Tuesday, December 05, 2006

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

This has been on my mental task list for a while. I practically had to hide it at checkout counter at the library, but I finally got around to reading Madonna's The English Roses. I've been wanting to to read it for the simple fact that one of the characters has my name. Spelled the same and everything!

Hmmmph.

It was REALLY, REALLY WEIRD seeing my name in a book. I'm not used to seeing it in the third person. Whenever I see it, it's usually written by me or addressed to me or about me. Because it's not a name!!! It's a word!!! I half suspect Madonna chose it because she's into the Kabbalah. Why else name a little English girl in her story with the Hebrew word for "understanding"? (A quick wikipedia search shows that the word is also some sort of division on the Kabbalah tree of life.) The other girls were named Nicole, Amy, Charlotte, and Grace. Why not name the little outcast girl Beatrice? Or Betty? Why me?????

The story itself was pretty unoriginal, and the narrative style was disjointed.

Hmmmph. Hmmmph. Hmmmph.

Hmmmph.

3 comments:

Torgo said...

Wow. All the years I worked at BN, since it came out, I've seen that book and never opened it up. If only I'd known...

Having a common American name myself, I have no idea how that feels. But at least it's in Madonna's kids book and not Jay Leno's, Billy Crystal's, or Jamie Lee Curtis' (Ok, I actually don't mind Jamie Lee Curtis as an actress, but that's the one celebrity kids book I've read, and it's wretched).

Rainster said...

Your last name is rare enough, though, that it'd probably be jarring to see it as a random last name in a book!

Consoling myself with a Mr Rogers song about being special....

Torgo said...

You can download a free James Taylor song on iTunes today to console you, if Mr. Rogers doesn't do the trick.

I picture Mr. Rogers and James Taylor being friends. Except, I don't think Mr. Rogers had a hardcore drug addiction in the 70s. He just wore sweaters.