Cos-plagiarism

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Cause Plagiarism.

Samantha brings the case against her sister, Vanessa.

They regularly attend steampunk conventions together.

Several cons ago, Vanessa came up with the idea to use one of Samantha's dresses for a steampunk version of the Stephen King character Carrie, but she never made the costume.

For this year's steampunk Halloween convention, Samantha wants to use the dress and go as steampunk Carrie.

Vanessa says that since it's her idea, she should be able to do it.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

I am the sound of distant thunder, a color, a flame.

I'm Judge John Hodgman.

I am a song of endless wonder that no one will claim.

But someday, oh my, someday,

someone will know my name.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Samantha, Vanessa, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he goes to cons dressed as a steampunk version of his favorite characters from the 1970s television miniseries I Claudius?

Yes, yes.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

Thank you very much, and just in time for my Halloween costume idea.

Just put a couple gears on a bed sheet in your set.

That's all I need.

I just need to bash a clock apart and paste it to a toga.

Fantastic.

Maybe I'll do a like a laurel wreath made out of a bicycle chain.

Would that be steampunk?

Vanessa, Samantha, hold your tongues, please.

Answer that in a moment because I want to talk about what steampunk is and what it isn't.

But first, for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Samantha, why don't you go first?

What's your guess?

It sounds familiar, but I'm not really sure.

I'm going to guess maybe like a poem or something or like a lyric in Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree.

A poem or a lyric from Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree?

Yeah, I think there's a nursery rhyme in there somewhere.

All right.

I'm inscribing on the guess book.

I think you can tell from the tone of my voice that I've never heard of that thing.

And I thought I knew Ray Bradbury pretty well.

What is it?

It's a book.

Sorry, it's a Bacherfitz novella or a short story by Ray Bradbury that I read in high school and remember nothing about, except that it has Halloween in the title and a bunch of nursery rhymes.

Right, because while we are here in September, you, the listener, are there on October 31st, downloading this right now on Spooky Eve.

So maybe it's that.

Maybe it's, what would you call it again?

The Halloween tree?

All right, the Halloween tree.

H-tree, I'm writing down.

Guess one.

Now, for guess two.

Vanessa, what is your guess?

I am going to go with Carrie to the Rage because I did not recognize that.

And I was going to guess iClaudius, but you've been mentioning that a lot.

So I'm assuming you didn't also pick a quote from that.

I did not pick a quote from iClaudius.

I was wearing my iClaudius t-shirt.

that a listener was very kind to send to me.

And listener, I'm blanking on your name right now, and I do apologize, but it's it's a great t-shirt.

So you know who you are, and I say very dearly, thank you.

Judge Hodgman, could we get rich if we started selling t-shirts to say, I'm with Claudius?

The podcast, History of Rome, sells t-shirts that say, whatever it is, Livia did it.

That's pretty good.

And no offense to you, dear litigant, but that's not as good as I'm with Claudius.

That's pretty amazing.

I just offended a litigant to express my pleasure.

I apologize.

No worries.

I think we're going to have to put that as a t-shirt on the Judge John Hodgman merch page sometime soon.

I'm with Claudius.

Jennifer Marmor, make a note.

I'm with Claudius.

And by the way, and the answer is, Jesse, no, no way.

We are not getting rich on that.

But in any case, it is not I, Claudius.

It is not The Rage, Carrie 2, nor is it Halloween Tree by Ray Briary.

All the guesses are wrong.

Although, Vanessa, you were closest.

You know why?

Because you're the older sister.

You're smartest.

Am I wrong?

I wouldn't dispute that.

All right, good.

No, I mean, I think she's very intelligent.

Okay, good.

But as I said if you had to take another guess, knowing how close you got, what would your other guess be?

If it wasn't Carrie to the Rage, is it the most recent remake of Carrie?

Oh, so close.

One more time.

Let's say it together.

One, two, three.

Carrie the musical.

I did not know that was a thing.

Oh, my goodness.

And you want me to rule in your favor and let you be Clockwork Carrie.

I'm ashamed.

Carrie the Musical is one of the most famous Broadway flops of all time.

Came out in 1988.

It was co-created by one of the guys who created both the screenplay and co-wrote a lot of the songs for Footloose.

Big, big, big deal.

It had five performances.

They pulled the plug.

