OMO@c #2 Homage or Plagiar(boot)ism?

I very much appreciated a recent Shoecast segment (12.20.22) about plagiar(boot)ism and that more recent Middle Kingdom brand that makes really nice looking boots that appear to be very well made that are, well, plagiarism. There's such a thing as too close for comfort. I once edited a major academic journal (it was an onerous, horrible, thankless job) and I told contributors that our one unforgivable sin would be passing off something as yours that is, in fact, not yours. Of course most good ideas, like many kinds of boots, have all been done before and variations on the theme are how it goes.

In classical Sanskrit literature Buddhist and Hindu philosophers routinely misrepresent each others' views and blatantly, shamelessly, rip each other off when an idea is a good idea and claim it to be their own. (I have documented this, it's not a put down.) It's more a cultural fact than "plagiarism" as such. Or is it? Either way, it's not cool to take shit that ain't yours and do it to be a lookalike. It would be worse if they weren't so talented---the same being true of those talented philosophers.

"There is nothing new under the sun," says the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1.9(ish)) but it's at the very least not nice to not give credit, acknowledge, or care that you're stealing stuff because you can.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Walk Through the Park in the Himel Excelsior

Image
  Last fall I left for NYC early enough on a Friday morning to see the sun rise over the City.     Always a beautiful thing.     I hadn’t anticipated the unusually warm temperatures or the bright, clear skies.     The weather was to bless us the entire day. I’d gone to the City for a weekend of work but, lucky me, I can often dress as I please.  My plan was to drop off my bag quickly and meet a very good friend for an early lunch.  We were then going to amble, take a planfree saunter about our familiar vicinage, without need for much schedule.  It was  at last  post-Covid  enough  to meander indifferently bemused by the sites of the metropolis.   When I travel light I’ll bring only the boots I’m wearing and one jacket, especially if I’m not obliged to assume another persona.  Here’s the bluff run down on the kit: selvedge denim from Ooe Yofukuten and Clinch Yeager boots in dark horse butt brown---both via the inimitable purveyance that is Standard & Strange.  The short sleeve loop
Read more

High Rise, Going Straight and the End of Too Tight

Image
Nearly all of the cool stuff I had before I was 25 belonged to my father or my elder brother who turned his own 25 in ’72 when I was just 15, which also happens to be the same year that I  stole  his Schott Perfecto and raided his closet for some well-worn Levi’s 501s.  My father had a trunk of khakis and shirts from the War and his later Madman period when I was born.  I figured I could make a clean getaway before either of them noticed I'd raided the ark of the covenant.  That Schott jacket was later stolen from me in a bar.  Karma.  What goes ‘round comes ‘round.  Those wide chinos that were Pop’s I wore into college in ’75: he never commented on the pilferage but I am sure he noticed.   So speaking of which, finally.  I noticed this past year mainstream makers like JCrew and Todd Snyder have finally brought  sorta’ almost not really yet   straight  denim and chinos into their current offerings.  It’s been all tapered all the time, if you haven’t noticed.  You know the tide has
Read more

The Ship John Wills Jacket

Image
When I was a student living in India I once had a very personal close encounter with a king cobra, an actual  Ophiophagus Hannah .  It was, I kid you not, under my sink.  Lemme tell ya’, this was nothing like knocking on the glass at the San Diego Zoo trying to get the snake’s attention.  It obviously looked like a cobra to me and it was certainly big enough and scary enough to warrant the appellation “king.” But I later found out that the King Cobra is monotypic, it is the only one of its species and so not  really  a cobra but  something else .  What appeared to me as a snake, a cobra  under my sink right before my eyes  was something  more ,  even other .    Don’t let appearances fool ya’.  Enter the Ship John Wills jacket.   I got my Ship John Wills when they announced increased production and availability.  It took about a year before it arrived.   Mine’s a V2, which has gone through some refinements in fit and construction.  I can’t compare it to the Version Ones, which I had gaw
Read more