The Game of the Name
McGrath, Joseph
impetus for these measures came instead from independent drillers who feared that in a price war the majors would have an unfair advantage. Similarly, in the 1950s, the internationals like Exxon...
...I locked up the rightists for you...
...Janet grows up and meets the boy of her dreams who, not surprisingly, is also dual-named--Jack Krenwinkel-Roget...
...D0O~DO0~OIUg00O0Q~0~QiQIQQ~0O~DDbQQQIOD~00009QQD~0o~Q~Q~I0OO~Q~D~06DQIP0Q00~DIQ~08~b068OO0O00O0D0000~DI~tQ0i~O0ImO~0O0QDDg~O0~00O0nD6BP P0j~D~ Joseph McGrath The Game of the Name I have here a peculiar clipping from a recent Sunday edition of the local newspaper...
...We'll call her Janet Schwamm-Bukowski...
...There are sound political reasons for his hesitancy...
...the bloated profits of the oil industry are only chimerical, should President Carter be so reluctant to offer opportunities for higher earnings...
...Sanjay, what is a mother to do these days...
...See The OilCrisis (Norton, 1976...
...They will need it...
...Quite apart from the fact that a person's name is to some extent a handle on his identity (and therefore reality) and that such a proliferation of monikers might tend to diffuse one's self-awareness, there are far more practical matters awaiting our young John Smith Halloran-SchwammMorningside-etc., and his generation...
...market...
...Promise me one thing, darling...
...So you need money, that's what it is...
...It is not entirely clear the companies could have resisted...
...No one will ever love you like your mother...
...G) What now seems impossible inevitably will occur: The credit sequences of 26 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 films and television programs will roll on even more tediously than they do nOW...
...Absolutely not, Sanjay...
...I just wanted you to have the things I didn't have when I was a child...
...A whole automobile factory isn't enough for you...
...classrooms will last until lunchtime, which may force the abandonment (if any vestige of them survives till then) of reading, writing, and arithmetic...
...No, ma...
...You wouldn't even have your grandfather-Vishnu rest his soul--to look after you...
...So tell me, darling, what are you doing these days to keep busy...
...Listen, as far as I'm concerned, what you do is your business...
...You're a dear boy, Sanjay, to think of your mother, but I'm not so much a stick in the mud...
...A) Baptismal fonts will have to evolove along with this practice, becoming large enough to accommodate the floods required in the lengthier ceremony...
...Whatever you say, ma...
...When considered as an emerging social custom, though, the practice compounds its interest, so to speak, geometrically...
...If I still had your sainted father to rely on, believe me, it would be seven million rupees and eight percent of the gross...
...Nixon, warts and all, was never a real dictator...
...there isn't a thing between us...
...But before you do, give another thought to our young friend, John Smith Halloran-SchwammMorningside- Lucarelli - Schwamm(no relation)-Bukowski-Krenwinkel-Roget with his genealogy flowing behind him like an unwieldy banner...
...Tm negotiating with David Frost...
...In that case, be prepared to conserve your moral energy, for there will be many "moral equivalents of war" to come...
...Think of all the fresh opportunities for those cute little computers to misspell your name...
...Where can you beat that...
...Those ingots, Sanjay, are the family's nest egg...
...Ingenious techniques will no doubt be developed which will allow immersion-baptism to be carried out without loss of life...
...It is hoped that monogrammed tie-clips, earrings, and cufflinks, rather than expand to absurd proportions, will simply drop from sight...
...Not a call since the election...
...How long before these patient souls succumb to the pressures of a bull market and begin charging "by the letter," perhaps with hyphens etched half-price...
...President Carter obviously feels he should not imperil the acceptance of higher prices by appearing to give too much to the oil industry...
...I even played a little footsie with the Russians for you...
...Silly gossip, Sanjay...
...In the short run, the most pressing need is to convince people that, given our existing information, energy prices are simply too low...
