change name request

[Sherman Krebbs]

Can I be called "Sherman Krebbs" at least till I find one better.  Thanks. Background for those who are interested:

 

Quote

Cat's Cradle:

36. Meow

During my trip to Ilium and to points beyond—a two-week expedition bridging Christmas—I let a poor poet named Sherman Krebbs have my New York City apartment free. My second wife had left me on the grounds that I was too pessimistic for an optimist to live with.

 

Krebbs was a bearded man, a platinum blond Jesus with spaniel eyes. He was no close friend of mine. I had met him at a cocktail party where he presented himself as National Chairman of Poets and Painters for Immediate Nuclear War. He begged for shelter, not necessarily bomb proof, and it happened that I had some.

 

When I returned to my apartment, still twanging with the puzzling spiritual implications of the unclaimed stone angel in Ilium, I found my apartment wrecked by a nihilistic debauch. Krebbs was gone; but, before leaving, he had run up three-hundred-dollars’ worth of long-distance calls, set my couch on fire in five places, killed my cat and my avocado tree, and torn the door off my medicine cabinet.

 

He wrote this poem, in what proved to be excrement, on the yellow linoleum floor of my kitchen:

I have a kitchen.
But it is not a complete kitchen.
I will not be truly gay
Until I have a
Dispose-all.

There was another message, written in lipstick in a feminine hand on the wallpaper over my bed. It said: “No, no, no, said Chicken-licken.”

 

There was a sign hung around my dead cat’s neck. It said, “Meow.”

 

I have not seen Krebbs since. Nonetheless, I sense that he was my karass. If he was, he served it as a wrang-wrang. A wrang-wrang, according to Bokonon, is a person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang’s own life, to an absurdity.

 

I might have been vaguely inclined to dismiss the stone angel as meaningless, and to go from there to the meaninglessness of all. But after I saw what Krebbs had done, in particular what he had done to my sweet cat, nihilism was not for me.

 

Somebody or something did not wish me to be a nihilist. It was Krebbs’s mission, whether he knew it or not, to disenchant me with that philosophy. Well, done, Mr. Krebbs, well done.

 

[Nungali]

Was he related to Maynard G. Krebbs ?

 

[Sherman Krebbs]

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

Was he related to Maynard G. Krebbs ?

 

The Dobie Gillis predates me by two decades, so I did not make that connection.  Cat's cradle was published in 1963, so I am guessing people at the time probably would have, which makes it even more hilarious (and maybe interesting?).  Seminal book for those interested in studying Bokononism. 

[Nungali]

12 hours ago, Sherman Krebbs said:

 

The Dobie Gillis predates me by two decades, so I did not make that connection.  Cat's cradle was published in 1963, so I am guessing people at the time probably would have, which makes it even more hilarious (and maybe interesting?).  Seminal book for those interested in studying Bokononism. 

 

 

Actually, that quote and terms where   so familiar to me that  they passed by as not unusual  !

 

 

Now I have lost track of your previous ID ... we may have talked about this before .   KV is a hero of mine ,  he was also a cultural  anthropologist, like me.   So I can see the source and value of what he wrote , in MANY instances .

 

have you read 'Lonesome no More '  ( 'Slapstick'  )  ? I love the themes in it regarding 'name changes '   (or in the case of the book )  :

 

" The siblings created, among other things, a plan to end loneliness in America through vast extended families. Under the plan, all citizens would be provided with new middle names, made of the name of a random natural object paired with a random number between 1 and 20. Everyone with the same name would be cousins, and everyone with the same name and number would be siblings. "

 

It links and heals people in a certain way .    This is something that seems to have been lost from modern civilization .  I have noticed it here in indigenous studies with moiety and clans etc  .  people from far away with nothing in common , strangers, can meet  and

 

" What's your totem ?"

" Sea- eagle "

" Really !  I am a sea-eagle too ! "

" Brother !  "

" Brother !

 

... or it could be 'Cousin !  "   or Cuz  .... Maori's have a good term    " Cuzzy-bro "    

 

Like in Vonnegut's example , it can create bonds across barriers .

 

 

 

Edited July 10 by Nungali

[Sherman Krebbs]

8 hours ago, Nungali said:

KV is a hero of mine , 

 

The only other book I have read of his is Slaughterhouse-Five, though I have been time travelling ever since.   My tendency is to think that the latest book I have read is the best, provided that it is really good, and cat’s cradle is no exception.  I could not stop laughing. Even now thinking of it, bubbles start to form in my esophagus.  This poem stuck out to me.

 

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.”

 

There is definitely some profundity in his commentary. Will have to pick-up lonesome no more.  

 

[Nungali]

and Sirens of Titan .... that is a MUST !

 

those little 'calypso ' poems  have a certain name , which escapes me

 

That one you posted above I used years back here on DBs on a 'deep' thread about  .....  'why, why , why ' .

 

Good stuff !

[Nungali]

Oh yeah, another one just popped up , and its about that concept above I described  with other 'clan names ' ; 'Karasses " .

 

 A karass , also known as a 'device' ;

 

Nice,  nice , very nice,

Nice,  nice , very nice,

Nice,  nice , very nice,

so many people in the same device.

 

Edited July 11 by Nungali

[Sherman Krebbs]

12 minutes ago, Nungali said:

'Karasses "

 

And this, as opposed to a (hand over my heart) Granfalloon...

[daobro]

Hi, I would like to change my name to "daobro". Could you please help me?

 

Thanks!

[doc benway]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:09 PM, daobro said:

Hi, I would like to change my name to "daobro". Could you please help me?

 

Thanks!

 

You got it daobro

[Lukks]

Hello! I want to change my name to: Luks

 

If it's already taken, change it to: Lukks

 

If it's also already taken, tell me and I'll think of something different haha

 

[dwai]

2 hours ago, QiBob SquareGong said:

Hello! I want to change my name to: Luks

 

If it's already taken, change it to: Lukks

 

If it's also already taken, tell me and I'll think of something different haha

 

Changed to Lukks

[forestofclarity]

Changed name to forestofclarity.

 

Do not, however, expect more "clarity" from my posts. 

[Rebirthless]

Hi. I'd like to change my name to "Rebirthless".

 

Thank you.

[forestofclarity]

16 minutes ago, Rebirthless said:

Hi. I'd like to change my name to "Rebirthless".

 

Thank you.

 

Done.