Adam Young checked in with fans on the Owl City blog moments ago, talking about why he chose the stage pseudonym. Young writes:
After high school I moved to Minneapolis and spent the dead of winter in Minnesota working the graveyard shift at UPS. By default, everyone hated me and I hated being there so I moved home, got another dead end job and wasted a semester and a half at Riverland Community College thinking I could make something of myself (it wasn’t a waste because the college was “bad” but because I couldn’t make myself do the work and eventually got myself onto the academic probation list and thrown out). This is when I started producing music. How it all ended up working out, I’ll never know.
Mid-semester I read a short story by Ambrose Bierce for one of my required English courses, a story called “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” that had a profound effect on me. It wasn’t until later that I discovered the 1962 French film adaptation that ended up changing my general outlook, my frame of mind, my point of perspective, and my entire life from that moment on.