Bracketology

I am not sure that bracketology is even a word. I am pretty sure it isn't in Websters, but it is definitely part of your vocabulary every March, if you are like millions of people who fill out those brackets for the NCAA mens, or maybe womens, basketball tournaments. ESPN even employs a full time bracketologist, although I am not sure what he does the rest of the year. Now that the tournaments have reached the sweet sixteen, you may, like me, just want to throw the thing out before another of your final four teams loses.

The fascination with brackets, however, continues. Just think what we could do with brackets in the literary world. We could start with a field of 64 contemporary authors. The heavy hitters like James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts and John Grisham would get number 1 seeds, with competition from the likes of Mary Higgins Clark, Janet Evanovich, Stephen King and David Baldacci, while the mid-majors Steve Martini, Lisa Scottoline, Joy Fielding and Jeffrey Archer are probably 4th or 5th seeds. I hesitate to put anyone in the "just barely made it" sixteenth seeds, but they should be happy just to be included. I am sure there will be complaints from those who get left out. For them, we will have to invent an A.I.T. (Authors Invitational Tournament).

Who would be your final four picks? The heavy hitters prevail or an upstart winner like Sophie Kinsella?

Beware the Ides of March

Ever since poor old Julius Caesar bit the dust on March 15, 44 B.C., the ides have gotten a bad name. A sense of impending doom or dire predictions seems to hover over a perfectly innocent day. The soothsayer who told Julius to "beward the ides of March" probably knew that March 15 wasn't going to be a very good day for the dictator, but did he have to consign it to ignomy.

No one says bad things about the ides of any other month. In fact, until I began doing some research on the ides of March, I had no idea that there were ides in other months. The ides of May, July and October are also on the 15th. In the other months, however, they are on the 13th. If I wanted to spend more time on this interesting subject, I could probably come up with a reason to malign every other ides, but the ones that fall on Friday the 13th have enough trouble already.

All of this goes back to the Roman calendar. It was centered around not only the ides, but also the kalends (1st day of the month) and the nones (7th day in March, May, July and October and 5th day in all other months).

So brush up on your Shakespeare (Julius Caesar) or your study of Roman history, but I am pretty sure there is no reason for you to beware the ides of March or May or July or October.