Life can be pretty confusing - at every level, in every respect, and at all times.
Which is why we like structuring it to navigate our ways through it. As a Swiss-German friend once said to me: "We just like things to be orderly." And in that sense, we're all a little Swiss-German I think.
And since life can only be lived forward, in the same way you drive down a road or motorway or highway, we put up markers at regular intervals, and we call them milestones. I like to differentiate between these and landmarks – unique, "defining" events that truly stand out. Sticking to the highway analogy, to experience these you have to turn off and consciously, literally, go out of your way to seek them.
In the same way a road unfolds ahead of us, time elapses, so over the millennia we have collectively learned to organise it around recurring natural phenomena to do with the earth rotating around its own axis and around the sun, the moon playing a role as well, and with the four seasons.
If you want to have my personal view on the four seasons, like many other things they are not what they used to be anymore. I mean, nowadays half your wardrobe you will never get to wear because it's either still too cold or already too hot for it – trench coats, light sweaters, and long-sleeved polos for example. Of course, in my chosen host country, "wellies", "brollies", and "cardies" ("Wellington" rubber boots, umbrellas, and cardigans to those lucky enough to live in more clement climes) are always good to have handy all year round, especially when you're "out and about".
Or so the ever-solicitous BBC weather nanny will admonish you after her colleague, the anchor man has announced the reassuring piece of news that the government in all its wisdom and worry for the well-being of the population has decided the introduction of a sugar tax. (More on those highlights later.)
Another milestone on the road of lifestyle regulation. Maybe even a landmark? Or a tipping point? Time will tell.
By contrast, Antonio Vivaldi's composition "The Four Seasons" (Le quattro stagioni – not to be confused with the popular pizza topping) of 1725 has stood the test of time magnificently.
As have The Four Seasons, an American rock and pop band that was big in the Sixties and Seventies. Remember their U.S. Number One hits like "Sherry" (1962), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (1962), and "Walk Like a Man" (1963)? Totally timeless tunes.
My favourite, however, remains "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" (1975) – very fond memories.
Meanwhile, coming back to nature and how mankind learned early on to structure our existence on this planet around its cycles, calendars were at some point of advanced sophistication developed to organise days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes – and to commemorate one's own birthday of course! Today, most of us live by the Gregorian calendar, introduced in the 16th century as a modification of the Julian calendar which in turn dated back to Ancient Rome.
Speaking of Antiquity, the Greeks recorded time in terms of the four-year periods between Olympic Games, calling these Olympiads. Which brings us close to what's behind the title of this blog, but not quite there yet. Just think "sports" for the moment.
No modern society is more rigid and efficient in structuring the calendar year than the Americans, probably to do with the fact that they always were and in many parts of the huge country (remember the "Fly-over States"?) today still are, an agrarian society.
If you really want to know what life is like on a farm in Iowa, read the novels of Jane Smiley – A Thousand Acres (1991; a modern take on Shakespeare's King Lear for which she won the Pulitzer Prize) and the more recent Last Hundred Years Trilogy: Some Luck (2014), Early Warning (2015) and Golden Age (2015). Some critics say the wait for the proverbial Great American Novel is now officially over. Having worked my way through all 1,382 pages of it, I'm not so sure. But then, what do I know. By the way, Smiley uses a structuring principle very topical to our ramblings here: each chapter has a year as its title, starting in 1920 and ending a century later.
Lumping novels in threes is all the craze these days, it seems. Remember The Campus Trilogy by David Lodge which I mentioned last time? Still highly recommended.
There's another one causing quite a stir right now (and no, I haven't read any of it – yet), entitled The Old Filth Trilogy by Jane Gardam: Old Filth (2006); The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009); and Last Friends (2013).
The famous "Rule of Three" applied to books.
So, for Americans in Iowa and everywhere else, summer officially starts on Memorial Day (30 May) and ends on Labor Day, the first Monday in September. Their highest of all holidays is Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday in November to celebrate the autumn (or in their terms, fall) harvest.
