You couldn’t make this stuff up.

A little while ago I dabbled with the idea of a slight name change, reducing myself to a pair of gnomic initials in the manner of Chesterton, G.K., Rowling, J. K., Byatt A.S., and Hartley, J.R.  (inside joke for my English readers with long memories.)  Anyway, that didn’t last too long, and here I am again, plain old Alex.  I’m pleased about this – it is my name, after all.

And then.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this:

revoltrising

Well, OK, I think.  Fair enough.  I’m not the only person called Alex George.  I know that.  I’m not even the only writer.  There’s an Australian botanist who has published several seminal works about Banksia.  So I didn’t think much about this new guy, until I read the blurb accompanying his book.  Here it is, in all its glory:

“Already frustrated with the socialism that is seeping into their lives, Adam and his wife Allie are forced to deal with a newly-established health care system that threatens to take from them what they cherish the most. In another part of the world, Roy, an army sergeant fed up with the corruption in Washington, is fighting for America’s freedom. At the same time, far away in his ivory tower, the president is fashioning socialist policies that threaten the American way of life. This is the world of Alex George’s “Revolt Rising.” Told in a style that is immediate and heart-wrenching, “Revolt Rising” follows the story of average citizens who are desperately trying to keep their eyes on the American dream. As it seems to pull further away from them, they find themselves raging against the leaders of the very nation they love so dearly. Rage eventually turns to revolt. After banding together with like-minded men, Adam and his army of freedom fighters find themselves in the heart of a battle that will determine America’s future. What will the outcome be? George will keep you guessing (and hoping) to the very last page.”

Perfect.  My namesake is Glen Beck on steroids, drunk, and out looking for a fight.

Those of you who know me will know that I am the living incarnation of namby-pamby liberalism, and proud of it.  But I just wanted to let the rest of you know that, well, just in case this crossed your radar, it wasn’t me.

Thanks to the excerpts that the author has made available on his website, I can report that he is no John Updike.  So at least we have that in common.

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When Musical Genres Attack

08-26-2010 · 0 comments

by Alex George

The story so far: I wrote here about my first cautious steps into the netherworld of barbershop singing.  Then earlier this week I re-posted something I wrote a while ago about rap music.  Neither genre, I will be honest, is where my natural musical tastes lie.  I do like a spot of jazz, however, and regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my occasional series about jazz treatments of pop material.  Here’s one, about a Gilbert O’Sullivan song.  And here’s another one, about an Italian jazz pianist covering The Beach Boys.  But this musical crossover happens elsewhere, too.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

Yup.  Barbershop and rap.  A marriage made in – well, you decide.

Barbershop and close harmony singing these days isn’t just about Sweet Adeline.  Groups have become much more wide-ranging in their choice of material.  Much more wide-ranging.  Given my shallow knowledge of rap and hip-hop it was probably not surprising that I wasn’t familiar with “Bitches Ain’t Shit” by Dr. Dre until now.  Golly, that guy has a telling way with words.  This is an a cappella rendering of Ben Folds’s version.  But – be warned – the lyrics haven’t changed.  You know what I’m sayin’.  It’s filthy.  Mum, you might not want to press play on this one.  (Is this what they mean by parental advisory?)

Funny as hell, though.

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Rap Repeat. (Yo-yo.)

August 23, 2010

[Here's a blog entry I wrote a while ago, which I am re-posting now, ahead of further, related silly stuff later this week.]
I am not a real hip-hop fan.  A cursory review of my CD collection reveals precisely six rap/hip-hop albums – and probably six of the most well-known in the genre, at that.  It would [...]

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Better Titles

August 22, 2010

Given my on-going struggle to find the right title for my book, I was excited when I read about this site.  It’s done by comedian Dan Wilbur, who might just be on to something.  The idea is that these new titles “cut through the cryptic crap”, as Wilbur puts it, and tell you what the [...]

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Freedom!

August 20, 2010

No, this is not a review of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel – although I can’t wait to get my hands on it.  (The online book community has talked about little else for days, it seems.  People don’t know whether to celebrate Franzen as the (quite obviously) brilliant novelist that he is, or to snipe about [...]

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Time Passes

August 15, 2010

Ridiculously, school starts today.
Our children, typically, have adopted diametrically opposite approaches to the glorious vistas of educational opportunity opening up before them this morning.  Catherine is more excited than she was last Christmas Eve.  The prospect of entering kindergarten is possibly the most thrilling thing ever to have happened to her; there was much debate [...]

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Super Sad True Love Story

August 13, 2010

These days any self-respecting new novel comes with a You Tube-friendly video – presumably in the hope that it will “go viral” and become some sort of internet phenomenon.  Well, that’s fair enough in theory – the problem is that usually these video trailers are awful.  Usually they feature the author squirming in front of [...]

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New Reading: Emily St. John Mandel and Jennifer Egan

August 12, 2010

In Monday’s post I mentioned two exciting novelists whose work I had just discovered and was devouring in huge, quietly ecstatic chunks.  Here’s more on them both.  I’ll try and write more about the stuff I’m reading in future.  Since, you know, this is a blog about books.
Emily St. John Mandel is published by Unbridled [...]

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The Laptop is Now a Celestial Sandwich

August 11, 2010

I suppose it was inevitable in the wake of the massive success of the new wave (geddit?) of Old Spice adverts that others would follow, either in parody or homage.  But, well, libraries?  Actually, I think this works rather brilliantly.
Thanks to Maw Books Blog for sharing.

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Status Update

August 10, 2010

We’re back from a wonderful week away.  Four days with friends in Boston, then four days in Maine.  There we visited an old friend, Don, and his wife Samantha.   Don and Samantha own Rabelais Books, a bookshop dedicated (and I do mean dedicated) to cookbooks.  We loved our time with them.  I will write [...]

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