A little about The Horse's Mouth
Magazines are fun mmkay?
When I was growing up, magazines were a big deal for us. We’d all read about celebrities or hobbies and swap. Or we could cut out pictures and put them on our wall. I got a National Geographic subscription when I was a kid and I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up. Actually, I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, just with an eye, and a Nikon.
Magazines do not require updates, but they still get bought out.
As I transition to self-imposed life sans internet, I think about learning and entertainment differently. Learning for years, the hard stuff, has had to do with learning software. In music, I find this frustrating because we already had good stuff. Why ruin the good stuff that worked to make stuff that doesn’t? I have spent years learning the program Logic Pro on Apple. It is at version 12.3 as of this writing. I’ve been on since version 8 or so. It is impossible to keep up with the changes for me. I may learn slowly, I get that. But I hate the mentality of a company that takes my time invested for granted like that, especially if I am coming to them to save time. So I am transitioning music to analog stuff. I got a nice console. Someday, I won’t supplant anything analog with Logic Pro at all. Working toward that. Bit by bit.
I also think about fun. When I think about living without internet, I think fun might take a hit. This is where The Horse’s Mouth comes in. Or, at least came in initially. I wanted something to do offline for fun that still made opportunities for me to meet folks and learn about them. I came across a search for “snail mail groups” and I was pretty convinced we needed to do a newsletter. The newsletter became a mag quickly.
There’s more to printing on paper than we thought.
As we got into the nitty gritty of making a real paper and thick magazine, we realized we were doing it for something besides entertainment. We enjoyed helping folks get offline for as long as it takes to read it. We enjoy that unlike the internet, our magazine says the same thing, no matter what your algo is. Not only are we in love with that for us, I feel joyful to offer that to writers as well. Writers work hard on the words they mean to say. They are not always the words you want to hear. If a computer gets involved with that, chances are the writer gets screwed. But the reader gets screwed too. They read the computer, not the writer, and may not even know it. None of this happens on a paper mag. And we are here for it.
Number-Crunching soon!
We are also putting together a finances report . I will post it on the link tree when it is completed. We will have outgoing and incoming expenses. Everything will be laid out nicely so you can easily see how much a mag of your own would run. We are only once a quarter, plenty of room for others to start a club too. I strongly recommend googling “snail mail clubs”.
So many great folks helped.
The first issue was amazing! My dad, Max, wrote a prose in verse thing about Texarkana and roosters. My wife, Keri, wrote a recipe that I love to scarf down. Friends from everywhere pitched in too. Chris from Wales did an article and some illustrations that rule. Dino DiMuro does this thing where he hits on a lot of my emotions without a short amount of time. Bk Birge wrote about how to get out of a “bedroom sound” as a musician and how to start seeking your own sound. Caroline in the Garden had a wonderful message about pace and being multi-faceted. Ultimate Rick Jones talks about promoting what you love. Marc Schuster writes an article about Bandcamp Listening Parties, then he is interviewed by John Gilbert.
Shout out to art dept.
None of this would have looked so cool without Keri doing layout and Chris drawing a bunch. The magazine really looks cool, as well as reads cool. Lucky to have them on board.
Be the change…..
I think the consensus among most folks I hang out with is we have to do something. They rot your brain on purpose online. I urge you not to be okay with that. I urge it so bad, I made a magazine.
Kelly Kintner, Editor