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Forensic musicologists race to rescue works lost after the Holocaust

Published

1 year ago

January 30, 2023

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Forensic musicologists race to rescue works lost after the Holocaust

Walter Arlen was born Walter Aptowitzer in 1920 in Vienna. He’s now 102.

Walter Arlen

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Walter Arlen

Walter Arlen was born Walter Aptowitzer in 1920 in Vienna. He’s now 102.

Walter Arlen

There’s one thing elfin and even a bit mischievous concerning the 102-year-old man who goes by Walter Arlen. The composer lives in a home close to the ocean in Santa Monica, Calif., along with his husband of 65 years. However he was born in Austria, in 1920, as Walter Aptowitzer. He grew up in a cosmopolitan cradle of music and excessive tradition: Vienna earlier than the warfare.

“I grew up in an environment of nice pleasure, so far as I used to be involved,” says Arlen, whose grandfather based a big division retailer — the Warenhaus Dicther — in 1890. “And it grew and grew, as a result of he was an excellent businessman. And there was all the time music, as a result of my grandfather believed in having music within the retailer. And he was the primary one in Vienna who had loudspeakers put in everywhere in the retailer.”

His grandfather paid a younger lady to sit down by a phonograph all day and change out information. The identical music can be heard on each ground. The Aptowitzers lived in an condominium above the shop, and by age 5, younger Walter had realized the phrases to the entire songs. His aunts would stick the kid up on the shop counter and ask him to sing.

Walter Arlen in Chicago, pictured circa 1942.

Walter Arlen

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Walter Arlen

Walter Arlen in Chicago, pictured circa 1942.

Walter Arlen

His mom performed piano, his uncle performed fiddle, and he was eight when his dad and mom took him to his first opera: Tosca, by Puccini.

“It bowled me over,” he says. “That was the start of my eager to be a composer.”

The budding musician took piano classes and sang at school. At some point, his instructor had him gown up as Franz Schubert for a classroom celebration of the composer. He was praised for his expertise and inspired to jot down music. It was a cheerful childhood — “till Hitler got here, and that is when it modified in a single day,” he says. “That was in 1938. Up within the air, the sky was stuffed with airplanes. That was the occupation of Austria.”

Aptowitzer was 17. His father was imprisoned by the Nazis and his mom was positioned in a psychological hospital. The boy responded by writing a melancholy tune based mostly upon a poem, titled “Es geht wohl anders.” The title, in English, interprets as Issues end up otherwise.

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Aptowitzer escaped Austria and moved in with relations in Chicago. Many others in his household weren’t so fortunate: His grandmother died on the Treblinka extermination camp, and his father was taken to Dachau. His mom later died by suicide. In Chicago, Aptowitzer modified his title to Walter Arlen. (He isn’t associated to “Over the Rainbow” composer Harold Arlen.) Arlen staved off despair by writing music. He gained a prize in a tune cycle contest and grew to become an assistant to the American composer Roy Harris.

Arlen pursued his musical research at UCLA, labored as a driver for Igor Stravinsky and, earlier than lengthy, was employed as a classical critic for the Los Angeles Instances. I additionally write for the LA Instances, however had by no means heard of Arlen till I used to be launched to him by Michael Haas — a musical historian who organized for Arlen’s work to be recorded together with many different Jewish composers. For many years, Arlen’s music remained in his desk drawer.

Among the many just lately recorded work is an oratorio, “The Tune of Songs,” based mostly on the traditional Jewish love poem and composed by Arlen within the early Fifties.

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“It’s music that might solely have been composed by a Viennese composer uprooted and transplanted to America, attempting to work out all of his points,” says Haas, who authored the e book Forbidden Music about Jewish composers banned by Hitler.

Though most of Arlen’s music was written after the Shoah, Haas says it belongs to this distinctive — and uniquely traumatic — place and time. “You already know, these horrible issues that he needed to witness and dwell by and simply the tales he has to inform about simply attempting to get out of Austria, and the issues that occurred to him and to his household. The one manner he might take care of it was to jot down music … after which shove it within the desk drawer,” Haas says.

