I had been working with Teki for five years, three of them in the same cubicle, without him ever mentioning the NPL. He showed me an issue one day, and I remember being intrigued by the Baltimore transdeletion. Soon I was thinking about the word “tirades”, and I realized that you could make a word out of almost any five letter subset. Teki helped me find some of the harder transposals, and Philana filled in the very last hole (tiade –> “Edita”, NI2 findable), and I wrote a verse. Then I realized I had better join!
First Issue: Jan 1994
Teki introduced me to the NPL, and as I was pondering a nom I realized that “Meki” was an anagram of my real first name, Mike, and by its form said “Thank you” to Teki for recruiting me. So that's how I chose my original nom.
After a few years, I decided to change, and picked “Lucifer”. Teki and I get confused a fair amount, which is understandable: not only are the noms similar, but we live in same town, and only one of us goes to the cons regularly (Teki).
There are a lot of things I like about “Lucifer”. It has a couple of interesting meanings that aren't well-known. I also like the effect of the simultaneous connotations of “Prince of Lies” and “Angel of Light”; I think for a composer and solver those are a great aura for one's nom. I'm not religious myself, so I don't mind any negative Christian connotations, though I did ponder a little whether very religious folks would have a problem with the nom. In the end it was a positive influence–Lucifer was the leader of the faction that rebelled against God, and since I am very much an atheist I finally decided I liked that sense too. I also just like the sound of the name. Finally, I liked the connection with Form Fiend (a computer program I wrote to create forms): if the fiend is my progeny, I should be the Father of Devils (not that I think Lucifer had that title in particular, but you know what I mean).
No Data.