Superbowl Sunday: Literary Showdown

Superbowl Sunday! Either you've waited for it all year or you're just in this for the snacks and funny beer commercials. Unless you're me, in which case you completely forgot that football existed until Carl proposed a literary showdown between writers from this year's rival cities (Baltimore and San Francisco, if you've been living under the same rock I was).

Let's see the line-up!

From SAN FRANCISCO:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - The patron saint of indie bookstores and the heart & soul of this ragtag team of miscreants. If they win this thing, he's taking a gatorade shower.
Tobias Wolff - Crowd favorite. Makes short work of the opposition.
Charles Schulz - insists the Charlie Brown football schtick was not a self-portrait. We'll see.
Shirley Jackson - assumes the ceremonial coin flip augurs darker things to come. Doubts anyone will be "going to Disneyworld."
Jack London - thinks Shirley Jackson is optimistic.
Lemony Snicket - thinks Jack London is cheerful.
Allen Ginsberg - will probably streak at half-time.


Aaaaaand east coast! From BALTIMORE:

Edgar Allen Poe - With a team name like the Ravens, this guy's the clear MVP. Has big-name draw but isn't exactly known for his happy endings.

Gertrude Stein - renowned for dizzying duck-and-weave tactics and elaborate touch-down victory dances.

Upton Sinclair - or "Jungle Fever," as his teammates call him. This is a dirty business and he's in it to win.
Emily Post - will tackle you with her pinky out.

Ogden Nash - endears himself to the cheerleaders by improving their rhyme schemes.

John Barth - is all about the mind games. He'll sneak off the field and into the media box to give voice-over commentary. Says Baltimore is winning but we have no way of knowing that's true. Or even that this game is real.
Tom Clancy - his strategy involves a CIA mole, international espionage and the Goodyear blimp.

Holy cow, folks. It's anyone's game. We'll be pulling for Frisco, if only because we've got a huge crush on City Lights.