Re: waiting for the Miracle

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:42:41 -0500

> I've had terrifying dreams that Salinger's agent/attorney, whatever, is
> keeping a lazy eye on us, lest we get out of hand, and that he passes on
> to Salinger some of our posts that either threaten to infringe on
> Salinger's copyright or his good name--which could be any or all of the
> posts that I've contributed--and I'm momentarily frightened and palsied
> into silence.  The only way for me to continue to contribute to this
> list is to promise myself that Salinger has much, much better things to
> do than sit around reading what I have to say about him.

What you do to torment yourself is your business; I try never to get in the
way of a masochist at work.  <*grin*>

Salinger and any legal or literary reps are free to read any of this
matter.  I try to keep pretty good tabs on infringement issues, and am
happy to say we seem to be without any such trouble.

As far as discussion here, this is an
academic/intellectual/literary/[insert your favorite highbrow term]
pursuit, and I'll defend it as such in any forum.

If we had threats, a few well-placed calls to media pals work miracles.
They always like a good blowup, and even an overreaching agent wants to
avoid appearing like an ass.  I stress this part because we have gone out
of our way to avoid infringement, and we're clean.  So, we have no reason
to duck and run.

Just don't infringe [e.g., quote unpublished work or quote excessively from
published work], and you have nothing to worry about.  <*another grin*>

--tim