The movie Casablanca premiered in New York City 79 years ago today, in 1942. The film starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, with notable support by Claude Rains and Paul Henreid. It’s the story of a cynical American expat, Rick Blaine, who runs a bar in Morocco’s largest city during World War II. He’s unexpectedly reunited with his former love, Ilsa, who is now married to a leader of the French Resistance. By the end of the movie, Rick finds he still has a selfless heart under his bitter exterior. The movie was originally intended for release in January 1943, and that is when it came out in the rest of the country, but the producers moved up the New York premiere to take advantage of the free publicity surrounding the landing of Allied forces in North Africa.
The film was based on an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick’s, by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. A story analyst called it “sophisticated hokum,” but recommended it to Warner Bros. anyway. Unlike most movies, Casablanca was filmed in story order rather than out of sequence, because the screenplay was only half done by the time filming began. Ingrid Bergman wrote in her autobiography, My Story (1980): “We were shooting off the cuff. Every day they were handing out dialogue and we were trying to make some sense of it. Every morning we would say, ‘Well, who are we? What are we doing here?’ And [director] Michael Curtiz would say, ‘We’re not quite sure, but let’s get through this scene today and we’ll let you know tomorrow.’” She didn’t know which man her character ended up with until the final scene was filmed.
The movie was filmed almost entirely indoors, because a Japanese submarine had been spotted off the coast of California and everyone was worried that Japan might attack the mainland. The production crew also had to cope with war rationing and shortages of things like rubber and aluminum. They couldn’t use nylon or silk in the costumes, so Ingrid Bergman wore cotton.
Casablanca received great reviews, but at the time most people just seemed to think it was going to be one of many boilerplate movies intended to raise American morale during World War II. The New York Times wrote, “Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap.” The Hollywood Reporter called it “a drama that lifts you right out of your seat” and added, “Certainly a more accomplished cast of players cannot be imagined.” Variety wrote, “Casablanca will take the [box offices] of America just as swiftly as the AEF took North Africa.” Another reviewer said, “It certainly won’t make Vichy happy — but that’s just another point for it.” It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three of them: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Not every critic since the movie’s release has considered it a masterpiece, however. Pauline Kael said, “It’s far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism, and you’re never really pressed to take its melodramatic twists and turns seriously.” (https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-november-26-2021/)
This is a wonderful, enjoyable, entertaining, and easy to read, book. It is well written and deeply researched, much of which emanates from the wonderful California Chess reference resource, ChessDryad (ChessDryad.com), where one finds on the home page of Chess History Archives:
What’s New
A brand new must-have book!
Intrigued by the title I decided to get in touch with the publisher to write a review. Prior to reading this volume these are the only books previously read concerning Marcel Duchamp:
When first learning of the book I was curious as to how a writer would be able to write a book concerning the gift of a smoking pipe. After all, so much has been written about Marcel Duchamp one would think it impossible to find anything new about which to write. I was wrong. In addition, I wondered about the title, “A Chess Romance.” Since it concerns two men, why not “A Chess Bromance?” After all, the definition of bromance is, “A platonic or nonsexual friendship between two men, usually two heterosexual men, likened to a romantic relationship.” (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/bromance) Replace the “B” with “R” and we have: “A love affair.” (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/romance)
Duchamp
“Duchamp’s last summer was spent in Cadaques, Spain. At five o’clock every afternoon he could be found at Cafe Melion. One time Laurent Sauerwein boldly decided to “intercept” Duchamp and speak with him. Before long a man appeared and a chessboard was produced, at which point, Sauerwein recounts: “I knew I had to shut up. the serious business was about to begin [and] Marcel kept focused, samurai-like, periodically puffing on his cigar…I didn’t stay until the very end actually, because…what was at stake on the chessboard seemed too intimate to watch.” Lewis Jacobs captured Duchamp in Cadaques, footage he later used in his 1982 documentary Marcel Duchamp: In His Own Words, in which Duchamp shares how chess “is a peaceful way of understanding life [and as with all games] you play with life. You are more alive than people who believe in religion and art.” In other words, the game is in the player’s hands, whereas art and religion require devotion.”