...But what is a poor widow to do, who has to depend on a son who can't even make a go of a free automobile factory...
...From 1956 to 1969, Exxon could muster an average profit rate of only 2 %, and for all its concentration of wealth and power, utterly failed to repeal a quota that was disastrous to its interests...
...At the very least, our condolences to the descendants of Messrs...
...I mean, after DaddyJawa died, I had to claw my way to the top...
...There are ample precedents, moreover, for avoiding the marketplace...
...Besides, I've been working on a deal for you--for my customary ten percent commission, of course...
...I swear on the memory of the Mahatma...
...So we roll a few frames, then maybe we go over to the new Pizza Hut and have a halfopepperoni, half-plain...
...You should be ashamed of yourself, absolutely ashamed...
...John Nollson Sons and Mothers "Hello, morn...
...And after all the sacrifices I made for you...
...Now that I'm not so busy, I can get away every so often, even for a singles weekend in the Himalayas...
...You mean there's something to those rumors about you and Hugh Carey...
...It's a short item, an announcement of the imminent wedding of a young couple...
...The number of the bullion account...
...What is peaaliar about that, you ask...
...C) On the bureaucratic front there will be rejoicing...
...Sometimes I think you're going to run off with a Muslim girl, and that's not the worst of it...
...Remember: everything I did, I did for you...
...Perhaps from these ephemeral pages we may presume to forward our sympathies to those generations...
...Sometimes, I go with a friend on the package deal-Weekend for Two in Katmandu...
...This scarcity need not be a serious problem: If the market is permitted to work, prices will rise over the years and producers will hold back their output in the expectation of greater future earnings...
...I'm glad your father didn't have to live to see this...
...Well, nothing, except that it goes on to record that the couple has agreed, for ideological reasons, to retain both of their surnames after they are hitched and to be known collectively thereafter as the Schwamm-Bukowskis...
...Was that so wrong...
...I'm really driving a hard bargain for you in these negotiations with Frost...
...Anyway, we shouldn't talk like this, Sanjay...
...Suppose, for example, that the Schwamm-Bukowskis conceive and give birth to a child...
...of age, Frank, shunning the priesthood, takes a bride, the lovely and talented Juanita Halloran-Schwamm(no relation)Morningside-Lucarelli...
...this is where I will have to draw the line...
...and if the British hadn't done away with suttee...
...not even a post card...
...Similarly, in the 1950s, the internationals like Exxon (then Esso), Gulf, and Shell vigorously--and unsuccessfully-opposed the institution of import quotas, for they wanted to sell their foreign crude on the lucrative American * The major oil companies are often accused of aiding and abetting the OPEC cartel, and there is evidence that they did not strongly resist moves to cartelization...
...If, however, the owners of valuable resources feel that future profits will be popularly regarded as unjust windfalls and therefore restricted, there will be little incentive to conserve over the years...
...You know, ma, you should come to the lanes once in a while...
...I didn't want you to have to go through all of that, Sanjay...
...We are also making precedents, however, and in doing so we should consider that energy is not the only resource with potential shortages...
...Even Calvin Coolidge thought the oil industry too important to be governed by the forces of supply and demand...
...you'll do five television interviews for six million rupees plus seven percent of the gross...
...Don't be silly...
...F) At conventions, and other gatherings of the unacquainted, 11"X 14" placards will droop like stiff bibs from the necks of the guests, bearing the elongated legend, "Hi, My Name Is...
...For the real truth about our Watergate, the The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 27...
...You haven't gotten married, have you ?" "I can't remember, ma...
...I do some work on my motorcycle...
...If that doesn't give cause for reflection, then I can say no more except to suggest that we may be courting, through excessive enthusiasm, the resentment of future generations...
...John Smith Halloran- Schwamm - Morningside - Lucarelli-Schwamm-Bukowski-Krenwinkel -Roget it says on the birth certificate...
