1. Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish is moving to publishing-industry independence via voluntary contributions. In an interview by David Carr, Sullivan makes this point:
Our basic principle is we’re simply journalism going directly to a reader with nobody — no newsstand, no proprietor, nothing — in between. That is an honest free-market journalism, with journalists offering their wares on the street.
Carr: You make it sound so tawdry.
Sullivan: There’s nothing tawdry about offering your wares on the street. It’s how magazines and newspapers started. It is a model where the people decide and no one is in charge of the velvet rope deciding who gets to write or who gets the big writing contract or not. In some ways we’re breaking up cartels and creating a true kind of journalistic capitalism. Those sites that readers really want to stay in existence will have to earn that.
2. A discussion about small-town representations in art (via The Dish). I agree with Teachout that Spring Green, Wis., is a great town, but I’m not sure it’s representative of most Midwest small towns (most don’t have a history as Frank Lloyd Wright’s hometown.
3. A funny piece by David Denby about “Les Mis.”
4. A point, via the movie “This is 40,” about family and economics.
MonkeyMoonMachine 