dennis scharnberg

down the hatch

One could write of the bold migration of artists—in the 1990s—across the mighty East River, and into the dark unknown of Brooklyn.  Derelict warehouses near the Williamsburg waterfront.  I would aim for about 900 pages.  And heroic couplets, I think.

Gunnar Grimes,  The Persistence of Vision.

all for one

Of course, all defects lie in the noticer, not in the noticed.

Gaylord Perry III, The Walls of Magnus Martyr.

round of applause

Edgarton suddenly knew what he wanted to write about.  Precisely.  He knew the very title of his thesis:  New Meanings of the Word “Science.”

Anselm Bligh,  A Collection of Miniatures.

gradually then suddenly

A thespian humility and an almost blinding self-importance are combined as she laments that “it should be up to such a feeble agency [as herself] to see to the enlightenment of the world.”

Etta Hardinge,  Helena Blavatsky Reconsidered.

block and tackle

Hello there!  I am your narrator.  Are you ready?  Well, then, let’s proceed.

Victoria Salt, ed.,  A Compendium of Opening Lines.

no stone unturned

How do you know that you liked it?

A. Greeted by smile in mirror

B. Felt tingle in toes

C. Informed by associates that you appear to have liked it

D. I Ching coins declared that you liked it

Charles Pfanning,  Mild Interrogations.

just reinvent yourself

new merry call

probe ability

Venn gents

Andrew Tertullian,  Pandora’s Ponderous Puns.

tread on me

It is a matter of what they say and what they do.  Take “equality,” for example.  It can be merely a rationale for the destruction of anything traditional.

Ernest Ingram,  The Unclean Sweep.

doing my sums

Hedonism does not lead to boredom.  It is a confession that one is bored.  Hopelessly bored.

Kristin Hawes,  The Dark Journey.

walk it off

Do I ever actually own a photograph?  Don’t photographs have an existence that is independent of our grasp?

P.J. Cahoon,  The History of Crime.