I found some interesting trivia. The Barbra Streisand rose wasn't named for Barbra to honor her. She actually commissioned it, paying for it to be bred and named after her. Here's what she had to say about it:

"It had to be very healthy, a disease-resistant rose. It had to have fabulous fragrance and the color had to be - I'm very particular: There's not an orange thing in my house or in my garden. If this rose is in bloom, it's lavender. And as it blossoms, it actually goes through many colors, like a chameleon, which represents me in a sense, because I have a lot of facets to my personality."

That sounds typical!

It is the epitome of "clueless braggart," isn't it? Who thinks that having a lot of personality facets is cause for bragging and who's clueless enough not to know that all people have many facets to their personality?

Too focused on herself to even be aware of others, I suspect.

That Picasso story sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I looked through my rose books and found it in one that I had devoured with such enthusiasm and speed that I apparently didn't retain enough of the information in my mind.

When Mike was here last year, he gave me a great book for my birthday, "A Rose by Any Other Name," by Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello. It's full of fascinating tidbits about rose names. Anyway, according to those authors, Picasso didn't really want to be paid for having the rose named after him. What happened was that Sam McGredy wanted to name the rose "Picasso" and wrote to Picasso to ask him for a signed letter of permission, because he needed to show it to the patent office. Picasso refused, saying that his autograph was worth $10,000 on the international market and he didn't want to give it away. His manager signed the letter of permission instead. It's still a good story, but not quite as smarmy as the first one.

So McGredy was registering Picasso as a trademark? I guess you would need permission to do that. Still, I think Picasso was at least as savvy at PR and self promotion as he was at art - which is saying a lot.

Recall that at the time $10,000 was a year's salary for a middle class American. Not a bad fee for signing your name.

Does the ARS require personal permission for roses to be registered after living persons, I wonder? What are the legal implications of naming a rose after a famous person without getting their consent? Surely I could name a rose Aunt Millie and register it with the ARS without any further ado.

Unless Aunt Millie had copyrighted her name. I don't think McGredy was trying to register Picasso as a trademark. I think the reason he needed the letter for the patent office is that Picasso had copyrighted his name.

Of course it's just an academic question. I don't have an aunt named Millie. And I'm not planning to name a rose after anyone who is famous.

I don't think it is possible to copyright a name any more than it is possible to copyright the title of a work. I also don't think that famous people even today actually register their names as trademarks - not even the ones with made up names like Sting. My understanding is that if they did, in order for the trademark to be completely enforceable, they'd have to reproduce the little TM symbol next to their name everywhere it is used in trade. I cannot recall ever seeing that done.

But if we were to assume Picasso's name had been trademarked, I expect that McGredy could have simply ignored the fact since the products they were selling - namely "artwork by a famous personality" and "roses" - would not normally be confused with each other. Under trademark law I could sell rocket engines using the trade name "Kleenex" with impunity. But probably not linen table napkins.

I really don't know much about copyright law (and I knew you weren't planning to name a rose after Aunt Millie), but I just have memories of ludicrous lawsuits. Spike Lee, for example, sued the Spike network on cable TV a few years ago for using his name even though the network's programming consisted mainly of adult cartoons and wrestling shows and had nothing to do with Spike Lee's films or philosophy. And Jimmy Buffett routinely sues anyone taking the name "Margaritaville" in vain.

Buffett probably does have a case because he has a chain of restaurants with that name, but what made Spike Lee so arrogant? When I hear the name "Spike," I'm likely to think of a dozen other people and even a bulldog before I think of Spike Lee.

A restaurant near my house opened with the name "Zuzu," but had to change it to "Zazu" shortly afterward, so someone apparently has a copyright on that name.

Who is Spike Lee?

Pork pal that was my ???? I dont know who he is !! ZuZu i would check into that we can all write letters and tell them thats your name ;0)
Gloria

Zuzu - Zuzunapavalley. http://www.zuzunapa.com/

Spike Lee - African American director/actor/screenplay writer who borders on racisim. Personally, I don't like him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... But that's my perogrative. I'm not anti-African American.. on the contrary. I just think that his movies are too far to the anti-anything-that-is-not-black thing.

He has admitted that his favorite pastime is something he describes as "baiting Whitey."

My junior high school friends would be delighted with the "zuzunapa" address. Napa State Hospital was the biggest hospital treating mental illness in those days (perhaps still is, in fact), and most of the semi-affectionate insults we traded back and forth in those days included the word "Napa."

How could Napa be an insult? That's like the most famous valley in the US! I would be so jealous of someone who lived there! But I don't think I would like to pay their taxes.

It was a way of implying someone was nuts. Napa wasn't known for wine then, just for mental patients. The hospital had 5,000 in-patients at its peak. Most of them were released when Ronald Reagan was the governor of California and they were supposed to be channeled into community programs, but the homeless problem started at about the same time, so I don't think the communities did much for them. Only the most dangerous (to themselves and to others) patients stayed in the hospital.

Zuzu - OMG, I remember that! Reagan released a whole ton of the loonies & put 'em on buses to our part of the world because the weather could tolerate the homeless during the winter (didn't get below 40 very often) and I guess everyone figured that what was some more loonies with all the "wetbacks" in our neighborhoods. LOL!! I remember this!!! Wow!! I didn't think that calling someone from Napa Valley would akin them to being nuts.. I guess it's more of a regional thing. When I think of someone who's nuttier than a fruitcake, I think of Belleview Hospital from NYC.

I was going to say it was like people in other parts of the country insulting you by saying you're from Bellevue. The only difference is that Bellevue treats all kinds of patients and Napa treated only mental patients.

We'll have to check that Napa restaurant out Zuzu, since it's named after you! The menu looks pretty good. It's less than an hours drive, maybe when we visit Napa Iris.

The menu does look good. I love tapas. Maybe they'll give us a drink on the house when they hear my name.