Plagiarism

Originally Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013

This photograph is by Pierre Louys.  You can read about him and see more of his work here (link).  As the article states, there is something about his images that remind us of E.J. Bellocq. . . but more so.  The images seem so contemporary perhaps because so many photographers have tried to replicate the look.  They do, of course, remind me of mine.  I am a thief and will steal as much as I can from Louys' work.  It is strange and mysterious and something your mother wouldn't appreciate.  She might, of course.  I am using the figurative mother, not yours in particular. 

I am always stealing.  I told a model once that I wanted to shoot her in the manner of a Hopper painting.  I can't actually, of course, without shooting in a house filled with morning light somewhere in the Northeast.  And truly, that is something I would love to try. But stealing does not have to be literal, and so the figurative thieving that I do is from an influence, but I think it is still my own.  When I sent one of the images from the shoot, the model wrote back:

Wow you werent kidding lol almost the same photo except placement of the hands but even in looking at this she has the same body structure as me. Pretty cool thanks again for an amazing experience and photos :)





She had looked up Hopper who she had never seen before and included this image. 

I like that she found Hopper and enjoyed his work.  I don't think the value of my photographs is diminished in any way by my pilfering any more than is my prose.  That is true mostly because there is so little value in either that the embezzlement is not worth prosecuting.  It is a minor crime. 

I hate it, however, when I see that other photographers have stolen from me.  You might find this laughable, but I do find it, and I am appalled at how horribly it turns out.  They are talentless bastards (usually men) whose meretriciousness is grisly. 

Totally unlike my own. 

This is absolutely not what I intended to write this morning.  I wanted to write about the effect of reading "Wet and Dry."  It is wonderful prose and quite terrifying.  I have decided I want to be "moist" rather than either "wet" or "dry."  We are a moist crowd.  "Moist," actually, is my friend's correction of my original intention to say "damp."  We met at a beautiful bar on the Boulevard yesterday afternoon for a gin and tonic.  I arrived first and ordered. 

"Which gin do you want me to pour?" asked the beautiful barmaid.

"I don't know.  I'm not a gin drinker.  Which one do I want?"

"Hendrick's," she said. 

"Hendrick's it is." 

I looked toward the door to keep an eye out for my friend.  The bar was dark and cool and a wonderful escape from the brutally moist tropical heat outside.  A couple sat two seats down, she in a tight coral dress that rode high on her lovely thighs.  Her hair was in a professional bun pinned on top of her head.  She wore fashionably nerdy glasses.  She was five stars, something off the set of "Mad Men."  It was early still and the bar was mostly empty. 

The barmaid brought me the drink. 

"I figured this is the perfect drink on a day like this, right?  Keep away the malaria and all that?" 

The glass was big and cold and filled my hand.  I took a sip.  Gin.  I am not a big fan. 

"I never drink gin," I said. 

"Really?  I love it," said the young, beautiful tender of bars. 

"It's bad for your stomach," I said.  "It will give you ulcers." 

"I'm pretty sure all of it will," she said with a laugh. 

"Yea, I guess you're right." 

I glanced at the door again and again waiting for my friend, watching the woman in the coral dress.  She had perfect posture, the kind they used to teach in typing classes and secretarial schools.  How had she cultivated that look?  That fellow she was with, I wondered--does he know what a lucky fellow he is this afternoon?  They had probably just come from Merrill Lynch or maybe from one of the big, corporate banks. 

When my friend arrived, he sat down on the wrong side of me so that I had to look toward the kitchen to talk to him.  Suddenly his eyes popped. 

"Look at that!"

"I can't now.  You took the wrong chair."  It was a minor torture, truly. 

In the spirit of things, he ordered a Hendrick's and tonic, too.  He has talked about going to some Middle East countries for years.  He has had a thing for Lebanon.  I told him that I thought of him when reading about it in Osborne's book.  And that is when I said I wanted to be damp.  I have clever friends.  They can turn a colorful phrase, most often better than mine. 

"I like that," I said.  "I'm stealing that." 

We thieve from everywhere, don't we?  We all do steal the clever and beautiful things.  That is why I won't feel bad for my own minor forms of plagiarism. 

We ordered a second, or rather I did as my friend switched to vodka so he could eat olives stuffed with cream cheese.  What else was there to do?  The bar was beginning to fill up.  There was a blonde in an LBD (I swear to you that I coined the term back in the late '70s) and a string of pearls sitting across the bar.  She had to be twenty-one, I guess, but barely I assumed.  She kept looking our way.  My friend and I argued, of course, about which one of us she was looking at. 

"Probably you," I said.  "She's afraid you are going to do something hideous.  She's watching you out of fear."  But it wasn't true.  She was enamored of me, I knew.  There could be no other explanation. 

The women from Mad Men got up to go to the restroom giving us a chance to watch her walk in that wonderful beauty pageant way, feet crossing, ample hips swaying.  And then we watched her come back, her face a mask, passing us without a glance, her boy standing, they walking out the door. 

"Well. . . that's that," I said, and looked across the bar to the blonde.  Her place was empty.  The barmaid came to see if we wanted another round. 

"No point," I said, and we took the check. 

I'll not order gin again, I think, unless someone has a splendid concoction for me to try.  I prefer vodka for clear drinks.  And besides, I like the olives, too.