Plagiarism? Or Creative Adaptation? Or Neither? Oakland Mayor-elect Challenges The Creativity of His Citizens

"You might wake up some mornin'
To the sound of something moving
past your window in the wind..."
Bob Lind, The Elusive Butterfly, 1966

"You're going to awaken one morning,
and brilliant ideas are going to come forward."
Ron Dellums, Mayor-elect of Oakland, California, 2006

Former Congressman Ron Dellums won the post of mayor of Oakland - just across the Bay from San Francisco - by a hair in last week's election, and yesterday he gave an inspiring speech to his supporters at Oakland's downtown Marriott hotel.

Dellums charged his listeners to come up with new ideas to revitalize the perennially troubled other City by the Bay, forever dissed by Gertrude Stein's stinging remark, "There's no there there," (referring to the town where she spent her childhood).

I've been to Oakland and I can assure Ms. Stein that either she's wrong or things have changed.  It's a vibrant, muscular, forward-looking city, although nobody would argue that it has seen more than its share of turmoil.

I'm intrigued by the statement about awakening one morning.  Of course it is not plagiarism in fact of Bob Lind's memorable top-10 hit "The Elusive Butterfly" from the 1960s.  What's curious to me was, did the song drift through Mr. Dellums' mind as he was composing that line (or, perhaps, through the mind of his speechwriter)?

In direct marketing copywriting, we always strive to build our message on structures, concepts and actual words that have worked before.  It's no crime.

Hey, in this business, swiping is admired.

And, if the future Mayor Dellums is successful in spurring his partisans to better the city, he has my admiration, and should have yours, too... even if he swiped a word or two from the popular song.

And now, an only in San Francisco item for you:

Meanwhile, Harry Stoll forwards an overheard remark with a gloriously evocative setting of the scene: "There are two copies," said the overheard gent, "one on the desktop and one in the systems folder."

Stoll says that the man was talking on a "cell phone seated in a stall in the extremely echoic men's room amid a Niagara of flushing commodes and urinals during the Lowell High graduation at Bill Graham auditorium.''

From Leah Garchik's column today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Comments

[Kevin]

Not again! This misused qhote of Gertrude Stein! She was not making a disparaging remark about Oakland. The real history per that quote: She had gone back to her old neighborhood, to see the house where she had been raised as a child. The HOUSE WAS GONE; it had been demolished. So she said :...there's no there there". MEANING HER HOUSE.

Oakland was actually a rather nice city during Stein's life. It only had a bit of a decline after WWII with racial tensions and then, when Ike built his interstate system, wealthy and middle class poeple feld to the newer suburbs, leaving the city under financial strains and downturn--as was the case in most US cities;.

Today's Oakland has a reputation for crime--and has since the 60s...but its better reputation is as an up and coming city. There's quite a bit of natural beauty--protected lands, Oakland hills, a manmade lake, a port and estuary,and more. There has been a tremendous upsurge in new development (private, retail and civic). It is fast becoming an attractive place to call home now that SF has become unbearably expensive.

I wish people would stop misusing Stein's quote...I know it makes for good copy--along with the crime stories per Oakland. Lets hope Dellums is a good driver now that he's at the wheel.

[David Garfinkel]

Kevin,

I've done a little research to verify what you said -- which is accurate -- and I stand corrected.

And you're right -- it does make good copy. But I fell victim to the popular misconception.

I apologize to you and all of Oakland.

[Jim Van Wyck]

Wow!

I too have been misunderstanding
this quote for many years.

Thanks Kevin for clearing this up.

Here's a little about my
"favorite" misunderstood quotation.

George Orwell, back in 1942,
said that "Kipling is the only
writer of our time who has added
phrases to the language".

Orwell went on to mention 6 phrases,
the most well-known being ...

"East is East and West is West
And never the twain shall meet"

The lovely rythym, meter, and rhyme with it's galloping anapaests
and elegant word choice
make it most memorable.

Kipling came under some
amazing personal criticism
for this and other misunderstood
aspects of his writing.

"East is east" was for many
years held up as evidence of
Kipling's racism and xenophobia.

But how wrong those critic were
when you consider the next few
lines of the Ballad of East And West.

To get the full power and
grace of Kiplings poetry
it really must be read out loud.

Read the following out loud
and perhaps you will see
why I call it the most-misunderstood quotation
in the English Language.

***************

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat;
But there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor birth
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

******************
You see,
he was speaking of the
universal experience of being human!

Jim