Sorry, I missed that one.

It was a benchmark modern flop of Broadway.

But it has enjoyed some revival lately.

There are a couple of off-Broadway and off-west end revivals, and I believe that some of the songs were featured in a recent episode of the TV show Riverdale, which is the Archie mature reimagining.

All right.

First of all, let me understand what's going on here.

You are sisters.

Vanessa, you are the older sister.

Is that correct?

Yes, six years older.

Okay, you don't have to brag about it.

Wasn't your choice.

Just happened to you.

And baby Samantha, do I guess correctly that you are six years younger?

I am.

I did the math.

And where do you guys live?

I live in Queens.

Vanessa lives in Westchester.

Oh, New York City.

Fantastic.

And you guys cosplay together or are you rival cosplayers?

Most of the time we're able to cosplay together.

In fact, a lot of the time she comes up with great ideas and I'm able to piggyback off of them.

And for the one listener who may not know what we're talking about, Samantha, would you describe what cosplay is and where it happens?

Sure.

Cosplay is when people dress up as a character from a comic book or a movie or anything and go attend an event in which people celebrate that type of media.

I don't know if what we do at steampunk is cosplay because it's just a lot of like nonspecific Victorian steampunk-y clothes.

That's true.

I wouldn't actually call steampunk cosplay.

So cosplay is you are actually dressing up as or interpreting an existing character from comics,

motion pictures, TV, whatever it is, a character that exists that you are dressing as.

Whereas steampunk as an aesthetic, Vanessa, since you are closer to this period of time, the Victorian era than your sister, perhaps you can explain what steampunk is to the one listener in my audience doesn't know.

I think the accepted definition is that it imagines a world in which steam power became the prevailing form of power in the world, but it also just kind of embraces the Victorian aesthetic and it's branched out over the past few years from like British stuff to any kind of

culture or aesthetic or scientific advance that was taking place during the reign of Queen Victoria anywhere in the world.

I saw a steampunk Jasmine at one of the last cons we went to.

Jasmine did a lot of the Disney Aladdin animated film.

Yep.

Right.

So it's applying like brass and iron work and retro technology

to

contemporary science fiction or other works of media that are not necessarily associated with Victorian era or leather top hats and goggles, right?

Would that be about right?

It's a mashup type of thing.

Yeah.

There's always a lot of panels, too, about Ottoman punk and Hellenistic punk and like other forms of imagining sci-fi in the past.

Hang on, I'm making a note.

What was the first punk and then what was the second punk that these panels are about?

I've actually overheard one person talk about it, but I think he called it Ottoman punk, which is Ottoman punk.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah.

Like the sick man of Europe, the Ottoman Empire.

Yeah.

And Hellenistic punk mostly revolves around those doors in the Temple of Alexandria.

Sorry, the House of Alexandria had these doors that opened by steam engine.

And so people play off of that.

It's a nerdy aesthetic surrounding doors.

Or just Hellenistic era aesthetic inspiration combined with modern technology.

You're talking about Iclaudius punk, exactly what we started with.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

There are a million punks in the world.

Let's focus on the one punk, steampunk, and this idea that is a cosplay idea because you are acting as a different character.

John, I think of myself as less steampunk and more steam hardcore.

I'm more steam post-punk.

So it's like

elements of new wave, a little angularity.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's like the pixies played on an organ grinder

with a monkey, Doolittle.

I brought it around.

There we go.

All right.

But you're talking about cosplay in the steampunk interpretation of Carrie from Stephen King.

Now, Vanessa, I have here in the affidavit, this was your idea?

Yes.

All right.

Tell me about your idea for a steampunk interpretation of Carrie.

Where were you going to wear this costume?

What inspired you?

And what was it going to look like?

Because you haven't done it yet.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Every time we go to steampunk, I kind of come up with like ideas and inspiration from like people I see there.

And I have always wanted to actually do a steampunk cosplay where I'm reinterpreting a character.

And so I was thinking about different characters that I like or that I think are easily recognizable when translated into another era.

And I thought of

Carrie, but I'd always assumed it would be more appropriate for something in the fall.

We've only ever done these kinds of things in the spring.

So,

you you know, I just had this like picture in my head of like the pink dress, but it would be more of like a Victorian inspired with a bustle and everything.

