John Lethem

I just read the article Ecstasy of Influence by Johnathan Lethem and it was really good and that is important because it was kind of long.  Lethem is a great author.  I have read two of his novels, Motherless Brooklyn, which Ed Norton has the rights to and is trying to get off the ground, and The Fortress of Solitude.  Both were great works that included aspects that I have seen before.  It didn't take anything away from the stories because as different people can be, sometimes we face similar problems.  The main character in Motherless Brooklyn has turrets syndrome.  My little brother had turrets syndrome and he means the world to me, so I read books that incorporate it. Lethem makes the argument that society believes that once something is created it is completely the creators.  Bob Dylan used the world around him to create his music.  Neil Young has had one number one hit song, Heart of Gold.  Heart of Gold is off his album Harvest.  Young had created plenty of songs that were nothing like Dylan's.  Dylan was incredibly successful at the time and Young moved to Nashville to record an album with an entirely new crew of studio musicians.  Heart of Gold and Oldman became huge hits.  When Dylan heard the songs of the radio he flipped out.  He believed if they sounded like his songs then they better be his songs.  But everyone knows that Dylan has been influence by artists like Woody Gutherie.  Vladimir Nabokov's most successful novel is Lolita, which it turns out is to be taken from a German author during the Great War.  Lolita is ranked as the fourth greatest novel of the 20th century by the Modern Library.  Lolita has been made into a movie twice, once by the great Stanley Kubrick.  Nabokov believes that his greatest achievement is the translation of Eugene Onegin.  Much of the world's work is influenced by other great art.  Many of the most beautiful films I've seen are found footage projects.  Much of the greatest artists are influenced by other great art, not always void.  Maybe there is something to be said for all the films that are considered to be modern masterpieces are really European remakes.  I was watching The Birdcage with Robin Williams the other day and in the beginning it states at the bottom that it is based on the French film by some other name.  So where does it all lead, I think in the right direction as long as producers and artists do not rest in safety of remaking already successful art.  Much of the art that is taken from another artist is used as a critique towards society or oneself.  I do not like it when a rap song is made out of a classic blues or rock song because I think that is like standing on the shoulders of great men and cashing in their chips.  But maybe you could make the argument that it is exactly like what we are talking about.  I thought the strongest part of the article was with the music game.  Muddy Waters wrote a song that was very similar to one previously written by the great Robert Johnson.  Waters said that the song flowed right out of him even though it was similar to a song he had heard before.  Maybe the idea of being original is not important but the expression one achieves by the process.  I am sure that what Aaron Valdez has done has also been done by someone else but it does not make him any less of an artist.  I don't think the same can be said for your most recent work Andre, that stop motion underwater with the fish, my god that was awesome what ever it was.  When you're born into a society that makes everything up as it goes along it is impossible to create something completely original without creating your own language, which is an idea.