Of all the holidays, I like this one best. It has nothing to do with religion or politics, there is no obligation to give presents, and being on a Thursday, it invariably makes for a wonderful long weekend. Thanksgiving is basically about Family and Friends getting together, eating and drinking, and watching (American) football on TV.
And then, of course, there is the following day – Black Friday when they all "hit the mall to heat up them credit cards". So-called because it's the first day of the year when the retail trade starts making a profit; or, alternatively, because the parking lots are "black with cars".
Remember the Eagles' "Take It to the Limit" – the one their wives call "the credit card song"?
If there is one thing Americans are devoted to even more than shopping, it's sports. And the main reason why football (soccer to them) doesn't take off in the United States (in addition of course to being a low-scoring game with lengthy interruptions too few and far between to allow for a commercially interesting number of TV ads) is that they have four major sports already, covering the whole calendar year and all seasons – (ice) hockey, baseball, (American) football, and basketball.
And three of these annually provide additional anchors to the structure of the year. The ancient Greeks, you could say, were on to something with their Olympiads.
The first, and globally the best known, is the final of the National Football League (NFL) – the Super Bowl which is always played on the first Sunday in February. Known as "Super Bowl Sunday", it is considered by some an unofficial American national holiday. You will be interested to learn it is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after, you guessed it, Thanksgiving Day. In normal years, it is also the most-watched American television broadcast.
Because of its high viewership, commercial airtime during the Super Bowl broadcast is the most expensive of the year, and companies regularly develop special ads just for the occasion. As a result, watching and discussing these commercials has become a significant aspect of the event, whether you're interested in the sport or not. In addition, world stars of the rock and pop scene including Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Beyoncé, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Whitney Houston have performed as parts of the event's pre-game and half-time programs.
2016 saw Super Bowl 50, played on 7 February in Santa Clara, San Francisco Bay Area CA. Coldplay were the half-time act, saying it was the biggest thing that had ever happened to them, and on either side of their performance the Denver Broncos trounced the Carolina Panthers 24 – 10.
But we are more interested in the other sports event that literally galvanises the nation every year in March – "The Big Dance".
You may now well ask yourselves and me whether the Americans are really into Ballroom dancing in such a big way – and why you have never even noticed. Mind you, maybe POTUS has triggered a huge tango revival with his widely televised moves during a state visit to Argentina this week.
Well, to lift the secret, this particular athletic milestone also goes by the name "March Madness". And if this still doesn't ring a bell, please let me explain.
Before I do, however, I want to clarify something. When I started writing this blog post on Monday, from the very beginning I had intended it to be entitled "March Madness", as usual starting off with a particular thought and not knowing where it would eventually lead me. Since then, however, the unspeakable atrocities in Brussels happened on Tuesday, and while up to this point I have stuck to my initial Game Plan, some of what follows will be influenced – no, dictated – by what we all saw, heard, and read in the news media.
Declaration of interest: I lived in the Brussels area with my family for eleven years, from 2001 through 2012, and I don't even know how many, hundreds of times I have passed through that airport and used that Metro station. To me, this is all very "close to home", and I feel deeply for the Belgian and European capital and all my friends and acquaintances living there. My sympathies go out to the victims, and my thoughts are with their families and friends.
In a nutshell, it could easily have been me or someone close to me. Luckily, it wasn't.
So, back to "March Madness". First of all, note the power of the alliteration, a stylistic literary device identified by the repeated sound of the first consonant in a series of multiple words. Like other such tools of rhetoric – tricolon, the Rule of Three – it is employed to drive home a point of particular importance to the orator.
Anyhow, Americans just love their alliterations, as witnessed by their frequent use in famous speeches of their former (and present) Presidents.
The most common example is John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address of 20 January, 1961, where he used alliteration twenty-one times throughout his speech. Just savour the last paragraph:
"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
Three more examples:
"This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in the time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different, and difficult places...They are men and women -- white, black, and brown -- of all faiths and all stations -- all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life....In today's wars, there's not always a simple ceremony that signals our troops' success -- no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed...." Barack Obama, Fort Hood Memorial Service Speech (10 November 2009)
"And our nation itself is testimony to the love our veterans have had for it and for us. All for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom's front." Ronald Reagan, Address at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, Washington D.C. (11 November 1988)
Finally, the classic of all classics (and by the way, one of the greatest speeches ever written and delivered):
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (19 November 1863).
