Friday, January 17, 2003
I met some new friends this weekend...Amy and Jamie. Amy just moved here from Virginia. She is aspiring to be...a singer? an Actress? whatever works.
She was aspiring for a long time to live in LA. Now she is, so she feels like she's made serious progress.
Her full name is Amanda, but she doesn't like it. She said that she went by "Amanda" for a brief, weird period in time. Apparently, the guy she was dating knew a different Amy that treated him badly. He didn't want to call her Amy, too.
That relationship ended.
But Amy was thinking that she might need a new name for her new city.
"What do you think?" she said. "I want something more powerful! Amy is a very passive name."
Jamie was having nothing to do with this. "Your name is your name. You are who your name is. You can't just change it!"
Well, that's not my philosophy at all! Those of you who know me understand that I have unique naming conventions. MURPHY is not my real name...
So I looked at Amy and tried to think of more powerful names. "Rebekah?" I said.
"Hmmm..." was her response.
"Well, let's see...you want powerful names...maybe a verb.
I have it! 'Di' as in Diana! That's a powerful name!!"
Jamie didn't think that was funny, but _I_ thought it was hilarious.
This got me thinking about action verb names. Right then, I couldn't think of any other feminine names that were action verbs. Jamie wasn't playing, anyway, so I let it drop.
But TODAY!
While setting up a video conference for someone by new conference producer appears on the TV screen and introduces himself, "Hello, This is Neil. I will be your producer today.
"Neil?" I said. "That's one of those cool action verb names."
Neil himself was very cool. I told him that there weren't very many female verb names, and about Amy, nee "Di".
So we both started thinking of names. I told him they were mostly masculine names. "Like Stu."
He smiled. "Yeah... And Phil!"
That made me laugh.
But Neil was challenged now. He had to think of girl's names.
"Carrie!"
"Ooh! good one."
Neil works in a big conference support pool, so he got the other guys involved in coming up with names. I walk like a wraith from conference room to conference room, so I didn' have any help. He starts calling out the suggestions:
"Nick!"
"Bob!"
"Chuck!"
"Oh yeah!" I said. "Mark! How could I forget my own brother's name?"
Things were quiet for a while. We were thinking.
It took us a while, but we came up with these names:
Neil
Carrie
Mary
Stu
Phil
Barry
Nick
Pat
Bob
Mark
Di
Chip
Chuck
Flo
March
Carol
Chase
Mike
And, after some discussion, we included:
Eddie
Peg
Jimmy
We were concerned that Peg and Eddie might be nouns, and Jimmy may be one of those names that became a verb because of the person who first performed that action. "To Jimmy" a lock...It may have become a verb because of the original "Jimmy" who invented that action upon the lock.
ANYWAY.
It was very amusing. And Neil was a great sport.
posted by Murphy 1/17/2003
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Bee Gees member Maurice Gibbs passed away recently. That's sad, he was quite young.
This has given rise to some editorial reminisces about the 60s. Collin Levey, in her article for the WSJ, said this:
"The difference is that back in the baby boomers' youth, there were real edges of the envelope. The issues of sex and drugs and freedom and anger and war were new, and raw--they were also in the lyrics of the songs. "
Um..Sure. Sex, Drugs, Freedom and Anger were invented by the 60s generation. What geniuses they were.
I remember when I was a pre-teen, and I heard some straight-ahead rock music for the first time. I was so excited! I thought that this was the coolest thing I had ever heard! The guitars, and the energy. I bopped around telling everyone that THIS WAS THE BEST MUSIC EVER MADE.
It wasn't. I learned that when I grew up a little bit. There was better music out there. I gained some experience, some perspective, and was able to evaluate that music in a broader context.
I'm frustrated with narrow-minded view of history Levey's article represents. Were the hippies the only ones to experience free love? What about the Poet, Lord Bryon? He was a proponent of free love. And George Elliot, the female writer. She gave up the Victorian ideals of marriage and lived in sin with her soulmate, who happened to be married to someone else. She was shunned for that.
Anger...it had been done before the 60s. Ever hear of the French Revolution? And freedom. I think that Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson did some stuff along that line.
Coleridge wrote his drug-induced poem, Kubla Khan, in 1797. That's quite some time before Bob Marley.
Things happened in the 60s. If you lived through them, they may be particularly significant to you. But don't make them more than they were! Have some respect and humility. Every person take their place in history behind some people and ahead of others.
posted by Murphy 1/15/2003
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Great minds think alike.
My friend Tantek just blogged about the artistic value of watching people in museums watching art. This idea has been actualized by Thomas Struth, and his exhibit is being shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Conveniently, the MOCA is located two blocks from where I work. I already did a review of it.
Tantek thought I needed to let you all know about this circular coincidence. Probably because he is really fond of mark-up and wants to encourage the proliferation of links.
But I think it's worth noting. Take it for what it is.
posted by Murphy 1/14/2003
Monday, January 13, 2003
B000002QTH
I am listening to my Best of the Blues CD at work today. GOOD GOOD stuff. Man, I tell you what. BB King and Bobby Bland are telling me they'd like to live the love they sing about. And BB wants me to know it's a stormy Monday.
Yes. Yes, it is.
Lovin it.
posted by Murphy 1/13/2003