In 2006, Haas co-founded the Exilarte Heart for Banned Music in Vienna, which locates, preserves and presents music misplaced throughout the Holocaust. The impetus started when Haas, a Grammy-winning classical producer for Decca Data, recorded music by Kurt Weill — the German Jewish emigré who wrote “The Threepenny Opera.”

“I stored stumbling throughout names of different composers who have been simply as well-known as Kurt Weill,” Haas says. He factors to the Jewish composers who fled Hitler’s Europe and located success in Hollywood.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, for instance, was a classical prodigy who escaped Austria within the Thirties and achieved fame scoring Errol Flynn swashbucklers equivalent to The Sea Hawk. However Haas started to find a whole hidden world of composers who both died throughout the Holocaust, or grew to become exiles. They both gave up music or — like Walter Arlen — wrote music that nobody ever heard.

“The extra we recorded,” says Haas, “the extra we immediately found that the music had been, to some extent, additionally intentionally suppressed after the warfare — not as a result of the composers have been Jewish, however as a result of the music didn’t characterize the sort of post-war, anti-Fascist assertion that society felt was essential in re-educating, , publics after the warfare.”

He factors to the music of the late Robert Fürstenthal — who additionally left Vienna when he was 17, and whose desk-drawer compositions eternally sounded just like the glory days of his Austrian childhood.

“He was the accounts auditor for the U.S. Navy, for heaven’s sakes, in San Diego,” says Haas. “You’ll be able to solely think about a extra completely different place to Vienna. I mentioned, ‘Robert, why did you write within the model of Hugo Wolf within the Nineteen Eighties, Nineties, early 2000s?’ And he mentioned: ‘After I compose, I return to Vienna.’ “

Walter Arlen, above, is “our latest and our oldest residing composer,” says Robert Thompson, president of Smart Music Group.

Walter Arlen

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Walter Arlen

Walter Arlen, above, is “our latest and our oldest residing composer,” says Robert Thompson, president of Smart Music Group.

Walter Arlen

The forensic musicologists on the Exilarte Heart have rescued a whole bunch of works by these composers. They’ve additionally tracked down their heirs and estates — greater than 30 estates all all over the world.

Robert Thompson, president of Smart Music Group, refers back to the Exilarte group because the “monuments males” of composers and manuscripts. “However I noticed that the lacking a part of it was getting this music out into the world, in order that it might be carried out,” Thompson says. “We spent a number of months speaking to them about how this might work, how we might be of assist as a writer to disseminate all this music.”

Smart Music Group, which owns the historic publishing firm G. Schirmer, partnered final 12 months with Exilarte to assist resurrect this forgotten and exiled music in public live shows. Publishing royalties go to the Exilarte challenge, and composer royalties to the households and estates. Or, within the case of Walter Arlen — who expects to show 103 this July — the composer himself.

“I feel he is our latest and our oldest residing composer,” says Thompson.

Over the many years, Arlen composed some 65 works — a lot of it vocal. It is music trapped within the amber of his reminiscence, music of a Vienna he dearly beloved and was compelled to depart. Professionally, Arlen distinguished himself as a critic. So how would he have reviewed his work?

“If I hadn’t appreciated it, I would not have written it,” he says.

And if he hadn’t survived, we by no means would have heard it.

Lifestyle

Bon Jovi docuseries 'Thank You, Goodnight' is an argument for respect

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

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Bon Jovi docuseries 'Thank You, Goodnight' is an argument for respect

Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013.

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Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013.

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Hulu’s docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, spends a lot of time building up the Bon Jovi legend — exploring the band’s almost unbelievable 40-plus-year run from playing hardscrabble rock clubs in New Jersey to earning platinum albums and entry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

But what moved me most in the four-part series was something more revealing: its close look at the struggle by lead singer Jon Bon Jovi to overcome vocal problems which nearly led him to quit the band.

