that’s really interesting: so the notes in the margins showing comma breaks that aren’t in the body of the text - are those prior corrections? Because if so, then yeah he was over-edited at some point
Interesting. Arlt is new to me. I’ve read everything by Borges with the exception of his poety but haven’t run across Arlt’s writing yet.
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wow he got a raw deal. Seems like a strange oversight that editions as recent as the 1990s (I think it’s the three volume Obras Completas with white dust jackets with a Cortázar introduction they’re referring to) failed to go back to the original text. I wrestled with those weird commas when trying to translate the text and always chalked them up to his alleged “bad writing”.
As for that reputation - I think I can corroborate what Zubieta is describing from what I’ve been reading (not that she needs corroboration). That the rep for being an inept writer was more due to a clash with contemporaneous social and stylistic standards, and I think this got game-of-telephoned in the English language world to being like semi-illiterate, which of course we’re seeing is mis-stated
welcome to da club
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Arlt looks like the name of the protagonist from a JRPG series that is, like, below the Ys or Lufia kinda tier, but it still has at least historically had a few entries. And Japanese motherfuckers gave him that name despite it quadrupling in syllables with how they pronounce it. アールト
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I wrote down Stream System on my book list when you mentioned it here and today I found it/bought it. Hopefully will get to it in a couple weeks
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prepare to suffer a pleasant shock to the taste. or underwhelming bemusement.
yeah not many people get that Perón was trying to do Borges a solid, keeping his profile low so he could be inducted into the canon of minor writers later
to be real though, when pressed to name my favorite writer I always say Borges, whatever my qualms are with his apparent personality, his opinions, and even many of the basic underlying ideas in his work. I know the work decently well and enjoy thinking about most of it, and the person I’m talking to has probably at least heard of the guy (in what universe is he ‘minor’?)
all this said, like @Chekhonte I’ve yet to read Arlt myself, so when I do get around to it I’ll probably demote Borges to the municipal poultry department of my heart as well
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I ordered his only two books translated into English off of Abe. They’re not coming until august though.
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minor refers to the fact that it’s the curators personal canon, not minor in the face of world literature. borges is one of the few giants of canon that only the most contrarian of all can refuse.
Armchair opinion here, but, that sounds like a copyright issue.
The legality of the act of profiting off of consumer goods adorned with someone’s likeness would probably hinge on whether or not that individual holds intellectual property rights over their own likeness. Seems like at least in the States this is administered at the state level and there are big differences between different states. This law blog explains that…
[…in] California, for example, almost anyone’s likeness, name, photograph, signature, and voice is protected for seventy years after their death. New York, on the other hand, only grants right of publicity protection to those who profit from their name and likeness.
That all seems like something that would primarily concern more the Paris Hiltons and Nicole Elizabeth “Snooki” LaValles of the world rather than the Ursula K Le Guin’s of the world, but, hey, maybe some of those authours had some really insane publishers and/or had particularly rigorous public relations practices to protect their own privacy, and they both hold intellectual property rights over their likenesses, and would enforce that copyright if given a chance.
What I’m not able to determine based on the amount of research I’m willing to do here (read: next to none) is which state laws kick in based on how the copyright is being established and/or violated. Is LeGuin’s likeness protected for 70 years after her death because she was born in California? Or does it follow Portland laws since that’s where she died? Or is it wherever her estate is considered to be a resident of? Or is it based on where the infringement itself occurs (which based on the vibes of the website I’m going to assume is Manhattan)? IDK IDC
However, there is another layer to consider besides whether one’s likeness is being protected under copyright, which is that those shirts aren’t just using someone’s likeness, they’re using someone’s photograph. Generally speaking the copyright of a photograph lies with either the person who took the photograph (or the employer of the person who took the photograph if the photograph was taken as a part of their employment but that’s not relevant). So, for these shirts to pass a test of legality, either these photographs would have to be used with permission from the copyright holder (unlikely), they would have to be photographs which are in the public domain, or, their use would have to be justified as fair use.
