Essay: Anatomy of a title

This will be a short one, but I hope you’ll like it. Or at least find it interesting. The other day, on Attytood, Will Bunch wrote “we have no idea what that means, either,” when referring to the title “Philadelphia Will Do.”

Oh, come on, Will, live a little! (Note: I have no idea what that means, either.) I don’t complain that the “Philadelphia Daily News” doesn’t come out on Sunday, do I? (There was a letter complaining about that a few years ago in the paper. If only I had been blogging then.)

Where was I? Oh, right, the title. After the jump, the explanation an d the ridiculous way I came across it. If you haven’t read it already, you can check out this essay from Monday, which provides a little bit of background on me and the site.

A brief recap: Philadelphia Will Do was the name of my personal blog before I ended up blogging for a job. I started in in May of 2004 on Google’s Blogger service, before moving it to its own domain that August. It was pretty much essay-based; I’d write whatever musings I felt like at night after work. I updated a few times a week.

When I was looking for a title, I went through a bunch of names, trying to come up with one that fit my personality and the essay theme of the site. Okay, really, I just wanted something interesting and — in true writerly fashion — made an allusion to something obscure. I thankfully crossed out all my song lyric titles. I considered Lone Wolf McQuade — after the movie — which was the title of my column senior year in the college newspaper, but I decided I wasn’t sure if I wanted the blog to be anonymous, so I’d have to skip that one.

I settled on Philadelphia Will Do, which comes from Philly-centric comedian W.C. Fields, in his movie My Little Chickadee. W.C. Fields’ character is being hanged, and he has the following exchange with the hangman:

Hangman: “Have you any last wish?”

W.C. Fields: “Yes, I’d like to see Paris before I die.”
The hangman tightens the noose.
W.C. Fields: “Philadelphia will do.”

At the time I came up with it, I was living in West Philly, without a job, getting ready to take one class over the summer in order to graduate, and most of my friends already had their career plans in order. I was living in my native city — which, at the time, I wanted to move out of (read: move to New York) — and was felling very down about not graduating on time, planning to move back home if I couldn’t find a job and missing all my college friends.

I know what you’re asking: Do you actually sit around and watch old W.C. Fields movies? Alas, no. (I’ve watched it since. It’s okay.) I learned of the title from — what else? — an Ed McNamara article on ESPN.com after Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby earlier that May. The Smarty Jones story was the rough-n-tumble outsider horse from Philly (Bensalem, actually), winning the Derby by almost three lengths. His final two paragraphs:

A famous son of The City of Brotherly Love was comedian W.C. Fields. In the 1939 movie “My Little Chickadee,” Fields’ character, Cuthbert J. Twillie, is about to be hung, and the hangman asks if he has a last request. “I’d like to see Paris before I die,” Fields says. As the noose is put around his neck, he says, “Philadelphia will do.”

Thanks to Smarty Jones, Philly couldn’t be doing any better.

I thought it was a fitting title. I still think it is.