Gravity's Rainbow is a brilliant title though. I often shudder to think what masterpieces might have been called. A slightly less highbrow example is the first Fighting Fantasy book, 'The Warlock of Firetop Mountain', which up until the morning it was sent to the publishers was to be called 'The Magic Quest'.

<Scott Walker partly dispensed with song titles on Climate of Hunter, using 'track 3' and 'track 7' etc instead. Odd.>

And a bit boring, too.

<Some people think that William Burroughs invented the term 'heavy metal'. In fact it was used much earlier by Nimzowitsch.>

Ah, good old Bill. I think I can actually bring us full circle here by quoting from a Robert Pollard interview...

<"I like Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, people who are really @#$%ed up. I like the darker, kinda seedier stuff, like Burroughs. I'm not a junky, but I like to write like I am one. It's more interesting.">

<Short titles? Most years from 1984 (Orwell), 1985 (Burgess) ... 1999 (Prince) ... 2001 (Kubrick) to ... 2010 (Clarke) have been used. Some gaps, though.>

This seems like a fun game. Daniel Johnston's '1990' springs to mind.

Here's something by David Lodge about titular vagaries:

The American publishers of my <How Far Can You Go?> persuaded me to change its name to <Souls and Bodies> on the grounds that the British title would be shelved by American bookshops under How To Do It books, a silly argument to which I have always regretted yielding. (I don't know what they would have done with Carol Clewlow's <A Woman's Guide to Adultery>, or Georges Perec's <Life: a User's Manual>.) I wanted to call my third novel <The British Museum Had Lost Its Charm>, a line from the song "A Foggy Day (in London Town)", but the Gershwin Publishing Corporation wouldn't let me; so I had to change it at the last minute to <The British Museum is Falling Down> [...] Perhaps titles always mean more to authors than to readers, who, as every writer knows, frequently forget or garble the names of books they claim to admire. I have been credited with novels called <Changing Wives>, <Trading Places> and <Small Change>, and Professor Bernard Crick once mentioned in a letter that he had enjoyed my <Having it Off>, but perhaps he was having me on.

<No-one knew exactly who
She was, or how she died/
But when they opened up her purse
They found a snail inside.>

Must have done. At least nobody I know of has yet come up with an example of a non-Lehrerian space.

Rules? Who let them in here? Pass me m'pistol...

<mack> I know Chagall about comedy, really. I just have innate good taste that leads me to Viv Stanshall and, er, Derek and Clive.

<JDK: <Mack> I probably have fingertips at home somewhere.>

All species are welcome here, of course, including shape-shifters, polymorphs, and Tritonian Transvestites.

We can cite texts that approach the barrier from both sides. <The Telephone Book> and <Crack Wars> by Avital Ronell attempt to cross from theory to actual fiction, and meet Kathy Acker's <Hannibal Lecter, My Father> coming back.

But it's where the shops and libraries shelve them that really counts. Although you can spend an amusing afternoon in a big bookstore/library looking for misallocations. Any sf book that fails to print the words 'science fiction' on the cover is liable to end up buried in pop physics or do-it-yourself theology.

My favorite imaginary band name -- a bit too obviously post-punk -- is Rodent Orgasm Structure. Or even <rodent/orgasm/structure>...

The idea is that there are three members, named Sean Rodent, Sean Orgasm, and (the drummer) Attila the Structure. Then they split up, citing 'musical similarities'.

Our story begins as Sean - 'now solo like all the best orgasms' - appears on a TV chatshow to perform his verse, 'A war surplus submarine sandwich/ aims grease torpedoes at your head...'

<Big Forehead>: Great or terrible band name?

Pink Floyd's song <Meddle> was originaly entitled <Return to the Sun of Nothing>: Which of these titles is the "winning variation" for White?

I need to know

Your cadre of posters in here also seem to have 24-7 access to their computer.

Meddle vs Return to the Sun of Nothing?

Hmm. Could be a purely aesthetic long-vs-short queen-vs-rook thing. Or 'meddle' could be a meta-title: answering the question <what must we do to 'Return to the Sun of Nothing' to make it better?>

Meddle: medley?

Had they already done <Set the Controls for the heart of the Sun>? Maybe they were just all solarized out.

As a teenager I risked death at the hands of Pink Floyd fans by writing graffiti that read P-I-N-K F- [murmurs of approval all round, "it's OK man, he's cool" etc] and then finishing it with -A-I-R-I-E-S.

Given Roger Waters' jaundiced view of humanity, and his penchant for wordplay, yes <Meddle- Medley> but also <meddling> with bourgeois complacency, which is his main communicative goal in his art.

I think one of them was Mick Farren, who also wrote a couple of books and released a solo album called Vampires Stole My Lunch Money.

There's an SF satire by John Sladek in which some military genius comes up with the idea of renaming the Green Berets as the Pink Berets -- saying that if they have to prove their masculinity every second of every day then they'll wind up even tougher than before. Same principle, I think.

Ok then, pass the <celt> and we'll forget about it.

Quebecois French slang for <biting or cutting off nuts> is <coup ta poche>, for the edification of any linguists interested in castration.

Rodent Orgasm Stucture does sound like a Neubauten'y type band. Could also be a techno band with the '/'s in.

There is a band called Run/Stop/Restore which is bit like an ABBA of minimal techno artists that produce on the m-nus label (minus). Not to many peoples tastes but I think great for chess thinking (linking it all back to chess). Most of the minus stuff is on the beatport label if you ever wanna listen. Ritchie Hawtin is the inspirator behind it. He hailed from Canada but now works in Berlin. Genius or box of frogs? I am not too sure.

<jess> I don't think there is too much folklore from where I come from (I am sure there is somewhere). The only thing famous from where I come from is that Spike Milligan condemned an entire city (Portsmouth) to room 101.