In any case, the legality of this instance of spiritually withering use of photographs of dead authours would need to be litigated to be able to definitively say whether it’s legal or not, but, much to my chagrin, at least assuming an American court here, there is probably some infuriating argument to be made that this is fair use, via the pretentious grad school fart sniffing high art framing of it all could potentially justify the use of copyright protected images as transformative. I mean, we can probably assume the Koonses and the Lichtensteins of the world could buy the retroactive result of the legality of doing something like this, but whether or not that means it is “legal” in of itself is kind of a philosophy of law kinda question at some point.
That being said, Minor Canon claims actually that what they’re doing is explicitly not artistically transformative on the Info page of their website, claiming that:
Minor Canon is a fan project, not a brand or an art project.
…which is kind of comes off like they’re saying “we only think this is cool if we’re doing it illegally.” Though, I wonder if they would argue that putting it like that is all a part of the “productive space of play,” if push were to come to shove in a courtroom.
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Also my God the dead author t-shirt thing is horrendous, I’m trying to find the humour in it but I am struggling
What really sticks out to me is how seemingly carefully curated the roster of victims are. Like, recognizable names but also no one who could be thought of as someone who doesn’t produce Serious Writing if you know what I mean. It all comes off as pathetically self congratulatory, like the kind of authour name a grad student in their 20s gets a tingle in their pants from being able to say their name out loud during the seminar. Writing which is read to win online arguments or appear erudite in a coffee shop, at least appear to have done so.
I also think the framing of the act of commodification as being relevant to the artistic premise is completely absurd. Even if that’s the point and the “joke” is the just how uncaring the bold leap in logic is, that fucking sucks? It’s certainly not going to make me forget you’re profiting commercially off of a dumb joke, the substance of which is a crude gesture towards the stature of thoughtful, passionate, and imaginative people, who made profound contributions to culture and society while wiggling around one’s eyebrows conspiratorially, only to then expect the observer to also pay $30 to participate in spitting on those peoples’ graves. Surely also done in such a way which actually does not provoke anyone in the wearing of the shirt.
They would probably say this is part of the point but to anyone beyond the person wearing the shirt the impact of, say, wearing the Ursula K LeGuin shirt itself, is indistinguishable from the wearing of a roughly similar T-shirt one might be able to purchase from the website or gift shop of Simon & Schuster, Le Guin’s former publisher, it’s just a smaller scumbag acting as another middleman between you and the acquisition of clothes.
Let’s not even get into the myopia involved with creating little tee-hee troll objects for first world ironic consumption from something which has to necessarily include this in its product description:
Blank product sourced from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, or the US
We acknowledge the contradictions inherent in commodifying things we love and consider this a productive space of play as long we live in a society ruled by capital.
Sure you do
Really telling on themselves here with the Fanon one lol
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ugh even worse I think I found the twitter of the person or one of the persons behind this and they seem fine otherwise. Damnit
It’s very nice not being tuned in to anything.
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Thanks for sharing, that’s interesting to know! Here in Germany people are notoriously protective of their personal information, including photos, which is reflected in quite strict laws about what you can do with that sort of stuff. (i.e. basically nothing without explicit written consent) I think we can agree that the answer is “It’s probably illegal but even if it wasn’t it is in severely bad taste”.
All that reminds me that I finished the first Earthsea book earlier last month and still wanted to write my thoughts down. Probably should’ve done that sooner but hey.
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If this encourages you at all, I’d love to read your thoughts on Earthsea!
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I went to my local rooftop pool/bar for gays and attractive girls today and because I was on my own I decided to bring along my copy of Infinite Jest.
A cute boy in a speedo came up to me and started chatting me up about David Foster Wallace and if I’d read him before. Turns out he’s also reading Infinite Jest. I saw the same boy later on and caught that the book that he brought to the pool was Slouching Towards Bethlehem and so I was like… holy crap I need to make this man my wife expeditiously. So I went over and chatted him up about Joan Didion for a bit
David Foster Wallace is good!!
(yes, he was white 
)
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hero 
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