Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Naming the Mermaid

Once upon a time, there was a wonderfully and lovingly decorated tiki bar called The Tabou Tiki Room along the Maybachufer here in Berlin. I brought an alter ego - a singing mermaid - into being specifically for this particular tiki bar. The bar itself has now disappeared, but The Singing Mermaid remains - in spite of the fact that she's never really had a proper name of any sort until just recently.

She's gone by the names Laura Lei and Laila Lei in the past (while performing with The Bali Ha'is and Fuzzy Love at The Tabou Tiki Room), and has more recently been called, LaLaVox - The Singing Mermaid, by others, or simply and namelessly, The Singing Mermaid, by me.

But since I want The Singing Mermaid to begin singing again at last, I figured it was high time she finally be given a real name.

Since my online name is LaLaVox, and I also have another alter ego named Lola la Voix, I decided I wanted to stay with the LLV theme for the mermaid too; wanting my mermaid to be named Loralei ...something-with-a-"V"...

About a month ago, I went to one of those baby-naming sites and clicked "V". It was on page 2 of "V" that I came across the first name in the list that appealed to me enough (that seemed "mermaidy" enough to me) that I felt the urge to go find out its meaning; Vanora.

So I clicked the "Vanora" link, and, as it turns out, the name is supposedly of old Welsh origin and means... drum roll, please... "white wave"!...

...Um... Hello? Is it a sign???

So I wrote an email to Carolyn Turgeon - whom I had the pleasure of meeting during her recent stay in Berlin, and who is currently writing her 3rd novel which is called MERMAID - to ask her expert opinion. She approved! And with her approval, it is now official: The Singing Mermaid's name is Lorelei Vanora!

Here's a little collage of photos of her from past and present so that you can get to know her a bit...
Lorelei Vanora
(Also pictured here: The Bali Ha'is, Fuzzy Love, and members of a Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin audience.)

And so that Lola la Voix won't feel left out, here's a collage of photos of her as well...
Lola la Voix
(Also pictured here: Fuzzy Love, Carolyn Turgeon, and Anne Smith.)


Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com

[update: added Aug.6th,2010]
www.mildredlovesyou.com/loreleivanora.html
www.mildredlovesyou.com/lolalavoix.html

[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou/loreleivanora.html
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou/lolalavoix.html

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