who's who: part I

It's been brought to my attention that some of you have a tendency to confuse famous people with other famous people. This is dangerous, particularly if you sign royalty checks for a living, but my real fear is that, if allowed to progress unchecked, this tendency could lead to non-famous people being mistaken for famous people, and that would bring the entire, elaborate, sequin-studded structure that is North American culture crashing down around us.

So I'm here to check it. What follows is hardly an exhaustive list, but covers some of the most common cases of mistaken celebrity identity:

1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German philosopher who developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system", to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy) and Katherine Marie Heigl (American actress best known for her role on Grey's Anatomy and her starring role in the movie Knocked Up).

I blame Movie Entertainment for the confusion - they were clearly conflating the two when they described Heigl as "an actress known for her dramatic roles who really wants to do comedy and explore the ontological implications of such Kantian topics as freedom and morality."

2. Kate Bush (English singer, song writer and record producer) and Jeb Bush (former governor of Florida).

Their uncanny resemblance caused the former governor considerable embarrassment on numerous occasions, as his attempts to deliver speeches were interrupted by cries of 'Sing Wuthering Heights!'. On at least one occasion, I'm told, he gave in and sang, acquitting himself quite well.

3. Benjamin Franklin (Founding Father of the United States) and Bonnie Franklin (star of the popular American sitcom One Day at a Time). The confusion here, I believe, stems from the original title for One Day at a Time which was Fish and Visitors Stink in Three Days, the famous Benjamin Franklin quote. (In passing, One Day at a Time was produced by Norman Lear, an American television writer and producer, who should not be confused with King Lear, fictional monarch and central character of a play of the same name by William Shakespeare.)