What's in a name? (what's with the color too?)

I figured I should explain the name of my blog, as well as why it's green (why the latter may seem trivial, I was asked "what's with the green" so I'll address it).

First, the name: "Puddn'head Adam". I got this title from a book by Mark Twain, Puddn'head Wilson. It's an interesting read; go fig since it's Twain. The main plot of the story is that a slave woman gives birth to a son at the same time as her master's wife does; the slave is also a mulatto (and the father of her son is white tooo), so her child and the master's look exactly alike as babies. Anyways, at one point, the slave woman, fearing that she is going to be sold, switches the two babies. The novel progresses, there's a murder, duels, visiting royal twins, etc., all while commenting/critiquing the setup of Southern society. I don't want to put anybody off by that last comment; I realize sounds kind of stuffy and makes it seem like it's a difficult novel. It is a really good book and not something that I picked up and thought,"hmm, I wonder how I can analyze the crap out of this and make people hate literature."

Now the "hero" if you will of the story is a lawyer from the North, David Wilson, who's moved down South to practice law (the novel starts off very early in Wilson's and the babies' lives; then jumps forward about 20 years). Well, he's an interesting guy. Pretty intelligent, a little eccentric, and called "Puddn'head" by the townspeople for a comment made when he first arrives; the exchange goes something like this:

*a dog is barking loudly*
Wilson: "I wish I owned half that dog."
Townspeople: "Why?"
Wilson: "So I could kill my half."

A bit odd yes, and my rewrite removes some of the humor, but the point is that the townspeople take that comment a bit too seriously and declare him a "puddn'head." Oh, I forgot to add something! Wilson also collects fingerprints, and let's just say that that will play a huge role in the finale of the story.

So, why Puddn'head Adam? Well, I've been a fan of Twain in general, and I wanted the title of my blog to mean something. I toyed with the idea of using something from Dostoevsky e.g. titling it like "Raskolnikov's Journal", but that's deep stuff, and I wanted to keep the "feel" of this blog kind of light/refreshing. There'll be deep stuff too (after all, Twain has important themes in his novels too), but I didn't want to feel the need to be complex with my posts if I would've based it on Dostoevsky's work; believe me, a name can set the tone of my writing. Finally, I do identify with Puddn'head Wilson in some respects, so I figured I'd use it.

Now on to the color of my blog, green. Well, green has always been my favorite color, so when looking at templates, I was attracted to this one. Green also carries a lot of positive connotations like rebirth, refreshment, "earthy-ness", luck, etc. So ideally, people will get at least one of those feelings when the visit. And just thinking about it now, I've been told I look good in green (brings out my eyes and such), so hopefully, my writing will look good in green as well. Plus, I wanted to make sure my blog looked different than my friends', and this green template definitely did the trick.

And now you have it folks; the meaning behind the appearance and titlement of my blog. Oh! I chose the Faulkner quote because I'm starting to get into his books, and one of his major themes is triumph over adversity. I am pretty optimistic about things, and believe in the triumph of good over evil, so I feel it's a fitting quote.