Inverted Garden

Update 2: @jazzfamoose unmasked, kinda

This is very much yesterday's news, and last eon's news in the Twittersphere, but @jazzfamoose did indeed unmask himself yesterday at 4 p.m. EST, kinda:

Ok jazznerds, I give you the identity of @jazzfamoose Don't say you weren't warned. http://bit.ly/b6sUn6 #jazzfamous

That tiny URL links to the Facebook profile of whoever clicks on it. So the Jazzfamoose, like Time's 2006 Person of the Year, is YOU!

I'm leaving for the Great North Woods (moose beware!) in a few hours, so I won't be able to weigh in on the mystery of @jazzfamoose for the next several days, but that doesn't mean I'm not pursuing some promising leads:

I'm @jazzfamoose!

Update: @jazzfamoose to unmask himself at 4 p.m.

From @jazzfamoose:

OK, enough already...the true identity of @jazzfamoose will be revealed at 4 PM EST today. Get ready to be shocked.

NPR's Patrick Jarenwattananon adds: "Jim Gray will do the interview."

Who is @jazzfamoose?

A week ago, a bold new voice entered the jazz Twittersphere: @jazzfamoose. Jazzfamoose identifies himself (or herself) as a "roastmaster general," resides in the "Deciduous Vanguard," and claims "Joseph Jarman once tried to make a flute out of my antlers." So far Jazzfamoose has exploited for laughs his double identity as a boreal-forest dweller and a jazz aficionado: "My instincts tell me to avoid men in bright orange and dig countries that remind me of Miles Davis," the Moose wrote before the World Cup final. "Difference between a moose and a Michael Buble show? Moose has the horns in front and the asshole in the back," tweeted the Moose in high Borscht Belt–style.

So who is @jazzfamoose? He's become the jazz blogosphere's Batman, a human who takes animal form to dispense his own brand of savage justice. WBGO's Josh Jackson has admitted he knows the identity of @jazzfamoose, writing last Wednesday, "I cannot reveal identity of @jazzfamoose. A recluse: John Nash meets Bobby Fischer w/o the anti-semitism. But w/ horns." I suppose this makes Josh the jazz world's Alfred.

I can't confirm the identity of this antlered Twitter creature, but I have a few guesses:

Rafi Zabor: Zabor wrote the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning novel The Bear Comes Home, which stars a saxophone-playing Bear who befriends the aforementioned Joseph Jarman's AACM collaborator Lester Bowie in one of the opening chapters (a clue!). Zabor is famously a bit of a recluse, a mad genius in the best sense, and definitely not an anti-Semite. If @jazzfamoose is not Rafi Zabor, then @jazzfamoose is certainly inspired by Rafi Zabor.

Josh Jackson: Jackson insists that he's not @jazzfamoose, but would Bruce Wayne have fessed up to being Batman? Jazzfamoose often mentions tweets and posts from the A Blog Supreme/Nextbop world with which Jackson is very familiar. I'd still opt for Zabor over Jackson, but, just asking, when was the last time you saw Josh and a jazz-loving moose in the same place?

I am the Jazzfamoose: On my high school baseball team, I was known as "Moose" and I celebrated big hits by bumping "antlers" with my teammate Ali "Babwah" Winston. A number of my friends who keep up with this blog will insist that the existence of a jazz-loving moose is just too much of a coincidence for it not to be me. I don't think I'm @jazzfamoose, but I agree that a jazz blogger nicknamed "Moose" is a very likely candidate. Maybe I tweet as @jazzfamoose in my sleep. I'm not ruling out the possibility.