“Duchamp once stated that “chess is a school of silence.” (http://ubu.com/film/duchamp_drot.html) In 1964 the German artist Joseph Beuys, known for his dissenting action-performances, staged “The Silence of Marcel Duchamp Is Overrated.” With this work, Beuys criticized Duchamp’s apparent withdrawal from the art world and social responsibilities in order to “merely” play chess.”
“Duchamp’s chess-playing came to the fore in the last dozen years of his life, during which time he also re-emerged after decades of apparent self-imposed isolation from the “industry” of art: making, promoting, selling. In an address to a symposium at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, in March 1961 Duchamp said, “The great artist of tomorrow will go underground.”
I have read about Duchamp in an attempt to understand why he decided to devote time to Chess in lieu of devoting time to art. In 1928 Duchamp commented in a letter to Katherine Drier: “Chess is my drug; don’t you know it!”
Kolty
“In 1951, Koltanowski expanded his readership by publishing his chess columns in popular magazines and in-house company newsletters. The San Francisco Fireman’s Fund Record published an article titled “The Walking brain,” about Koltanowski and his renowned Knight’s Tour Exhibition. In chess, the knight’s tour demonstrates a sequence of moves on the sixty-four squares of a chessboard whereby the knight visits every square once. To fill each square, Koltanowski asked the audience to suggest names or numbers in combination. He looked at the board, took a few minutes to memorize it, and proceeded to perform the tour while naming the contents of each square. He set another record at the San Francisco Chess Festival at the Marines’ Memorial Club on December 2, 1951, where he played a Blindfold Speed Chess Exhibition by playing fifty blindfold games, one after another, at ten seconds a move in eight hours and forty-five minutes.”
“Humphrey Bogart came to San Francisco for the premier of The African Queen in March 1952. The San Francisco Chronicle staged an exhibition in which Koltanowski played Bogie while blindfolded. Playing to the crowd, Kolty muttered, “This guy is dangerous and I’m not kidding.” Bogie, of course, had played tough-talking detective Sam Spade in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon, which was set in San Francisco. Dark Passage, release in 1947, just five years before the chess match, was set on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, not too far from Kolty and Leah’s apartment on Gough Street in the Cathedral Hill area. The event sparked Kolty’s flair for drama-combined with San Francisco’s foggy atmosphere in his blood. He played up the intensity of their contest both on the radio and in the newspaper. Photographs of the match show a Koltanowski intensely concentrating to defeat Bogie-which he did, in forty-one moves.”
“In late 1952, Kolty was the prime mover behind a new organization, Chess Friends of Northern California. It had its own magazine-Chess in Action-and he was the action. This was just one part of his lasting legacy. In the decades to come, Koltanowski published chess columns all over the world, wrote books, and broke ever more chess records. Upon his death on February 5, 2000, his Chronicle (itl) column had run for fifty-two years, at that time the longest-running chess column in journalism. He was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame in 1986, and awarded an honorary Grandmaster title in 1988. He was the greatest showman since P.T. Barnum, besting the great blindfold chess exhibitioners before him with his self-appointed title of World Blindfold champion. He was a true Dean of American Chess-so named by the United States Chess Federation-and there will never again be anyone like him.”
The Pipe
“WAS DUCHAMP’S PIPE A UTILITARIAN object? Was it an altered readymade with transformed meaning? Or was it intended to embody Marcel and George’s chess relationship? Duchamp was known to make gifts of his work to those he was close to or admired. An admirer of the artistry of industrial objects, Duchamp gathered ideas from plumber’s shop windows, department stores, iron works, and industrial sites. He admired their lack of embellishment combined with stalwart purpose in their machined manufacture. In choosing his pipe ebauchon, he chose its blocky original form. [The majority of pipes sold today, whether handmade or machine-made, are fashioned from briar. Briar burls are cut into two types of blocks; ebauchon and plateaux. Ebauchon is taken from the heart of the burl while plateaux is taken from the outer part of the burl. While both types of blocks can produce pipes of the highest quality, most artisan pipemakers prefer to use plateaux because of its superior graining. https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Smoking+pipe+(tobacco)%5D Commercially designed tobacco pipes take refined shapes with curved contours, while those hewn by artisan often employ eccentric forms. By contrast, Duchamp’s extraordinary pipe allows the rough geometric shape of the raw ebauchon to linger, evoking the memory of its crude industrial manufacture.”
