What's in a name?

My decision to start a blog, like most of my decisions, was rash and impulsive. I wanted somewhere, other than my business website, to keep my family and friends informed of what I was up to. I wanted something that would (possibly) force me to write a little more; discipline me to a daily routine of writing in my journal. And so...

I started a blog! I hear that everyone is doing it these days.

I joined Blogger.com, filled in all the forms, and then got to the field that said: 'Title'. My mind went blank. I couldn't think of a thing... or at least nothing that wasn't cheap, tacky, clichéd, banal or trite. I decided that I hadn't thought this through very well and left the screen open whilst I went back to writing my latest story.

It took me a while to notice it while I was writing but, there it was, right in front of me! Mysterious, obscure, suggestive, and just plain strange! It was exactly the sort of title I was looking for.

But where did it come from?

Shall I explain? [As long as you don't bore me, I hear you say]

A few months ago, I had a rather strange dream. I can't say too much, as that dream has now become the basis for my current major writing project, but...

In the dream: I awake inside an old Victorian-style mansion - in a basement filled with cast iron gears turning, and steam pistons and boilers jetting warm vapours into the darkness. I walk up and out of the basement, not really knowing who I am, or where I am. I wander long deserted halls lined with locked doors and flickering gas lamps. I turn one brass door-knob after another, working my way further and further through the house.

Eventually I find an open room, and there is a desk, all polished mahogany and curlicued brass fittings. On the desk are a small pile of books resting on a leather edged blotter. I look at the titles of the books and they are:

McKenzie's Manual of Anthropomorphic Configurations
McKenzie's Guide to Automata Repair
McKenzie's Little Book of Etiquette for Modern Men and Women

There was a bit more to the dream, not much, but enough for me to extrapolate a rather neat idea for a novel!

In the dream, I didn't really look through the books either - or at least I don't remember doing so. The titles intrigued me though. I'm still not quite sure how one of those titles relates to what I'm going to do with this space, but it was better than anything else I could come up with!

I guess the contents of any of those books would be a little like "The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases", which I picked up the other day and am enjoying. I think the McKenzie's line of books are a little less-satirical, though. The sort of thing you would expect to find in an old magazine like The Strand; invoking images of late-Victorian pseudo-science and rollicking adventures of derring-do; lino-cut engravings of men (or in this case anthropomorphs) in Saville Row suits and bowler hats on bulldog heads; women with wide skirts and elaborate lace parasols hiding their soft kitten faces from the sun.

I think that the sort of things I will be musing on here will be as ecclectic and numerous as the configurations of anthropomorphs in McKenzie's Guide. I'll write on my art, my writing, on what I'm reading and what I'm listening to. I might comment on a movie I see, or politics, or the strange beast we call humanity. Sometimes I'll probably just vent my woes and proclaim my joys. And like any good follower [read: mad scientist] of McKenzie's Guide, I'll probably mix it all up a bit, just to see what happens.

So, that's the tale of the title, and the end of my first post. Now let's see how regularly I can discipline myself to update this thing!