"While we were slacking: A holiday recap"

While we were slacking: A holiday recap

We were tickled upon our return to duty to find an excellent feature in the Columbia Journalism Review, written by local journalist Michael Patrick Welch, about Bywater denizen Joseph Makkos and his treasure trove of old Times-Picayune copies that he acquired last year from some nut on Craigslist. Said nut, who shall remain nameless, bought the collection of an estimated 30,000 sections of the Picayune, spanning 1888 – 1929, from a newspaper dealer who got them from the British Library in 1999 (where they survived Nazi firebombings, evaded capture by Nicholson Baker, and undertook other Indiana Jones-esque feats you wouldn’t expect bound printed matter to be capable of). Makkos has devised myriad machinations for the old papers, including museum exhibitions, chapbooks, and other methods of repurposing and distributing the information contained within (perhaps most importantly, he plans to create a highly usable digital archive of the papers, which doesn’t currently exist). From the first reference to the term “po’ boy” to the first female publisher of a U.S. newspaper, Makkos’ collection enfolds uncountable gems, more of which we’ll know about as soon as he gets the damned thing organized.

From coverage by Press Street's Room 220

The same was published in NOLA Vie.