“THUS UNFOLDS THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN Duchamp and Koltanowski and the game they loved-a love triangle with the art of chess. The characters are incongruous: Marcel Duchamp, the audacious, ironic French artist; George Koltanowski, a memory-gifted Belgian Jewish chess champion who escaped the Holocaust in Europe; and the game of chess itself, embodied by the goddess Caissa. First referred to in Europe in the sixteenth century, Caissa became the patron goddess of chess devotees who, like George, would invoke her to inspire their game. The poem “Caissa, or: The Game of Chess” (1763), by the linguist Sir William Jones, (http://www.chessdryad.com/caissa/caissa.htm) expresses in heroic couplets Dubhamp and Koltanowski’s mutual chess obsession: “No prize we need, our ardour to inflame;/we fight with pleasure, if we fight for fame.”
“As part of the wandering intelligentsia of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century-buffeted by political upheavals and wars and circulation through countries-Duchamp and Koltanowski survived by wit, artistry, and alliances, their worlds meeting in the game of chess. And just as in romances, the two character’ motives are colored by friendship, rivalry, and a shared admiration for the elusive chess mistress. Their exchange of chess and ideas for over a quarter century was embodied by Duchamp’s pipe. Their encounters cut across three continents-Europe, South America, and North America-and span three decades, through various chess tournaments, informal chess clubs, and cities including Brussels, Paris, The Hague, Buenos Aires, Havana, and New York City. Surviving the chaos of World War II, and as part of the European flight to America, these two men lived through the major upheavals of the twentieth century. And while they played-in cities and tournaments, or in smoky private clubs-they reflected on chess strategy and opened their senses to its marvelous duration, all the while smoking their pipes.”
I enjoyed every minute spent reading this wonderful book.
It was so interesting the book was completed in only a couple of days because I simply could not put it down. From the inside front cover jacket one reads, “Sasha Chapin is a victim of chess. (“I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.” Marcel Duchamp)
Like countless amateurs before him – Albert Einstein,
Humphrey Bogart,
Marcel Duchamp
– the game has consumed his life and his mind.”
Which means, even though he is a writer by trade, he is one of us! On the inside jacket one finds, “Sasha Chapin is an award-winning journalist and recovering chess enthusiast.”
I have yet to win an award for writing and I am still recovering from the years spent playing the Royal game.
The book begins, “Anyway, like most people, I became obsessed with chess after I ran away to Asia with a stripper I’d just met.”
I had been hooked, lined, and sinkered after reading only the first sentence! The stripper was Courtney and she “…made an impression.”
From experience I know most strippers make an impression or they find another line of work.
Courtney suggests they “do drugs together – specifically Psilocybe cubensis, aka magic mushrooms. “Doing shrooms with somebody instantly acquaints you with about half of who they are.” Unfortunately, as often happens when dealing with the opposite sex, “I became sullen and Courtney became moody and erratic.” What to do? “”Since we were going crazy, I suggested we take a trip to Bangkok.”
Courtney runs out of money and decides to return to Toronto earn it the old fashion way.
“She left just before Christmas, so I was alone on New Year’s Eve in our Chiang Mai apartment…”
“In January I was writing six pieces at once, but in February I was barely writing one. My credit card balance crept up; I observed it with no particular emotion. And as I predicted, there was no sign of Courtney.” That’s when my troubles really started. That’s when life as I know it began. Not that I knew that at the time. The future never announces itself. Your destiny is quietly prepared offstage, until the hour when it emerges, saying something like, “Knock, knock, motherfucker.” Elena arrived in the apartment bearing a contagious excitation about the most recent leg of her travels.”