Footage of the singer croaking through vocal exercises, undergoing laser treatments, enduring acupuncture and finally turning to surgery is sprinkled throughout the series, which toggles back and forth between his problems in 2022 and a chronological story of the band’s triumphs and tragedies from its earliest days.

Refusing to be Fat Elvis

Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight.

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Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight.

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Through it all, a question hangs: Will Bon Jovi ever recover enough vocal strength to lead a 40th anniversary tour?

“If I can’t be the very best I can be, I’m out,” he tells the cameras, still looking a bit boyish despite his voluminous gray hair at age 62. “I’m not here to drag down the legacy, I’m not here for the ‘Where are they now?’ tour … I’m not ever gonna be the Fat Elvis … That ain’t happening.”

Filmmaker Gotham Chopra — who has also directed docuseries about his father, spiritualist Deepak Chopra, and star quarterback Tom Brady — digs deeply into the band’s history, aided by boatloads of pictures, video footage and early recordings provided by the group.

Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight

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Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight

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Chopra gets folks from the group’s tight inner circle to speak up, including former manager Doc McGhee and guitarist Richie Sambora, who quit the band in 2013. (“Are we telling the truth, or are we going to lie, what are we going to do?” Sambora cracks to his offscreen interviewer. “Let’s figure it out.”)

But anyone expecting gossipy dish will walk away disappointed. Even major scandals in the band’s history are handled with care, including the firing of founding bassist Alec John Such in 1994 (and the admission that his replacement, Hugh McDonald, already had been secretly playing bass parts on their albums for years), drummer Tico Torres’ stint in addiction treatment and Sambora’s decision to quit midway through a tour in 2013, with no notice to bandmates he had performed alongside for 30 years.

Alec John Such, a founding member of Bon Jovi, dies at 70

Sambora’s explanation: When issues with substance use and family problems led him to miss recording sessions, Bon Jovi got producer John Shanks to play more guitar on their 2013 record What About Now. And Sambora was hurt.

“[Bon Jovi] had the whole thing kinda planned out,” Sambora says, “which basically was telling me, um, ‘I can do it without you.’”

Building a band on rock anthems

Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X.

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Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X.

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The docuseries shows how young New Jersey native John Bongiovi turned a job as a gofer at legendary recording studio The Power Station – owned by a cousin — into a recording of his first hit in the early 1980s, Runaway. His song eventually caught the ear of another little-known artist from New Jersey called Bruce Springsteen.

“The first demo I got of Jon’s was a good song,” says Springsteen, a longtime friend of Bon Jovi. “I mean, Jon’s great talent is these big, powerful pop rock choruses that just demand to be sung by, you know, 20,000 people in an arena.”

Rock Star Jon Bon Jovi Comes Full 'Circle'

Thank You, Goodnight shows the band really took off by honing those rock anthems with songwriter Desmond Child, while simultaneously developing videos that showcased their status as a fun, rollicking live band. Hits like You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin’ on a Prayer and Wanted: Dead or Alive made them MTV darlings and rock superstars.

Through it all, the singer and bandleader is shown as the group’s visionary and spark plug, open about how strategically he pushed the band to write hit songs and positioned them for commercial success.

“It wasn’t as though I woke up one morning and was the best singer in the school, or on the block, or in my house,” he tells the camera, laughing. “I just had a desire and a work ethic that was always the driving force.”

I saw that dynamic up close in the mid-1990s when I worked as a music critic in New Jersey, spending time with Jon Bon Jovi and the band. Back then, his mother ran the group’s fan club and was always trying to convince the local rock critic to write about her superstar son – I was fascinated by how the band shrugged off criticisms of being uncool and survived changing musical trends, led by a frontman who worked hard to stay grounded.

Bon Jovi was always gracious and willing to talk; he even introduced me to then-New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman at one of his legendary Christmas charity concerts. (And in a crazy coincidence, the band’s backup singer Everett Bradley is an old friend from college.)

