uTopianTurtleTop

TO SIR WITH LOVE

I see that Jane has pitched his tent with the capitalism-accepting ameliorists after all, to which I say, Hurrah!

Jane's "real" name is Joshua Clover, and he's an English professor at UC Davis. I'd been wanting to say something about this a couple days ago, but only out of meanness, so I didn't. But I've since come across clues that indicate that he wants to be revealed.

Joshua publishes a lot under the name "Joshua Clover." Last night I read a piece attributed to "Joshua Clover" in the collection This Is Pop. His piece is the best thing I can remember ever having read on Top 40. He makes the case that Pop is Everyday Life Except Moreso. It's the only account of Pop I've read that has room in it for two of my totemic musical acts, Barry Manilow and Ferrante & Teicher, both hugely popular record makers during the rock era whom I happen to like a lot, and which liking I like to trumpet because they're so reviled by the mainstream of rockcrit -- they're a wedge I've been using to try to pry open some understanding into how the consensus discourse works. I was psyched to read Joshua's piece.

In his brief end-book bio, Joshua claims to have published pieces in the Village Voice under at least 4 different names. I remembered that a couple weeks ago, Sasha had "scare-quoted" Voice writer "Nick Sylvester." I know that Sasha and Joshua are friends, and with his link to "Nick," Sasha was thanking him for kind words. I went and read some more of "Nick's" stuff, and noticed a link to "Joshua Clover," which led to Jane Dark's page. "Nick's" stuff reads something like an oddball version of "Jane's," but even if "Nick" is the pseudonym of some other writer, not Joshua, he's obviously in the same (perhaps mostly virtual) social scene, since both he and Joshua are connected to Sasha. So if Joshua didn't want "Jane" to be outed, presumably "Nick" would honor that.

Holy heteronyms, Batman! Paging Alberto Caeiro!

In retrospect, I'm glad Joshua was so snide in our exchange, because I probably wouldn't have read his piece in "This Is Pop" any time soon otherwise, and I'm glad I did.