It’s the birthday of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts (1917), who said in one of his last major public speeches, “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.”
(From today’s The Writer’s Almanac: https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/)
Bob Dylan Has His First No. 1 Song On Any Billboard Charts – No, Really
By Bruce Haring
April 9, 2020 9:03pm
He’s survived punk, disco, a deep dive into religion, the rise of boy bands and electronica, Soy Bomb and going electric. Now, 78-year-old Bob Dylan has again shown the young kids how it’s done, scoring his first No. 1 on any Billboard chart with his 17-minute song, “Murder Most Foul.”
As hard as it is to believe, the Voice of a Generation never had a No. 1 on the Billboard charts under his own name. This time, in the increasingly fractured chart world, his musical examination of the JFK murder tops the Rock Digital Song Sales category, selling 10,000 downloads.
Dylan has hits he has written rise to No.1. His “Blowin’ in the Wind” was taken to No. 1 in 1963 by Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Byrds’ scored the top slot with his “Mr. Tambourine Man” in 1965. As strange as it seems, such classics as “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” were caught short of the fence, stopping at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Lay Lady Lay” hit No. 7 in 1969.
Dylan remains a road warhorse, doing more than 60 dates per year after years of doing more than 100 per year on his Never-Ending Tour.
Bob Dylan Has His First No. 1 Song On Any Billboard Charts – No, Really
Black Op Radio.com (https://blackopradio.com/)
devoted an entire two hour program, which aired April 2, 2020, to Dylan’s new song. Bill Kelly, Dave Ratcliffe, and the irrepressible Jim DiEugenio, were exuberantly interviewed by the host, Canadian Len Osanic. While listening one can click on the numerous links which will direct a reader to numerous websites, such as
Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs at Dealey Plaza. The articles to which you will be linked provide many other links, to which much time has been devoted recently by this writer. (https://blackopradio.com/archives2020.html)
A good starting point is this excellent article from which excerpts are taken.
Beyond JFK: 20 Historical References in Bob Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul’
The 17-minute epic touches upon obscure Civil War ballads, classic movies, and even songs by the Who, the Animals, and Billy Joel
By Andy Greene
Bob Dylan fans woke up this morning to the stunning news that the songwriter had released a 17-minute epic titled “Murder Most Foul.” “Greetings to my fans and followers, with gratitude for all your support and loyalty over the years,” Dylan wrote. “This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you.”
It’s his first original song since 2012’s Tempest, though he has released three albums of cover songs associated with Frank Sinatra since then. The closest analogue to “Murder Most Foul” in Dylan’s vast catalog is Tempest’s title track, a 14-minute song about the Titanic.
“Murder Most Foul” centers around another historic tragedy: the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It’s packed with references only JFK buffs will likely recognize, like the “triple underpass” near Dealey Plaza, the removal of his brain during the autopsy, and the “three bums comin’ all dressed in rags” captured on the Zapruder film that conspiracy theorists have been obsessing over for decades. Clearly, Dylan has spent a lot of time reading books and watching documentaries about this.
As the song goes on, however, it veers away from JFK and touches upon several other historic events of the era. It’s sort of like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” mashed up with the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” Dylan fans will be picking this one apart for years, but here are 20 non-JFK references in the song.
Beyond JFK: 20 Historical References in Bob Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul’
Hear Bob Dylan’s Absolutely Mind-Blowing New Song ‘Murder Most Foul’
Dylan’s first original song in eight years is about JFK’s assassination — but it’s really about so much more
By Brain Hyatt
Bob Dylan, who hasn’t released an original song since 2012’s Tempest , unexpectedly dropped a previously unheard, nearly 17-minute-long new track, “Murder Most Foul,” late Thursday night.
Dylan didn’t say exactly when the song was recorded, but his delicate vocal delivery resembles the way he’s been singing in his live shows in the past couple of years. “Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty over the years,” Dylan said in a statement. “This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you.”
This dizzying, utterly extraordinary song — as allusive as it is elusive — starts off seeming like it might be a straightforward recounting of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but expands into an impressionistic, elegiac, increasingly apocalyptic journey through what feels like the entire Sixties (complete with references to the Who’s Tommy, Woodstock, and Altamont) and then perhaps all of 20th-century America, especially its music.
