Edison’s own last great con­tri­bu­tion was, per­versely, in dri­ving the indus­try west­ward, out of the grasp of his copy­rights and patents. Squat­ting toad­like on his rights, indeed, employ­ing a pri­vate force of rov­ing bully-enforcers, Edi­son more or less acci­den­tally routed the fugi­tive inno­va­tors to Cal­i­for­nia, beyond his reach. So the activ­i­ties that began flour­ish­ing there, at that coastal brink of Amer­i­can self-invention, were branded as per­ma­nently expe­di­ent and on the run, pirat­i­cally bold, and dri­ven by a geo­graph­i­cally renew­able inno­cence, like the nation itself. - Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edi­son and the lega­cies of early cin­ema (via Snarkmarket) (via faketv)