This¹ is² the³ world's⁴ greatest⁵ law⁶ review⁷ article.⁸ It⁹ is a bold, brash piece, unashamed to proclaim: "Yes, I am nontraditional scholarship." What about it? Looking for a sound thesis? Hah! Child's play. Try a great plot, crammed with suspense, romance and thousands of potboiling footnotes.

And yet, perhaps the paramount beauty of the work is that, despite being light years ahead of the competition, it never strays too far from its roots. In other words, it is nontraditional but in a classic, traditional, bet-hedging sort of way. We're talking about an article that: rethinks practically on automatic pilot, drives a hundred miles an hour toward a model¹⁰ of important stuff, is subject to spontaneous deconstruction, tosses the word hermeneutics around like a walk on the beach, puts in front of (and sometimes behind) at least one word on every page, and, best of all, will take a thaumaturge¹¹ to figure out.

In conclusion, I am confident that legal academicians everywhere will agree, probably unanimously, that the only important thing lacking in The World's Greatest Law Review Article^28,343 is a colon in the title, but that is only because the author is beyond caring about such things, way beyond.

Footnotes

• Professor of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, I would like to thank Lawrence Tribe, Sandra Day O'Conner, Richard (I like to call him "Rick") Posner, Judge Lance Ito and a lot of other legal personalities with good name recognition. They didn't have anything to do with this article, but there's no law that says I can't thank them just for being them in this important space for name-dropping. Special thanks to the editors of the Harvard Law Review for their hard work, unless they never bothered to read my submission, in which case I hope they spend eternity lost in a Sisyphean supra-infra citation loop. Finally, no introduction would be complete without thanking everyone for their "helpful comments," including Lisa, the waitperson at Vino's Bar in Little Rock, who suggested I move my notebook computer before someone dumped a pitcher of beer on it.[Return to text]
  

1. "This" is a pronoun that means "the person or thing mentioned or understood." Webster's New World Dictionary 1392 (3d ed. 1988). I will be happy to find a more recent source if the editors at an elite journal think this one is too dated, because I aim to please. See John Lennon & Paul McCartney, "Paperback Writer" (Northern Songs Ltd. 1966) ("I can make it longer if you like the style, I can change it 'round and I want to be a [law review] writer, darrr-darrr-darrr, [law review] writer"). Along the same line, if I should hereinafter screw up and use supra when I meant infra, please don't say See! Rather, cf. you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Compare it to some really horrible faux fas like Using The Wrong Typeface, and it won't seem so bad.[Return to text]
   

2. "Is" is an intransitive verb. Webster's New World Dictionary, supra note 1, at 715. The word has a long, tedious history that, although totally irrelevant, I will explain in elaborate detail because I don't want the time I spent researching it to have been wasted. In Middle English is is found in . . . [three pages of dreadfully boring etymological history follows]. Is is sometimes used as an abbreviation for islands, but that topic is beyond the scope of this article.[Return to text]
   

3. "The" is an article used to refer to a particular person, thing, or group. Id. at 1386.[Return to text]
   

4. Pay attention! I'm talking GLOBAL here, which is very hot right now. It goes without saying that my global realm is jam-packed with diversity and virtually overflowing with multiculturalism.[Return to text]
   

5. Brace yourself, law review editors! This conclusion is actually my thought. I spent three days researching to see if anyone had thought it before, but if they did they didn't write it down anywhere. My mother read a draft of the article and commented on its brilliance, so I suppose you could cite to her in a pinch (with a see signal only since she did not actually come right out and say it was the "greatest."). In any event, I assure you this original thought was an isolated incident and will not happen again.[Return to text]
   

6. As used in this article, "law" includes any positivist, naturalist, realist, feminist, nihilist, hedonist, economic, semiotic, narcotic, psychotic, post-modern, post-millennial, post-office syndrome, or any other theory of the rules we live by. Take your pick. If I play my cards right, the finished product will be so obtuse that no one will have a clue what it means anyway, which will naturally lead to the assumption that it's a brilliant piece.
   

   Of course, there's law and then there's scripture. The reader should disregard anything herein that even remotely conflicts with The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (15th ed. 1991). The Bluebook, widely misunderstood, was originally an English translation of the Tao Te Ching, a book of Eastern philosophy written 26 centuries ago. Interview with Lao-tzu, "Larry King Live" " A Dream I Had," Mar. 29, 1995). Taoism advocates a life of complete simplicity. Somewhere along the way, some Ivy League law students got hold of this great work and . . . well, let's just say they have at times lost sight of the original purpose.
   

   However, even today, The Bluebook remains a source of great, spiritual comfort in troubled times. Just recently, for example, my significant other dumped me for a professor from a higher echelon law school who regularly publishes in the better journals. I became completely distraught, to the point where, I am sad to admit, I was a danger to myself. However, The Bluebook proved to be my guiding light. Now, instead of contemplating juming in front of trains, I meditate about the intricate rules for abbreviating railroads. See The Bluebook, supra, Sec. 102.2.2(b), at 61 (PLEASE! Just see subsection (b), do not even think about looking at either subsection (a) or subsection (c) because that might be construed as seeing generally, which would require me to add one of these annoying explanatory parentheticals).[Return to text]
   

7. I'm taking a rest here, but promise to compensate for it by making the next footnote extra-long and monotonous.[Return to text]
   

8. "Article" is the one and only perfect word to describe what I am trying to accomplish here, unless, of course, a student law review editor thinks a different word would be better, in which case I will gladly defer to his superior wisdom.[Return to text]
   

9. From now on, I will use exclusively feminine pronouns, even for inanimate objects, to show I'm really with it, or should I say, with her.[Return to text]
   

10. Pretty cool italics, huh?[Return to text]
    

11. One of the truest measures of great legal scholarship is using words that no one understands. To assure that the terminology in my article meets this high standard, I made a lot of it up.[Return to text]
    

Comments: RobtKohn@aol.com
Copyright © 1996 Bob Kohn
A Theoria Publication
(1/15/96)