Hear Bob Dylan’s Absolutely Mind-Blowing New Song ‘Murder Most Foul’
The official Bob Dylan website:
Bob Dylan – ‘Murder Most Foul’ lyrics:
Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ’63
A day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high
Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb
He said, “Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?”
“Of course we do. We know who you are.”
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
Shot down like a dog in broad daylight
Was a matter of timing and the timing was right
You got unpaid debts; we’ve come to collect
We’re gonna kill you with hatred; without any respect
We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll put it in your face
We’ve already got someone here to take your place
The day they blew out the brains of the king
Thousands were watching; no one saw a thing
It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise
Right there in front of everyone’s eyes
Greatest magic trick ever under the sun
Perfectly executed, skillfully done
Wolfman, oh wolfman, oh wolfman howl
Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul
Hush, little children. You’ll understand
The Beatles are comin’; they’re gonna hold your hand
Slide down the banister, go get your coat
Ferry ‘cross the Mersey and go for the throat
There’s three bums comin’ all dressed in rags
Pick up the pieces and lower the flags
I’m going to Woodstock; it’s the Aquarian Age
Then I’ll go to Altamont and sit near the stage
Put your head out the window; let the good times roll
There’s a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll
Stack up the bricks, pour the cement
Don’t say Dallas don’t love you, Mr. President
Put your foot in the tank and step on the gas
Try to make it to the triple underpass
Blackface singer, whiteface clown
Better not show your faces after the sun goes down
Up in the red light district, they’ve got cop on the beat
Living in a nightmare on Elm Street
When you’re down in Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe
Don’t ask what your country can do for you
Cash on the ballot, money to burn
Dealey Plaza, make left-hand turn
I’m going down to the crossroads; gonna flag a ride
The place where faith, hope, and charity died
Shoot him while he runs, boy. Shoot him while you can
See if you can shoot the invisible man
Goodbye, Charlie. Goodbye, Uncle Sam
Frankly, Miss Scarlett, I don’t give a damn
What is the truth, and where did it go?
Ask Oswald and Ruby; they oughta know
“Shut your mouth,” said the wise old owl
Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul
Tommy, can you hear me? I’m the Acid Queen
I’m riding in a long, black limousine
Riding in the backseat next to my wife
Heading straight on in to the afterlife
I’m leaning to the left; got my head in her lap
Hold on, I’ve been led into some kind of a trap
Where we ask no quarter, and no quarter do we give
We’re right down the street from the street where you live
They mutilated his body, and they took out his brain
What more could they do? They piled on the pain
But his soul’s not there where it was supposed to be at
For the last fifty years they’ve been searchin’ for that
Freedom, oh freedom. Freedom cover me
I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free
Send me some lovin’; tell me no lies
Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by
Wake up, little Susie; let’s go for a drive
Cross the Trinity River; let’s keep hope alive
Turn the radio on; don’t touch the dials
Parkland hospital, only six more miles
You got me dizzy, Miss Lizzy. You filled me with lead
That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head
I’m just a patsy like Patsy Cline
Never shot anyone from in front or behind
I’ve blood in my eye, got blood in my ear
I’m never gonna make it to the new frontier
Zapruder’s film I seen night before
Seen it 33 times, maybe more
It’s vile and deceitful. It’s cruel and it’s mean
Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
They killed him once and they killed him twice
Killed him like a human sacrifice
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son
The age of the Antichrist has only begun.”
Air Force One coming in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at 2:38
Let me know when you decide to thrown in the towel
It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul
What’s new, pussycat? What’d I say?
I said the soul of a nation been torn away
And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay
And that it’s 36 hours past Judgment Day
Wolfman Jack, speaking in tongues
He’s going on and on at the top of his lungs
Play me a song, Mr. Wolfman Jack
Play it for me in my long Cadillac
Play me that ‘Only the Good Die Young’
Take me to the place Tom Dooley was hung
Play St. James Infirmary and the Court of King James
If you want to remember, you better write down the names
Play Etta James, too. Play ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’
Play it for the man with the telepathic mind
Play John Lee Hooker. Play ‘Scratch My Back’.
