Clifford Clinton's "The Clock Strikes Twelve"

In 1945, fresh from having brought down LA's corrupt mayor, police chief, and DA, Clifford Clinton (the owner of Clifton's Cafeteria) published a pamphlet called "The Clock Strikes Twelve". In it, he outlines his proposals for the future of LA. I just got my copy in the mail.

What I Think I Think

I know I think that there are truths about what's good and bad, beautiful and ugly, just and unjust. What I don't know is why I really think this. I think I think it simply because I think truth functions as a kind of regulative ideal in all of these different domains, that without it you simply couldn't take seriously our ordinary practices of making and critically evaluating claims made within these different domains. Of course, there are a whole host of different sorts of philosophical attempts to make sense of how we might take these ordinary practices seriously without reserving a role for truth (or, more precisely: reserving a role for a univocal concept of truth that is the same across these different domains). But I guess I think all of these philosophical attempts fail. And, furthermore, I guess I think they're all bound to fail, that only a univocal concept of truth could occupy this function. It would be good to see someone raise precisely this question and really get a handle on the different sorts of responses that philosophers have to it. I'm going to try to raise in the paper I'm working on, but it remains to be seen whether I succeed.

Target Sighted

From the Navy Museum. See also.

Jello Skyline

From the You Are Here exhibit.

Standard Meter Bar

This is a, if not the, standard meter bar, at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Looks like it's a meter long to me.

A. J. Liebling Obituary from the NY Times (Sunday, December 29, 1963)

I love it when you buy a used book and find a newspaper clipping left in it by the previous owner. This was in a used copy of Liebling's Normandy Revisited.

Quoting Myself

"It would be too strong to say that the one sound a recording cannot represent is the characteristic sound of that sort of recording being played, but it’s not far from the truth." (Unpublished manuscript, 2010)

New Office Additions

Two new additions to my office:

Top: a TASCAM DAT recorder. Got it free on Craigslist, from a guy who is renovating his post-production facility in Tribeca. There's also a Serato box hiding behind the DAT recorder, that I got used on eBay.

Bottom: a Doug Hansen watercolor from 2005, of the original WAND pressing of "Louie, Louie" being played on a portable Columbia record player. This was a gift from Nat & Melody.