Time to pack for Maine and clear the desk of clippings. The following weathered the several-month resting test for continued interest.
Degrees of separation have dropped from 6 (remember Kevin Bacon?)to 4.74 which may — or may not — affect the number of steps to connect Tenants Harbor and the recent Kentucky Derby. (The inference is subtle.) The real long shot was the mention/connection of Enid Bagnold who wrote National Velvet, a paperback copy of which RB will have later in the summer if it is currently published and being distributed. But clearly TH is in, of, and connected to a larger world of friends, neighbors, visitors, readers, et al.
Horses, and books, buoys and boats, all with special ties to the Harbor.
PLAGIARISM (curses!) updates
1. Bob Dylan was not sufficiently forthright in discussing who or what influenced his painting. Shoot. I expected more, especially when he was asked about it.
2. Quentin Rowan or Q. R. Markham in Assassins of Secrets seems to be more a pastiche-r than a plagiarizer, but without crediting sources for the parts, it’s still a big ick. (See New Yorker, Feb 13 and 20, 2012) RB will have the book when or if it’s in paperback so readers can see how many abused sources they can spot.
3. Reviewer David Leavitt notes that Olaf Olafsson, in Restoration, “[minimizes] the obvious debt he owes [Iris] Origio….” So RB will have Iris Orgio’s War in Val d’Orcia: an Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 for sure, then you all can be ready to compare Ms. Origio’s book with Mr. Olafsson’s book when it is issued in paperback, probably next summer.
But, interestingly, reviewer Leavitt goes on to say, “By far the most troubling — and interesting — problem [Olaf Olafsson’s] Restoration addresses is the relationship between a work of art and the source material on which it draws…. Full disclosure: In 1993, I was sued by the poet Stephen Spender after I wrote a novel, “While England Sleeps,” based on an episode from his memoir “World Within World.” If I learned anything from that unhappy experience, it was that it’s essential for writers to acknowledge their sources fully and without hedging.”
4. LATEST ANTI-PLAGIARISM HEROES: Simon Dumenco (with a Council) and Maria Popova and Kelli Anderson (with a code of conduct) argue for the need to credit sources when aggregating content or developing it anew. Also, Ms. Popovsa and Ms. Anderson have designed two symbols to put before the aggregated sources:
VIA which indicates big influence or a link of direct discovery;
HAT TIP which indicates a subtler significance or a link of indirect discovery, story lead or inspiration.
Here’s to A SUMMER OF FRONT PORCH TOASTS for these heroes, Simon Dumenco, Maria Popova, and Kelli Anderson, who know that good ideas come from thinkers who stood on the shoulders of giants who should be recognized.
The euonymus is gone, but Roseledge Books lives and is soon open.
I no more than get my new pacemaker installed, then re-installed (yes) and made checkable from afar, than someone is murdered on the television show NCIS when an Internet hacker figures out (from afar) how to make the poor guy’s pacemaker speed up until he dies. I called Charlie to tell him to get busy and figure out how to make my pacemaker hacker-averse. He sighed. Now I read that my St. Jude Medical pacemaker may have wires that go amok. I called Charlie again. He thinks I should learn to talk Cyborg. Good news outcomes: I have more energy and I won’t nod off inapproprriately at Roseledge. Now it’s time for me — and you — to be in Maine keeping tabs on the harbor.