And she would still have like a tiara, but it would be, you know, more of a Victorian looking tiara and the sash.

And then obviously a whole bunch of blood.

Right.

How are you going to reinterpret the blood for steampunk?

I think it'll still be blood.

Would it be in sepia tone blood?

Oh, that's interesting.

Unfortunately, I've never made my own blood.

I've only ever used theatrical blood, and it does tend to come in just red, but that might be something to wait a minute vanessa i don't want you you have made your own blood you've made a lot of your own blood

or else this truly is a spooky halloween tale

luckily you're keeping most of it in your own body yeah no no decorative blood okay gotcha okay so vanessa you had this idea and then you did not execute the idea is that right no i did not honestly i'd forgotten about this dress that samantha has um it's been sitting in the back of the closet for many years now most of what i do is just just go to thrift stores or discount racks at like

TJ Maxx or something like that and kind of find pieces that I think will look appropriate and then repurpose them as needed.

So I actually looked around.

I kept my eyes open for, you know, something that I thought looked old-fashioned in a pink shade that would work.

Never really found anything and then was digging through the closet and found this dress.

Can I object?

Samantha, I will allow it.

I actually very distinctly remember the conversation when she first came up with the idea and she said, you mentioned the dress the first time you mentioned it, did I?

Yeah, you definitely did.

Oh.

Yeah.

So the dress is kind of integral to this project.

Well, okay.

I forgot that.

I'm not really sure how the discovery of the dress is germane here.

Let me just make sure I understand.

So you had this idea.

You're going to thrift stores.

You're going to TJ Maxx.

You've never found the perfect steampunk carry dress, but all of a sudden you went into the back of Samantha's closet and found the perfect dress.

Is that your contention, Vanessa?

That's the memory I have in my head, but you know, it could be wrong.

Stand by.

Now, Samantha, do you dispute this because it is your argument that it was the discovery of the dress that sparked the idea?

That is how I remember it, but it is possible that she was thinking about this before the steampunk convention and just mentioned it to me after she had already found the dress.

The idea definitely predated the dress.

Okay,

that's possible.

Okay, we'll stipulate that the idea predated the dress.

Samantha, you just succumbed to your older sister's bullying.

If I had been your attorney, I would have counseled you to say, I am not privy to my sister's inner mind, but to the best of my knowledge, my dress inspired the idea.

Because there's no way for me to prove that you were lying.

And that would have been a very important part of your case.

Because you want now to take the dress and do it.

You want to do it yourself,

be steampunk hairy, and Vanessa, your older sister, is like, no, it was my idea.

You can't, even though it's your dress.

Is that not true, Samantha?

Sure.

I mean, you want to do it, right?

I do want to do it, yes.

Why should you have the right to be Steampunk Carry?

For one thing, I bought this dress for a different convention to be Joanna from Sweeney Todd, and I never got to go to that convention.

So I've actually never gotten to use this dress that, if we pour blood all over, we'll be ruined.

Also, Vanessa has a lot of very good ideas, and I'm not as good at coming up with them as she is, so

she'll think of something else that's cool.

And I also maintain that there should be a statute of limitations on ideas where if you don't use it for two years, somebody else gets to do it.

And how long ago has Steampunk Carry been lingering in the back of your closet, never executed?

I think about two or three conventions ago.

Could you use a measure of time that is more conventional?

Two years ago, probably.

Thank you.

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welcome back court is back in session let's get back to the courtroom for more justice

vanessa how do you respond to the contention that you have given up on this idea you have abandoned it to the back of Samantha's closet.

It was not abandoned.

I just had nowhere appropriate to wear it.

So, you know, it's hard to show up someplace in a steampunk carry costume if the occasion doesn't call for it.

Also, I do object, she has many, many good ideas of her own.

Well, that is very nice of you to be a big sister and acknowledge that your little sister is even human.

That's very good.

She also has several ideas that she has not executed as well.

Oh, really?

Like what?

There is a Demona from Gargoyles costume langering in her closet as well that has never gotten past the design stage, but she did acquire.

I don't know about any Demona from Gargoyles.

You mean that cartoon?

Yeah.

No, not as good as Steampunk Carry.

Next.

The other was...

Also,

I abandoned that because I made the frame for the wings, and they were really, really heavy and hard to carry around all day.

Yeah, but you never tried to troubleshoot.

