July 29, 2021: Things Past -

There’s an Irish bar in Portland where a group of James Joyce fans used to meet one night a week, to work through Ulysses – ten pages a week, bounteous amounts of Guinness, then back to the beginning. I have mildly fantasized about joining this group when and if the time comes. I have actually read Ulysses, once, but it would be fun to do it with some Ulysses Buddies.

Speaking of Buddies, I paused (let’s not say “gave up”) on Remembrance of Things Past, because it came due at the library and I returned it. Also because it would have been so much better to be reading it with someone. (Even Ulysses, I read for a class, and got to discuss with other folks.) To everyone who made it only as far as the madeleine scene, I want to say, I made it past page 146, where we find out why Volume 1 is called “Swann’s Way.” Yes, you could find that in Wikipedia, but I made it there on foot, as it were.

A couple of weeks ago, when I said I was giving Proust a go, several friends said they had tried and given up, or they had always meant to try someday, and I suggested we become Proust Buddies. Nobody signed up, but I did ask my daughter, who does trademark and copyright law, if I could trademark Proust Buddies for a book group, and she said no. Here’s the deal (apologies if I am mangling this).

Trademarks can’t be descriptive. If you are reading Proust with your buddies, that describes precisely what you are doing, and it can’t be trademarked. Suppose (you will think of a better example), you make hair bows. You can’t trademark Hair Bows, because that’s what they ARE. Everybody who makes hair bows makes Hair Bows. You can’t grab it for yourself.

So I said Wait! What if I had a little chain of bakeries that made madeleines (the cookies), and I called my madeleines “Proust Buddies?” Is that okay?

That is okay. And in response, my daughter suggested I might call my reading group The Madeleines. I said it might be hard on the men (in the nonexistent group), and she said, “Get better men.”

The no-descriptive-trademarks rule is, by the bye, why you sometimes see terrible misspelled names for things, such as ProostBuddeez™. I asked if I could use ProostBuddeez™ for my fantasy book group, and she said No.

I don’t believe this was legal advice. I think this was her own good taste, plus a bit Mom, pleeze….