achieved that critical mass. Last week we turned 18 (months), and have actually arrived at something resembling adulthood—at least in Substack terms. As a result, some things will start to change, and almost certainly for the better.

You may have already noticed that, over the last several months, the comments section has been getting more and more interesting. It’s happening for a very good reason—the subscriber base at The Honest Broker is a gold mine of wisdom and experience. Some of you are genuinely famous, and with a much larger cultural footprint than mine, but even unfamiliar names here often come to the table with deep knowledge. Sometimes I’m tempted just to reprint comments as columns in their own right (and that might happen).

In any event, this transition to a community allows me to step back more and become a reader myself. That’s a good thing, too, so don’t be alarmed if it seems I’m less involved in the comments section—this is by design. Also, this allows readers to feel more free in criticizing the articles here, or even the Honest Broker himself. I believe that’s valuable in its own right, and will lead to a healthier community.

But I’m still asking for respectful interactions, which have mostly been the rule here in the past—and seem to be part of the larger (mostly) troll-free Substack culture.

Enough of preamble—let’s proceed to the guidelines for Open Mic #1.

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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.

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We will address different subjects in the open threads. Today the topic is as follows:

Tell us about something new in arts, culture, or entertainment that we ought to know about.

• A recent movie or TV show of exceptional merit

• Outstanding new music (either a recording or live performance)

• Recent books or articles you would recommend

• Or something else along these lines—a current art exhibition, a cool video game, a funny standup comedian, a mystifying magician, etc.

In this open thread, I request that you resist promoting your own work. (But we will have a separate opportunity for that in the future, I promise. And I have a hunch that even self-promotion here will be quite interesting too, probably more so than many of you realize.)

Okay, let it rip. Give us your best recommendations in the comments. And let’s see how this open mic turns out.