...B) If commenced at the beginning of the school day, roll calls in metropolitan " I use the archaic appellation "Miss" only to distinguish, in my own mind, the lady in question from one "Manuscript" Schwamm, a proof-reader of my acquaintance...
...Why do you always bring that up, ma...
...The gold is an insurance policy in case we have to start a new life in some foreign country...
...On your motorcycle...
...Besides, the price of gold is bound to rise again, and we ought to hang on to the bullion...
...Once Joseph MeGrath writes from Boston...
...Naturally, Janet chooses to retain her full maiden name, in the family tradition...
...This nice young couple, being sentimental, name their fast issue after a favorite great.grand-uncle, the quaintly-named John Smith...
...I recognize the voice--but not because I've heard it lately...
...Yeah, I mean like there's a bunch of us, and like we like to ride around town, and like we like to go bowling at the new lanes the Russians built for us in downtown Calcutta, Brezhnev Bowlorama, you know the place...
...I just need one ingot...
...Meanwhile, ma, I need some money...
...An orphan, that's what you'd be today...
...But what have I been all these years except a poor widow trying to do the best she can for her son...
...you need a little recreation...
...But I still worry about you, Sanjay...
...Oh, c'mon, ma, will ya cut it out...
...You've squandered your allowance again...
...Oh, c'mon, ma, will ya cut it out...
...Because I wanted gratitude...
...Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith...
...So, now it's too much for a mother to ask for her son to call once in a while, or to send a few lines in a letter...
...D) All metropolitan telephone directories will have to be issued in multivolume editions so as to remain portable...
...I can get a terrific deal on a big Kawasaki, but the Parsee who owns it wants to be paid in gold...
...So, the SchwammBukowski-Krenwinkel-Rogets multiply, naming their bouncing baby Frank...
...In fact, I need the number of the bullion account in Geneva...
...You may scoff at these prognostications, call them casual, even frivolous...
...Now, I would not for a millisecond challenge Miss* Schwamm's right to display the name posterity has bequeathed to her...
...I once told you that the ingots were put away for a rainy day-not to be squandered on motorcycles...
...promise your mother that you'll stay away from those gay bars in Calcutta...
...Because of the secondary social uses of telephone books, planning in this area is especially important: why should our lack of foresight embarrass our shorter dinner guests ? (IS) It will become increasingly difficult to design monogrammed items such as towels, pillow cases, blankets, and handkerchiefs which look anything but gaudy...
...Of course, it's easy for you...
...What's the deal...
...Don't worry, ma...
...I declared the emergency for you...
...Really, ma, there's no reason for you to be so stingy...
...Fifty years from now, when policymakers turn back to President Carter's energy plan for some historical perspective, there is good reason to suspect that many important metals, for example, will be becoming progressively scarcer...
...Your own mother you would charge a ten percent commission for putting together a deal...
...it just gets us depressed...
...Sanjay, yes it is Sanjay...
...I closed down the newspapers for you...
...Grandpa Jawa said I could have my share whenever I wanted, so there...
...But Raymond Vernon shows the importance of competition from brash newcomers to the Middle East (e.g., Occidental Petroleum) as an impetus for the OPEC price rise: these firms, hoping to expand their share of Middle Eastern production, were willing to pay increasingly higher royalties to the host nations, thus giving them the idea that such royalties could rise much further...
...Listen, mom, I didn't call to hear how tough it was for you and Grandpa Jawaharlal...
...As soon as you finish your memoirs, the money will start to roll in...
...Form 1040 will be graced with another line or two...
...not a letter...
...Her doing so is simply an assertion of an individual prerogative and as such has its charms...
...When your father died...
...If, then...
...Is that you...
...I t ' s easy for you to say, isn't it...
...H) And what of those stalwarts who for centuries, never greedy, have plied their trade happy with modest profits, secure in the knowledge that they have chosen the quintessential "steady job": what about the headstone cutters...
Vol. 10 • June 1977 • No. 9
