What's in a Name

This blog experienced more traffic than usual on Friday morning. The great majority of hits came from the navigational bar in Blogger, which is one way to discover new and interesting blogs. Perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to have some of the people who happened by return to my small corner of the Internet.

I don’t remember ever having seen a red moon and haven’t ever visited any of the restaurants or bars in Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere named the Red Moon Café. This blog title comes from a sidewalk café that once existed in Paris and may still exist. I discovered the name when I was studying French as an undergraduate and found the name appealing. It wasn’t revealed how the café earned its name. If I were to create a literary journal, I would probably name it the Red Moon Café. Similarly, if I were to create my own press and publish a chapbook of poems annually, I would probably use the name Red Moon Press. That name has stuck with me because of its associations with poetry and magic.

Although I haven’t had much interest in traveling overseas, I would like to visit Paris at some point in my life. Even before Michael Moore created such an idealized view of France in his documentary Sicko, I have wanted to see some of the museums of art, to walk along the Seine, and to get out into the country. My son, on the other hand, wants to visit Canada. He has taken down some of his Star Wars posters and replaced them with a large flag of Canada. Canada appeals to him because of its socialized medicine, its history as a place of refuge from the militarism in this country, and its allure of freedom from the policies of George Bush and other politicians in Washington. He would love it if his mom and dad were to get jobs in Canada.