I don't know about you, but this photo creeps me out. Yikes.
"Monster Eyes" is the name of one of the songs in Lethem's new book You Don't Love Me Yet. It's a song that the characters name collaboratively, during a jam session. The main character, Lucinda, yells out the words as a chorus, remembering a conversation she had with a man who is known for half the book only as "the complainer" who calls her frequently on a complaint line. "Monster Eyes" becomes a sounding board for the commodification of intellectual property. Who do the words belong to? The complainer? Lucinda? The band's usual lyricist and songwriter, Bedoin? What I find amazing about this book is how Lethem takes something as innocuous as a couple of words and makes them take on immense psychological weight. As soon as the words become valuable to the characters, it raises the stakes of the novel. Who owns the words becomes central to the underlying tensions in the characters' relationships. The naming of a proprietor can either make or break the band. In one of the principal scenes (don't worry, I wont' give it away) Lethem infuses these words with such meaning that you almost don't want the characters to say them. It's uncomfortable, humiliating, exactly the kind of feeling you get when you're watching a thriller and you're thinking "Don't open that door!" But you don't have any control over what the characters do, the direction the words go, and Boom, they open the door and the everything changes.
As a writer, I find this kind of terrifying. It's sort of like that movie with Johnny Depp, based off of Stephen King's novel The Secret Window. What would you do if one day someone said, "that's my story. Those are my words." Happens all the time, especially when the intellectual property becomes valuable (i.e. all the people who claim to have written Harry Potter, or that guy who was so ticked off about Dan Brown using some of his research that he took him to court). I went to a panel at the Associated Writing Programs conference this past March where mostly creative nonfiction writers (Robin Hemley was one of them) talked about literary gossip and how much is ethical to use in your own creative work. Their general consensus was that as long as it's OK with the people you're stealing from, then go for it. That seems to be Lethem's conclusion as well in You Don't Love Me Yet. But I steal from all sorts of people, from all sorts of stories. Do I essentially need to get permission for everything I hear? Everything I read that strikes me a certain way? For example, I have a line in a new story I wrote that was from a conversation I had with my grandmother seven years ago. She had just broken her wrist after a nasty fall (watch out for the icy patch!) and she wore this cumbersome sling that was very difficult to remove. She said, "Every time I change, it's a huge production." For some reason, those words stuck and they ended up verbatim in my story. Good thing short stories aren't worth much, or Grandma might be suing the pants off of me.
So. Words, images, audio, video, etc. etc. etc. Who do they belong to? Is it entirely subjective? A recent poster, Maya directed me to a "creative commons" area where Vox members can get free stuff and use it to construct their blogs. The internet almost encourages this kind of collaborative work. It's all there, free, just because someone says it is. But if it's not, watch out.
I guess this is the place where I should attribute where I got my own "Monster Eyes" from. You can find the same image at: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/dancing-monster1.htm
"Monster Eyes" is the name of one of the songs in Lethem's new book You Don't Love Me Yet. It's a song that the characters name collaboratively, during a jam session. The main character, Lucinda, yells out the words as a chorus, remembering a conversation she had with a man who is known for half the book only as "the complainer" who calls her frequently on a complaint line. "Monster Eyes" becomes a sounding board for the commodification of intellectual property. Who do the words belong to? The complainer? Lucinda? The band's usual lyricist and songwriter, Bedoin? What I find amazing about this book is how Lethem takes something as innocuous as a couple of words and makes them take on immense psychological weight. As soon as the words become valuable to the characters, it raises the stakes of the novel. Who owns the words becomes central to the underlying tensions in the characters' relationships. The naming of a proprietor can either make or break the band. In one of the principal scenes (don't worry, I wont' give it away) Lethem infuses these words with such meaning that you almost don't want the characters to say them. It's uncomfortable, humiliating, exactly the kind of feeling you get when you're watching a thriller and you're thinking "Don't open that door!" But you don't have any control over what the characters do, the direction the words go, and Boom, they open the door and the everything changes.
As a writer, I find this kind of terrifying. It's sort of like that movie with Johnny Depp, based off of Stephen King's novel The Secret Window. What would you do if one day someone said, "that's my story. Those are my words." Happens all the time, especially when the intellectual property becomes valuable (i.e. all the people who claim to have written Harry Potter, or that guy who was so ticked off about Dan Brown using some of his research that he took him to court). I went to a panel at the Associated Writing Programs conference this past March where mostly creative nonfiction writers (Robin Hemley was one of them) talked about literary gossip and how much is ethical to use in your own creative work. Their general consensus was that as long as it's OK with the people you're stealing from, then go for it. That seems to be Lethem's conclusion as well in You Don't Love Me Yet. But I steal from all sorts of people, from all sorts of stories. Do I essentially need to get permission for everything I hear? Everything I read that strikes me a certain way? For example, I have a line in a new story I wrote that was from a conversation I had with my grandmother seven years ago. She had just broken her wrist after a nasty fall (watch out for the icy patch!) and she wore this cumbersome sling that was very difficult to remove. She said, "Every time I change, it's a huge production." For some reason, those words stuck and they ended up verbatim in my story. Good thing short stories aren't worth much, or Grandma might be suing the pants off of me.
So. Words, images, audio, video, etc. etc. etc. Who do they belong to? Is it entirely subjective? A recent poster, Maya directed me to a "creative commons" area where Vox members can get free stuff and use it to construct their blogs. The internet almost encourages this kind of collaborative work. It's all there, free, just because someone says it is. But if it's not, watch out.
I guess this is the place where I should attribute where I got my own "Monster Eyes" from. You can find the same image at: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/dancing-monster1.htm
Just as a side note (and as a former songwriter), I can almost guarantee you that the author came up with this concept through a dream. It has to be. It totally has that quality to it. And that picture is pretty scary too! Geez!
It's funny you mention this, we drove to a nature center this week whose website explicitly said it was ok to take photos but not to reuse or publish them anywhere. I just called and asked permission to use the photos on my blog, and they said "sure"! When it's convenient I think just a respectful "can I have your permission?" is easy enough.
When it comes to overheard conversations, that's much harder. Wasn't "Money for Nothing" based on a conversation that Mark Knoffler overheard at a bar?
Posted by: Emmi | 05/25/2007 at 12:08 AM
Not sure. But yeah, conversations are tricky. I actually have a friend of mine who is currently in litigation over this very issue for one of his novels. He had a conversation with a friend of his and was impressed with one of his friend's ideas. A novel series and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, his friend decides that it was his idea and sues him. I think he's finally settled, but it has cost him big time. My sense is that these kinds of things aren't that uncommon; people can essentially copyright an idea, a word/words, a conversation--anything, really. But I like Lethem's conclusion that this kind of commodification actually stifles creativity. Everything we write or create is in some way collaborative. Every word is borrowed--all we do is try to string them together in a new way.
Posted by: ericfreeze | 05/25/2007 at 04:54 PM