What’s In Some Names?

August 12, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, News media 

My favorite new details from the ongoing (and clearly about to go on for some time as a result of the fact that, to date, the former Senator, vice presidential candidate, erstwhile presidential candidate, and putative Cabinet member or Supreme Court nominee, etc., has told little —and possibly— none of the truth about it) John Edwards story:

• Maureen Dowd to the contrary (“Keeping It Rielle”), Rielle, turns out to be pronounced like “Riley” not like “Real”.  This reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s friend who spelled his name “Hen3ry” — the 3 was silent; and of all those Brit aristocrat names intended to fool the lower classes (Ralph pronounced Rafe, Ranulph pronounced Ralph, Belvoir pronounced Beaver, Beaulieu pronounced Bewley — as in RN’s first law partner Tom Bewley.)

• On the subject of names, one of Rielle’s friends is named “Pidgeon O’Brien”.  Is that a great name or what?  (Pidgeon, presumably, and at least until further notice, should be pronounced like the Columbidae.)

• Rielle’s former mother-in-law, whose name is Harriet Barker, combines a sensible set of priorities with excellent grammar (“I wish people would concentrate on Russia and Georgia and not on whom John Edwards screwed.”).

• It has been uncovered that Rielle’s father was the successful Florida lawyer and stable owner who taught  Tommy “The Sandman” Burns how to electrocute his prize show jumper, Henry the Hawk, in a way that would leave no pathological evidence in order to collect on a $150,000 insurance policy.

• Who says an ill wind blows no good?  Jay McInerney’s 1988 novel Story of My Life, which has long been out of print due to lack of popular demand, will now be reprinted.  Like much of the McInerney oeuvre, this is an autobiographical account of, among other things, his walk on the even wilder side with his then-girlfriend Rielle Hunter.  The novel is written from the point of view of the Rielle character (whose name is Allison Poole), so, as Wonkette puts it, “now you too can read second-person descriptions of what it is like to have furtive futuristic time-machine sex with John Edwards in his Dirt Palace.”

Comments