Who is Icarus P. Anybody?

When the Sassy Librarian suggested that I start a blog, I naturally planned to name it Ethan Lewis' Blog.  After all, my website is www.ethanlewis.org, the online forum for my history class is ethanlewis.ning.com and I feel like it is a nice brand identity.  But then I was told that "Ethan Lewis is boring.  Think of something interesting."

So I began trying to brainstorm names of blogs.  "Blog Horn" and "My Librarian Is Sassier Than Yours" quickly went by the wayside.  "30 Minutes Or Your Pizza's Free" was an early favorite.  But then I thought that I'd like to have a reference to one of my favorite movies.  Unfortunately, I'm not blessed at remembering movie dialogue except for some rare cases.  Basically I have memorized just about every line from The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and This is Spinal Tap.  An eclectic mix!  Rather than picking a quote from a film, I decided that I'd like to veer a bit off the beaten path, and choose a song title by Spinal Tap.

Spinal Tap has been very influential to me.  Ever since my first year of college, when I was a member of a band (Bräinhämmer) that pretended to be German heavy metalists and whose main influences were TIST and The Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Story (a sensationalist bio of the mighty Zep by Stephen Davis).  Later another of my bands (The Trouser Helpers) derived their name from a throwaway line by David St. Hubbins on the Arsenio Hall show.  Since then I have gone so far as to decorate my office with a vintage TIST movie poster and action figures.  In choosing a name, I relied on one of the all-time greatest websites, the Spinal Tap Fan Site, by Chip Rowe.  Rowe is an interesting guy, who is an expert on Spinal Tap, as demonstrated in his book Spinal Tap A to Zed.  Rowe has combed the movie, subsequent articles, tv appearances and other sources to compile the everything anyone needs to know about Tap.  But when I started looking at the titles, I realized that many probably wouldn't work:

• "The Sun Never Sweats"--too warm
• "Saliva of the Fittest"--too wet, plus I am working on a song of that name
• "Nice n' Stinky"--too smelly
• "Young, Smug and Famous"--unfortunately I am none of those things.

 And then I found it.  My "Eureka" moment!  A deep track on Tap's psychedelic album "We Are All Flower People", the epic "The Incredible Flight Of Icarus P. Anybody".  I knew then, that I had found my muse.

 After graduating college I spent a year writing humorous sports columns for the now defunct Northampton, MA College Optimist under the nom de plume "The Crank In The Stands".  You can read highlights of the Crank's rants here.  But the Crank is too negative for the 21st century.  So now I am pleased to work with the alter ego of Icarus P. Anybody, who strikes me as an optimistic, adventurous Every-person.  I look forward to seeing what he has to say!