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Nick has been really bored recently, but I’m not envious. It sounds nice at first, but it’s like walking home freezing in the middle of winter and thinking how those really, really hot summer days would be pretty nice. And then you remember sweating all the time and sunburns and how it’s not really that nice at all. Neither extreme is fun, and I’ve always preferred to be too cold than too hot anyway.
Today I decided work and stress should follow an ice-cube tray model. A certain amount of work gets poured onto each person, but it spills over to other people before anyone gets over-filled. I’ve been right up to the brim and relying on surface tension for like the past month. It’s just stupid and inefficient to have some people completely overworked and while other people have nothing to do.
It would be like communism, I guess, but only with the smart people you like and trust to do work well. Like a responsibility commune.
The New York Times’ TierneyLab is almost always fascinating, and today is especially intriguing about awful names.
“It wasn’t easy picking a winner from more than 1,000 entries. Besides Charman Toilette, an early favorite of the judges, there was Chastity Beltz, Wrigley Fields, Justin Credible, Tiny Bimbo, and a girl whose father was an auto mechanic but somehow didn’t realize he was effectively giving her the name of a tire: Michele Lynn. There were girls named Chaos and Tutu, and boys named Clever, Cowboy, Crash, Felony, Furious and Zero.”
There is so much here that is relevant to my interests. I love that they call it the “Boy Named Sue theory.” Then, that list includes Felony, which is one of the original names on my Words That Would Make Good Names If They Weren’t Already Words List (along with Machete, Rival, Soviet, Parole, Debris, etc.)
Ever since Hugo Chavez tried limiting names and I learned they have approved lists in Europe, I’ve been a full believer in naming libertarianism, if not anarchy. It’s your kid, you should be able to pick whatever stupid name you want. Tons of people don’t go by the name on their birth certificate anyway.
There’s a student here who just named her baby girl Bonanza Jellybean. I mean, that’s really stretching it, but I still think it’s neat. The child will learn to cope – in the newsroom we brainstormed nicknames like Nanza or Nanzie – and then it will be an interesting conversation piece later on. I mean, at least she has a built-in outlet for uniqueness if she ever wants it. Name a child Emily Ann and you’re just begging for her to dye her hair green or get illegal tattoos if she feels too ordinary at 15.
I’ve long been a proponent of giving children unusual first names with totally normal, classic middle names. A crazy middle name is just dumb – “Hehe, look at what goofy thing we’re getting away with!” – and if they don’t end up liking the unusual first name they can go with the really classy first initial-middle name construction, like F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The one that’s been giving me problems recently is Vendetta. It really ought to go on my WTWMGNITWAW List, but I just can’t let it go. It’s been months now. It could be Vetta for short.
Aside from that, names and name trends have always interested me. I wonder how you get into the celebrity name-consulting business, because that would be great. I found this site during the summer, and I think I immediately wasted like four hours looking at it. If you’re looking for names that are going to fit with the classy/upscale trends for the next few years without being overused, consider names like Garnet, Viola, Afton, Daisy or Beatrix (for girls) and Harlan, Burton, Roscoe or Cohen (for boys).
The New York Times has a rather scattered story about how major publications are dusting off their archives and getting the historical material online. They are seeing impressive reader interest, which may eventually get advertisers on board. I wonder how you get a job doing this, or maybe it’s what media companies are doing with the librarians and research assistants whose jobs became obsolete when Google appeared.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I’m not crazy. Other people - including readers - are interested in this history stuff.
Today the New York Times presents a whole slew of related letters in which distinguished readers want to point out they know their Orwell better than columnist William Kristol, who used an essay by Orwell about Rudyard Kipling to explain why Democrats don’t know how to get anything done. It actually is that unnecessarily complicated; read it yourself.
Gag. Having read “1984″ is not really worthy of snobbish pride. It should just be embarrassing if you haven’t read it. Shame on the NYT for perpetuating the self-perceived cleverness of these people.
I started my References That Are No Longer Clever list a while ago with this one. I try to keep from one-upping them in pretentiousness by keeping the rest of my list fairly short:
- any reference to Bob Dylan singing “the times they are a-changin’”
- quoting Murrow’s fear comment (”We will not walk in
fear … “) - referencing Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame, especially when commenting on internet memes or phenomenons
To make it clear, I think these are all fine references and certainly relevant in discussions of today’s world. But relevant is not the same as clever, and they’ve been trotted out a few too many times to be used in a self-congratulatory way.
Personally I think Kristol’s argument is a weak one - I’m not so far removed from high school that I can’t recognize desperate stretches for literary synthesis - but I do respect his attempt to invoke Orwell for something beyond the most obvious.
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