hot stove league
At 32, my life is now split evenly between the period of baseball lineup generation and literature. Thus the following (clipped from Charles Bernstein’s blog) has an automatic appeal. And I have to say, this looks not random and silly. This looks about right:
Charles North
Complete Lineups; art by Paula North
(Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press, 2009).as in baseball lineups, eg ….
Wittgenstein lf
Heidegger 2b
Aristotle 1b
Kant rf
Hegel cf
Hume ss
Sartre 3b
Plotinus c
Plato p
Heidegger is a #2 hitter, and he would be a secondbaseman, wouldn’t he? And Hegel in the five slot is perfect, just perfect. And Sartre would play thirdbase. Wittgenstein is everywhere that he should be. Weird, uncanny, perfectly right this thing!
I haven’t got it in me to make my own tonight (I tag Kaufman to do a full one), but for now. When it comes to modernist fiction writers in English, Conrad bats second and plays SS, has to – he is the Derek Jeter of the team, and Jeter is a natural #2. Fitzgerald fits into #6 or #7, definitely at second base. It’s a tough call but I guess Woolf #3 (and in centerfield) while Joyce bats cleanup and plays right, or maybe first.
But who leads off?
Your turn Scott, seriously, Mr. All Glove No Hit…..
(UPDATE: SEK nails it….)
I’ve marked 46 papers since 11 a.m. Tuesday and did 31 student conferences today . . . so I’m up for a break. Give me a couple of minutes.
SEK
February 27, 2009 at 3:25 am
Also, there’s no way Plato’s a pitcher if Socrates was on that team.
SEK
February 27, 2009 at 3:29 am
Plato might be the ace, but Socrates is definitely the closer.
and I love Kant at cleanup, but not quite as much as I love that Plato’s catcher is Plotinus!
Dave
February 27, 2009 at 4:43 am
A Modernist Lineup …
(Because the number of people who will understand the references to modernism and baseball number in the high single digits.)The prototypical leadoff hitter should radiate self-importance. He has one job and one job only: to get on base. He has……
Acephalous
February 27, 2009 at 5:12 am
Alright, that was more fun than it had any right to be.
SEK
February 27, 2009 at 5:13 am
Here’s some more from North, which I pinched from John Latta’s excellent Isola di Rifiuti:
San Francisco ss
Munich cf
Paris lf
Rome c
Madrid 3b
London rf
Athens 1b
Istanbul 2b
New York p
+++
Pope ss
Keats 2b
Shakespeare cf
Milton 1b
Spenser rf
Chaucer 3b
Jonson lf
Yeats c
Donne p
And here’s North on the second of these, which was, genetically, the first:
Bobby
February 27, 2009 at 6:05 am
Not very many catchers play cleanup, but I guess Rome is exceptional.
tomemos
February 27, 2009 at 7:07 am
well going off of Acephalous’ prerequisites for the leadoff hitter, shouldn’t bukowski be the clear choice?? extremely interesting topic of discussion.
also, i nominate e.e. cummings for left😉
ben
March 1, 2009 at 4:03 am