It's not (just) what they say – it's the way they say it. "Mamma Mia!" Duh.
So, again, back to "March Madness".
By way of a definition, this is in fact a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship of the major college basketball teams. Over the period of three weeks, with the games being played at different neutral venues on the weekends, this is one of the other two BIG sporting event that structure the Americans' calendar year in addition to the Super Bowl.
And much more than the professional NFL championship, this one mobilises the masses as everyone roots for their "school", as in college or university.
Do you know the term "wear your colours" in support of a certain sports team? Well, during March Madness a few years ago I once in all innocence wore a light blue sweater (of the meteorologically no-longer-needed category defined above) to a casual dinner party hosted by American ex-pats in Belgium, and the hostess was all over me, in an innocent sort of way I hasten to add, as she thought I had attended the University of North Carolina as she had.
One important aspect of "March Madness" is the art of "Bracketology" by which Americans try to predict the winner of the tournament as soon as the draw of the final 64 teams, the tournament "bracket", is published. It is a well-known fact that Barack Obama is anything but immune to this craze, and according to reliable sources, he is pretty good at it, too. I just hope it still leaves him enough time to devote to Kremlinology – trying to work out what goes on behind the thick red walls of the Russian government's seat in Moscow.
Inside and outside the White House, every self-respecting workplace has its own competition, and there's a lot of betting going on around "The Big Dance". And we are speaking serious money.
By the way, "March Madness" also uses the power of alliteration in the way it labels the various final stages of the tournament – "Sweet Sixteen", "Elite Eight" (well, strictly speaking that's an assonance actually: vowels instead of consonants), and "Final Four". This year, the national championship game will be played in Houston on 4 April. This weekend, it's the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds.
Using calendar milestones to structure a narrative is also quite a popular device in literature and performing arts. Check out the movie One Day (2011), starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess: "After spending the night together after their college graduation, Dexter (JS) and Em (AH) are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in their lives. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, on that day." (IMDb) While not the biggest of box office hits, it's actually quite clever and enjoyable.
Or The Family Stone (2005), a romantic movie set at Christmas in two consecutive years. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Rachel McAdams, and Diane Keaton, it is filmed in the beautiful small town of Madison, New Jersey, and on the campus of Drew University.
And finally, Draft Day (2014) with Kevin Kostner and Jennifer Garner, telling the story of the three-day period in May every year when the NFL teams select eligible College players.
The list would not be complete without mentioning Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and starring Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, and Cameron Diaz. Still with the best pep talk in (sports) movie history: "Inch by inch"…
And now, I can no longer avoid facing the unexpected, horrible, yet sadly real-world meaning the term "March Madness" has taken on this month.
A friend living in Istanbul, this beautiful, vibrant city, told me that when using the public transport system he asks himself, "Am I walking too fast down this platform?" (i.e., running into a bomb) or "Am I strolling too slowly?" (i.e., not quickly enough to get away from a possible detonation in my back).
Then the seemingly endless, unstoppable flow of human misery fleeing Syria and neighbouring countries just for their families to survive. The intolerable situation in the North Aegean Sea and on the Greek islands there that find themselves exposed as the "first port of call" in Europe. And the "deal" the EU have now struck with Turkey, or rather, the Erdogan regime.
On the same day the EU leaders signed the agreement with Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, his country's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated in public: "Democracy, freedom, and the rule of law… For us, these words have absolutely no value any longer." What a strange bedfellow for Europe. How is that ever going to work?
And doesn't the EU's perceived sell-out make Brexit all the more plausible? I mean, why stay if those timeless common values are jettisoned for the sake of short-term expediency?
Linked to the intolerable TV images from the Aegean, the latest election results in three German Bundesländer, unsurprisingly giving the right-wing, anti-immigration, and plain demagogical Alternative für Deutschland huge representation in these regional parliaments.
