Welcome to the special 'popular culture edition' of the chair, in which we explore the ephemera that shapes our lives. Not new territory, or not necessarily contemporary subject matter, and definitely not comprehensive, I will admit, but it has its charm. No conclusions, but life will provide them, if you have lived a good life.

Once again, one local weathadoodle tripped over his tongue and laid waste to facts when he claimed that following the implementation of DST, we would have an extra hour of daylight. No. We adjusted a measuring device. We still have about 11 hours and 45 minutes, no matter how you place the clock hands.

Ambiguities in English, Part MMCCCIV

One of the nominees for Best Live Action Short Film is Jane Austen's Period Drama.

Or maybe it's an intentional double entendre.

I have to stop reading.

No, not everything, I could never do that, but specifically, my latest obsession, in this case W.B. Yeats' The Second Coming. A line strikes me (let's say, 'Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,') and I carry that around and chew on it until I return to the poem to reflect, to see the context, something. But instead of thinking about the captured line some more, my eye bounces to another line, like 'The best lack all conviction' and worry that.

The good news is the poem is only 22 lines long, so I should be done with my chewing by the end of the year.

With that as an introduction, I offer an application of the angst—sorta.

The application of the angst depends upon the surface to which it is applied. For soft surfaces like clothes, a capful can be added to the regular wash. For metal surfaces, spray angst is recommended. And for wood and delicate items, paste angst can be applied, and removed with a soft cloth, using a circular motion.

Naming names.

I have remarked before that one of society's problems is how little use we make of nicknames and diminuitives. At least certain folk are renaming themselves these days, which is a hopeful sign. For example, two of the voices in my head have become full blown personas. One, the poet klkz, wrote over a hundred poems before wandering off to greener climes.

But as I finish my season of The Second Coming,

a very apocalyptic poem on both a personal and universal level, I begin to wonder about the author. Not W.B. Yeats, the man, but W.B. Yeats, the name.

W.B, who also went by William Butler, cut a very imposing figure in the earlier part of the 20th Century, impacting poetry, theater, and the development of modern Ireland. But I wonder– what if he had gone by Will, Bill, Billy, Buttles, or worst, Willie? Or what if he had thought about himself in those terms, as a Billy or Will? Would he have risen to the same Parnassian heights? Ditto T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot. Could Tommy Eliot write 'The Wasteland?'

I think also of Billy Collins, an equally good poet. Would we regard him in the same way if he had gone by W.J. or William James Collins? Would he have taken the paths he did in approaching his poetry? Or would he have become a literary lion of the stature of Yeats?

All this is by way of introduction to a simple question: how much do our names have in the formation not only of public perceptions (how many times have you heard [or said] upon meeting someone I knew you were a Michael–Timothy–Arthur? Or, as is my case, having my name (John) repeated back to me as 'Don,' 'Joe,' 'Jim,' or 'Tom,' or once or twice as 'Frank'? Are folks just lazy? Am I not enunciating properly? Are they thinking of another McCarthy with the name they're inserting? Or am I projecting an aura/image more associated with those other names than my own name? Oddly, folks rarely mispronounce my name as 'Jack' or 'Johnny,' nicknames more commonly associated with John, because I am not a Johnnie or Jack.

And how much does our name affect our self-identity and self-image, and the way we think of ourselves and the way we develop our talents? At various times, people tried 'Stretch' and 'Four Eyes' as nicknames for me. Neither really stuck, but I wonder if one had, if I would be collecting a pension check from the NBA? Instead I muddled along as 'John,' living an O.K. life and producing lots of OK stuff in a number of different areas.

So what kind of latitude should we have in altering our assigned handle? Can a change of name change the course of our lives in at least one area? I'm thinking here of people who enter religious communities, clubs, teams, or gangs and acquire new names and new identities. Can a nickname or 're-appelation' alter our self-perception and our path through the world?

So many questions. So few answers. At least, I don't have them. But, as I struggle to enter Act 5 of my life, and make it at least a little more than the denouement and falling action of what went before, I think a name change for at least some of my activities might be in order.

Meet augie.

Sadness, a continuing saga.

I mentioned a while back I believed the Girl Scouts may have invented shrinkflation when, many years ago, I opened a box of Thin Mints and found it six cookies shy of a full load.

Well, the Girls are all in on light-loading the cookies. We just got a half-dozen boxes of cookies, including a new (to us, at least) flavor, exploremores, inspired by Rocky Road ice cream.

Or maybe the explore part of the name was a reference to having to spelunk the box to find the sad little tubes of cookies cowering three inches below the box top.

What I find sad is how we're teaching young girls, the future entrepreneurs and businesspeople of America, to lie to/cheat/ deceive/fool their customers.

Hangin' with Keith.

For some reason unknown to me, I have been bumping into Keith Richards a lot. He features in articles and pops up in tribute concerts. But what I find interesting is how thoughtful he is about the music, and consequently about life. There are little bits of sly humor, too. As he noted at Willie Nelson's 90th birthday concert, 'I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be anywhere,' no doubt a nod to his Byronesque life, which should have resulted in 'live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.'

That ship definitely sailed a long time ago.

But what I find most interesting is his recognition of creativity in his life and world. He's just the pass-through. As he noted,

These crucial, wonderful riffs (in Jumpin' Jack Flash') just came, I don’t know where from. I’m blessed with them and I can never get to the bottom of them. When you get a riff like ‘Flash’ you get a great feeling of elation, a wicked glee. Of course, then comes the other thing of persuading people that it is as great as you actually know it is. You have to go through the pooh-pooh.

As [he] has said over the years, song ideas just come into his head. They flow naturally and he channels them into his guitar. He already explained that the guitar parts seem to come from somewhere he still doesn’t know and cannot explain.

If you're creative, and honest, you know (and say out loud) that's how it works more often than you probably want to admit. If you do, you're also admitting that you're just a pass-through, maybe rearranging some furniture or dusting the bright work along the way, but ultimately, you're playing with powers far beyond your ability to understand or control.