“Nepal is so interesting,” she said.
“What’s going on there?” I said.
“There’s a blockade, gasoline isn’t making it over the Indian border, nobody can do anything and, like, everything is paralyzed.”
“That sounds good. Should I write a story about it?”
“Totally.”
And Sasha was off to Kathmandu.
“So I did – a story about the incredibly complicated domestic tensions there, which I barely understood, even after extensive research. Essentially all I knew was that reporters should talk to people, so from the moment I landed in Kathmandu, I began a conversation with everyone who engaged me in more than a moment of eye contact. During the ungainly process, after after ambling down an arbitrary lane, I found myself in a rubble-strewn square presided over by a group of chess hustlers – strong players who make their salary on small-wager games with suckers like me.”
You know what comes next: “He opened the game in the most common fashion, by playing e4. This was the only opening move Bobby Fischer
enjoyed playing; he called it “best by test.” In response I played the move e6-the first move of the French Defense. The French Defense was an old friend of mine that I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager. I hardly recognized it when I saw it on the board, although we had once been intimately familiar. It was my weapon of choice when I played on my hippie alternative school’s Pawnishers.”
This is how the first chapter concludes, and how the book begins. Now you know how I became hooked, lined, and sinkered.
Each issue of the best Chess magazine in the universe, New In Chess, culminates with Just Checking, which is a series of questions for various strong players from various parts of the world. Since I am not a titled player NIC will never interview me, yet I have sometimes fantasized about answering the questions posed. Some of the answers are surprising and each and every answer tells you something about the person providing the answer. Since it is a magazine with limited space most of the answers are short. Since this is a blog I can elaborate at length. Don’t get me started! I hope you enjoy what follows.
What is your favorite city?
Decatur, Georgia, the city of my birth.
What was the last great meal you had?
Something beautiful in its simplicity prepared by the woman with whom I was in love.
What drink brings a smile to your face?
Which book would you give to a dear friend?
I have no “dear friend.”
What book are you currently reading?
Just finished reading, Presumed Guilty: How and why the Warren Commission framed Lee Harvey Oswald, by Howard Roffman. Although it was published in the mid-seventies it had somehow escaped my attention. Although I had read a few books before beginning to work at the Oxford bookstore in Atlanta, my serious reading began a few years after the book was published, yet I missed it. I ordered the book after reading about it in Volume 20, #3 of the JFK/DEEP POLITICS QUARTERLY, published in August of 2018 by Walt Brown and Tim Smith (info @ kiasjfk@aol.com). Upon opening the package and reading the front of the dust jacket I turned to the back and was taken aback, no, ASTOUNDED, to see a picture of a young Justin Morrison, now owner of Kid Chess in Atlanta, Georgia (https://www.kidchess.com/). I kid you not! The picture of the the young man bears an uncanny resemblance to the young Justin Morrison, who was one of my opponents in the 1976 Atlanta Chess Championship. From the jacket: “Howard Roffman, now 23, was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pa., where he attended public school. His interest in the assassination of President Kennedy began when he was fourteen, and he read everything he could lay his hands on on the subject. By 11th grade he had bought all 26 volumes of the Warren Report ($76), and, convinced of the inadequacy of the conclusions, he went to the National Archives and studied the files – the youngest researcher ever to see them. Alarmed at what he discovered, he writes, “I can’t think of anything more threatening than when the government lies about the murder of its leader.” It is a fine book and a clear refutation of the US Government’s “official” finding that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered the POTUS, John F. Kennedy.
What is your favorite novel?
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
Do you have a favorite artist?
Maxfield Parrish
Way back in the 1970’s a girlfriend, Cecil Jordan, who was from California, and came to Atlanta to become a stewardess for Delta Air Lines, took me to some place in San Francisco where the paintings of Maxfield Parrish were being shown. The colors, especially blue, were so very vibrant it was like they jumped out at you in a spectacular way. I fell in love with the artists work. The pictures one sees in a book or magazine are nice, but absolutely nothing like what one sees if fortunate enough to see the real McCoy.
