Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Irish Samurai

Some of you may have wandered over to my photostream on Flickr. Over there, I go by the moniker "The Irish Samurai". You may have wondered where that came from, so I thought I would explain.

It was a nickname I came up with for myself back in high school. My sister and I were having fun sending in personal ads to The Reader, a weekly newspaper in Chicago. Like most people we were sending in vague <25 word submissions on 3x5 index cards (this was before internet) that were anywhere from slightly philosophical to random thoughts. The Irish Samurai was one of the pseudonyms underwhich I sent some of my submissions. Seeing as how many people come up with pseudonyms for Flickr accounts (David the Pretender, Leonzerider) I thought I would resurrect that name.

Basically the name comes from my two lines of ancestry that are most prominent. I'm a redheaded kid with a Japanese last name. Since I am also a quarter Irish, the name seemed to fit. I look vaguely Irish and all the ID's in my wallet say I'm Japanese. So that's it. That's the story. Plain and simple. No illusions of being military nobility in County Kerry.

3 comments:

Hashi said...

Ah, I remember those days well. My name back then was Ophelia. It was chosen during the dark industrial phase (which I have never seemed to outgrow) and plus we just read Shakespeare in school.


Would you be surprised to know that I actually clipped out those personal "ads" published by either you or I and kept them? You're probably not too surprised, knowing that I'm a collector just like our parents are.

Unknown said...

OK, now you're scaring me. I thought those all disappeared with my youth. Though it would be kinda need to see them.

Anonymous said...

I loved those personal ads. My favorite was Toby Dammit.