Play it for that strip club owner named Jack
Guitar Slim going down slow
Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe
Play ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’
Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling any good
Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey
Take it to the limit and let it go by
Play it for Karl Wirsum, too
Looking far, far away at Down Gallow Avenue
Play tragedy, play “Twilight Time”
Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime
Play another one and “Another One Bites the Dust”
Play “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In God We Trust”
Ride the pink horse down the long, lonesome road
Stand there and wait for his head to explode
Play “Mystery Train” for Mr. Mystery
The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree
Play it for the Reverend; play it for the Pastor
Play it for the dog that got no master
Play Oscar Peterson. Play Stan Getz
Play “Blue Sky”; play Dickey Betts
Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk
Charlie Parker and all that junk
All that junk and “All That Jazz”
Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz
Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd
Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd
Play the numbers, play the odds
Play “Cry Me A River” for the Lord of the gods
Play number 9, play number 6
Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks
Play Nat King Cole, play “Nature Boy”
Play “Down In The Boondocks” for Terry Malloy
Play “It Happened One Night” and “One Night of Sin”
There’s 12 Million souls that are listening in
Play “Merchant of Venice”, play “Merchants of Death”
Play “Stella by Starlight” for Lady Macbeth
Don’t worry, Mr. President. Help’s on the way
Your brothers are coming; there’ll be hell to pay
Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell?
Tell them, “We’re waiting. Keep coming.” We’ll get them as well
Love Field is where his plane touched down
But it never did get back up off the ground
Was a hard act to follow, second to none
They killed him on the altar of the rising sun
Play “Misty” for me and “That Old Devil Moon”
Play “Anything Goes” and “Memphis in June”
Play “Lonely At the Top” and “Lonely Are the Brave”
Play it for Houdini spinning around his grave
Play Jelly Roll Morton, play “Lucille”
Play “Deep In a Dream”, and play “Driving Wheel”
Play “Moonlight Sonata” in F-sharp
And “A Key to the Highway” for the king on the harp
Play “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dumbarton’s Drums”
Play darkness and death will come when it comes
Play “Love Me Or Leave Me” by the great Bud Powell
Play “The Blood-stained Banner”, play “Murder Most Foul”
Who Killed JFK?
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/who-killed-jfk/
JFK
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/jfk/
Chess and the JFK Assassination
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/chess-and-the-jfk-assassination/
November 22, 1963: A Day Which Lives In Infamy
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2019/11/22/november-22-1963-a-day-which-lives-in-infamy/
Theory Of Shadows: A Review
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2019/05/24/theory-of-shadows-a-review/
Vladimir,
I applaud your decision to end the 2020 Candidates tournament while regretting the tournament has only been postponed in lieu of terminated. As I posted in a comment at ChessBase:
The tournament should have been declared null and void. As far as what happens in the future that should be determined in the future because the sad fact of the matter is that one, or some, of the participants may not be alive in the aftermath of the COVID-19 devastation. In addition, there is the question of whether or not Chess will survive in the future. People of the future may have much more important things, such as survival, to occupy their time.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/breaking-news-fide-stops-the-candidates-tournament
You and I are old, Vladimir. There is much more sand in the bottom of our hour glasses than the top. For those we leave behind I think of the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King,
“We shall overcome.” (https://www.smu.edu/News/2014/mlk-at-smu-transcript-17march1966) Hopefully, the people of this planet will overcome this latest challenge.
I urge you to turn your swords into plowshares (https://biblehub.com/isaiah/2-4.htm), as I urge each and every other country to do the same. Be a force for good, not evil. It is time for the leaders of the world to, as the Beatles sang, “come together” in a spirit of cooperation. Give peace a chance. Be a force for construction, not destruction. As John F. Kennedy so eloquently said:
“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
John F. Kennedy
http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/john.f.kennedy-american-university-speech-1963
Sincerely,
Armchair Warrior
It must be extremely difficult to write a historical novel because many have tried and most have failed. Many of the historical novels I have read were of the type, “What if he had lived?” Some concerned POTUS John F. Kennedy.
The last one read was years ago and it caused me to put other books of the type on the “back burner,” where they have since continued to smolder…It may have helped if the author could write, but he had as much business writing as I have running a marathon. The book was not one of those print on demand tomes which allow anyone to publish a book nowadays but a book published by an actual publishing company, which means there was an editor who must have thought the book good enough to earn money. I found the book, a hardback, only a few weeks after it had been published and it was marked down to a price low enough for me to take a chance and fork over the cash. P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” In a way the editor was right, but then, marked down enough anything will sell.
