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his personal site and linkedin seem to use "midyett," which is news to me.
http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2013/11/12/bottomless-pits-tim-midyett-on-shade-perennial-and-jason-molina
NUVO: Totally different topic, but interesting to me: you changed your name, recently, correct? The spelling of your last name? Pronunciation as well as spelling?
Midyett: Yeah. It was straight-up "midget" before. And now, it's "midd-yett," which is the modern pronunciation of that spelling, Midgett. In French, it's "mid-e-ett." They came over to the Carolinas, mid-1700s there was a split, and people were like, "I'm tired of not knowing how to pronounce my name," so they just wrote "Midgett."
Then, like a 100 years after that, P.T. Barnum started calling dwarves "midgets" in the circus. And, for a while - this is more than you wanted to know probably.
NUVO: I could not be more interested. (Editor's note: This was said very sincerely. She really could not have been more interested in this etymological side note.)
Midyett: - for a while, after Barnum started using it in the circus, midget was the preferred term (for little people). Midget sort of implied that you were proportionally "normal," whereas dwarves had dwarfism - long torsos, shorter legs, etc. Couple things: one, the outward signs of dwarfism are almost gone, because they've figured out how to avoid those, with prenatal care. There are much fewer people who exhibit the typical proportions of dwarfism. Second, little people realized that "midget" was a circus term, and they were like, "Well, what the hell? I don't want to be called a midget anymore. That's terrible." And so it became a pejorative, in my lifetime, in the last 20 years. And it only happened about five or six years ago that I noticed that people didn't want to say it - they didn't want to say my name. And then I did some research and realized, "Aw, crap. This is not cool." It's like having any other kind of slur as a last name.
So I changed it. And my whole family still has the same name. But, I partly changed it because of that, for myself. But mostly because I have a kid. And it's not like it's going to change back (from being a pejorative). It's not like it's going to be cool to call people that again. So I thought, "I'm just going to make her life easier, and swap that." Plus, it's not the original name, anyway.
NUVO: It's fascinating how language changes. For someone who does not care about sports at all, it's been fascinating keeping up with the http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG debate happening in sports writing right now. If someone is telling you, "I'm offended when you use that word," then, change it!
Midyett: Yeah! Who cares! I finally realized, I have nothing invested ... anyone who wants to find me, can find me. There's no reason for me to keep my name. And if it makes anyone uncomfortable, or me (uncomfortable) or it's going to make my kid's life 1 percent weirder, just forget it.
NUVO: I kept going back and forth before I realized that you officially changed it wondering if I was spelling it wrong. And now, mystery answered!
― dmr, Friday, 15 November 2013 16:49 (ten years ago) link
finally getting to the new one, not having read reviews of it except to glance at them. much less immediate record to me than the others, which is kind of welcome - I love the last one especially but this one mixes it up a little, which I attribute to Andy being a little more dominant than on the other ones - I think they divide the songs more or less equally, I haven't counted? but the other ones, it's the Tim-melodic stuff that resonates for me, whereas on this one I feel like the grittier/rockier side is clearer
really fleshes out the picture, although my favorite stuff is always gonna be the super-wistful things like "kiss 'em all" but this feels like it could do the thing Developer did where I just keep coming back to it to dig & dig & dig - like it'll repay living with it for a while
seven months pass...
one year passes...
I still listen to Bottomless Pit almost every day.
Other artists that never leave my rotation: The Clientele, Glenn Jones (guitarist), Lilys, pre-2013 Mark Kozelek projects, Cass McCombs, Polvo, various Flying Nun bands (at least one at all times)
― Evan, Saturday, 3 October 2015 22:22 (eight years ago) link