What is your favorite color?
What is your all-time favorite movie?
When young it was Cool Hand Luke,
then came One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
but I cannot watch either of them now because they are too depressing. The English Patient
became a candidate, but only one movie has stood the test of time. When channel surfing and the movie flashes upon the screen it matters not what is on any other channel as the surfing ends immediately. That movie is Casablanca.
What is your all-time favorite TV series?
Who is your favorite actor?
Humphrey Bogart.
And actress?
Kim Basinger
and Blair Brown.
To what kind of music do you listen?
Because of tinnitus I now listen to mostly what is called “ambient,” or “electronic,” or “New Age,” or “space” music. (https://www.hos.com/)
I have, at one time or another, listened to every kind of musical genre.
Who is your favorite composer?
Duke Ellington.
Favorite male singer/songwriter?
Bob Dylan
Female?
Joni Mitchell.
Best Rock & Roll song of all-time?
Like a Rolling Stone.
Like A Rolling Stone
Written by: Bob Dylan
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train
‘Til Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of ’65, we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell
It’s a time I remember, oh so well
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, “La, la, la”
Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
“Virgil, quick, come see, there go the Robert E.Lee”
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood
And I don’t care if the money’s no good
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, “La, la, la”
Like my father before me, I will work the land
And like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand
He was just eighteen, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can’t raise a Caine back up when he’s in defeat
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, “La, la, la”
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, “La, la, la”
Best Rock & Roll band of all-time?
George Harrison of the Beatles said The Band was the best band in the universe. Who am I to argue with him?
What is your all-time favorite album?
The Romantic Warrior.
What is the best piece of advice ever given to you?
“Life is like the Bataan death march. Your best buddy might fall down but you cannot help him up because he will only drag you down so you gotta keep high-steppin’.”
Is there something you would love to learn?
The meaning of life.
What is your greatest fear?
Fear itself.
And your greatest regret?
Regrets? I’ve had a few…
Who is your favorite Chess player of all-time?
Robert J. Fischer.
Is there a Chess book that had a profound influence on you?
Chess Openings in Theory and Practice by I. A. Horowitz
I would also like to mention a Grandmaster for whom I much admiration, Vladimir Malaniuk,
because he devoted his entire life to playing the Leningrad Dutch, and with much success. For anyone desiring to play the Leningrad Dutch his book is de rigueur.
What does it mean to be a Chess player?
Nothing.
Is a knowledge of Chess useful in everyday life?
No.
Do you have any superstitions concerning Chess?
No.
If you could change one thing in the chess world what would it be?
End the offering of a draw, award more points for a win, especially with the black pieces, and rid Chess of all the people in positions of power who do not, and have not, played Chess, most of whom do not even like the game, and only want to “run things.”
That is three things.
You want me to go on?
No.
That’s what I thought…
What is the best thing ever said about Chess?
Before the advent of the computer programs:
I believe in magic … There is magic in the creative faculty such as great poets and philosophers conspicuously possess, and equally in the creative chessmaster. – Emanuel Lasker
After the advent of the computer programs:
“The ability to combine skillfully, the capacity to find in each given position the most expedient move, is the quickest way to execute a well-conceived plan, and is in fact the only principle in the game of chess”- Mikhail Chigorin
What is the most exciting Chess game you have ever watched?
Keep in mind we were unable to “watch” most games ‘back in the day’. Even the World Championship games were replayed from the next days newspaper, which was usually the New York Times. Therefore, I am limited in the number of games I have “seen” in real time. That said, I was working the demo board the day the following game was played at the Church’s Fried Chicken tournament in San Antonio 1972 and managed to watch every move. It was “exciting” to me, and some of the home town crowd, to watch Ken Smith,
who had been manhandled by the GM’s (Ken did manage to draw earlier with Mario Campos Lopez, and beat former World Junior champion Julio Kaplan in the previous round eleven) draw with GM Paul Keres.
