One of my earliest memories of the internet from my adolescence was stumbling across Greil Marcus?s review of Bob Dylan?s Self Portrait, copy and pasted (or maybe transcribed word for word) onto some Geocities website collecting all kinds of documentation on my favorite songwriter, and absolutely breaking all kinds of copyright laws. Marcus famously began his review of Dylan?s much maligned album of covers, odds and ends, and live recordings with a question: What is this shit" In 1970, Dylan was batting 1000, and the arrival of this strange album, released to fulfill contractual obligations to Columbia Records after a string of masterpieces, was truly confounding. I?m sure I hadn?t heard the album in full when I first read Marcus?s extremely mixed review on a dial-up internet connection, but I was fascinated that this record existed on the margins, and that a renowned critic had such a complex reaction to it. 
Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait (1970)

I actually think about that review a lot, and I?m sure a line can be drawn from my first encounter with it, and eventually coming to do?whatever it is that I do now. I express opinions, primarily on the internet, about watches. I?ve always loved to read criticism, especially thoughtful and pointed criticism about things that might be misunderstood, or even not very well liked. And I think that informs my taste in watches, or at least how I approach them, and think about the space they take up in my life and collection....