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For some time now, Jonathan Lethem has been fostering his “promiscuous materials project” in which he makes available several of his writings for creative adaptation. He has several stories that can be adapted as short films, one-act plays, or other types of performance, as well as song lyrics that can be arranged however one sees fit.

Here’s Lethem’s thoughts about this:

I like art that comes from other art, and I like seeing my stories adapted into other forms. My writing has always been strongly sourced in other voices, and I’m a fan of adaptations, apropriations, collage, and sampling.

I recently explored some of these ideas in an essay [”the ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism”] for Harper’s Magazine. As I researched that essay I came more and more to believe that artists should ideally find ways to make material free and available for reuse. This project is a (first) attempt to make my own art practice reflect that belief.

My thinking along these lines has been strongly influenced by Open Source theory and the Free Culture movement, and by Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift.

This seems like it could lead to some good collaborate performance projects. A story could be adapted for a short film, and shot when several of us are together. Or adapted in a way that it has to be shot by several people separately and then edited together by someone else. We could use any of this stuff for some Thanksgiving projects, too. Or for making a group performance piece. Or for making a group piece to be performed by one person, or by several people individually in different locations.