There have been notable historical novels such as Michael Shaara‘s masterpiece, The Killer Angels,
which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974.
It must be terribly difficult to write a novel about people who actually lived. A novelist invents a character. To write historical fiction about an actual living, breathing human being is another thing entirely.
Having recently returned to the city of my birth meant a visit to the local library, which happened to be selected as the 2018 Georgia Public Library of the Year. After renewing my lapsed library card I went to the catalog that very evening to check on, what else, Chess books. I had been pleasantly surprised when seeing the latest issue of Chess Life magazine in the reading room of the Decatur branch of the Dekalb county library system after obtaining my new card. While surveying the Chess books a jewel was found, a book I recalled being published years ago, but not in English. It was published at the end of the last century by the author of The Luneburg Variation,
Paolo Maurensig.
It was his first novel, published at the age of fifty, and it was a good read. The book about which I will write is, Theory Of Shadows,
published in Italy in 2015. It was published in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018 after being translated by Anne Milano Appel.
From the front inside jacket: On the morning of March 24, 1946, the world chess champion, Alexander Alekhine – “sadist of the chess world,”
renowned for his eccentric behaviour as well as the ruthlessness of his playing style – was found dead in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal.”
There it is, a fictional account of how Alekhine died. The last paragraph on the jacket reads: “With the atmosphere of a thriller, the insight of a poem, and a profound knowledge of the world of chess (“the most violent of all sports,” according to the former world champion Garry Kasparov), Paolo Maurensig’s Theory of Shadows leads us through the glamorous life and sordid death of an infuriating and unapologetic genius: not only trying to work out “whodunit,” but using the story of Alexander Alekhine to tease out what Milan Kundera has called “that which the novel alone can discover.”
I loved everything about this book. The book begins with this quote : “If Alekhine had been a Jew hating Nazi scientist, inventor of weapons extermination and therefore protected by those in power, then that intellectual rabble would have held its breath. Instead, the victim had to drain the bitter cup to the last drop…Even the supreme act of his death was vulgarly besmirched. And we cowards stifled our feelings, remaining silent. Because the only virtue that fraternally unites us all, whites and black, Jews and Christians, is cowardice.” – Esteban Canal
After reading the above I had yet to begin the first chapter yet had been sent to the theory books…OK, the interweb, in order to learn who was Esteban Canal. “Esteban Canal (April 19, 1896 – February 14, 1981) was a leading Peruvian chess player who had his best tournament results in the 1920s and 1930s.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esteban_Canal)
This was also found:
Who was Esteban Canal?
Writing in a 1937 edition of Chess Review, Lajos Steiner,
Lajos Steiner (1903-1975), by Len Leslie
who knew Canal when they were living in Budapest, said that Canal never reached the heights his talent deserved. He was awarded the IM title in 1950 and received the honorary GM title in 1977.
Not much is known about his life and what little is known is wrapped in a cloud of mystery. Canal himself claimed to have been a cabin boy on a cargo ship carrying wheat from Australia, but it has proven to be impossible to verify dates. It is known that he had an extensive nautical knowledge and sailors.
In 1955 the South African player Wolfgang Heindenfed, writing in his book Chess Springbok, An Account of a South African Chess Player’s Experiences Overseas wrote of Canal, “The grand old man of Italian chess is Esteban Canal, originally of Peru, who at the age of 57 won the 1953 Venice tournament to which I had the good luck of being invited. He is one of the most interesting and amusing of all chess personalities. Formerly a roving reporter, he speaks six or seven languages and still treasures mementos of such VIPs as Kemal Pasha and Abd el Krim. He is an inexhaustible raconteur of chess stories.” (http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2018/03/who-was-esteban-canal.html)
About a third of the way through the one hundred seventy nine page book we read: “Though it was an essential task, armchair analysis of the matches he’s played in the past often bored him. Without the presence of the human element, the pieces on the chessboard lost their vitality. It was quite a different matter to play with an opponent in front of you: to enter his mind, predict his strategies by interpreting the slightest variations of his posture, the position of his hands, the subtle though significant contractions of his lips. During the period when he worked for the Moscow police, they had taught Alekhine how to interpret small signs such as these during interrogations, to see if their subjects were lying.”
