Department of Dilettante Research, Part 1

I've vowed to myself to post at least three or four times a week on a dream I have that I humorously but absolutely seriously call "The Department Of Dilettante Research." Basically, these posts will be a cry for help and a call for ideas and allies. I'm at an impasse, in fact have been at an impasse for the twenty-one years since I committed myself to writing. What I want to do is:

(1) create an intellectual conversation (defining "intellectual" far more broadly than most "intellectuals" do) that

(2) doesn't close itself off from the world in the way that academia and journalism do (because in closing themselves off from the world, academia and journalism close themselves off from too much of the intellect), that

(3) discusses stuff I care about (social analysis of the life that underlies music being one thing but hardly the only thing), and that

(4) makes it possible for me to earn a living writing the things I want to write.

( To do this I need colleagues, I need good formats, and I need a way for it to bring in money. )