After the game someone mentioned something about Ken drawing because Keres was old and obviously tired. I responded, “What? You think Ken was fresh as a daisy? He has probably sat at the board longer and played more moves than any other player during the event because he was the lowest rated player, and the other players were going to test him in the endgame in each and every game.” Ken, known as the “Capablanca of the cattle country,” heard this, and was nice, and gracious to me from that day forward. Some years later I entered an elevator after losing a game in a big tournament, such as the World Open, or maybe the Western States Chess festival in Reno. There were three people on the elevator, one of whom was Ken. “How did you do, Mike?” He asked. I hung my head and answered, “I lost, Ken.”
“What opening did you play?” He asked. “It was a Leningrad Dutch,” I said. “Ah, at least you played a fighting opening!” For some reason that made me feel better and as he exited I smiled in response to his smile. It is difficult to make a player who has just lost a Chess game smile.
Paul Keres vs Kenneth Ray Smith
San Antonio (1972), San Antonio, TX USA, rd 12, Dec-04
English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Queen’s Knight Variation (A16)
You and your Chess program will have a field day with this game. After making my twenty third move, which threatened checkmate, in addition to attacking the Queen, and knowing there were four ways my knight could be taken, all of which lose, I sat back and folded my arms with a smug look on my face, expecting my opponent to resign. It is the most beautiful move I have ever played on a Chess board. Instead, he did what a player is supposed to do, he put his head in his hands and “hunkered down.” Although I do not recall, it is highly probable I got up and strutted around the room, waiting for the resignation that did not come… I should have simply taken the knight. I did, though, learn a valuable lesson which I have attempted to teach everyone to whom I have given lessons. “Examine ALL CHECKS.”
The game was played in Midland, Texas, in the Halliburton Open, 1974. If I recall correctly, it was played in the second round, after I had lost to a NM named Gary Simms. I also recall that after I came back to win my last three games Mr. Simms was nice enough to say, “You showed us something by not withdrawing.”
A close second would be a game in which I drew with IM Andre Filipowicz
with the black pieces in the first round of a weekend swiss tournament in Atlanta during the FIDE congress. IM Boris Kogan
Boris Kogan with raised hand at Lone Pine
and NM Guillermo Ruiz became excited with the possibility of my nicking an IM for a half-point to begin the tournament. I graciously accepted the draw offer in an even position, which brought relief to the other titled players because they knew I usually disdained a draw, preferring to play on in what was usually a futile effort.
Going back to my first blog, the BaconLOG (http://baconlog.blogspot.com/) I have been blogging, off and on, for over a decade. You cannot please all of the people but evidently, judging from some of the comments received, you can please some of the people. An example of the former would be this email received from the Ol’ Swindler:
raj kipling
To:Michael Bacon
Jul 19 at 9:27 AM
Michael,
PLEASE remove my email address from any of you “blog” notifications…you are heading for a fall and I do not want to be dragged down with you…in fact do not email me under any circumstances…do not even respond to this email…forget that you even knew me…good luck…neal harris
Judging by the date it would appear Mr. Harris
did not care for my post of the previous day (https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/fuck-you-mr-president/). When we were together politics was never discussed. Why would we discuss politics when there was Chess to discuss? I did, though, travel with the Ol’ Swindler to Waynesville to attend the Smoky Mountain Chess Club once and Neal did stop at a survivalist store where it could be gleaned from the very right of center conversation all of the votes there would go to Republican candidates…
Fortunately most of the email responses received have been positive. For example:
Kevin Spraggett
To:Michael Bacon
Nov 3 at 10:02 PM
Great Article, Michael. You have become a wonderful writer!
Kevin
Karen
To:Michael Bacon
Dec 10 at 6:05 AM
Great article! You are a very good writer ( I was an English major and went to grad school so I notice these things!).
Best,
Karen
That would be Karen Boyd, wife of GM Ben Finegold.