I think the docuseries captures Bon Jovi’s skill at leading the group through challenges musical and otherwise — from metal’s slow fade off the pop charts to the rise of grunge rock — something the singer rarely gets credit for achieving.

Still, much of Thank You, Goodnight feels like an extended celebration of the band and its charismatic frontman, leavened by his earnest effort to regain control of his voice. If you’re not a Bon Jovi fan, four episodes of this story may feel like a bit much (I’d recommend at least watching the first and last episodes.)

More than anything, the docuseries feels like an extended argument for something Bon Jovi has struggled to achieve, even amid million selling records and top-grossing concert tours – respect as a legendary rock band.

The audio and digital versions of this story were edited by Jennifer Vanasco.

Lifestyle

L.A. Affairs: I'm a divorced woman. Was I ready to be naked with a new guy?

Published

4 hours ago

April 26, 2024

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L.A. Affairs: I'm a divorced woman. Was I ready to be naked with a new guy?

As a newly single woman in my 50s in Los Angeles, I was terrified. I’d been married so long that the last time I’d heard the words “sexy” and “hot” was when I’d ordered sea bass in a spicy shiitake broth. I hadn’t been nipped, tucked, suctioned, filled or augmented. I figured I stood a better chance of being hit by lightning than hit on by a good-looking guy.

Understandably my girlfriends were getting weary of my “I’m going to die alone” attitude so they dragged me out to have some fun, which I assumed meant a glass of wine and a nice cheese plate, not shots of tequila in a trendy nightclub in Westlake. The last time I was in a club I was doing the Hammer Dance in parachute pants! I was in over my head. What if no one checked me out or asked me to dance. My self-esteem was already so low that I considered spending the rest of the year in bed. Maybe I just needed 11 months to reevaluate my Sleep Number and catch up on “The Bachelor.”

As it turned out, guys don’t ask you to dance anymore. They just move in on you. One guy moved in so close, it was less about dancing and more about grinding. I joked that in some countries, we were now officially married.

He didn’t get the joke, and I was not about to stay with a man with no sense of humor. I was starting to enjoy myself when fate reminded me that I was newly separated and supposed to be miserable and made me trip on an unseen step. I fell. Hard. On a concrete floor.

I was mortified. I was sure people were laughing at me, but instead, they just stepped over me on the way to the bar. Alcohol trumps everything. I got up, dusted off my pride and went back on the dance floor. I was in the middle of “raising the roof” when a pocket-sized man approached me and asked if I liked his friend. At first, I thought he was referring to his penis in the most unimaginative way, but then he gestured behind me to his actual friend — a thirtysomething tall, dark and gorgeous man. And me definitely likey!

He introduced himself in broken English as Daniel. He had just moved to Southern California from Italy to be a chef at a local hot spot. I felt like I was stepping into the pages of a Harlequin romance. Pretty soon he’d be shirtless on a horse, and I’d be behind him, holding his abs so I didn’t fall. Like I really needed a reason.

He suggested we go back to his apartment for Prosecco and more dancing, and I did what any mid-50s woman would in my situation: I threw all reason, good sense and safety concerns to the wind and blurted “Yes, God, yes!”

Daniel asked if I had a friend who could join us because the pocket-sized man had ironically big pockets and would pick up our tab and drive us in his fancy SUV. I knew convincing a girlfriend wouldn’t be easy, so I went for the jugular. I used guilt. I’d been miserable for months going on years. Did my friends really want to deny me one night of a superficial, meaningless lust connection?

After a speedy ride where I sat on my one good butt cheek, the four of us arrived at Daniel’s apartment in Agoura Hills. He popped open some bubbly and made a toast that was seductive and unintelligible, but I was suddenly in my head.

What was I doing? I wasn’t ready for sex. I wouldn’t even get naked in front of a mirror! And what about the bump on my butt from the fall that was swelling by the minute? Would it be too conspicuous if I sat on a bag of ice or frozen peas? Before I could get to the freezer, Daniel pulled me and my spiraling in for a slow dance and he started singing to me in Italian. It was corny, off-key and incredibly romantic. My girlfriend, Shauna, seeing where this might go, asked Daniel’s friend to drive her home. (That is a comedy of errors for a whole other essay.)

