We’ve consulted the elves, fairies, and ancient spirits flitting around our garden, and they’ve offered some insights into the future. We predict: + A cataclysmic environmental disaster on the scale of the 9/11 attacks, such as the entire continent of Australia going up in flames, will spark a global revolution of unprecedented size and impact,...
The impossible is possible. We understand the concept in theory; films like “Free Solo” remind us of the thrilling truth. The movie documents climber Alex Honnold’s attempt to scale Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan cliff face — more than 3,000 feet of virtually perpendicular rock — without ropes, clamps, or nets, using only his claw-like hands,...
As in any ideological system, young chess players are inculcated with seemingly inviolable commandments: Thou Shalt Arrange Your Pieces to Control the Center, Thou Shall Not Move the Same Piece Twice Until All Other Pieces Are Developed. In what you might call the romantic era of chess, before the development of artificial intelligence, these commandments...
At the World Championship Match, in Helsinki, Finland, they reached a complicated position where The Champion intended on sacrificing a knight. The giveaway was not an obvious tactic; with all the minor pieces still on the board, the position offered a large number of possible variations, all of them leading to interesting circumstances, but nothing...
The National Football League recently announced a change in their rules regarding the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner,” that great paean to durable fabric. They understand the symbolic importance of standing and pretending to know the words to a song about a symbol. It’s symbolism: Singing a song that pays homage to a symbol...
As the roving reporter for the Website Chess24.com, journalist Colin McGourty follows the best chess players around the globe, filing daily missives from tournaments and competitions, interviewing the best minds in the game, and generally keeping the chess public updated on the latest goings-on. In his colorful articles, McGourty elegantly pulls off the difficult trick...
A wealthy white friend of mine includes me on occasional BCC emails containing golf jokes, sex jokes, and, every now and then, political jokes. The latest one I got — and I thought it was pretty funny — proposed a massive boycott of the NFL on our most sacred holiday weekend (Veteran’s Day). The humorous...
Is genius hereditary? Or can every child be groomed to be a genius? One brilliant (and controversial) father believes environment and training fosters genius. He attempts to prove his theory by raising all three of his young daughters to be world champions of chess. The engrossing Israeli documentary The Polgar Variant, about a family of Hungarian Jews living...
In 1986, when Jack Nicklaus won the Masters golf tournament at age 46, it was hard for us to understand what all the fuss was about. Sure, he made history, becoming the oldest player to win one of the four “majors.” But he was a lifelong athlete doing what he did best. Golf is a...
The challenge for a poet at the ball game is a triplicate predicament. He must not swoon over the greenness of the grass. He must not view every little lovely detail as a metaphor waiting to be transcribed for posterity. He must not recite rambling stories with no discernible point except to subtly imply it...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Clarinetist Glenn Dickson, master of klezmer, has made a solo recording, “Wider Than the Sky,” that’s been on perpetual repeat at our home office. Using over-dubs and electronic digital effects, Dickson fills the aural soundscape with a rich melange of chordal textures supporting the melody. His celebrated virtuosity is subsumed here to long, elegiac musical...
