(Stan Isaacs)

It used to be an annual tradition on April Fools’ Day for my longtime employer, Newsday, to publish star columnist Stan Isaacs’ whimsical rankings of decidedly inconspicuous topics—such as bowling pins; Fred Astaire’s dancing partners; TV remote buttons; “Things That Aren’t As Good as The Used to Be.” Stan died in 2013 and I officially retired from the newspaper the next year. But in Stan’s memory, his delightful parody must not go away.

It was conceived, he said, “as a loving spoof of the Ring Magazine boxing ratings….a rush to respond to the unrecognized need for evaluations of quantities like the Bridges Across the River Seine.”

His waggish purpose was to offer “an appraisal in areas that are generally ignored by raters” and he declared that “no category is too arcane” to grade. He called his yearly polls IRED, the Isaacs Ratings of Esoteric Distinction.” What follows is my pale imitation—which I will call the J-Faux—of similarly (and seriously) judged objects that normally might seem trivial.

Eating utensils: 1 (tie), Knife. Fork. Spoon. 2, Chopsticks. 3, Fingers.

Times: 1, Daylight. 2, Standard. 3, New York (print edition).

Thoroughfares: 1, Route 66. 2, Abbey Road. 3, Bourbon Street. 4, Barcelona’s Las Ramblas. 5, Broadway. 6, Straight and Narrow.

Chess strategies: 1, Nimzo Indian Defence. 2, Noak’s Ark Trap. 3, Morphy Defence. 4, Fianchetto.

Prognosticators: 1, Nostradamus. 2, Punxsutawney Phil. 3, Jeane Dixon. 4, Jimmy the Greek. 5, Your daily horoscope. 6, Any meteorologist in Southern California, where “it never rains.”

Three Stooges: 1, Moe. 2, Larry. 3. Curley.

50-Year Anniversaries Being Observed in 2019: 1, First man on the moon. 2, Amazin’ Mets’ World Series victory. 3. Woodstock. 4, Joe Namath’s Super Bowl guarantee. 5, First post-college job for yours truly.

Famous Pairs: 1, Pinky and the Brain. 2, Bob and Ray. 3, Romeo and Juliet. 4, Simon and Garfunkel. 5, Bonnie and Clyde. 6, Macaroni and cheese. 7, Death and taxes.

Harry Potter characters: 1, Hedwig. 2, Professor Dumbledore. 3, Draco Malfoy. 4, The sorting hat. 5, Hermione Granger. 6, Voldemort. 7, Ron Weasley. 8, Various muggles. 9, Dudley Dursley.

Forms of precipitation: 1, Rain. 2, Snow. 3, Sleet. 4, Fog. 5, Graupel.

Books on my bookshelf that I really mean to read some day: 1, Finnegans Wake. 2, War and Peace. 3, One Hundred Years of Solitude. 4, The Satanic Verses. 5, The other 35 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays.

Dogs: 1, Snoopy. 2, Lassie. 3, Tramp. 4, Rover. 5, Balto. 6, Rin Tin Tin. 7, Pluto. 8, Old Yeller. 9, Fido. 10, Sprocket. 11, Jack Russell.

Puzzlers: 1, Pi. 2, Rubik’s Cube. 3, E=mc2. 4, More than a few New Yorker cartoons.

Dreadful sports clichés: 1, They control their own destiny. (Impossible; destiny is destiny.) 2, Step up to the plate. 3, It is what it is. 4, At the end of the day… 5, That team just wanted it more. 6, They dodged a bullet. 7, They were playing with a chip on their shoulders. 8, There’s no tomorrow. 9, They gave 110 percent.

New Year’s Days: 1, April 1 (Until the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian in 1564). 2, Jan. 1. 3, Sometime between Jan. 20 and Feb. 20 (Chinese or Lunar New Year); 4, Sometime between Sept. 5 and Oct. 5 (Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah). 5, Sept. 11 (Coptic New Year, or Nayrouz). 6, Baseball Opening Day (“This is going to be our year!”)