Miscellany; short books
Head Like a Hole mashed up with Call Me Maybe. You’re welcome. (Batman Maybe is better, but this will do.)
From the hazel orbs files, this footnote from a recent copyright opinion about whether one romance novel infringed another might be of interest:
The parties debate the extent to which the heroines’ eyes “change color with their mood and emotions in critical scenes. (Merrick: ‘emerald flames at him’, ‘eyes darkening’).” Regardless of the degree of similarity of change, this is not truly a description of the characters. Their eyes do not literally change color depending on their moods. This is a literary device meant to express the well-known idea that one’s eyes can express thoughts or emotions. The expression of that idea - a shift in eye color reflecting a change in mood - is generic and not protectable.
Pat Conroy, My Reading Life: Memoirish book of reminiscences about books and literary people Conroy has known, in Conrad’s standard style, which is to say charmingly florid. I should probably just reread The Prince of Tides instead.
Neil Barofsky, Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street: Insider account of Barofsky’s time as inspector general for TARP within Treasury. Barofsky is really mad, and has reason to be given that the key decisionmakers only wanted to save banks, even when Congress had given them money explicitly to be used to help homeowners. He’s at his best explaining the perverse incentives that applied so that many people ended up worse off trying to get help from TARP, which Treasury then defined as existing to “foam the runway” for the banks and slow down the rate of foreclosures so the banks would be okay-without acknowledging that that slowing-down meant encouraging people to run through their life savings and destroy their credit and then still lose their homes. But don’t worry; the banks are bigger now and I’m sure this time they won’t take risks requiring taxpayer bailouts, since that would cost them their credibility (not their bonuses, though).
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
From the hazel orbs files, this footnote from a recent copyright opinion about whether one romance novel infringed another might be of interest:
The parties debate the extent to which the heroines’ eyes “change color with their mood and emotions in critical scenes. (Merrick: ‘emerald flames at him’, ‘eyes darkening’).” Regardless of the degree of similarity of change, this is not truly a description of the characters. Their eyes do not literally change color depending on their moods. This is a literary device meant to express the well-known idea that one’s eyes can express thoughts or emotions. The expression of that idea - a shift in eye color reflecting a change in mood - is generic and not protectable.
Pat Conroy, My Reading Life: Memoirish book of reminiscences about books and literary people Conroy has known, in Conrad’s standard style, which is to say charmingly florid. I should probably just reread The Prince of Tides instead.
Neil Barofsky, Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street: Insider account of Barofsky’s time as inspector general for TARP within Treasury. Barofsky is really mad, and has reason to be given that the key decisionmakers only wanted to save banks, even when Congress had given them money explicitly to be used to help homeowners. He’s at his best explaining the perverse incentives that applied so that many people ended up worse off trying to get help from TARP, which Treasury then defined as existing to “foam the runway” for the banks and slow down the rate of foreclosures so the banks would be okay-without acknowledging that that slowing-down meant encouraging people to run through their life savings and destroy their credit and then still lose their homes. But don’t worry; the banks are bigger now and I’m sure this time they won’t take risks requiring taxpayer bailouts, since that would cost them their credibility (not their bonuses, though).
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.