SMILE Magazine and the Principle of Positive Plagiarism
SMILE was just the first of a whole new generation of
magazines promoting the principle of positive
plagiarism. Smile exists solely to encourage other people to take up this principle and to produce their own neo-plagiarist magazines. Call the magazine that you start SMILE because plagiarizing this name will give you a good start on the road to
copyright infringement, and I promise to take absolutely no legal action whatsoever against anyone who plagiarizes the title of the magazine. So now you have the title of your magazine and you're well on the way to becoming a successful plagiarist. In fact, all you need to do is to put your magazine into
production, and that is where the great advantages of plagiarism begin to show themselves. Plagiarism removes the need for
talent, or even much application, in the production of magazines or anything else for that matter. All you have to do is select what to plagiarize, do the layout and then find somewhere to get it printed cheaply. If you are not sure of what to plagiarize, a good place to start looking is in old copies of SMILE. You could even start by plagiarizing this article. A purist would plagiarize the whole piece verbatim, but you are free to change a word here or there, or place the paragraphs in a different order. A fine example of plagiarism inspired directly by the pioneering example of SMILE is SLIME. SLIME is even less original than SMILE and hence infinitely better.
-Monty Cantsin, 1975
Thoth, God of Plagiarism
Although he invented the entire literary process, the Egyptian god
Thoth has been virtually forgotten by readers today. As 'secretary' of the Egyptian
pantheon, he was commonly represented as an
ibis-headed man wearing horns and uraei plumes. He is thus embodied 'divine
intelligence introduced in some measure into animal form - the
human.'
Thoth (whose name means '
logos') made a tremendous contribution to
Egyptian
culture. The
Greeks identified him with
Hermes, and as such he was the reputed author of
hermetic literature in general.
Music,
astronomy and the
arts also numbered among his innovations. However, it is for the invention of
writing that his name survives today.
An exceedingly prolific author, Thoth dictated thousands of
books covering the entire spectrum of human endeavour. His huge output transformed the ancient world and ensured that the human race did not, at an early state in its development, 'die of
ignorance.'
Nowadays, he continues to find favour with a tiny circle of devotees, thanks at least partly to his plagiarist associations. The concept of
plagiarism, after all, is implicit in the concept of writing, and Thoth must therefore be regarded as the god of plagiarism, Lord of the plagiaristic process. It is for this reason that all future SMILE editions should be consecrated to his name.
Excerpt from SMILE Magazine, 1982