{"id":4793,"date":"2013-04-06T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=4793"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:17:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:17:27","slug":"everyone-needs-an-alter-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=4793","title":{"rendered":"Everyone needs an alter ego…."},"content":{"rendered":"

…… a Nom de Plum…. another personality…… or three!!<\/p>\n

I was just reading about Archy and Mehitabel<\/a>, created by Don Marquis, who was at one time the editor of the New York Evening Sun. In 1916, to help with the task of writing a daily column, Marquis created several charcters – Archy, a cockroach, Mehitabel an alley cat and a few others. They were his alter egos. He could now write humorous, social commentary, through them and be one step removed. <\/p>\n

I have always been fascinated by a writer’s persona. Writing as someone else can be liberating. It can also be your downfall. I remember my mother once saying that she was going to write a novel as a 9 year-old-boy. I said, “That’s ridiculous. You’ve never been a 9-year-old-boy.” I always regretted saying that. He may have been her alter ego.<\/p>\n

I love Archy. He writes at night by jumping on the keys of a typewriter in the newspaper’s office, leaving his missives for the editor to read in the morning. As the story goes, Archy is the reincarnation of a poet, who wrote free verse. Archy’s poems, in turn, are fascinating. His friend, an alley cat named, Mehitabel, is the reincarnation of Cleopatra, which makes her a very interesting character.<\/p>\n

We actually have many alter egos here – personalities within personalities. Don Marquis must have really wanted to escape!! I know that we all love to get away. Many of us disappear into imaginary worlds through books, movies, music or Art. Here’s an example.<\/p>\n

I am for the most part, Carol Tomany. However, I design lace, as Anne Corcoran (my middle name and maiden name). Anne is one of my alter egos. She is a dis-embodied designer who lives in a creative world surrounded by nature and translates what she sees into knitted lace. Carol Tomany lives in the real world of pressures – time, money, work etc. I try to join Anne, when I can. It’s nice to stay connected and have a chat \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
One tired orchid!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\nHere is Archy’s introduction. There are no capitals because that would require using two keys at once on the type writer. I’m not sure why there is no punctuation, however, I do know that a lot of poets hate rules and grammar is a series of rules – my explanation anyway.<\/p>\n

the coming of archy<\/p>\n

expression is the need of my soul
\ni was once a vers libre bard
\nbut i
\ndied and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
\nit has given me a new
\noutlook upon life
\ni see things from the under side now
\nthank you for the
\napple peelings in the wastepaper basket
\nbut your paste is getting so stale i
\ncant eat it
\nthere is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would
\nhave
\nremoved she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
\ncatch rats
\nthat is what she is supposed to be fore
\nthere is a rat here she should get
\nwithout delay
\nmost of these rats here are just rats
\nbut this rat is like me he has a
\nhuman soul in him
\nhe used to be a poet himself
\nnight after night i have
\nwritten poetry for you
\non your typewriter
\nand this big brute of a rat who
\nused to be a poet
\ncomes out of his hole when it is done
\nand reads it and
\nsniffs at it
\nhe is jealous of my poetry
\nhe used to make fun of it when we
\nwere both human
\nhe was a punk poet himself
\nand after he has read it he
\nsneers
\nand then he eats it<\/p>\n

wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat
\nor get a cat that is onto her
\njob
\nand i will write you a series of poems showing how things look
\nto a
\ncockroach
\nthat rats name is freddy
\nthe next time freddy dies i hope he
\nwont be a rat
\nbut something smaller i hope i will be a rat
\nin the next
\ntransmigration and freddy a cockroach
\ni will teach him to sneer at my poetry
\nthen
\ndont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office
\ni haven\u2019t had a crumb of
\nbread for i dont know how long
\nor a piece of ham or anything but apple
\nparings
\nand paste and leave a piece of paper in your machine
\nevery night
\nyou can call me archy<\/p>\n

My alter ego is really not a transmigrated soul, she is more the other half of me. However, I think that in one of my other lives I was a green cymbidium orchid. I’m not sure why. I think that I would rather have been Cleopatra or Sarah Bernhardt or some other fascinating creature!!!<\/p>\n

Who is your alter ego?<\/p>\n

Have a wonderful day!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…… a Nom de Plum…. another personality…… or three!! I was just reading about Archy and Mehitabel, created by Don Marquis, who was at one time the editor of the New York Evening Sun. In 1916, to help with the task of writing a daily column, Marquis created several charcters – Archy, a cockroach, Mehitabel an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4795,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions\/4795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}