And why, pray can the Spaniards not just put their heads down, overcome their relatively petty differences, and form a government of national unity in times of turmoil?
I will still not be drawn into commenting at length on the travesty unfolding in the U.S. presidential primaries which seems for now to be leading to the equally unavoidable and unpalatable show-down between Hillary "My Turn" Clinton and Donald "The Donald" Trump.
As a message to the former, however, I did relate to something an American comedians' duo recently said (and yes, they do support Trump):
"You don't get to play Musical Chairs with the White House."
So I've been thinkin'.
Is there something to the third month of the year that justifies the label "March Madness" outside of and beyond a mere U.S. college basketball championship tournament?
Well, let's return to Antiquity: We are all familiar with the infamous "Ides of March".
By way of a refresher, this is the day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. The death of Caesar made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman, and indeed world, history, triggering a protracted civil war that ended in the transition from the historical period known as the Roman Republic to what became the Roman Empire. Along the way, it also threw the world as it was known then into chaos, war, and immeasurable suffering for more than a decade.
So, what about the month of March in history – did it bring mostly good news or bad?
I did some preliminary research and found a lot of seriously regrettable events. The start of the civil war in Syria is dated 15 March 2011. The Ides of March.
History, they say, doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
But statistically, March shouldn't really be any worse than the other eleven months we use to structure the year.
So if so inclined, try to find the top (or rather, bottom) three for each of them in history.
March and its Madness will soon be over. And I hope we will not have to reflect on April Atrocities (couldn't resist) the next time I write.
For now, there is something to look forward to – Easter, more than a mere milestone in the highly structured Church calendar year. While recurring annually, it is a landmark, the landmark. I mean, without Easter, no Christianity.
Regardless of their faith, this is the time of year many people associate with a fresh start, much more so than 1 January. At least in the northern hemisphere, this surely is related to spring, Nature's new beginning (well, it doesn't always quite work out that way).
And this year the association is even more potent as coming Sunday also marks the beginning of European Summer Time, giving those of us living there an additional hour of daylight. I love it.
In the United States, there is another milestone date that can coincide with Easter or, as it does this year, follow shortly after as it always falls in the first week of April. And even more than the Super Bowl and the Big Dance, it has an additional significance of a quasi-religious nature – "Opening Day", the day on which the professional Baseball leagues begin their regular season.
I will never forget the Easter Sunday sermon that once got an American reverend in an international Episcopal congregation in Belgium into a lot of trouble with the predominantly British / Anglican vestry.
In a wonderful, moving delivery with a perfectly climactic build-up, he went on and on about Nature's awakening, the world being renewed, humanity being granted a fresh beginning, and the opportunity to start all over again, leading up to the final resounding roar - no, not of "Christ is risen", but rather: "Play Ball!", the traditional exclamation that opens up the new baseball season.
The Brits were "not amused", as you can well imagine.
But the Americans sitting in the church pews that Easter Sunday, and to whom Opening Day does serve as a powerful symbol of rebirth, absolutely got it.
Thomas Boswell, a well-respected sports columnist with the Washington Post, published a book entitled Why Time Begins on Opening Day (1984), and this just about sums it up.
In the words of John Vecsey, another American author and sports columnist writing for The New York Times:
"There is no sports event like Opening Day of baseball, the sense of beating back the forces of darkness and the National Football League."
If you really want to know everything about professional baseball, check out his book, Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game (2006).
I still maintain that, while Baseball may be the Americans' favourite game, Football is the archetypal American sport - based as it is on the principle of gaining ground, "inch by inch", foot by foot, and yard by yard, which replicates how the North American Continent was won and the nation built. If you were a Native American and at the receiving end of this process, it sucked of course...
But Opening Day is nonetheless right up there with the Super Bowl and the Big Dance.
So, bring on Sunday 3 April when the "Boys of Summer" (Don Henley, 1984) will finally return while March Madness bows out. So who misses soccer?
Let's all "Play Ball"!
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