During an interview, after discussing the murder of his brother at the hands of the Soviet communists as retribution of Alekhine leaving “Mother Russia” the interviewer asks, “And you never feared that you might suffer the same fate?”
“You mean being killed?”
The journalist nodded.
He hesitated a moment, then: “Perhaps, yes, now and then, the thought’s occurred to me.”
“After all,” Ocampo said, a little heavy-handedly, “Trotsky himself, despite taking refuge in Mexice, was ultimately hit by a hired assassin.”
“I took my precautions.”
For a time Alekhine was silent. In fact, he knew very well that it was not strictly necessary for a victim to be close to his murderer, that there was no place in the world where one could be assured of finding a completely secure refuge. A well-trained hit man could strike even in broad daylight and in the midst of a crowd.”
I’m thinking, “Just ask JFK…”
Jews and Chess:
“That was the first time he’d faced a Jewish chess player – it would certainly not be the last. He would endure a stinging defeat by Rubenstein
Akiba Rubenstein
in the first masters tournament in which he competed. He was eighteen years old then, and, encountering that young man, some years older than him, who was said to have abandoned his rabbinical studies to devote himself to chess, he’s had to swallow several bitter truths. Later on, he played against Nimzowitsch,
Aaron Nimzowitsch
Lasker,
Emanuel Lasker
and Reshevsky,
Sammy Reshevsky
soon realizing that, in his rise to the world title, his competitors would all be Jews.
Their faces were still sharply etched in his memory: Rubinstein, dapper, with a drew cut and an upturned mustache and the vacant gaze of a man who has peered too closely into his own madness; Lasker, with his perpetually drowsy air and spiraling, hopelessly rebellious hair; Nimzowitsch, looking like a bank clerk who, behind his pincenez, is haughtily judging the insufficiency of other people’s funds’ Reshevsky, resembling a prematurely aged child prodigy. Often he imagined them muffled up in long black cloaks, gathered in a circle like cros around a carcass, intent on captiously interpreting chess the way they did their sacred texts.”
Near the end of this magnificent book it is written, “By then, the harbingers of what in the coming decades would be called the Cold War were already looming. And if the weapons of the two blocs were to remain unused, it was essential that there be other arenas in which they could compete and excel. Chess was therefore, as ever, a symbolic substitute for war: gaining supremacy in it was a constant reminder to the enemy that you possessed greater military expertise, a more effective strategy.”
In beating the Soviet World Chess Champion Boris Spassky in 1972 Bobby Fischer won much more than a mere Chess match.
Bobby emasculated the Soviet Communist regime. Alekhine may have taken a brick out of the wall when leaving Mother Russia, but Bobby Fischer took the wall down.
Being a novel within a novel made the book was a pleasure to read and I enjoyed it immensely. I give it the maximum five stars.
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
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?
Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/rolling-stone/
Favorite Rock & Roll song of all-time?
The Night They Drove Old Dixe Down.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The Band
Produced by John Simon
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)
1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 c6 3. e4 d5 4. e5 d4 5. exf6 dxc3 6. fxg7 cxd2+ 7. Bxd2 Bxg7
8. Qc2 Nd7 9. Ne2 Nf6 10. Ng3 Qc7 11. Bd3 Bd7 12. Bc3 O-O-O 13. O-O-O Ne8 14.
Rhe1 e6 15. Bxg7 Nxg7 16. Qc3 Nf5 17. Qf6 Rhf8 18. Re5 Kb8 19. Bxf5 exf5 20.
