About a year ago I wrote a short short for a contest about a cop who killed his wife and then she, along with every other person who has ever lived, came back from the dead (in apparition form, not physical) and started wailing and confessing and moaning (etc.). The cop ends up being on a task force assigned to police the ‘returns’ and is trying to figure out how he can kill his wife again. The story is called “Stay Dead.” This weekend I saw a trailer for a new movie called ‘Stay’ in which people start coming back from the dead. I don’t know much about the premise, but it’s damned irritating when I have an idea and see some other wanker bring it to fruition. I know this movie’s storyline probably bears only distant similarity to mine, but this seems to happen a lot.
Case in point: Vertical Infinity is a concept I put together in 1996 and wrote a website for it. I used the number 8 to identify (obviously) the infinity symbol turned up on its end. I wrote a little about it and thought about making a tee shirt line using it. I updated the web page in 2001 and, last week, decided I was ready to update yet again and possibly even register the domain “verticalinfinity.com.” Well, guess what? The domain is registered already. I know this is not against the law and I know it’s no big deal to see even our own names registered, but a little more digging revealed that some band in Japan called TMRevolution has taken Vertical Infinity (and the 8) and made a song and album with that title. And worse, the music is garbage.
Maybe VI isn’t an absolutely original idea, but it’s another idea of mine that’s been waylaid to parts unknown. I’ll keep using it, because I’ve been using it for so long I feel I have the right to, and I won’t be buying any of TMRevolution’s CDs. But that’s about all the fuss I feel like making, and it’s probably all I have a right to make. Here’s to getting it done, one way or another, and to TMRevolution for making my concept more famous than it was before.
Through whining now.
If you liked that post, then try these...
World Building on April 4th, 2008
John Scalzi on November 9th, 2007
Irmth the Eleventh on May 23rd, 2008
Thinking about publishing online... on December 19th, 2007
Writing the Near Future on April 23rd, 2008
