The electric kool-aid Collins test
This is a test of the auto-embed video posting feature from the front page of the blog. I’m simply posting the URL of a video on YouTube to its own line, separated by spaces before and after, as detailed in the WordPress codex. (I think this will work in all browsers, with the possible exception of mobile devices. Please leave a comment if you are only seeing links and not the videos themselves.)
Sometimes I feel as if Billy Collins is looking down on me, and he’s not even dead yet!
That was the authorized video, an animation by Juan Delcan, part of a series of animated poems produced by JWT New York. It has been viewed 756,604 times on YouTube. But I much preferred the following unauthorized video montage by Lauren Adolfsen:
The Delcan animation is a very fine illustration of the poem, but with Adolfsen’s video, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not merely a poem video; it’s a videopoem.
Which do you you prefer?
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
Dave, you are utterly full of shit as usual. The second video is creepy and not at all what Collins intended to convey with his poem. Such blatant subversions of authorial intent are a good reason for the existence and enforcement of strict copyright laws. The remix culture of the web is a perversion of true, inspired creativity.
Oh, and talking to yourself isn’t creepy?
LOL!!
Let’s see… Juan Delcan had Collins’s permission to use his poem, the person who made the second one did not. Since the second doesn’t quite fit parody (of Collins– it’s parodying McDonald’s, and no doubt violating THAT copyright as well), there is no fair use claim to be had here. The second violates copyrights. And it’s not good, besides.
P.S. And Billy Collins isn’t even dead yet… he won’t be for a long time.
I don’t know. Seems like a pretty clear parody of Collins to me, though I wouldn’t want to litigate it. I’m sure McDonald’s would take a dim view of it! As for its value as art, you are of course entitled to your opinion.
Thanks for commenting.
Hmm, now the first video no longer appears. Wonder why?