Qd6 Be6 21. Qxc7+ Kxc7 22. b3 Rxd1+ 23. Kxd1 Rg8 24. f4 Rg4 25. Ke2 Rxf4 26. h3
Kd6 27. Ra5 a6 28. Ke3 Rh4 29. Nxf5+ Bxf5 30. Rxf5 Ke6 31. Rg5 Rh6 32. Ke4 Rh4+
33. Ke3 Rh6 34. Kd4 Rg6 35. Re5+ Kd6 36. c5+ Kd7 37. g4 Rh6 38. Rf5 Ke6 39. Rf3
Rf6 40. Re3+ Kd7 41. Re5 Rh6 42. Re3 Rf6 43. Ke4 Ke6 44. Rd3 Rf2 45. Rd6+ Ke7
46. Rd4 Rxa2 47. Rb4 Ke6 48. Rxb7 Re2+ 49. Kd4 Rd2+ 50. Kc4 Rc2+ 51. Kb4 a5+
52. Kxa5 Rxc5+ 53. Kb4 Rc1 54. Rc7 Kf6 55. Ka3 Kg6 56. Kb2 Rc5 57. h4 h6 58.
Rd7 f6 59. Rd6 Kg7 60. h5 f5 61. Rg6+ Kh7 62. gxf5 Rxf5 63. Rxc6 Rxh5 64. b4
Rg5 65. Rc5 Rg8 66. b5 Kg6 67. Kc3 h5 68. b6 h4 69. Kd4 Rd8+ 70. Kc4 h3 71. Kb5
h2 72. Rc1 Kg5 73. b7 Rb8 1/2-1/2
What was your best result ever?
Winning the 1976 Atlanta Chess Championship 5-0.
What was the best game you played?
A win with the black pieces vs Mark Pinto, or possibly a win vs the sour Kraut, LM Klaus Pohl which was published in Chess Life magazine.
FM Mark Pinto
vs Bacon
1986 US Open rd 4
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6
6. c3 Qd5 7. Ne2 Bg4 8. f3 Bf5 9. Ng3 Bg6 10. Qb3 Qxb3 11. axb3 e6 12. Be3 Nd7
13. b4 f5 14. Bc4 Nb6 15. Bb3 Nd5 16. Bd2 Be7 17. O-O h5 18. Ne2 h4 19. Nf4
Nxf4 20. Bxf4 h3 21. g3 a6 22. Be5 Rg8 23. Kf2 Bg5 24. f4 Be7 25. Bc7 Kd7 26.
Bb6 Bh5 27. Rfe1 Bd6 28. Rg1 Rg6 29. Bc4 Rag8 30. Rae1 Bxf4 31. gxf4 Rg2+ 32.
Rxg2 Rxg2+ 33. Ke3 Rxh2 34. Bd3 Ke7 35. Bc5+ Kf6 36. Bf8 Rg2 37. Bf1 Rg3+ 38.
Kf2 Rf3+ 39. Kg1 Bg4 40. Bh6 Kg6 41. Bg5 f6 42. Rxe6 h2+ 43. Kxh2 Rxf1 44.
Rxf6+ Kg7 45. Rd6 Rf2+ 46. Kg1 Rxb2 47. Rd7+ Kg6 48. Rxb7 Bf3 49. Rb6 Kh5 50.
Rxa6 Kg4 51. Ra1 Kg3 0-1
The game was annotated by GM Jon Speelman:
https://en.chessbase.com/post/jon-speelman-s-agony-column-23
What is your most memorable game?
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.”
T. Thompson vs Michael Bacon
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2
Qxb2 9. Nb3 Qa3 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Be2 h5 12. f5 Nc6 13. O-O Bd7 14. fxe6 fxe6
15. Rxf6 Qb4 16. a3 Qb6+ 17. Kh1 Ne5 18. Rb1 Qc7 19. Nd4 Rc8 20. Qg5 Be7 21.
Bxh5+ Kd8 22. Rb3 Qc4 23. Rxb7
Nf3?!!?
24. Nxe6+ Bxe6 25. Rf8+ 1-0
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
https://genius.com/The-traveling-wilburys-end-of-the-line-lyrics
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.
On the eve of the 55th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, various experts and scholars weighed in on their theories of who was really behind the assassination and how it was carried out. Christopher Fulton
led off the first hour with his story of receiving evidence originating with the president’s brother Robert F. Kennedy. Fulton said that RFK believed that the public was given evidence about the crime “based on the best truth, but not the whole truth.” He continued with his contention that in the hours after the assassination, RFK secured evidence that pointed to a conspiracy, and entrusted that evidence (a Cartier watch that was given to JFK by his wife) to JFK’s longtime secretary Evelyn Lincoln. The watch eventually ended up in Fulton’s possession. Years later, he was told by the Department of Justice that he would be considered an accessory after the fact if he did not surrender it. Fulton spent a period of time in prison related to his possession of this object, which he said provides material evidence of a second shooter.
