This article was titled The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism and was written by Jonathan Lethem. In the article he discusses plagiarism and how it is perceived to be such a bad thing. The points he makes throughout the article is that plagiarism is what almost all art forms consist of. If we didn't get the idea from anywhere then, where did it come from? His opinion is that our culture is built through the copying, cutting, and pasting of ideas to create new things.
I really enjoyed this article. At the beginning of the article he talks about the story of Lolita being taken from a man who was alive 40 years before the book was written. He speculates on whether the author intentionally took the story or if he had heard it some time ago and did not realize. Today we are overexposed to every little thing in the country. If something happens then we have heard about it. Even if it was on in the background while you were getting your hair done and you didn't realize you were listening. So who is to blame you if you come up with an idea you thought was completely original and turns out it had been on tv while you were getting your hair done. The overload of media today makes it hard to not recycle, or refurbish old ideas into something new. I found this article refreshing because he used such great examples to get his point across.
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