Away With Words has a nice March Madness diversion, looking at the new book, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. The book posits that many of the great debates of our times can be resolved by methodically breaking these down into a series of one-on-one matchups culminating in a categorical “Final Four.” She links to Slate.com’s article about the book, which features four sample brackets: the greatest “Where Were You Moments”, “Ad Slogans”, “Marital Arguments” and “Film Deaths.”
In these samples, 32 candidates in each category are listed in Round 1 and you proceed to “face-off” each match-up into the next bracket. For example, in the “Film Deaths” bracket I found a lot of bona fide contenders that were hard to choose from, but when it was close I went with the death that was most central to the story. Thus the “Psycho” shower scene made it to my final four despite a strong first round challenge from the opening shark attack in “Jaws”. The rest of my final four ultimately included King Kong falling from the Empire State Building, Tom Hanks’ death in “Saving Private Ryan” and the Wicket Witch melting in “The Wizard of Oz.” (King Kong won.)
Deaths also figure prominently in the “Where Were You When” (Boomer Division) bracket with JFK, RFK, Martin Luther, Princess Diana, John Lennon, Dale Earnhardt among those featured, though these also compete against the fall of the Berlin Wall, Woodstock and the Miracle on Ice. In the Ad Slogans bracket you’ve got “Where’s the beef?” going up against “It’s finger-lickin’ good” in the first round, while “Does she or doesn’t she?” could conceivably fight it out with “Just do it” in one of the later rounds.
You can check out these sample brackets for yourself from the Salon link. While I don’t see that we could resolve many disputes by having a world-wide “Greatest Religions” bracket, this is a fun way to hash out your favorites — and all without having to listen to Dick Vitale (I didn’t notice if there was a “Most Obnoxious” bracket covered in the book).
When you’re finished you can check with your friends and acquaintences who also completed the brackets and then make a bracket to determine which of you is most compulsive.
Do they have “income tax bracket”? You could choose between you or your parents. 😀
MD, you bad Motoguzzi!
Mmmm…I love Cake!
But how long will you love it? As long as the soda cans are red, white and blue?
But she has to wear aging black leather and run up huge hospital bills in order to love it properly!