January 30, 2002

[General] Christopher Street? Huh?

Rene and Georgette Magritte, with their dog after the war...

I was wondering how long it would take before someone asked about the name of this journal. The answer, apparently, is 2 days. :)

First, it should be obvious that I am not hosting this myself--if I were, I'd have a better URL. No, I have chosen to use a 3rd party journaling site, diary-x.com. I chose to do this for a couple of reasons. First, I am impatient and tend to lose interest in things quickly. Using 3rd party software meant that I could begin immediately, before my interest waned. Second, there is a fair amount of work involved in setting up and hosting a journal page. I know that HTML isn't hard, but I, personally, think it's a pain in the bee-hind. So, I did a little research and found the diary-x folks. They offer free hosting of seemingly unlimited content and they have pretty easy to use software. For $12/year, you can even send your updates from your email client rather than composing them on the site.

Their software does, however, strongly encourage you to give your journal a title. This was the most difficult part. It's like asking for a title for your autobiography before you start. The default was "lori-p's diary" but that just sounded dorky. I wanted to play with the style sheets, though, and wanted to see what they would look like with a title other than the dorky default, so I chose the working title "Marigold Sky".

For those who stopped following the career of Darryl Hall and John Oates after 1984's Big Bam Boom, that was the title of one of their myriad comeback albums in the 90s. Since they were just profiled on Behind the Music last week, however, using Marigold Skyseemed a little transparent. So, I moved on.

Next, I flirted with "Think Too Much", which is the title of one of my fave Paul Simon tunes but it seemed redundant with my already chosen tagline "some things I think". So I moved on to a phrase from that song, "Elephant Dance":

Have you ever experienced a period of grace
When your brain just takes a seat behind your face
And the world begins the Elephant Dance?

In the end, a little too...trippy. Onward then. I plowed through some lines from poems I dig ("A Sunless Sea" was just too depressing. Ditto "...and despair"), and other pieces of Pop Trivia Junk ("Trolling for Olives" and "Dancing About Architecture", working titles for what would become REM's Out of Touch and the Angelina Jolie film Playing by Heart).

Finally, it dropped on me, like the satellite that is falling from space even as we speak: Christopher Street. Also a lyric from a Paul Simon tune, but one that is a little more obscure and, well, I think kind of cool-sounding:

Rene and Georgette Magritte
With their dog, after the war
Were strolling down Christopher Street
When they stopped in a Men's Store
With all of the mannequins dressed in the styles that brought
Tears to their immigrant eyes

I did go back and forth between "Christopher Street" and "Marigold Sky" for a bit longer but, in the end, "Christopher Street" it is. The idea of going down a familiar street also seemed to strengthen the whole journey through life aspect of this project.

So, Petrina, aren't you glad you asked? :D

Which brings me to the names portion of the program. This is a personal journal and I do have interaction with folks on a daily basis. Some of that interaction will likely make it into the journal. Now, while I will endeavor to never embarrass anyone or share information that is not mine to share, I will talk about y'all. Rather than use pseudonyms, which are impossible to keep track of, I am going to use just first names. To avoid confusion between folks with the same first names, I may also use nicknames. I reserve that right. :) I will use pseudonyms for those on the periphery, if I think it's appropriate. If I am going to diss someone from work, I will likely refer to them as Napolean or littlehead or Frodo rather than risk their wrath. It is a public journal after all. :)

Posted by Lori at January 30, 2002 2:36 PM