Origin of Pook

 

Look at these poisonous color maps where flesh trees grow from human sacrifices; listen to these sniggering half-heard words of tenderness and doom from lips spotted with decay.
- William S. Burroughs, "Ah Pook is Here"

It was my former common-law partner Corrine who gave me the name Pook, a term of endearment or a pet name, but not exactly of the commonplace variety. It is the kind of pet name that one would receive from one's partner or spouse especially if both parties were ridiculously sappy. Nothing about it ever struck me as infantilizing or child-related. When I first met Corinne she said her name was Chloé Parks and the charade went on a long time until I grew suspicious and finally looked at her driver's license one night while she was momentarily out of the room. For awhile after that my pet name for her became All the C-Named Girls or just C or Li'l C. We were an extremely mischievous pair. The dine and dash was a favourite hobby, and sometimes we'd run over and do a pornographic drawing on some stranger's bar tab when they'd retreated momentarily to the restroom. It was C who actually set up my now-infamous and stupidly stubborn email address pookwierzba@yahoo.ca. The more people suggest that it is inappropriate the more I cling to it in defiance, so don't bother; this has been going on a long time. In truth, I do have two other email addresses now that I can use when I want to make a decent first impression. We split up after about six years together, and not long after that Corinne set up a Plenty of Fish account for me where my name was Stranger Danger and the accompanying photo was of Paul Rudd in the shower in David Wain's super funny They Came Together.

By this point it should be pretty obvious why being Pook is my motherfucking birthright, aye? I am cute, cuddly, and as sinister as a clown with a machete in a cornfield. What about William S. Burroughs and his Pook? C and I were perfectly versed in this piece of special provenance. The pooka or púca was or is (tee hee):

...a fairy and a trickster and a shroud-shifter that takes the form of many animals...such as dark horses, goats, hares, or dogs.

...it can be a good omen or a bad one and can be reliably expected to show up at harvest time and to attend harvest festivities in whatever form... 

...on a bad day (for you), the pooka looks like this:

Tyvek, "Origin of What"