The Harper's Index from Harper's Magazine--a monthly collection of statistics from various sources arranged in an alternately comic, tragic and always ironic fashion--has inspired a multitude of imitators over the decades but, to my taste, nobody has ever captured the consistently thoughtful flow that the Harper's editors provide. Now the magazine has created an online interface that allows you to search previous versions of the index. Nice.And, for what it's worth, after years of really screwing up their web presentation it seems to me that the folks at Harper's--despite still keeping a hell of a lot of content behind a paywall--are doing a great job on the current magazine web site. There's an interesting (if too cheeky by half) interview with the webmaster, Paul Ford, here.
And if you find any interesting entries please share them with us in the comments! Here's the only one that turned up for Bob Dylan. I make about half the paid amount annually but I would love to read that essay!
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