Beyond sharing a loft with Patrick McGrath (he is still wincing ), my only other brush with literary greatness was closing down Joe’s Bar on East Sixth in NYC on many occasions with one time drinking buddy Yannick Murphy. She’s since turned her life around and no longer runs with riff-raff.

In fact, Yannick’s got a new book out, “Here They Come”, published by Mc Sweeney’s:

Splitting time between a garbage-strewn apartment and an overly affectionate hot dog vendor, the observant thirteen-year-old who stands steadily at the center of Here They Come gives lyrical voice to an unforgettable instant—1970s New York, stifling, violent, and full of life. Balanced between her enigmatic siblings, borderline parents, and a quiet sense of the surreal, she recounts a year of vivid, mundane moments with dark humor and deadpan resilience. By Yannick Murphy, author of the New York Times Notable Book Sea of Trees .

“This is a hell of a book. You might not be able to finish Here They Come in one sitting, but it will haunt you till you do. What detail! What characters! I can imagine both Jane Austen and Raymond Carver pouring over this masterly novel.”

—Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes

“Yannick Murphy is a uniquely talented writer who manages to turn everything on its head and make dark, funny, shocking and beautiful prose out of the detritus of growing up poor, fatherless, and cockeyed. She is fearless.”

—Lily Tuck, winner of the 2004 National Book Award

“Yannick Murphy’s long-awaited Here They Come is a unique combination of rare linguistic lyricism with brutal and brilliant prose. It is an unrelenting portrait of family, terrifying for its honesty, its willingness to be ugly and elegant. Haunting.”

—A.M. Homes, author of The Safety of Objects and The End of Alice

She’s scooped up her share of writing awards, but this week Yannick Murphy leaps beyond the intelligencia and literati and lands smack in the pulp of People magazine tomorrow, or so she says. Not sure if it’s the one with Brad and Angelina on the cover or Angelina and Brad.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and do the unthinkable — go pick up and read this actual hardcover book, and stop reading this electronic drivel.

In the continuing saga of great product code names being ditched in favor of the banal, Microsoft folds Origami:

Formerly known as “Origami,” the “UltraMobile PC” is Microsoft’s new name for a smaller version of its Tablet PC, but redesigned as a more multimedia-oriented device. Although the concept was launched together with a mysterious Web campaign and other secrecy, partner Intel had a version of “Origami” on display at the WinHEC 2005 showcase, minus the hype.

The first wave of devices are part of an extensive family of products envisioned by Microsoft. In a FAQ distributed to the press, Microsoft claimed that “UMPCs will eventually become as indispensable and ubiquitous as mobile phones are today.”

Handheld, smartphone, personal digital assistant, notebook, laptop, hiptop, mobile manager, ultralight, sub-notebook, pocket PC, tablet, tablet-mini PC, mini-PC, mobile media companion, and now ultramobile PC.

They should have let Origami define the category on its own rather than creating yet another confusing sub-sub category. BlackBerry defines itself as a BlackBerry, nothing else. iPod’s refusal to create a subcategory descriptor has allowed the name to become a brand that has transcended the original device, and the name is now used on full-blown home stereo equipment. When the iPod device evolves and becomes more and more multifunctional, it will still be an iPod. BlackBerry’s passing on categorizing itself has allowed it to both define and defy the category, offering all combination of functionality across multiple product lines.

Microsoft ditched Origami and embraced Ultramobile PC in a lust to own the category by defining it, hoping the name for the device would become synonymous with the category. Unfortunately, the descriptive Ultramobile PC joins a sea of other sub-category descriptors that are attempting to slice and dice mindshare with every miniscule evolutionary step in product development. The result is yet another pointless subdivision that brings confusion, not clarity, to the forefront. Origami at least had a shot of becoming a category defining name and then morphing into a brand name that transcends the category, a la BlackBerry and iPod. Ultramobile PC has no shot at either goal.

It’s too bad, Origami is an interesting twist on the paper (pun intended) naming theme already in place, denoted by notebook, notepad and tablet.

And by the bye, “entrail”as in fold, not the other one.

[ More posts about naming products | More posts about naming companies ]

Ask Jeeves has changed its name to Ask.com, muddying the branding waters with About.com and Answers.com.

Of bigger concern is the track record of generic brands on the web, especially in this space. Remember FindWhat, LookSmart, InfoSeek, AllTheWeb, etc? How about Pets.com, Drugstore.com or Business.com? And there are no intellectual property laws stopping anyone from launching AskAbout.com, AboutAnswers.com or AskAboutAnswers.com.