Tuesday, March 23, 2010

thievery

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If anyone knows what it is like to steal, writers can certainly go to the front of the line. Consciously or unconsciously, writers rework the clay of ideas that others have worked before them.

But the same is true for anyone else, I think -- remolding, recasting, reshaping. Sometimes it is pretty unattractive, the theft without attribution ... but even the petty thieves -- the ones who bring no creative shape to the stolen item -- cast some new shadow.

Each of us, stealing from the next.

My vote: Just be a good thief ... put the new-found riches to good use. It's the use, not the ego, that's interesting, don't you think?
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3 comments:

  1. apple-lore has it that steven jobs often quoted picasso = "good artists copy, great artists steal"..

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  2. That leaves me wondering whether Picasso qualified as a great artist or simply a good one.

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  3. Maybe count how many have copied Picasso.

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