Doppelgangers

The following is a brief exercise in reader-response theory.

I was catching up on reading my old New Yorkers before leaving the country this Friday when I came upon something interesting. It's from a story called, "The Code of the West: What Barack Obama can learn from Bill Ritter." I will quote the opening few sentences, along with my reactions.

"One day in early August, Bill Ritter, Jr., the governor of Colorado, met with Steve Feld . . ."
What? Really? He met with Steve Feld, probably the most famous ethnomusicologist of the last 25 years? That's very strange.

". . . met with Steve Feld, a professional filmmaker,"
OK, I know that Feld has done a lot of things with film over the years. When he was at colloquium at Penn a few years ago, he showed a film that he had made in Ghana that would be shown in 2007 on the occassion of the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence. But no mention of the fact that he is better known as an ethnomusicologist (and that he won a MacArthur)?

". . . a professional filmmaker, to work on the video that will welcome delegates to the Democratic National Convention--and present Colorado to the rest of the country."
Hmmm, I know that he now teaches at the University of New Mexico, so I guess it makes sense for him to make a video about Colorado. It's close enough.

" . . . to the rest of the country. Feld, whose television credits include 'The New Lassie' and 'America's Funniest People,'"
OK. What the hell? I know that Feld is a polymath and all, but this is ridiculous. What is he doing directing lame television shows?

" . . . and 'America's Funniest People,' steered the Governor toward a conference room on the seventeenth floor of a downtown building and clipped a microphone to his lapel."
I'm still getting over my shock that Steve Feld is directing episodes of 'The New Lassie' (which I've never even heard of anyway). How come this hadn't made the rounds of ethnomusicological gossip?

So, the full text now, for your reading pleasure.

"One day in early August, Bill Ritter, Jr., the governor of Colorado, met with Steve Feld, a professional filmmaker to work on the video that will welcome delegates to the Democratic National Convention--and present Colorado to the rest of the country. Feld, whose television credits include 'The New Lassie' and 'America's Funniest People,' steered the Governor toward a conference room on the seventeenth floor of a downtown building and clipped a microphone to his lapel."

Intrigued, I went to imdb.com to find out more about the bizarre parallel schlock television career of a highly respected ethnomusicologist. Quickly, I realized something. The person in the New Yorker story wasn't really Steve Feld. Or, actually, it was, but the ethnomusicologist I know actually is Steven Feld. So they're two different people.

I don't know which one of them came first, but I wonder if there was ever any confusion between the two of them (other than my own), and if either one of them changed the name they go by professionally in order to distinguish themselves. I think it is probably true in this day and age that having a name that is easily google-able is very important. So this includes both having a unique name and a name that people can spell easily. One of the reasons I go by John Paul Meyers (at least professionally) is because there are already quite a few John Meyerses out there. JohnMeyers.com is the website of some guy who works for HUD, which is great, but it isn't going to help people find me online and, I don't know, offer me a job. And John Myers (a perhaps more common spelling of my last name) is already an ethnomusicologist--I read his book about pipa music while studying for spots a few summers ago. So, I like the fact that the 3rd, 4th, and 5th hits on google for "John Paul Meyers" all refer to me. Maybe if I type it a few more times here, this page will show up on google, too . . .