Bruce Springsteen’s “New Polished Sound”

Play the two YouTube videos at the same time. See what happens. Thank you, Brendan O’Brien, for making Bruce sound like a corporate goon.

Incidentally, Tommy Heath has no plans on suing.

Forget McEwan and Company. The Scientists Are the Real Swindlers!

New Scientist: “Eloquent language has never been the strong point of academic papers, so it’s somewhat ironic that some scientists are lifting clever turns of phrase and even whole paragraphs from other published papers in a bid to sound more articulate.”

Ben Schott: Absconding With Personal Experience?

All that apparent vetting and editing at the NYTBR wasn’t enough to stop L’Affaire Schott from sullying Tanenhaus’s pristine gates with redolent taints. The story is this: Ben Schott wrote an essay called “Confessions of a Book Abuser.” Readers, alarmed by the essay’s resemblance to a similar essay called “Never Do That to a Book” (contained within Anne Fadiman’s collection, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader) wrote in, troubled by Schott rather conveniently having an encounter with an Italian chambermaid in 1989, when Schott was fifteen — not unlike Fadiman’s own encounter with an Italian chambermaid in 1964.

Of course, it’s very possible that Schott did have this experience. It’s very possible that an Italian chambermaid did take a fifteen year old’s hand and returned his copy of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies. Of course, since Schott failed to mention his parents (did he really rent “a hotel room on the shores of Lake Como” and stay there without parental supervision?), suggesting that he returned to his hotel room of his own accord, as if a self-made man, I’m disinclined to believe Schott — unless he offers unimpeachable evidence that reveals this existential serendipity. After all, Fadiman’s original essay revealed similar childhood details, as well as a specific hotel name. Schott may be a dutiful compiler of facts for his almanacs, but he appears remiss in revealing some of the specifics that would exculpate him from plagiarism charges. (Well, that’s not entirely true. Schott’s all too happy to boast about reading Evelyn Waugh as a teenager.)

Editor & Publisher has more on the glaring similarities between Schott and Fadiman’s respective essays.

You know, we litbloggers may be “sub-literary,” but there’s one advantage to online writing that you won’t find in print. If any of us were to pull this kind of potential theft, we’d get called on it by our commenters. Perhaps the NYTBR might wish to initiate comments upon all of their articles to keep their content honest. It might even help make the editors “aware of Fadiman’s essay.” And who knows? Maybe a communicative conduit along these lines might even alleviate some of the continuing print vs. online fracas. It’s clear from this incident that Tanenhaus’s drawbridge is starting to look a bit rickety.

[UPDATE: Bill Peschel reminds me (and I should have referenced this in the post) that the similarities were observed the day after Schott's article appeared in a Bookninja thread. Return of the Reluctant regrets the oversight, but we will go one more than the Times in wishing Mr. Murray a speedy recovery from his illness.]

In Which I’m Threatened With “Legal Action” by Alice Hutchison for Something I Didn’t Even Write

Back in October, a commenter by the name of Daniel Dagan posted a comment here pointing to textual similarities between Alice Hutchison’s Kenneth Anger and a thesis written by Miriam Dagan. While catching up on my email backlog, I received the following email from Alice Hutchison:

To Edward Champion / host of edrants.com,

It has come to my attention that your website has posted damaging and incorrect information about me as an author and my book on Kenneth Anger as solicited to you by a Mr Dagan of Berlin, whose accusations have proven to be fictitious, ie source material from authors who are duly credited.
http://www.edrants.com/?p=4023
I strongly urge you to remove it at your earliest convenience to avoid legal action against you. If the reference to me and the book are not removed by the end of the week, you will be hearing from my lawyers in Los Angeles.

Thank-you in advance,

Alice L Hutchison

* * *

First off, “my website” did not post the comment. I did not author the comment. It came from a gentleman by the name of Daniel Dagan, who also left his contact information for any aggrieved parties.

Since my computer has been out of commission and I have a considerable email backlog, I only just got this email today (it was sent on January 16) and, as of yet, I haven’t heard anything from “lawyers in Los Angeles.” Furthermore, since Ms. Hutchison has failed to describe how Mr. Dagan’s claims are “damaging and incorrect,” I will leave Mr. Dagan’s comment unaltered, unless Ms. Hutchison and her “lawyers” can provide persuasive evidence to the contrary.

And since I’ve been threatened with legal action for something I didn’t even write, without Ms. Hutchison presenting a specific example (much less a specific statute that I violated), I’m less inclined to cooperate with someone who offers empty legal threats without a burden of proof.

Thus, until Ms. Hutchison demonstrates with clear examples why Mr. Dagan is wrong (or Mr. Dagan requests that I remove his comment), I’ll allow Mr. Dagan’s comment to stand unaltered.

Further, I find it immensely ironic that someone who has authored a book on the man who wrote Hollywood Babylon, which was infinitely more risque than anything contained within Mr. Dagan’s remarks, would send such an email.

Because It’s Always the Plagiarists Who Write for the Coke, the Whores & the Photo Shoots

The Independent: “A 19-year-old Harvard student whose debut novel was set to become the next sensation of the American literary world has been accused of plagiarising another US coming-of-age novel.”

Plagiarism: Cracking Down on the Hard Cases

Plagiarism has found a slimy new instigator in the form of a ten year old Dutch girl. This evil little urchin, whose four ventricles beat of anthracite, a girl who only smiled once in her decade on this earth (just after pushing her babysitter fell down a stair well), handed back prize money from a children’s poetry competition just after eagle-eyed readers noticed that she had lifted the work of children’s author Francine Oomen.

An Amsterdam court ordered the girl to wear a bright red P around her neck until the age of 18. But until the P is forged by the great Amsterdam blacksmith, her parents are taking away her weekly allowance for the next two months.

I say, lock her into a dungeon for eight years and throw away the key.

Developments

There have been some developments on the Guthmann plagiarism front. Also, I have been following up with several people to find out what has happened with other stories that have been tracked here over the past two years. Should any major revelations be uncovered, I will give them brand new entries. But for the obsessives, you can check the archives for any of the minor developments. (There are new jokes too, but you have to hunt for them.)

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