You may have heard this before, but I have stumbled on to a sure thing. Bona fide. You can count on it. Money in the bank (or credit union). Can't miss.
Let me set the stage. As we approach October, the Greater New Orleans street market guerrilla bookselling season, dominated by Deep South Samizdat Books (proprietor, one M. Parker) will be moving forward great guns, as will the National Football League season (maybe even Garrett Hartley will have figured things out by then), the first NFL season featuring the still-implausible defending Super Bowl Champions the New Orleans Saints. So what if I told you I have a surefire method for predicting the two Super Bowl teams, and that you, as a literate, book-loving Greater New Orleans street market guerrilla bookstall patron, could have a direct influence on your favorite team occupying that exclusive position?
As regular readers of this blog know (thanks, Mom and Dad), I provide my readers the service of periodically publishing the Greater New Orleans Street Market Bestseller List. If you recall, the top two positions in the 2009 year-end poll were held by novelists Kurt Vonnegut and Walker Percy.
Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions) was born in Indianapolis, while Percy, though born in Birmingham and raised in Mississippi, lived most of his adult life in New Orleans and Covington, LA, the settings for most of his novels, which include The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins and Thanatos Syndrome. And February's Super Bowl featured the Indianapolis Colts and the New...Orleans...Saints. Gasp.
That's right. No matter how much I try to find a logical flaw in my conclusion, I am unable to deny the absolute, objective truth: the NFL teams most closely affiliated with the top two finishers in the year-end Greater New Orleans Street Market Bestseller List are inevitably the two teams who survive the playoff rounds and meet in the Super Bowl.
Even a comprehensive check of the historical record bears out the hypothesis, year after year:
Super Bowl III: New York Jets/Baltimore Colts
Bestsellers: Amidst the turmoil of the late 1960's, New Orleanians snatched up copies of the works of pugnacious New York existentialist hipster Norman Mailer and Baltimore bard Edgar Allan Poe, whose "Nevermore" escapes from the lips of many a hungover tourist in the Cresent City.
Super Bowl IX: Pittsburgh Steelers/Minnesota Vikings
Bestsellers: The malaise of the mid-70's had New Orleanians considering the pros and cons of rural simplicity, and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek provided the template; and Bob Dylan's rumored conversion to Christianity lead to renewed interest in the Blake from Hibbing (I couldn't keep Tarantula in stock that year).
Super Bowl XX: Chicago Bears/New England Patriots
Bestsellers: New Orleanians were too sophisticated to fall for the Ellis/McInerny/Janowitz hype of the mid-80's, opting instead for the gritty Chicago streets of Nelson Algren (The Man With the Golden Arm, A Walk on the Wild Side) and the crumbling New England mansions of H.P. Lovecraft (although the interest in this author was no doubt inspired by the devastation that year of Hurricane Cthulhu, Category 666).
Super Bowl XLI: Colts/Saints
Bestsellers: Vonnegut/Percy
Irrefutable objective evidence to support an airtight scientific hypothesis. If only I had recognized this pattern years before. How much money have I left on the table in Vegas, unable to recognize right before my eyes? Never again, for me or my loyal readers, with whom I am more than willing to (in the words of 1936 bestseller Huey Long) "Share the Wealth."
In that spirit, I offer my most recent update of the Bestseller List, featuring the NFL team equivalents of each author, including some alternate teams for those writers associated with more than one city/state/region (trying to avoid the Louisiana bias):
1.) Kurt Vonnegut (Colts)
2.) Walker Percy (Saints)
As of right now, we are looking at a rematch, not an uncommon speculation before the start of this young season. Each team is 2-1, with some noticeably erratic performances thus far. But their literary counterparts have not missed a beat since the end of last year.
3.) George Orwell (New England Patriots)
Obviously, Orwell was English, so the designation of an NFL team to him has to come down to interpretation and intangibles. The Boston area, stretching into New England, is probably the most Anglophilic region of the country, while the revolutionary fervor of the mascot, with its imagery of Tea Parties, fits well with the socialist, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist stances of the author of Homage to Catalonia, The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London (that's about it for his ouvre, right?)
4.) Ray Bradbury (Chicago Bears)
The Grand Master was born in small-town Illinois, so the surprisingly undefeated Bears have themselves a champion. Something Ditka This Way Comes.
5.) (tie) Walter Moseley (San Diego Chargers)
The hard-boiled crime fiction writer is obviously identified with postwar Los Angeles, but our nation's second-largest city does not currently have an NFL franchise. As such, the current Southern California team will have to substitute. Devil in a Blue Dress (with yellow lightning bolts!).
5.) (tie) David Sedaris (Carolina Panthers)
The laugh-out-loud literary humorist grew up in suburban North Carolina, so he gets the unenviable job of representing the Panthers, who should be crushed next Sunday by Walker Percy's Saints (me play pretty one day: the Jimmy Clausen story)!
Expect updates throughout the Fall, as other writers and teams make their moves. Better yet, take an active role in your favorite team's destiny and buy the books associated with said team. You may not be able to sack the opposing team's quarterback or hit the last-second field goal, but you can come out to, say, the Freret Market on Saturday, Oct. 1, and support your tumultuous, Glass family-esque J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!, with the purchase of a J.D. Salinger paperback. It's just that easy. I'll see you there.
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