The other was a steampunk version of...

Wow.

That is some grade A big sistering.

Go on.

There was a steampunk version of the monster Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth that she actually got all the way to a con

and there was a problem with it at the last minute.

It didn't hold together well enough and she never troubleshooted that one either.

And so that one has never seen a public display.

Now Pale Man is that the scary thing with the eyes in its hands?

Yeah, I got some doll eyes and I glued them to these like chains and I made these like wrist amulet things and then I just wrapped my body and my eyes in bandages.

That's terrifying.

So how did it not work?

You got to the steam operated doors of the con and what happened?

I think one of the eyes fell out of the gauntlets and I was worried it wouldn't be recognizable.

They were hard to maneuver in.

Actually, like to use your hands during the day.

Yeah, you can't be Pale Man with just one hand eye.

Yeah.

You got to have hand-eye coordination.

Thank you, Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

I don't like to use a sports metaphor, but I teed that up for you.

You both sent in evidence, and

I want to draw our listeners' attention to the rather large album of incredible images that we will feature on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfun.org.

And of course, also on our Instagram at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman of the many, many, many co-cosplaying and dress-up events that Samantha and Vanessa did.

Here you guys are as the creepy twins from The Shining.

You look horrifying.

We won a prize.

Yeah, I'll give you a prize.

My beating heart that just jumped out of my mouth.

You look scared.

Good job.

Who here is being John Hurt from Alien with the alien chest bursting out?

That's me, Vanessa.

That's Vanessa, with Samantha dressed up as a Star Trek TNG, a security officer, shooting a phaser at you.

Yeah, I'm actually Data there.

I got the contacts and the makeup on.

You just can't see it because of my hair.

Oh, fantastic.

Data is shooting John Hurt from Alien.

I love it.

Here's some real steampunk now.

This is you guys, arm in arm.

Who's wearing the black hat with the goggles on top?

A classic steampunk accoutrement?

It could actually be either of us.

But in this photo.

Who's taller?

Do you guys trade mines?

We trade clothes.

Okay.

For steampunk.

Taller and with glasses.

She's taller than I am.

Samantha's taller.

Samantha, are you wearing that?

You have glasses and you're taller?

You're taller.

Yep.

Okay.

So Samantha is all duded up in a black top hat with goggles, which are not going to fit over your glasses, I'm afraid.

That's a problem.

And then Vanessa, are you the shorter person in the white dress in this photo?

This outdoor photo?

Yes, that's me.

And here is another image of you in the dress.

This time you're wearing a top hat with a cane, and your sister, Samantha, has a Roman gladiator hat on.

Is this some Hellenistic punk or Romanesque punk?

That was the goal.

Here is Vanessa as

Ash from Army of Darkness with a fake chainsaw in your hand.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Let's get to the dress in question.

This is the pink Victorian dress that is in contention.

And it looks good.

It looks like a good pink dress.

Now, I gotta be honest with you, Vanessa and Samantha.

Nothing about this dress necessarily screams steampunk carry to me.

It's hard to read without someone wearing it, but it does look, you know, more Victorian when it's on.

And then,

you know, they think the blood would definitely make the look.

Yeah, and they actually, I was just re-watching House of Mirth and Edwardian era.

They do wear a lot of tiaras and sashes and stuff like that.

So it's pretty easy to take the Carrie elements and make them Victorian.

Right, but it's not, I'm trying to look at the original image, like the iconic image from Carrie.

Look, folks, if you haven't seen Carrie and you're a grown-up, Brian DePalma's film of the Stephen King novel, Carrie, is a great movie.

Iconic, iconic imagery of a young woman who was raised in a very, very sheltered life and is considered to be a real weirdo at school, in part because

she has telekinesis and doesn't know it yet.

And then she gets horribly bullied, and then she gets taken to the prom as kind of a prank, but she thinks she's going for real, and it's the happiest night of her life, and then it turns into the worst night of her life, which she makes the worst night of everybody's lives because of the telekinesis that she has.

And at some point, she gets covered in blood.

It's a classic steampunk fairy tale.

Then later, my cool English teacher shows it to me in high school.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something.

If you are an adult and you remember this movie being great, be careful who you show it to.

If you don't want to be fired from your job

or if you don't want a very uncomfortable moment with your own teenage daughter.

I happen to be traveling with my daughter.

