As a Steve, my parents blessed me with a name almost totally excluded from politics. I defy anyone to come up with a high profile political Steve, even with Googling. But where we do find a disproportionate number of successful Steves is in the world of rock guitarists. I need say no more.
Names have long been one of my obsessions. Dubbed Irving Neil W_____ by my parents, I was called Neil till a teacher in third grade decided I had to go by my first name. "Irving" had not been me, but the harridan altered my records thus setting me on a new path, one later through the decades full of writerly pseudonyms to either acquire a brash informality ("Mickey Briscoe") or studied ponderousness ("Dr Hyman Goff") or the snappy compromise I finally settled on, "Irv O. Neil" (like Cary Grant's "Roger O. Thornhill," the "O" stands for nothing.) The protagonists of my stories, like "Julius Caesar Klein" (call him "Ceez," he says) struggle with this too. How much are we the creations of our names, or vice versa? Great column, Howie!
"The world and my family would have loved me more had my vowels been as flat as tarmac and my name been Howie" is the piece's turn from satire into something quieter — the whole essay has been a performance of the very avoidance it's diagnosing in Starmer, and the narrator knows it. "But it is too late to be loved now" lands with more weight than anything else in the piece because it drops the bit for one sentence.
I remember when you were teaching at Sydney University a visiting Canadian student confessed to me that he found it difficult to understand you as "it sounds like he's speaking underwater".
Not waving but drowning....
Hilarious and, unfortunately I believe, spot on!
As a Steve, my parents blessed me with a name almost totally excluded from politics. I defy anyone to come up with a high profile political Steve, even with Googling. But where we do find a disproportionate number of successful Steves is in the world of rock guitarists. I need say no more.
Ooh, our Howard. You are daft! 😍😍
Names have long been one of my obsessions. Dubbed Irving Neil W_____ by my parents, I was called Neil till a teacher in third grade decided I had to go by my first name. "Irving" had not been me, but the harridan altered my records thus setting me on a new path, one later through the decades full of writerly pseudonyms to either acquire a brash informality ("Mickey Briscoe") or studied ponderousness ("Dr Hyman Goff") or the snappy compromise I finally settled on, "Irv O. Neil" (like Cary Grant's "Roger O. Thornhill," the "O" stands for nothing.) The protagonists of my stories, like "Julius Caesar Klein" (call him "Ceez," he says) struggle with this too. How much are we the creations of our names, or vice versa? Great column, Howie!
"The world and my family would have loved me more had my vowels been as flat as tarmac and my name been Howie" is the piece's turn from satire into something quieter — the whole essay has been a performance of the very avoidance it's diagnosing in Starmer, and the narrator knows it. "But it is too late to be loved now" lands with more weight than anything else in the piece because it drops the bit for one sentence.
Haha Howard - old enough to remember Andy Pandy - too tragically funny .... waiting for your take on the Flower Pot Men!
I remember when you were teaching at Sydney University a visiting Canadian student confessed to me that he found it difficult to understand you as "it sounds like he's speaking underwater".
How very rude!
Super. As usual.