I didn’t say goodbye. I was too focused on Daniel’s roaming hands that were headed south for warmer regions. I yelped as he touched the bruised cheek then quickly recovered with a flirty laugh. Encouraged by my fake flirty laugh, he started undoing the buttons on my jeans. I stopped him and moved his hands up. He moved them down. I moved them up. I wondered if you could have sex with your clothes on. It had been a minute since I’d had sex with someone new. Maybe things had changed.

He took my hand and led me to the bedroom. I looked at the bed and briefly wondered if the sheets were clean. As a mom, I could get stains out of anything. My domestic reverie was cut short as he took off his shirt. I looked at his ridiculous body and I knew it was my turn. I also knew I wasn’t ready. I got into bed fully clothed, and he crawled in next to me. He pulled me in and kissed me, and I forgot all about the divorce, the heartache and the fear of being alone. I was making out with a hot Italian guy with a hematoma on my butt that was now the size of a ping-pong ball, and it was exactly what I needed. I felt hotter and sexier than any sea bass, but most important, I felt hopeful. Maybe I was going to be OK after all.

The author is a Golden Globe-winning TV comedy writer from England. She lives in Woodland Hills, but her adventures happen everywhere. She’s on Instagram: @mariaannebrown

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

Lifestyle

Taylor Swift fans mean business with Tortured Poet soap, Eras yarn, Kelce cookies

Published

11 hours ago

April 26, 2024

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Taylor Swift fans mean business with Tortured Poet soap, Eras yarn, Kelce cookies

Sparta Candle Co. soaps inspired by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and The Tortured Poets Department album.

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Sparta Candle Co. soaps inspired by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and The Tortured Poets Department album.

Sparta Candle Co.

The official Taylor Swift online store is chockablock with earrings, hoodies, vinyl and other merchandise promoting the star’s latest record-breaking album, The Tortured Poets Department.

But there’s also a parallel industry devoted to selling crafty products inspired by Swift’s music and style — and it’s thriving.

“We’ve made soaps inspired by all of Taylor Swift’s albums. So of course we’re excited to introduce this one: Tortured Poet!” says Duane Swenk in a TikTok video. It’s been up for about a week, and has already been viewed more than 300,000 times.

Swenk is the spokesperson for his family-run soap and candle business, the Sparta Candle Co. — and a big Swiftie. Wearing a beard, beret and The Tortured Poets Department T-shirt, he’s showing off a soap in the shape of a cup of Earl Grey tea. It comes with a detachable saucer.

“This soap has notes of black tea, bergamot and lemon,” Swenk goes on to say in the video. “It’s a perfectly moody scent to pair with Taylor’s incredible new album.”

Months before The Tortured Poets Department dropped, Duane Swenk’s daughter, Jennifer Swenk — who serves as the Sparta Candle Co.’s CEO and founder and is also a devoted Taylor Swift fan — was hunting for hints about it to turn into potential product concepts. When she browsed through the upcoming song titles, she saw one called “So Long, London.”

Jennifer Swenk said the combination of London and the overall poetry theme of the album gave her the idea for the soapy tea cup.

“I felt like poetry goes hand in hand with having a cup of tea,” she said.

Music and style inspire shapes, scents and colors

Taylor Swift’s music evokes fanciful forms and scents for Jennifer Swenk. But Ashleigh Kiser is thinking in colors. Her company, Sewrella Yarn, has created a line inspired by Swift’s Eras tour, in which the pop star performs songs from her entire catalog.

“Something that is more of a love song, like the Lover era, those were very light, very pastel, very kind of ethereal colors,” said Kiser of matching Swift’s hits with yarn hues. “While the Evermore era got darker, more moody, more complicated colors.”

The company also just released a yarn collection based on The Tortured Poets Department.