Carrie was available in the hotel.

I'm like, we should watch this.

You'd love it.

And the whole opening montage is

perfectly appropriate for an urbane 16-year-old to watch, but not with a parent in the room.

It's just too uncomfortable.

Yeah.

I'll leave it at that.

And if you're a kid, grow up a little bit before you see this one.

It's heavy.

It's a heavy one.

So

do you have a specific date when you want to wear this thing, Samantha?

Yeah, for the steampunk in the Catskills Halloween event that we're going to, I think, the second week of October.

I see.

And Vanessa, you want me to prohibit your sister from doing this on principle or because you actually finally want to pull the trigger and douse yourself in blood and go and do it?

Yes, I was hoping to wear steampunk carry to this event.

I think that we should just stipulate now that given that it's for the steampunk in the cat skills Halloween event, whoever wins gets to wear the Carrie dress and whoever loses goes as steampunk Jackie Mason.

You know, Jesse Thorne presents a reasonable solution.

There are a lot of other ideas out there.

And Vanessa, your sister, Samantha, claims you're the ideal woman in this duo.

Isn't there something else you could come up with?

There is.

I've been like...

sort of brainstorming contingency plans in case this doesn't go my way.

But I, again, I think she has plenty of good ideas of her own.

She came up with Paleman.

She came up with Legolas on her own.

And I was hoping to finally, you know, she's always kind of making fun of me that I never get around to doing it.

And I thought, here I finally have my chance.

But was this a situation where you had put it off for a long time?

And then your sister said, you know, I think I'm going to do that.

And you're like, no, now I'm going to do it.

No,

what happened was we were...

I'll accept Samantha's yes for that.

No, we were going to the steampunk in the Catskills Halloween party, and she texts me and says, Hey, do you mind if I do steampunk, Carrie?

Since it's my dress.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's how I phrased it.

Yeah, right.

And then you hadn't been thinking about it for a long time.

You had basically given up the idea.

You had never gotten around to it.

And all of a sudden, your big sister Jean kicked in and you said, no, you may not do that.

It would cost me nothing to allow you to do that.

And that's why I'm definitely going to prohibit you from doing it.

Is that not right, big sister?

No, no, it's really not the impulse.

Are you Carrie, or are you really Chris?

Chris is the vengeful mean girl in the movie and the book, just so you know, people who are listening.

You know, we really love each other, so neither of us wants to make the other one unhappy.

So it's kind of been a stalemate of, I don't want to do something that will make you unhappy, but I really want to do this.

Yeah, that's basically what we've been going back and forth with.

Samantha, are you and Vanessa in the same studio?

Like, can you see each other?

Yes.

All right.

What I want you to do

is I want you to pretend that your big sister isn't there.

I want you to pretend it's just

me and you and Bailiff Jesse Thorne in the courtroom right now.

So you will feel absolutely free to tell the truth.

And Vanessa, when Samantha answers me truthfully here, I don't want you making any signals to her.

Like you're gonna get it later.

I don't want you drawing your your finger across your neck to let her know.

Absolutely not.

Samantha, you are under fake oath.

Which one of you would be the better steampunk carry and why?

I would definitely do a better job.

And I think she would agree with that because she has a bad habit of not being able to not smile in her photos, even when she's supposed to look scary or like she's being murdered.

You sent in the evidence of the chest burster as an example.

Yeah.

It's true, though, Vanessa, that when you are cosplaying as Kane, John Hurt's character, when

you may notice, you may remember from that most terrifying scene in Alien when John Hurt has the alien coming out of his body, that John Hurt's acting decision is to not smile like it's fun.

And yet in this photo, you are smiling like it's fun.

It's true.

I have a very hard time because I'm just enjoying myself and my natural inclination is to smile, but I have been working on it.

And I also don't feel that that is.

I can hear you smiling right now through the interview.

I don't feel that that's a legitimate reason why I shouldn't get to be the idea that I came up with.

You don't think that just because one comedian thinks he tells the joke better, it's okay for him to steal a joke from another comedian?

The classic excuse for comedy plagiarism?

I just don't think that my ability to pose should

disqualify me.

Samantha?

Who would be better at costuming?

That is to say, creating the costume?

What would you do to this pink dress to steampunk it up?

And how would you solve the blood problem?

