But the grind has begun. The windows don’t open, and even the availability of near-constant jokes about Jews and Mormons fails to stem the tide of frustration, decay. We’ve reached the end of pure inspiration, and are now somewhere else, something implying routine, or doing something because people expect us to do it, going somewhere each day because we went there the day before, saying things because we have said them before, and this seems like the work of a different sort of animal, contrary to our plan, and this is very very bad.

Why shouldn’t your curiosity about the world be rewarded?

It's so easy to print in the Midwest. You're saving months in shipping and customs, so we have started printing a number of books there.

I went to Saudi Arabia in 2010, and spent most of my time in Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City.

I think there's great value to the Associated Press and to Reuters, but if you wanted to generate original content, maybe written by local writers, it just takes a little bit of openness to open your pages up to a wider freelance writer pool, and then you might find new voices and a wider array of voices, and definitely more original content that can't be found anywhere else.

I had grown up as a fan of Studs Terkel. In Chicago he sort of looms large and is mentioned often.

Paper is a uniquely beautiful format, more so than the web, I think: you need to invest in the aesthetics.