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This Issue 11/18/2004

Also in this issue

• Guides
• Street Shoutouts
• How to eat like a rock star
• Petty theft

Well, not all writing is worth the same. Poetry -- which is more or less economically worthless -- is easier to "liberate." Nobody seems to mind. After all, we're not taking money out of anybody's pocket ...

Why did it make sense to leave the visual arts?

My radical writing ideas are old hat in the art world. They've been appropriating for a century. But writing's another story.

Any visions of uncreativity in the performing arts, music, etc.?

Sure. Music is all sampled. I've already mentioned Britney Spears, and rap music is nothing but sampled. Every other area of our culture is sampled, from biotechnology to architecture. If you look closely, you'll find that just about everything is appropriated, sampled, swiped, borrowed, stolen and liberated. Maybe the real avant-garde is originality!