I was also going to go with like corn syrup or store-bought blood.

I was pinteresting a couple of images of the Empress Alexandra, because she wears a lot of tiaras and Victorian dresses and sometimes has this sash thing.

And looking at some DIY bustle tutorials, and I was going to get a different corset off of the Amazon, a pink one, and then put some of the trimming from the existing corset onto that one to give it a little bit so I'd have a corset with more structure, but where like the shoulders are still covered, so it looks more like Victorian.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, make a note in the history of the court.

Today was the first day we heard the term DIY bustle tutorials.

I had my money on it happening sometime in 2020, but it got in there early.

Thank you very much.

Judge Hodgman, all I can say is thank you.

You can pay me after the show.

Oh, gosh darn it.

Before I make my decision about who has the right to be Steampunk Harry at the Catskills Steampunk con, which sounds like it's a lot of fun.

Judge Hodgman, can we go together, you and I?

Yeah.

You be steampunk Burns and I'll be steampunk Alan.

I want to be steampunk Charlie McCarthy and you be steampunk Edgar Bergen.

Is that not cat skilly enough?

I think it's scary.

That's what I'm going for.

I'll be steampunk Fibber McGee and you'd be steampunk Molly.

Oh, don't open that steampunk closet.

That joke is for my friend Larry Wilmore.

All right, before I decide who has the rights to be steampunk Carrie, I want you both to answer this question and I want you to prepare, give us some thought.

Here's my concern.

Carrie,

sissy space, wearing a dress drenched in blood, iconic image of cinema and horror in general.

It's a great, great costume.

Once that pink dress is drenched in blood, no one's going to see that it's even a pink dress.

And my concern is

that all of the steampunkness will just be obliterated by the blood, and you'll just be regular carry.

I'm also concerned that the more steampunky you make it in order for it to read steampunk, even under a bath of blood, the less it's going to read as carry.

How are you going to make it both identifiably steampunk and identifiably carry?

You each have a chance to present your solution.

So make it work.

Samantha, go.

So this hurts my case a little bit, but Vanessa is actually very good at making this Edwardian-style hairdo that reads very Gibson girl and is very Victorian.

And if she did that with a crown, it would definitely read as Victorian.

Yeah, but it's going to be covered in blood.

No one's going to be able to see the intricate braiding or whatever it is.

It's going to be blood.

I will say, I have had several costumes in the past that also involved a lot of blood spatter.

So I've actually gotten reasonably good at, you know, applying it decoratively so that it's in the right places and it looks natural, but it doesn't also, you know, conceal anything that I need to be seen in the costume.

Aside from being covered in blood, what to you reads as Carrie?

What are you going to be holding?

It would definitely be the tiara and the prom queen sash.

The prom queen sash is an anachronism, but Steampunk kind of embraces that sometimes.

Yeah, I would say so.

I don't think anyone ever wore a top hat with goggles on it in history ever.

I was going to look up if they had any kind of like

pageants or anything in the era where you would be awarded something like that and then, you know, put that on the sash itself.

So like, you know, something princess

1896 or whatever.

Yeah.

I think nobility definitely did wear sashes sometimes.

And then, yeah, the, you know, the hair and the uh would be all Victorian inspired.

And it would just be taking a formal dress that Carrie wears, like a modern-day formal dress, in that memorable pink and translating it into a Victorian evening dress.

I have to say, Samantha, Vanessa does seem to have more of a strategy than you presented.

I also have appropriate footwear.

Who was that?

Was that Vanessa?

Yes.

What was the appropriate footwear?

I have a pair of pink, sort of Victorian-looking kid boots.

Like ankle boots.

Usually, the person who has the appropriate footwear gets to make the decisions in life.

I don't know.

I'm going to go immerse myself in my own vat of pig's blood and do some meditating in my chambers, and I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Samantha, how are you feeling about your chances in the case?

I'm not sure, honestly.

I think we would both be pretty good steampunk's carries, though, and if this fails, I'll just be regular carry for Halloween.

So

it'll balance out.

Vanessa, how are you feeling?

I also am really uncertain.

I feel like possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that is a, you know, important statute to remember, but it's my idea.

I really wanted to do it.

The dress is also in your house, so.

This question is for both of you.

Can you just be steampunk anything?

Like, could I be

steampunk baseball's hit king Pete Rose?

