Robin Hamilton wrote:
>And as for heteronyms and false identities...
>
>What about that spotty eighteen year old adolescent called Patrick McManus
>pretending to be a refugee from the Boer War wielding his poisoned
>zimmerframe?
>
> Get real, loosen up, hang free -- or have I missed something?
>
>To be mildly serious, a *bit* of where petc is at is playing identity games,
>and the background of this general mush is that we all tend to know each
>other well enough that it's damn difficult to slip a false identity into the
>mix.
>
>
I've heard the false identity story alluded to, who birthed it, and got
implications of general carnage poetically equivalent to the Somme.
Happened before I got here, which is about two years ago now. In the
meantime, I'm not so overwrought with the whole false identity business
or doing some kind of "trading places" thing. Probably this would be a
good thing for many people--be The Other for awhile, find yourself lost
in another being. Not necessarily Mick Jagger.
First bit of identity theft I encountered was in the pre-computer era,
1969. I worked in the NYC Welfare Department with a guy named Neil
Goldstein. Then Neil had a meltdown and tried to kill himself. He was
committed to the Psych unit at Bellevue Hospital and turned into a
Thorazine zombie. Turns out Neil wasn't Neil but Paul. Neil was his
brother. Paul had never graduated from college, Neil had--and a college
degree + the ability to breathe were the requirements for getting
hired. So Paul appropriated his brother's identity, used his brother's
college credentials, Social Security number, and other documentation to
get a job. I guess it was a lot more work back then than just logging
onto to an account or creating a spoof. Then again, the security
measures in 1968 and '69 were probably less stringent than they are now.
ken
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