the word studio notebook

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All right, we get it. Your life is beautiful. Your life takes place in picturesque urban and rural settings. You eat lovely breakfasts on weathered tables adorned with cloth napkins and perfectly chipped plates. You eat at the local dive where the poutine comes in a paper basket with a checkered sheet of paper underneath. That dessert is a delight, not only to eat but to look at. The glass sweats just so.

Yes, we all see it. Your GIF does not just move but is moving. We saw that episode of Parks & Rec, same as you. The words read as witty but the image reads as sweet, like a salty dessert that intrigues the tongue. We right-clicked and saved that saturated image of the funny dog being funny, too. That dog thinks he’s people. So do we.

That picture of you, looking happy, maybe, or looking like you do not give a fuck, is gratuitous. Also, important. You be you.

That picture of the boy you like, the girl you like, the celebrity you like, that picture reaches out like a languid bolt trying to form an arc. It’s an audible, visual sigh.

It’s clear now.

You give us definitions, new definitions, using old words, of things that are everywhere and familiar, things that we feel and do. We feel what you feel.

You put words on pictures, song lyrics, sometimes, and aphorisms, playing with type to make old clichés talk new again.

You are naked on the Internet, naked and splendid, true and mysterious, talking with your arms, singing with your eyes, becoming part of the light and the room. Then, some nights, you write it all out, speaking of fear and lust—lust for a starship captain—and everyone’s there with you for 400 words or so.

You capitalize some words, whole words, so they bang like bass, marking the rhythm of your oration, sticking your jokes in our memory like you were hanging ornaments on a tree.

You paint with ink, faces appearing in the brush strokes, emerging like replicants from the rain, each one’s feelings contained, locked up, except at the eyes, the smoldering eyes.

You draw beautiful drawings on your computer and animate them just so, just so they breathe, just so we know that you’re alive, we’re alive, we’re all alive.

You’re funny. We know that. You’re funny and your friends are funny and taken together you’re all funny and talented. It’s all sharks and sandwiches and Sparks McGee all the way down, down to the roots, where the serpent that circles the world is a cat jumping into a box and out again.

And yes, you’re Neil Gaiman and you’re brilliant and kind and generous and loving and measured and charming.

You, all of you, are traveling to the place we miss or you live in the place we’ve loved. That song takes you back. That video makes you laugh. You are young or young again. You are glad or sad again. You think this thing is beautiful or you think we might think it’s beautiful. We’re alone but at least we’re not alone. 

We get it.

Whatever else you do, don’t stop. Do not stop it. Do not stop.

Dear Representative,

(A version of the letter I sent out today:)

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. My name is Will Hindmarch. I’m a Chicagoan, a writer, a designer, and a game developer. I have worked, both on salary and freelance, for companies that make their living on homemade and licensed IPs. I have seen my work appear without my permission on websites I don’t approve of, circulated without consent by media pirates.

The PROTECT IP Act and its cousin, SOPA, are gross and blunt reactions to the issue of media piracy. The Internet is a medium of ideas. Censoring the Internet—without due process for those labeled as violators of copyright—hinders ideas. These bills stymie innovation, choke a burgeoning creative culture, hinder American expression and fair use, and put the power to combat piracy into the hands least adapted to understand and parse the Internet. It rewards those who are slowest to adapt to a new-media frontier at the expense of pioneers and visionary artists. 

The blatant copying of art for sale, or even to bypass sales, is a problem. Thwarting or preventing new art, new speech, and supportive and passionate fandom is too high a price to pay to combat that problem. Piracy cannot be eradicated any more than theft and fraud have been eradicated. We can’t even agree on the actual damages done by online piracy. Let’s put away the big guns and pull out the magnifying glasses. We must learn what piracy is and does and how to thrive in an era where it can, at best, be minimized.

This is a complex issue that calls for spirited debate and nuance. It’s a matter of vision and creativity. The future of our culture is here already and it’s online.

Please do not support the PROTECT IP Act. Good bills and good laws may yet be composed to minimize the damage done by Internet piracy. Good bills and good laws may be able to help IP creators and developers adapt to the new market, the new audience, the new world. The PROTECT IP Act is not such a bill.

Thank you for your time.