Round of 8 bracket; Ed Wood (3) vs. Thomas Hobbes; Philip K. Dick (2) vs. Jane Austen

Bracket v1

Paul Davidson sends along the updated bracket, along with the comment that the writers seem to be doing very well. True! The 8 remaining contestants include 5 writers (along with one comedian, one philosopher, and one cult figure).

Yesterday we had no competition because I was afraid that people would not take it seriously on April Fools Day.

In deciding on the winner from 2 days ago, I started with this anonymous comment:

If Quixote comes by you would need a really good translator that knows how to speak Spanish from 500 years ago. That means less cookies for everybody at the seminar.

But this is NYC, we have a lot of Spanish speakers around. If necessary we could find a translator through the U.N. So I’m not so worried about that.

But there was also this other anonymous comment:

Cervantes was foundational and still relevant. That’s a long time to be a candidate for best comic of all time.

Ultimately I had to do with this, from David:

Assuming Hobbes advances, a Cervantes win would setup a final four that pits giants of the 16th century vs. greats of the 20th. Hobbes Cervantes would also be interesting as it represents the inflection point away from Spanish dominance to English.

And, the deciding factor:

Twain would be a no show. He’d be too concerned about the fallout from his autobiography whose publication he wanted delayed for 100 years since he “named names”.

We already knocked Jesus out for being a probable no show, and I guess Twain deserves no better treatment than the Prince of Peace.

And today we have a doubleheader, we’re playing catch-up because this entire competition is timed to end on the same day as the NCAA tournament. First we have a famous cross-dresser vs. Mr. Nasty, Brutish, and Short; and second we have a battle of the sexes, with the quintessential intellectual writer in the very male genre of sci-fi, up against the founder of chick-lit.

How do I handicap these? For the first one, I’d think Hobbes would have a lot more to say, but you can’t count out Ed Wood, a true Cinderella who somehow managed to get by Alan Turing (along with some lesser opponents). For the second contest, both candidates have strengths. Dick’s explorations of the nature of reality fit well with statistics, but Austen speaks to the social scientists in the audience. Dick is fresh off a bout with Gandhi, while Austen finished off Stewart Lee, with Karl Popper before that.

Please comment on both of today’s matches.

P.S. As always, here’s the background, and here are the rules.

7 thoughts on “Round of 8 bracket; Ed Wood (3) vs. Thomas Hobbes; Philip K. Dick (2) vs. Jane Austen

  1. it seems that either:
    – everyone is on spring break
    – we’ve exhausted everything we know about these people
    – we’ve made a terrible mistake, and wound up with a bad elite 8

    in any case, i move that given the perfect easter weekend timing, we resurrect jesus and drop him in the final four.

  2. Not sure if I’m past the deadline, but I vote for Jane Austen against Philip K. Dick. Otherwise we’ll end up with a final with all men, who as Austen said, “have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.”

    Austen is also a pioneer in propensity methods:

    “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.”

  3. OK here goes my best shot at half of today and tomorrow and on to the finals. I have been looking forward to the matchup between Updike and Austen so that I could propose a tie. Then they advance as a team to the finals.

    Just imagine Jane and John trading carefully crafted comments on mating mores in their separate centuries.

    So for me it’s Austen today so I can reuse this comment when Updike bests Carlin.

    I’m pretty sure Andrew won’t buy my trifecta (Austen, Updike, Austen+Updike) but I’d really regret not having tried …

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