Provenance... First, I see that the time-stamp on my initial post has not changed with my change of time-zone. (I had been defaulted to Los Angeles, unwittingly, when really, I am (in the same zona temporal) as the Mexico City (where the year is always '97, when Molotov was the epitome).) I am relieved to learn that. I did not want to post twice within minutes.

As it goes, why "why, kiki!"? The short answer is not for this -- Waikiki. While I do possess an affinity for such females, and their photographic evidence, my interest in the name Kiki pre-dates either the former, or the original Kiki. Rather, I always enjoyed the repetition of the "key" phoneme, dating to my youth, particularly when Kiki Diaz was a Milwaukee Brewers farmhand. I heard the name a lot, and it stuck to my memory like a pasty to a tit.

Eventually, then, I took the name Kiki as my own. But, yes, it was a lark. Yes, it was my part in a fictive 80s metal revival band, Rattt! Yes, I was but the drummer in said band. Still, finally, I could call it my own. In June 2003, in Bucuresti, Romania, I became Kiki.

Now, finally, I am writing under that name. I have a work-in-progress, what should be, at final count, a collection of some thirty essays, under that name, but nothing published. There is something, now, to prove that I own at least a little bit of Kiki. Even if I have never negotiated a contract with Carmelo Anthony.

(Kiki Vandeweghe -- perhaps the greatest name in NCAA basketball history -- was the Denver Nuggets GM at the time of Melo's selection in the draft.)

But, today -- I. Am. Kiki.