It’s not every day that a news item reminds me of a Grateful Dead lyric, but this one does:
(NewsCore) – Facebook is one step closer to trademarking the word “Face,” TechCrunch reported Tuesday.
The U.S. Patent And Trademark Office has sent Facebook a Notice of Allowance, which means it will grant the “Face” trademark to the popular social networking site.
Sorry, but no matter what the lawyers say, I don’t think any longstanding English word should be owned.
But the whole thing does make this Dead lyric sound remarkably prophetic:
Like I told you
What I said
Steal your face
right off you head
I don’t know how others feel, but I refuse to surrender the word FACE. Next they’ll be wanting to own the letter F.
Can’t say we weren’t warned.
Yes, it’s a sad song.
(BTW, the “steal your face” lyric occurs twice, at 1:00 and 5:23.)
Comments
5 responses to “I saw you face thieves coming! So hands off my f-ing face!”
Smell of burning flesh and young girls trying on faces.
From the Digger Poem “There are no thieves, even your fears….”
My younger son used to have a speech impedement that made certain letters difficult. So at some point in the middle of a conversation, he said something about collecting “faces” (He meant vases.) We still tease him about growing up to steal people’s faces and mount them on the wall. At this point he’s evolved a whole story to go with it, including immitations of the expressions on the faces… 😛
Leaving us all as Billy Idol’s Les yeux sans visage – eyes without a face.
Sarah – do you ever read any Sheri Tepper? (No, don’t tell me about her politics – I’m well aware – but she’s a good writer.) The Search of Mavin Manyshaped, I think it was. Involved in the plot was guy who stole faces and mounted them on a pole to ask them questions. Mavin and her friends put an end to that – but your comment reminded me of the story.
I’ve read SOME Sheri Tepper, but not for many years now and not that story.
It’s not her politics. If I didn’t ignore people’s politics I wouldn’t read most of my colleagues. I just think she became a bit precious and involved — or I became sensitive to it — after a while. It’s possible it was me, I went after Tanith Lee at about the same time. OTOH it’s been a few years, so maybe I should try them again.
That one is out of the ‘True Game’ series – her early writing (before – and I agree – she got a bit ‘precious’).