[Max Goodman]

I've just attempted to register as "Max Goodman." Since I saw no way during the registration process to explain to administrators what I was doing (or to provide the proof of identification requested of those of us with free e-mail addresses), this post is an attempt to do that, as well as to announce the name change (should it be approved) to you, my friends and colleagues here.

The reason for the name change is to keep my posts here from being search-engine connectable to what (little) I publish, to make my communications here more private, between me and other members. (And more, to prevent posts from coming up in preference to poems should some odd soul actually care to Google my work.) I hope the new name is close enough to my real one, that no one will think I'm trying to disguise my identity.

So, pals, if you see posts from "Max Goodman," that's me.

[Jim Hayes]

I always wanted to be called 'Max'- "Hey, just call me Max" has a powerful ring to it. Only thing, much as I subscribe to your concerns and would like to follow suit my name doesn't translate quite so serendipitously- nope, Max Haze doesn't work.
Now if I was Janet Canny..

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Good to know, Max, and I hope this means we'll see more of you and your work.

Marybeth

[Roger Slater]

The problem with being called Max is the disincentive to date anyone named Minnie, but if you steer clear of romantic entanglements with Minnies, it's a fine name indeed. The "x" is an underutilized letter, and we should all do what we can to promote it. I only wish there were more words that began with the letter x, since children learning the alphabet really don't have to hear about x-rays and xylophones quite as much as they do. I say either boot x from the alphabet, the way Pluto was booted from the solar system, or come up with more words beginning with x! But I digress. Welcome, Mr. Goodman.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Roger: "The "x" is an underutilized letter, and we should all do what we can to promote it. I only wish there were more words that began with the letter x, since children learning the alphabet really don't have to hear about x-rays and xylophones quite as much as they do."

In the alphabet book I wrote for my grandchildren I tried to address that problem (as well as others--e.g. the various pronunciations of "c"). Here's the entry for "X":

....X is too shy for the start of a word.
....(Xylophone? X-ray? They're pretty absurd!)
....It hides behind vowels in oxen and axe
....and comes at the end in appendix and wax.

[Gregory Dowling]

Here's a slightly longer meditation on the letter by Robert B. Shaw:

Solving for X

Protean emblem, how to pin you down?
You are the unknown quantity in hiding
behind a blackboard’s haze of wasted chalk,
mark on a treasure map a second look
proves innocent of place names or of bearings,
malefactor pursued through twenty chapters
to be unmasked by equally fictitious
detectives who would miss you in real life.
Miss you – because you flourish so profusely,
straddling so many contexts (sacred, sinister,
rarefied, common): sparkling in the dome’s
mosaic, you are the monogram of Christ
or instrument of Andrew’s martyrdom;
or, white on black, the femurs crossed beneath
buccaneer’s merry bogy. Black on yellow
warns more mildly: railroad tracks ahead.
Sign of a kiss, and multiplying sign,
Caesar’s 10, illiterate signature,
teacher’s mark in the margin (“wrong again”).
Antepenultimate character, you abut
a forking path that leads to the alphabet’s
ultimate fizzle – snore in a comic strip –
while you, in suchlike sagas, replace the eyes
of two-dimensional victims just gunned down.
Unable to take form without a pause
and lifting of the pen, are you implying
that two strokes representing different meanings
cancel each other out, or one the other?
But one stroke leaves the other standing, starts
the latest round of tic-tac-toe. We live
webbed in the world’s converging decussations,
no further away than our own shoelaces,
bemused by the plasticity of signs
that after some initial idle noticings
beckon our attention from all sides:
stitch of a little girl’s sampler (1850),
weave in a wicker porch chair, fingers crossed
just for luck; and here, facing the water,
sturdy tape bracing each staring window
in the gray lull before the hurricane hits.

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Not only is the x underutilised, it's also worth 8 points.

This impulse is completely understandable: I do wish forum posts were Google-safe!

KEB

[winter]

Woody Allen used to call himself "Max" when booking hotel rooms or restaurant tables to avoid being recognised. Although without a wig and a mask, I doubt it made much difference. It is a great name, for sure.

[David Landrum]

Originally posted by Katy Evans-Bush:
Not only is the x underutilised, it's also worth 8 points.
KEB

Yes, even if you can only get "ox" or "ax" it's worth the gambit. And "exit" near a double-word square will clinch the game.

Unfortunately, "Max" always reminds me of:

Max Frost--anyone here remember the film Wild in the Streets where the kids take over America? cir. 1968?

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles:

Back in school again, Maxwell plays the fool again,
teacher gets annoyed
Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene,
she tells Max to stay when the class is gone away . . .

You probably remember what happens.

Max, the female arms dealer, played by Vanessa Redgrave in
Mission Impossible.

So . . .