First Lines

9 hand-painted maps of imaginary islands

9. I’m sort of blar of folks saying the words in first line “Call me Ishmael” are “so intense and effective that they go down in history.” That’s revisionist as Gary Kasparov. The reason “Call me Ishmael” is a boss first line can be found 212,757 words later.

9. Some good books written by musicians if that’s your thang-a-lang.

9. Anybody else want to ban the word moon from all contemporary poetry?

9. Deb Olin Unferth Revolution ‘review.’ Somebody call roll, because we got a lack of class up in here. Oddly, Mr. Robert P. Baird doesn’t really do any reviewing, per se. He might have read the book, not sure. Here’s a snarky line, not about the actual book, etc:

Today, Ms. Unferth is a narrowly but deeply admired writer of fiction, hailed wherever the names Diane Williams and Gary Lutz hold currency.

Hold currency, oh man. I was actually waiting for MRPB to break into tipsy doggerel next.

9. I should talk a bit about hooking and hooking up and the girl libertine.

Do say.

Author Spotlight & Random / 22 Comments
February 9th, 2011 / 10:50 pm