Tuesday, February the 3rd, 2015

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Pseudonymous Inaccuracy

When James Newell Osterberg Jr was a tiny infant, he was fed on a diet of mashed up pap made from eggs. It was the piquant memory of these slops that informed his later decision, when embarking upon a career as a musical performer, to adopt the pseudonym Eggy Pap. A typographic error—or rather two typographic errors—rendered the name differently on the label of his first vinyl waxing. Deploying one of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies avant la lettre, Osterberg determined to “honour [his] error as a hidden intention”, and retained the inaccurate pseudonym throughout his subsequent career.