“A man who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” I cannot recall when or where I heard, or read, that, but know it is true. I have had enough blogging. We, dead reader, have reached…
End of the Line
The Traveling Wilburys
Featuring Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne & 2 more
Produced by Nelson Wilbury (George Harrison) & Otis Wilbury (Jeff Lynne)
Album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
[Chorus 1: George Harrison]
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
Well it’s all right, doing the best you can
Well it’s all right, as long as you lend a hand
[Verse 1: Tom Petty]
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring
[Chorus 2: Jeff Lynne]
Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong
Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it’s all right, everyday is Judgement Day
[Verse 2: Tom Petty]
Maybe somewhere down the road away
You’ll think of me, and wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple haze
[Chorus 3: Roy Orbison]
Well it’s all right, even when push comes to shove
Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love
Well it’s all right, everything’ll work out fine
Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
[Verse 3: Tom Petty]
Don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive
It don’t matter if you’re by my side
I’m satisfied
[Chorus 4: George Harrison]
Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey
Well it’s all right, you still got something to say
[Jeff Lynne]
Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live
Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
[George Harrison]
Well it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine
Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
After a sports memorabilia show about three decades ago the self-proclaimed Legendary Georgia Ironman and I were at Spondivits, a bar with a seafood motif, when one of the songs, from the album, Tweeter and the Monkey Man began blasting from the excellent sound system. The late afternoon, early evening crowd broke into song, and we were with them. “Wow Mike,” the smiling Tim Brookshear, schooner filled with beer, said, “I’ve never been in a bar when everyone in the place sang along with the song!”
For that reason alone I nominate Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 for best Rock & Roll album of all-time.
A recent article on Chessbase, Morocco Chess Federation hit with corruption troubles, by Diana Mihajlova, dated 12/9/2017, begins:
“The Royal Morocco Chess Federation has been in discord since members of its governing body raised the alarm over impropriety on the part of its leadership, including the disappearance of the equivalent of $200,000 US Dollars. Diana Mihajlova reports on a host of allegations which have beset the federation’s president Mustapha Amazzal.”
This is “Part one of a two-part chronicle.” It continues:
12/9/2017 – The Royal Morocco Chess Federation has been in discord since members of its governing body raised the alarm over impropriety on the part of its leadership, including the disappearance of the equivalent of $200,000 US Dollars. Diana Mihajlova reports on a host of allegations which have beset the federation’s president Mustapha Amazzal. Part one of a two-part chronicle.
It continues:
An uphill battle
“It comes as no surprise that people in power sometimes cannot resist abusing their position for personal benefit. Often, even when detected, the culprits operate with impunity amid comparatively powerless opposition. The sports world is rife with examples, and chess is no exception. In recognition of International Anti-Corruption Day we take a look at a story of a chess federation in turmoil, as its leadership is accused of exploiting the very players it is entrusted to represent.”
There is a reason “…the culprits operate with impunity amid comparatively powerless opposition.”
The reason is that the governing body of World Chess, FIDE, is a completely corrupt organization. For TWO DECADES FIDE has turned a blind eye to the corruption in the Royal Morocco Chess Federation because an investigation into Moroccan corruption could lead into an investigation of FIDE corruption.
From the article: “Among the serious charges are the expropriation of federation funds, players poached or replaced between competing chess clubs without consent or remuneration, suspensions on individual players and clubs without due process or cause, misappropriation of chess sets and clock grants by FIDE, fraudulent submission of arbiter certifications, failure to submit tournament ratings to FIDE, and general cronyism.”
I love the last part about “general cronyism!” Don’t you? Those two words nicely sum up FIDE.
The article continues:
“The chief target of these allegations is the president of the FRME, Mustapha Amazzal (pictured at right).”
More from the article:
“According to International Arbiter Zoheir Slami, a complaint against Amazzal has been filed before the Court of Appeal of Casablanca by the Moroccan Association for the Protection of the Public Money, headed by Mohammed El Ghaloussi. The prosecutor overseeing the case has referred the investigation to the National Brigade of the Judicial Police (BNJP), which tackles serious national crimes.”
