I recommend this article by Jonathan Lethem. It’s a funny, serious essay on intellectual and property rights. It also includes a clever works appropriated section at the end. Lethem basically argues for a realistic and reasonable understanding of how creative works are created (he even ventures briefly, but fascinatingly, into the realm of natural sciences). For Lethem, the world is awash in plagiarism, some good and some bad. Nabokov’s masterpiece, Lolita, is no less important once we learn that he might have lifted the story (down to the name of the title character) from some one named Heinz von Lichberg. Lethem, drawing on surrealist ideas of newness, is a proponent of the idea that art must be at least in part a gift culture, not exclusively a commodity culture. He doesn’t advocate the kind of plagiarism that we think of as immoral (“For the moment I’m grateful to be making a living, and so must ask that for a limited time…you please respect my small, treasured usemonopolies”), but he is all for an abandonment of copyright law as it is currently understood. To this end, he’s waived most of the movie rights to his current novel, You Don’t Love Me, Yet (which I’m currently enjoying), and he’s put up a bunch of short stories and song lyrics on his website for use in films and dramatic adaptations and new music.
The idea of intellectual property has fascinated me for a few years; it was one of the things that got me interested in studying law, though I’ve lost sight of that in recent months. I could easily see myself dealing with these kinds of things as a profession. I’m in agreement with much of what Lethem has to say. Without the ability to borrow and be influenced we lose the ability to create. In writing this blog, I’ve often found myself re-appropriating things my friends, family, and TV/Radio/Books/Internet have said. More often than not my sentence is in a different context and often modified to fit my needs, but I’m still taking from others and, in the most negative phrasing, passing it off as my own. Of course, those originators are probably often not the originators either. Lethem would say, and I would agree, that there’s no need to be concerned with these kinds of appropriations and re-appropriations and re-re-appropriations, it’s just the way the world works. The lines between appropriation and theft can be thin, but it seems to often be clear. One could divide the plaigarisms into the important, benign and the malicious. If this true, then in designing and implementing our laws, we ought to be concerned with protecting from the malicious and encouraging the important. I’m no legal expert (yet), but it seems that our laws should be able to serve a proactive purpose and not just a prohibitive one.
I just finished watching the first three hours of the mini-series, Planet Earth. It’s like Blue Planet, but on land. It’s on Sundays at 8:00 PM (eastern) on the Discovery Channel. I highly reccomend it.
Our internet has been crapping out on us, so it’s been difficult to post. My apologies.
I saw Reign Over Me yesterday. I’m a big fan of Mike Binder, who also wrote and directed the criminally overlooked and under-appreciated The Upside of Anger. Reign is a fine film that doesn’t often resort to sentimentality while dealing with the tremendously difficult problems of loss and mental illness.
I feel like I’ve been writing about entertainment lately, so I’ll just recommend the film and leave it there.
In other news, I’ve joined the adult swim team. Practice is Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6:00-7:00…AM. I’ve only been to two practices (I overslept on Friday), so my body is not acclimated. I have a good workout and then feel tired at about 10:00 AM and again at 3:00 PM. I then come home and take a nap. On Monday I came home, put the laundary in the washing machine, went to lift weights, and then played raquetball for an hour. It was a mistake that left me nauseous for the rest of the night. Wednesday isn’t a weights day, so I was able to just take a nap and then feel good for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow I’ll swim in the morning and go to the gym in the evening, but absolutely no racquetball.
I forgot just how powerful it is to practice with other people. On my own I would never have been able to swim 900 meters, but when I’ve got some one in front of me and behind me, I’m a machine. I’m the youngest person there, so I’m faster than everyone, but I have little in the way of endurance and my stroke goes to hell after a couple hundred meters. This will improve in a month or two and then I’ll be unstoppable (until I go to a meet and have to race people my age). The coach seems pretty good. He wasn’t there on Monday, but on Wednesday we had a good practice with lots of distance. Monday and Wednesday is long course (50 meter, Olympic length lanes) and Fridays is short course (25 yard, high school length lanes). Long course is preferable because on any given length you get to swim about 43 meters, whereas on a short course you’re down to 36 for two lengths (turning takes from your actual swimming distance due to gliding, plus, it adds flip-turns, which are tiring). Once school is out it will be long course all three days.
It feels good to be in the pool. The workout is tiring, but you know that you’ve used just about every muscle in your body. I especially love the scent of cholorine that hangs in your nostrils even after you’ve showered. This is at its best when you walk home (something I don’t have the time to do in the mornings, but can do on weekends) and then walk into an air-conditioned room (it’s too cold for that, plus we don’t have air-conditioning). Coming back from the pool or beach in the middle of the afternoon was always one of my favorite parts of college. During my first January ISP I would walk down to Old Caples and spend hours making game trees for my project. If it was warm enough (above 70), I’d walk out into the water. It would take about fifteen minutes for me to get up to my waist, my body slowly acclimating to the cold water. I’d drink in the perfect view of the bay from this vantage. Old Caples is nestled alongside a small point. With the water three feet from my eyes and the sun reflecting off the water, it was paradise. Blue skies. Then I’d tense my body, count to three, and take the plunge.
The walk home was also nice. I’d air-dry on my way back to an empty dorm room and drink in the stale air. A quick shower and then I’d DJ a game of VirtuaTennis with Ben and Brian.
