chess
It's a symptom of the writer's situation that his blog, ostensibly devoted to the progress of his novel, instead documents his other, quite unrelated, activities. Yesterday it was coffee. Today, I don't know, how about chess?
I did work on my morning notes: Rubicon, A History of Private Life. I did open my notes for chapter 17, and gamely copied and pasted highlighted sections of the notes, trying to gather all the relevant material into one area of the now 37-page document. (Yes! Those are my notes for one chapter! Quite a few of them are book extracts, though.) My three eggheads need to have stuff to talk about, and my preference is that it have something to do with the overall meaning of my book. If I can figure out what that is. So I draw my notes together, concentrating the best thoughts into a bulleted list, in the hope of being able to arrange them.
Mom called, and I headed out to Deep Cove to work on the estate accounting. Left at 3:40, had to go across the North Shore to get filtered water at Waterland. There, the Serbian clerk Ivan helped me get my 4 19-liter jugs going, then urged me to make a move on the chessboard he keeps at a nearby counter, along with a chess clock. When he found out that I used to play in tournaments he would sometimes engage me in chess talk when I went in. Last time he was enthusing about a book he was reading on the life and games of Mikhail Tal, world champion in the 1950s.
"He was Latvian, wasn't he?" I said.
"Yes."
"I'm Latvian too."
"Oh!" said Ivan, his eyes widening in surprise and pleasure (although I'd told him this before, when the Latvians were doing better than expected in world soccer action). "Well then you have to play--it is in your blood!"
"It's been years," I said.
"Make a move. Go--make a move."
What is it with Eastern Europeans and chess? My East European blood has been diluted, so the chess urge is perhaps not as strong. But I do like the game.
I opened with e4; Ivan responded with g6 (we didn't use the clock). I moved d4; he played Bg7. We were into it--what is technically called a Robatsch Defence (I just looked it up), named after an Austrian master who took the time to work out its theoretical possibilities. I know nothing about it; I flew by the seat of my pants. Ivan kept his eye on the water-jugs, although one of them overflowed as he got wrapped up in the game.
It was a good, sharp game; we played quickly, but neither of us made any blunders. There was tense tactical action through the middlegame and a challenging endgame in which I had two connected passed pawns against his extra bishop. I felt like the underdog going into the ending, but I actually won with a combination that got one of my pawns through. Ivan smiled and offered his hand.
"Thank you," he said, "that was a good game."
It was a good game--an unlooked-for treat on a muggy July afternoon.
I did work on my morning notes: Rubicon, A History of Private Life. I did open my notes for chapter 17, and gamely copied and pasted highlighted sections of the notes, trying to gather all the relevant material into one area of the now 37-page document. (Yes! Those are my notes for one chapter! Quite a few of them are book extracts, though.) My three eggheads need to have stuff to talk about, and my preference is that it have something to do with the overall meaning of my book. If I can figure out what that is. So I draw my notes together, concentrating the best thoughts into a bulleted list, in the hope of being able to arrange them.
Mom called, and I headed out to Deep Cove to work on the estate accounting. Left at 3:40, had to go across the North Shore to get filtered water at Waterland. There, the Serbian clerk Ivan helped me get my 4 19-liter jugs going, then urged me to make a move on the chessboard he keeps at a nearby counter, along with a chess clock. When he found out that I used to play in tournaments he would sometimes engage me in chess talk when I went in. Last time he was enthusing about a book he was reading on the life and games of Mikhail Tal, world champion in the 1950s.
"He was Latvian, wasn't he?" I said.
"Yes."
"I'm Latvian too."
"Oh!" said Ivan, his eyes widening in surprise and pleasure (although I'd told him this before, when the Latvians were doing better than expected in world soccer action). "Well then you have to play--it is in your blood!"
"It's been years," I said.
"Make a move. Go--make a move."
What is it with Eastern Europeans and chess? My East European blood has been diluted, so the chess urge is perhaps not as strong. But I do like the game.
I opened with e4; Ivan responded with g6 (we didn't use the clock). I moved d4; he played Bg7. We were into it--what is technically called a Robatsch Defence (I just looked it up), named after an Austrian master who took the time to work out its theoretical possibilities. I know nothing about it; I flew by the seat of my pants. Ivan kept his eye on the water-jugs, although one of them overflowed as he got wrapped up in the game.
It was a good, sharp game; we played quickly, but neither of us made any blunders. There was tense tactical action through the middlegame and a challenging endgame in which I had two connected passed pawns against his extra bishop. I felt like the underdog going into the ending, but I actually won with a combination that got one of my pawns through. Ivan smiled and offered his hand.
"Thank you," he said, "that was a good game."
It was a good game--an unlooked-for treat on a muggy July afternoon.
posted by paulv at
6:42 PM
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