Seeing the word Casablanca naturally brought back memories of one of my favorite movies, Casablanca. One of the main players in the movie was an ex-patriate American, Rick, or Richard Blaine, the owner of Rick’s Cafe Americain,
played by one of the all-time great actors, Humphrey Bogart, who also happened to be an avid Chess player who, it is written, played for money in New York city during one of the all too frequent depressions caused by capitalist economic policies.
There is a TV Guide special edition of “American Icons” for sale at a price of $9.99 focusing on “100 Years of Our Nation’s Greatest Actor.” The choice of TV Guide is Humphrey Bogart. This point is debatable. Many consider Ronald Raygun the best actor of all-time simply because of the fact that of all the actors to have played the President of the U.S. he was the best at acting like a President. For my money the greatest was John Wilkes Booth, for obvious reasons. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that Humphrey Bogart was “Hollywood’s Chess Master.” He is considered to be the strongest players of the Royal game among those in the know in the movie making industry. The magazine quotes Pete Tamburro, “…of Chess Life, the official magazine of the U.S. Chess Federation,” who says, “In the 1940s, chess was extraordinarily popular in Hollywood, and Bogart was one of the best players.”
The author of the article, James Ellis, continues, “For Bogart, chess was a constant companion throughout the course of his life. And it wasn’t just the game-it was a way of putting food on the table when he was down and out in New York.”
“He used to hustle for money,” Tamburro says. Bogart’s playing style could easily belong to one of the crafty and cunning private eyes from his noir films. “No matter how good you think you’re playing, he’s going to swindle you somehow,” Tamburro says. “It’d be like playing Rick in his cafe.” One of the pictures in the magazine is of Humphrey as Richard Blaine in his cafe, Rick’s Café Américain, looking at a chess board with Peter Lorre, as Ugarte, looking at Rick while lighting a cigarette.
I have lost count of the number of times I have watched the movie. Humphrey would have to be on my short list of favorite actors, but how much is because of my awareness of his fondness for the Royal game I cannot say. I can still watch it, but can no longer watch the two other movies on my top three list, “Cool Hand Luke,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” because they are too depressing.
There are pictures of some postcards Bogart used in correspondence games “…with friends around the world, including GIs serving overseas in World War II.” There is a picture of the July, 1945 Chess Review with Bogie and Lauren Bacall on the cover, as well as Bogart’s chess set, a small wooden, well worn, board and over sized wooden pieces.
“More than just an avid player, Bogart threw himself into organizing tournaments to promote the sport. He served as a tournament director for the United States Chess federation and, with the help of other celebrity chess fans such as Basil Rathbone, sponsored the Los Angeles Pan American Chess Conference in 1945.”
“They were creative people, and creative people are fascinated by the game and its competitive nature,” Tamburro says.
The era of Bogie and Bacall is a relic of the past. How long before the Royal game is thought of in the same way?
“Key Largo”
Wrapped around each other
Trying so hard to stay warm
That first cold winter together
Lying in each others arms
Watching those old movies
Falling in love so desperately
Honey, I was your hero
And you were my leading lady
We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Starring in our old late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo
Here’s lookin’ at you kid
Missing all the things we did
We can find it once again, I know
Just like they did in Key Largo
Honey, can’t you remember
We played all the parts
That sweet scene of surrender
When you gave me your heart
Please say you will
Play it again
‘Cause I love you still
Baby, this can’t be the end
We had it all
(We had it all)
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Starring in our old late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo
Here’s lookin’ at you kid
(Here’s lookin’ at you kid)
Missing all the things we did
We can find it once again, I know
Just like they did in Key Largo
We had it all
(We had it all)
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Starring in our old late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo
BERTIE HIGGINS- “KEY LARGO” (W/ LYRICS) – YouTube
“Released as a single in September 1981, the song became Higgins’ only Top 40 hit in the United States in early 1982, when it peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song spent 17 weeks in the Top 40 and was certified Gold by the RIAA.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Largo_%28song%29
Armchair Warrior 