With the passing of author J.D. Salinger on Wednesday, I’ve spent some time reading lengthy obits and stories about him. I’ve probably read The Catcher in The Rye at least four times in my adolescence and I think it’s safe to say that it’s definitely made an impression on my life.

In April 1972, the New York Times Magazine published an article called “An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life,” by Joyce Maynard. That article got her a lot of fan mail, including mail from Salinger, which developed into a long correspondence and eventually, a romantic relationship. I think it takes a good writer to make an great writer go “wow” so I looked up the article and man, was I totally into it. First of all, you read the title and think “an 18-year-old looks back on life? How much experience can an 18-year-old really have?” But her article was just so well written and defines an era which I think makes it a really important piece. I was completely entertained, and with beautiful sentences such as “…we were torn — wanting to run for shelter but tempted, also, to sing in the rain,” who wouldn’t be? It’s quite lengthy and I hate reading articles and long posts online because I find it annoying that I can’t hold it, bring closer, make marks in the margins and be able to feel the pages between my fingertips, but this article kept me scrolling. I actually copied and pasted the article into a word document and considered printing it out until I realized it would use up a dozen sheets of my precious printer paper. I don’t think I could ever jump into the virtual book craze for these very reasons but then again I thought it was completely insane when TV shows were starting to be released on DVDs and that people would actually spend their hard-earned money on them. I mean c’mon! You can watch them on TV! But yeah, we’re now owners of more TV series on DVDs than I’d like to admit. My first purchase was the box set of My So-Called Life…and I justified that because you actually couldn’t watch it on TV anymore.

So without further adieu, if you have some spare time, I suggest reading Maynard’s article: http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine/seventies1.html If anything, I think it will prompt you to reflect on trends and important milestones and news events that happened while you were growing up…and that’s always fun.

The Referendum by Tim Kreider: http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-referendum/

So thanks to flickr stats, Jeff found out that one of his images was used in an AOL Health article even though they didn’t contact him directly to ask for permission and even though it specifically states “All Rights Reserved” in the info of the image. I don’t think that it’s right that they did that without contacting him but at least they gave him photo credit and a link.

There was an article posted on PDN.com yesterday about a Twitter user taking Sky News to task for using his Twitpic photo without permission. The update on that is that they’re going to pay for the useage after all. Good for him!

From an article entitled “Why Your Blog Sucks” from sportsshooter.com, photographer Allen Murabayashi makes a good point to not resist distribution:

Pros have a love/hate relationship with image distribution, which stems from the historical belief that display should yield payment. But if you haven’t figured it out by now, people aren’t operating on the web under your rules. People are going to steal your images, so rather than resist, use it to your advantage. Since the web is so great at rapid information exchange, let your fans/thieves market for you by spreading your images around the web.

It’s always flattering at first. And then you get a little peeved that they didn’t ask. But hey, it’s free exposure. I guess.

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