Sure, sure.

Steampunk an airplane?

Um, yeah, why not?

I mean, probably.

We actually, I think my favorite couple we saw was a man and a woman dressed as a beekeeper and a bee.

Oh, they were adorable.

They, so they were this older couple dressed as a steampunk beekeeper, and she was as a steampunk bee.

So

it's hard to describe, but it was a delightful visual.

It was.

Was the bee steampunk in some way?

It was.

She was wearing a black

dress with yellow accents with a bustle, and I think the bustle actually incorporated a stinger.

Yeah.

It was very charming.

Did he subdue her using a canister of steam?

He had a bug net, and he did have some steampunk-looking garden apparatus.

Like a steampunk garden weasel?

It's like the thing that Marlon Brando used in The Godfather when he's weeding his tomatoes or like just something

like a little pump and you like spray stuff out of it.

Awesome.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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The wizards answer eight by eight.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So I have to myself reveal a little bit of deception, a little bit of trickery, a little bit of Halloween mischief as I present my verdict.

Because the truth is, I have ruled on this case already.

I received the petition from Vanessa and Samantha some time ago.

And as some of you may know, I do a little column net, a Judge John Hodgman Column Nella.

for the New York Times Magazine.

And I felt very strongly about who was right and who was wrong.

And I wrote it up for the New York Times magazine back in July.

But I did want to talk to these sisters because they sounded fascinating.

And I wanted to hear more about their costumes and their lives as

steampunkers and cosplayers and so on.

And I've enjoyed that very much.

And I asked you to ignore that issue of the New York Times magazine so you would not know my ruling in advance.

Did you adhere to my orders?

I did.

I actually didn't realize that it was in the magazine.

So me neither.

Yeah, good.

Well,

once again, the New York Times magazine proves easy to ignore.

Well done.

Sorry, everyone.

Don't ignore the New York Times magazine.

A lot of people are working to make a really great magazine over there at the New York Times magazine department, and I love writing for them.

And you can check out a little short verdict for me every week that almost never overlaps with this podcast.

It's always a fresh new thing in the New York Times magazine, except for this one case.

Now, that said, even though I had a strong feeling of who was right and who was wrong, okay,

I kept an open mind for this case because there are complications here that nuances that I needed to hear about.

There is no question about the provenance of the idea, nor is there any dispute now between the sisters over whether the idea came before the dress or after the dress.

The idea precedes the dress, and there is no dispute over the provenance of the dress.

It is Samantha's, it belongs to hers, and Vanessa would like to use it for this particular costume.

You know, cosplay is half about craft, making costumes,

which is an incredible art form unto itself, and then half about concept, coming up with a funny, interesting idea.

There are a lot of great ideas in the world.

Steampunk jughead, steampunk bazooka joe,

a t-shirt that says, I'm with Claudius.

These are all ideas.

As many great ideas as there are in the world.

Only a few ideas just like really click, really great ideas.

And there was just something about steampunk carry that was like, yeah, that is one you want to hold on to.

And frankly, in this world, ideas are scarcer than dresses.

There is no question that you could find eventually another dress that would serve the steampunk carry aesthetic that you have in mind, Vanessa.

The idea is the thing that is valuable.

That is why we have copyright.

That is why we have trademarks.

That is why we have protections for intellectual intellectual property.

And the question here is, was the idea abandoned long enough that it has de facto entered the public domain?

And I would say no on two counts.

One,

because it has not been 75 years,

unless you're immortal time travelers or something, and you've never produced blood, and you're ghosts.

who live in a different time frame than we do.

And two, because if we even think of it as a trademark, you know, the measure by which a trademark is maintained as legal exclusive property, and this is not exactly a trademark issue, but an idea issue, but still, the person who has established the trademark, the identity, the intellectual property, if someone attempts to imitate it, it is the onus on the owner of the trademark to defend it in court, and that's what's happening right now.

If Vanessa had abandoned the idea, and when you took it, Samantha, and she didn't fight back, then you would know, then you would know that it's okay for you to take it.

And the fact is, you could have taken it easily.

It's the same thing as getting soda water from a fountain in a fast food joint.

Is it okay to get free soda water?

Ask them if they mind if you do it rather than come to me, Judge John Hodgman, and do an end run around the manager of a fast food operation to get free soda water because you're afraid to ask because you know they probably will say, No, thank you, don't do that.

