I've now read the Lethem article - very smart integrating a plaid of
plagiarism to reinforce his point, readable, convincing (to me). I've
only read his first book, which he mentions, and some stuff on the web
on P.K. Dick. Love that stuff on the Velveteen Rabbit - sort of a
parable on human relationships, huh, he said, wondering if he was Real
already (am I more like Noddy or Pinocchio?). I sympathise with Roger
on Creative Commons - in general I want a world in which the money nexus
is replaced by some kind of intermunificence (just invented this term,
as a google search confirms) network, which makes me a dangerous
anarchist, I suppose. Grrr!
Little postscript to Lethem's mention of "Happy Birthday To You":
Stravinsky wrote a Birthday Prelude for Pierre Monteux's 80th, in which
he dodecaphonises HBTY, which he considered part of the common stock of
cultural material, only to find out (this was in the 60s I seem to
remember) that the author was still alive; he was lucky, the latter was
glad to extend permission & the vast vampiric legal machinery was not
yet fully in place to sue Strav out of house & home.
mj
Joseph Duemer wrote:
> Exactly what Lethem argues in Harper's. See above.
>
> On 3/22/07, MJ Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> And what relevance does that bear? In fact it is well known that he
>> swiped a lot of stuff - he admits it in his memoirs. Brecht stole from
>> everyone without ever acknowledging anything etc pp
>
The art of being civilized is the art of learning to read between the lies. - Kenneth Rexroth
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