2025.10.29
3D CAD database
  
25102901.db 451 model work
2003.10.29
Re: The Andy Warhol Authentication Board
...thanks for the encouragement. I like the series too, but it's kind of funny how it's easy to do once I got the idea and saw the first results. This is slightly disturbing because the "ho hum" stuff usually takes a lot more time and effort (and even more thinking).
"I don't so much like his real stuff, but the stuff that really doesn't exist is his best work yet."
Not exactly how I pictured success.
2002
Denis Diderot "Encyclopedia"
Diderot, Denis. "Encyclopedia." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Philip Stewart. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.004 (accessed 29 October 2026). Originally published as "Encyclopédie," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 5:635–648A (Paris, 1755).
181/192
If each encyclopedist had performed his work well, an editor's principal concern would be reduced to circumscribing the various objects rigorously, enclosing the sections within themselves, and deleting repetitions, which is always easier to do than to fill in omissions; repetitions can be seen and corrected with a stroke of the pen, whereas omissions hide and cannot be filled in without labor. The great dilemma is that when they stand out, it is so suddenly that with the editor finding himself pressed between the subject matter which requires time, and the rapid pace of printing which allows none, either the work must be mangled, or the order perverted: the work mangled if the task is fulfilled in terms of time; the order perverted, if it is referred away to some far-removed location in the dictionary.
182/192
Where is the man sufficiently versed in all the subjects to write about them as needed, as if he had long studied them? Where is the editor who has an author's principles present enough in his mind, or notions sufficiently in conformity with his, to avoid falling into some contradiction?
183/192
Is it not even a labor almost beyond his strength, having to spot the contradictions that will necessarily arise between his associates' principles and thoughts? If resolving them when they are real is not his function, he at least must do so when they are only apparent: and in the first case, can he avoid pointing them out, highlighting them, noting their source, showing the common path that two authors have followed, and the point of separation where they began to part company; weighing their reasons; proposing observations and experiments for and against; pointing toward the side of truth, or of plausibility? He can put the work beyond reproach only by observing expressly that it is not the dictionary which contradicts itself, but the sciences and the arts which are not in agreement. Were he to go further, to resolve the difficulties, he would be a man of genius; but can one require of an editor that he be a man of genius? And would it not be folly to ask him to be a universal genius?
184/192
One care I will recommend to the editor who succeeds us, both for the good of the opus, and for his personal security, is to send to the censors the printed sheets, and not the manuscript. With this precaution, the articles will be neither lost, nor re-arranged, nor suppressed; and the censor's initials at the bottom of the printed sheet will be the surest guarantee that nothing has been added, or altered, or removed, and that the work has remained in the state in which he has judged it is suitable for printing.
185/192
But the name and function of censor remind me of an important question. We have been asked whether it would not be better for the Encyclopedia to have a tacit rather than a formal permission: those who maintained the affirmative said that then the authors would enjoy all the freedom necessary to create a superior opus. How many important subjects would be treated! What fine articles would be provided by public access! How many others could be printed in two columns, one establishing the pro, the other the contra! What is historical would be presented impartially; what is good openly praised; what is evil unreservedly condemned; truths affirmed; doubts put forward; prejudices destroyed, and the use of political references very restrained.
186/192
Their opponents simply replied that it was better to sacrifice a little freedom than risk falling into excess; and moreover, they added, such is the constitution of things about us, that if an extraordinary man had conceived the writing of a work as extensive as ours, and were gifted by the Supreme Being to know the truth in all things, his security would still require that he be assigned to some inaccessible location in the sky, from whence his pages would drop to earth.
187/192
Since it is then so advantageous to undergo literary censorship, one cannot have too intelligent a censor: he must know how to enter into the work's general character; to see without self-interest or faint-heartedness; to respect only what is genuinely respectable; to recognize the tone that befits every person and every subject; to recoil neither in the face of Diogenes' cynical remarks, nor Winslou’s technical terms, nor the syllogisms of Anaxagoras; not to require the refutation, weakening, or suppression of what is simply recounted historically; to sense the difference between an immense work and a duodecimo; and to possess enough love for the truth, virtue, and the progress of human knowledge and the nation’s honor, to have only these great objects in view.
188/192
Such is the censor I would wish; as to the man I would desire as author, he would be firm, well informed, honest, truthful; without country, without sect, without station; relating things of the moment when he lives as if he were a thousand years removed, and those of the place where he lives as if he were a thousand leagues removed. But whom should such a worthy colleague have as editor? A man endowed with great good sense, well known for the breadth of his knowledge, the loftiness of his sentiments and thoughts, and his love of labor: a man loved and respected for his domestic and public character; never fanatical, unless it be for truth, virtue, and humanity.
189/192
One must not imagine that the confluence of so many favorable circumstances would leave the Encyclopedia free of imperfection: there will always be defects in a work of this magnitude. They will be corrected in the first instance, as they are discovered, through supplements; but the time will necessarily come when the public itself will desire it to be completely redone; and as one cannot know to whose hands this important labor will be entrusted, it remains uncertain whether the new edition will be inferior or preferable to the previous one. It is not rare to see major works clumsily revised, amended, and expanded, degenerate at each printing, and finally be scorned. We could cite a recent example, if we did not fear we were giving in to resentment while thinking we were bowing to the interests of truth.
190/192
The Encyclopedia can easily be improved; it can also easily deteriorate. But the danger that must principally be countered, and which we have foreseen, is that the care of subsequent editions not be turned over to the despotism of a society or a company of any kind. We have announced, and we attest to our contemporaries and posterity, that the least detriment that could result from that, would be the suppression of essential items; endless multiplication in volume and number of those that should be suppressed; infection of the mass of the work by esprit de corps, which is ordinarily petty, jealous, concentrated; neglect of the arts; invasion of material of passing interest at the expense of the rest; and subjection of the Encyclopedia to the fate of so many works of controversy. When catholics and protestants, weary of disputes and surfeited with insults, opted for silence and calm, piles of famous books disappeared and were forgotten, as one watches the sediment of an abating fermentation settle to the bottom of a vessel.
1998.10.29
way north on Broad Street
1953.10.29
1953. Thursday, New York City
Knowing that Louise is now at home after her operation, Marcel writes to the Arensbergs about his visit on Tuesday to Philadelphia and asks them about a date for the opening: "What is your feeling and have you any ideas you want me to give them... I think March could be a good time," he suggests and adds, "Tell me if I should undertake anything with the Philadelphians."
Ephemerides
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