Before NCAA Basketball, Hares Invented March Madness

It's that time of year when basketball fans (and those who just enjoy a good office pool), start filling out their brackets for the NCAA Basketball March Madness playoffs.

But first we should pay homage to the original creators of this month's annual frenzy: Hares found in Europe. The first use of the expression "mad as a March hare" dates back to the 16th century.
But the descriptive phrase truly became part of the English lexicon when it appeared in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, published in 1865.

The madness of hares (similar but not the same as U.S. cottontails) starts exhibiting itself in springtime, the beginning of the hare mating season; scientists in Scotland believe that the longer daylight hours and the availability of food occurring in March triggers some kind of hormonal switch in hares.

The animals will stand on their back feet and box each other or bowl headfirst into each other. They also exhibit other signs of rambunctiousness and unpredictable behavior.

In the United Kingdom, the BBC publishes a schedule of when and where observers might best be able to watch March hares going at it--and it doesn't require any filling out of brackets to be part of the fun.

We See White Rabbits

We just have a thing for white rabbits. Lots of people don't, but then they don't know what they're missing: the super-sweet nature, the snowy whiteness, the quintessential bunny. White rabbits bring so much to mind: Alice in Wonderland, Jefferson Airplane ("One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small...."), and, of course, the classic movie Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart and the six-foot, three-and-a-half-inch pooka Harvey.

So we're particularly happy to thank Laura Lanford and Thomas Rammer, who run moviesontheroof.com. They run a small private movie festival in the Printer's Row neighborhood of Chicago. At each screening, they offer a themed beer and highlight a themed charity.

This summer they chose Red Door as their charity when they screened Henry Koster's Harvey, paired with Pooka Pale Ale.

By the way, a pooka is a benign but mischievous creature from Celtic mythology who is especially fond of social outcasts (like Elwood P. Dowd, the Jimmy Stewart character).Hmm, sounds like many rabbits we have met--although none of them anywhere near six feet tall (except in their own minds!).

We thank them so much and so does Bella Swan, one of the many white rabbits we've rescued and adopted out. Maybe next year, moviesontheroof.com will consider a showing of Watership Down?