Distinctly Unreal Reality
Pope
Mark-Jason Dominus
(over yonder) seemed to take some umbrage when I questioned the reality of his
name, and e-mailed me:
The name that actually appears on my birth certificate and pass port is
Richard Jason Dominus
So I made up only the boring part, and was born with the interesting part.
Hope you're satisfied.
Not to be left at a loss for words (especially typed words; I'm a notoriously
poor live debator, but I'll be Goddess damned if I'm going to be one-upped with
a keyboard), I responded to him with all deliberate speed:
You wound me, good sir, and take my Quip wrongly. Mark-Jason Dominus is a
conspicuously cool name, whether your parents gave it to you or you took it for
yourself. Mayhap another (more extreme) example will illuminize my point
better:
I am sure that, somewhere, there is a man named Dick Hertz. He might be able
to trace his lineage all the way back to King Phillip Matthew Hertz of Austria
so that there is no (geneological) doubt at all as to the validity of his
monicker. Nonetheless, ``Dick Hertz'' is still not a real name, no matter
how much reality you pump into it.
Don't get me wrong; ``Mark-Jason Dominus'' is nowhere near ``Dick Hertz'' in
unreality quotient (with the possible exception of the hyphen; if your name
was an atom, that hyphen would be the electron whose wave function collapse
left it high and dry around Pluto). I just write as the Goddess directs me,
and She assured me that the foregoing Quip was right and proper (clearly so; it
led me to yon tirade on the ultimate unreality of certain real things [names
are but the most abstract of the Unreal Real; consider, for a moment, the
platypus]).
Bless you, good
Pope Dominus,
for leading me to this illuminization. May the Goddess lead your mind the way
She has always led mine, or...
May the Madness always find you,
-Al