Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Howard and Al
Great Days: I spent a lot of time in my early NY days with a crew from the Museum of Broadcasting (later called the Museum of Television and Radio, then the Paley Center). One spectacular experience received a NYC poke in the eye elevating the experience from interesting to memorable. The evening was an intimate […]
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Trump II
Fast forward six years from my not-so-near brush with fame and I’m living in San Francisco and among other things doing a little freelance work for MTV on advertiser strategy in emerging categories. I’m in NY for the final readout to the top 20 MTV execs as part of a management retreat and, as you […]
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Trump + Lauer
There were a couple of different ways to get onto Season 2 contestant pipeline of The Apprentice. 1. Send in a video, 2. Wait in line at the Today Show and maybe participate in a quick competition, 3. Wait in line at open casting. My video was five minutes long and committed to VHS with […]
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Aaron Sorkin
The headline alone conjures visions of long fast-paced walks, staccato banter, papers being handed in and out of frame, and you either don’t really know who he is or you love, love, love him. He comes to the front of the lobe today as I have just watched “Molly’s Game”, his first director gig. It […]
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The Center Will Not Hold
Sometimes there is something wonderful in my ‘New to Netflix’ inbox. Today it was “The Center Will Not Hold”, a light biography of Joan Didion by her nephew Griffin Dunne. I came to Joan through Griffin’s father, Dominick, and his striking prose in the pages of Vanity Fair, culminating in his coverage of the OJ […]
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Nobel Literacy
Each year the Nobel committee recognizes excellence and achievement in major cultural/scientific fields. Each year I discover how little I know about what is important in major cultural/scientific fields. Let’s see about 2017… The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine: Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young for their discovery of “molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.” […]
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no look support
Great Days: It was August of 1990 and I packed up 1/3 of a shared van, abandoned my scooter and headed east to NY with no job and no place locked down to lay my head. By the time I drove across the GWB I had arranged to crash on the couch of a former […]
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unplanned character discovery
One of my NYC rituals during my fifteen years of glory in NY was a bi-monthly run to the New York Blood Center in Port Authority to drop off a pint of good citizenship. I never told anyone about it, I think there are some Presbyterian mores around anonymous philanthropy. One November Thursday in the […]
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Rule #3: your vote is your vote
We make a lot of group choices, from meal selection to park destination to Ninjago episode selection. Part of maintaining the general atmosphere of justice is the equal distribution of selection. A lot of team sentences begin with phrases like “last time we went to dinner after basketball The Elder picked the Village Inn, tonight […]
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Covenant and combine ourselves
Great Days: My friend Ginna called me up at 5p and said “you have a tux, right? You’re the only person who can come with me tonight.” Two hours later I was in a room of four hundred at the annual gala for the Mayflower Society. Top shelf alcohol, delicious food, tons of smart people, […]
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