In this case, you asked your sister, she said, No, thank you, don't do that.

I'm not going to rule against your sister.

It was her idea.

Come on, come on.

That's fair.

In my initial verdict in the New York Times magazine, I presented a solution that to me seemed elegant and wise.

Vanessa gets to be steampunk Carrie.

Samantha is steampunk William Catt, the actor from Carrie who takes her to the prom in that powder blue tuxedo.

That powder blue tuxedo is dying to have a steampunk interpretation.

And then you could get the top hat and the goggles in a powder blue version.

I would do that.

And everyone will know.

Everyone will know.

Oh, that's Carrie, and it's steampunk.

Because if it's just steampunk Carrie wandering around under blood from a distance, someone's just going to say, that lady's covered in blood.

But you see, powder blue William Cat, her half-nice, half-mean date,

forget it.

Steampunk all the way.

That's solution one.

I'm revising my solution.

New solution.

This is the new evidence that was brought here to me today.

Vanessa, you can't laugh when you got blood all over you.

That's not Carrie.

You can smile and laugh pre-blood.

Once that blood is on, you got to be like Samantha.

You got to be in character, eyes wide open, just causing doors to fly open into people's faces.

Mad, revenge.

That's what that's got to happen.

You know, this is sort of split the baby, which is a topic for another Halloween.

But I'm saying Samantha probably would be better steampunk carry with blood.

Vanessa would be better steampunk carry before blood, smiling and happy.

Then you guys can revive the creepy twins and the whole thing.

And all you have to do is stand back to back the entire time and then just spin around from time to time.

I thought that was a better solution, but now that I've talked it out, it's not.

The William Cat Powder Blue Steampunk Tuxedo solution is the better one.

Do that.

I stand by my original verdict.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the court.

Vanessa, how do you feel?

I'm excited to do and see her do steampunk

Carrie's date.

I think that's going to be an awesome look on her.

Yeah, I totally have the hair for that.

I was just going to say that.

Samantha, Vanessa, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

It was great to have you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

Before we dispense our swift justice, we want to thank Caroline Barba for naming this week's episode.

If you'd like to name a future episode, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we put out our calls for submissions there.

You can also follow us on Twitter.

In fact, I insist that you do.

at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H O

and check out the Max Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to chat about this week's episode.

This week's episode recorded by Robert Au at the studios of the Radio Foundation in New York.

Our producer is the one and only Ms.

Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with quick judgment.

This one's from Jenny.

Ready, Judge?

I am ready.

I think my husband should choose eyeglasses I like since I see them more.

Stay with us, Bailiff Jesse.

I know where this is going to.

I think my husband should choose eyeglasses I like since I see them more often than he does.

He prefers to pick eyeglasses that he likes, which are pretty much the definition of eyeglasses that I hate to see him in.

How wrong is he?

I have to admire Jenny's argument.

It is true that I almost never see my glasses when I'm walking out in the world, except when I'm looking in a mirror, checking out how good my taste is, or at least how suitable my taste is for my own face.

Jenny, no.

The rule is, if it's on your body, you get to choose what it is.

You get to choose your own underwear.

You get to choose your own shirts.

You get to choose your own glasses.

Now I get it.

Your husband probably has terrible taste.

I get it.

But you understand that bullying him into wearing glasses that you like better is just going to create a horrible feedback loop in your relationship.

Because he will double down on his decisions in order to feel like a grown-up and not feel like mommy is telling him what to do and what to wear.

What you need is a third party.

You need to go glasses shopping with him.

You need to find someone at the glasses shop who has got good taste, who can tell him those glasses are much too narrow for your face or too huge for your cheeks or whatever it is.

And let someone else guide him to better taste.

Unless he's got great taste.

I mean, I don't know.

He didn't send in a picture.

He might look great.

But he does see his glasses.

He sees them in the mirror when he contemplates who he wants to present to the world.

And you're perfectly welcome to say, I don't think those look good on you or they're not my favorite.

I mean, if he asks.

But if he's not asking, leave it alone.

And by the way, dude, don't wear those glasses.

that Spider, what's his name, wears in Transmetropolitan, the comic book.

That's not cool.

Understated.

This is the way you want to go.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho or email us at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No cases too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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