The Tortured Poets Department yarn collection from Sewrella Yarn.

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The Tortured Poets Department yarn collection from Sewrella Yarn.

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Kiser said she loves the way Swift inspires a sort of virtuous circle of creativity in fans.

“There were customers of ours who were buying the yarn that was inspired by the tour. And then they were going and knitting a sweater or a top or whatever their project was. And then they were then wearing that to Eras tour concerts,” Kiser said. “So it’s like the music informs the yarn which informs the project. And it just keeps going.”

Communal feeling

This communal aspect of creating merchandise inspired by Swift appeals strongly to baker Emily Henegar. The Nashville, Tenn.-based entrepreneur’s one-woman business, Cookie in the Kitchen, makes intricately decorated cookies incorporating details from Swift’s work and life.

She said she sometimes incorporates other artists’ designs into her own. For example, Henegar said she decorated a cookie with an image she found on social media of a beanie hat a fan made for Swift, which the star then wore to a football game.

Cookie in the Kitchen’s cookie collection riffing on Taylor Swift’s relationship with football player Travis Kelce.

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Cookie in the Kitchen’s cookie collection riffing on Taylor Swift’s relationship with football player Travis Kelce.

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“I’m just scrolling Instagram, getting to pull inspiration from many different places,” said Henegar.

Henegar said she doesn’t mind when other makers incorporate her artistry into their own Swift-inspired products. “It’s nice if they can just credit me on their Instagram posts,” she said.

While Cookie in the Kitchen, Sparta Candle Co. and Sewrella Yarn mostly serve customers through their websites and/or brick-and-mortar stores, many small businesses focusing on Taylor Swift-oriented products look to Etsy and other arts ands crafts-focused online marketplaces to reach fans.

“I mean, talk about bringing people together, and talk about really amplifying creativity,” said Etsy trend expert Dayna Isom Johnson of Swift’s impact on the platform.

Johnson said entrepreneurs on Etsy aren’t just coming up with sales concepts ahead of the artist’s album releases and tour dates. They’re also quickly responding to what Swift sings, says and wears.

For instance, Swift’s lyric “So make the friendship bracelets” in her 2022 song “You’re on Your Own, Kid” created an unprecedented demand for friendship bracelets on Etsy. (According to company data, while Swift was touring across the U.S. in 2023, it saw a 22,313% increase in searches for concert-inspired friendship bracelets.)

A selection of Taylor Swift-oriented friendship bracelets on Etsy.

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A selection of Taylor Swift-oriented friendship bracelets on Etsy.

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Etsy witnessed a similar spike in searches after Swift wore an unusual choker necklace at this year’s Grammys.

And this latest album, with its references to poetry — “You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith” — has been turning Swifties into wannabe poets; suddenly everyone wants a blank journal.

“We’ve seen a 727% increase in searches on Etsy for poetry-related items,” Johnson said.

Swift’s response to fans’ creativity

Swift herself seems to embrace her fans’ creativity. She’s been known to send notes and even homemade gifts to creative super-fans.

“They are constantly just showing me love in different ways,” she said in a 2012 video for VEVO music network. “And I really appreciate it.”

One small business owner making Swift-themed T-shirts and other items told NPR they have had products taken down from online marketplaces for possible copyright infringement.

But University of Pennsylvania law professor Jennifer Rothman said she is not aware of Swift launching lawsuits against small entrepreneurs, and she said that Swift’s overall openness toward fan-based creativity makes good business sense.

“Taylor Swift only benefits, I think, from having all this fan enthusiasm,” Rothman said.

The music industry trade publication Pollstar estimates Swift grossed close to $200 million in authorized merchandise sales last year. Rothman said most of these small scale, highly creative riffs on the artist’s life and work often don’t significantly impinge upon Swift’s brand or bottom line.

“If anything, they boost it by boosting the positive feelings around her,” Rothman said. “The fans still want the official merchandise and will wait in line for hours and hours to get it.”

Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital versions of this story.