In the second hour, author and researcher Mark Shaw
described explosive transcripts from the trial of Oswald killer Jack Ruby which prove his involvement in a conspiracy to kill JFK, which he said “have been hiding in plain sight for 50 years or better.” Shaw believes that famous 1960s reporter Dorothy Kilgallen
was murdered because of her investigation into Ruby’s activities. He related a section of the trial where a witness testified that he heard Ruby on a pay phone saying that he “would be there” when Oswald was transferred from the jail, a fact that, for obvious reasons, was not public knowledge. Shaw said of Killgallen that he believes he has “become her voice and she has led me to these transcripts.”
In hour three, Vincent Palamara described his research into the actions of the Secret Service the day of the assassination and in the days leading up to it. Palamara has spoken to both medical personnel who were on duty in Dallas that day, as well as retired agents. He emphasized that “people that were actually there” are convinced that there was a conspiracy based on forensic evidence as well as the breakdown of security logistics. He believes that there were at least three Secret Service agents who “crossed the line” past simple laziness or incompetence and either cooperated with a conspiracy or allowed it to happen.
In the last hour, Paul DeBole led off by stating that the best we can hope for at this time in any investigation of the assassination would be evidence that would “prove to a reasonable degree of likelihood” that the conclusions of the Warren Commission were wrong. DeBole downplayed the role of the Secret Service and pointed out that “presidential protection was really in its infancy” in 1963. He referred listeners to something called the “Nix film” shot from another angle in Dealey Plaza, which DeBole says reinforces the idea that the first shot at JFK came from the “front right” and not from behind, if the “lone gunman” theory is to be believed. De Bole concluded that “the Warren Commission basically acted as a rubber stamp for the FBI.”
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2018/11/21
The book
is meticulously written, but difficult to follow. This could have been remedied with a much-needed index. Because of my lack of knowledge concerning events after the first World War when the Soviets took power and became the Soviet Union I spent as almost as much time doing ancillary research to become familiar with the subjects as time reading the book. My limited knowledge of the period consisted of watching the movies Doctor Zhivago, and Reds, and reading the book, The Guns of August,
by Barbara W. Tuchman and Robert K. Massie, a book US President John F. Kennedy
purchased in quantity, asking those in his administration to read it, and what I have gleaned from reading about the game of Chess during that time period. Reading this book increased my knowledge exponentially because it is exceptionally well researched.
The book is replete with pictures and documents from the period. The book revises some things that have become accepted as fact. For example, “There was a long-held view that the first head of chess in the USSR was Nikolai Vasilevich Krylenko
-the Chairman of the Supreme Tribunal, a key figure in Stalin’s
repressions, and who later became their victim. But that isn’t the case!”
Vasily Russo was a checkers expert and the main organizer of the first USSR checkers championships. He also published the first book on checkers in the Soviet Union in 1924. It was Russo who was the driving force behind clubs being named “chess and checkers” and not just “chess.”
“There was a need to invite an authoritative figure to head the new organization. Thus, after a vote Krylenko was appointed Chairman of the Chess and Checkers Club of the Supreme Council of Physical Education.” Krylenko was convicted of treason(31-Jan-1938), and shot by firing squad in Moscow (29-Jul-1938).
Because of the book I have a much better understanding of some of the events of Alekhine’s life and the decisions he made. While hounded from all sides in life he nevertheless became Chess Champion of the World. It is possible Alekhine
was only hours away from death more than once in his life, yet he somehow managed to escape the grim reaper until it came for him while in Portugal. The story is truly amazing.
For example, “Ironically, all of those involved in case No. 228, apart from Alekhine, were accused of anti-Soviet activity and shot. Matrin Latis was arrested at the end of November 1937 and shot on 29 March 1938. Vilis Steingardt was imprisoned in the middle of January 1938 and shot the same day at (sic) Latis. Max Deich was arrested in summer 11937 and executed at the end of October. The prison doors closed behind Terenty Deribas on 12 August 1937, and he was executed at the end of the following July. Vladimir Yakolev was also shot in 1938. Finally, Stanislav Redens was arrested on 21 October 1938. He was “lucky” to live longer (Stalin’s brother-in-law, after all!) – he was shot n 12 February 1940.”
Alekhine ran, but he could not hide forever…
At the end of a wonderful story about Alekhine entering Robinat’s cafe (the Café de la Régence of Odessa) in Odessa and not being recognized until the entrance of Boris Verlinsky we read:
“And more on the topic of Alekhine and chess composition – the world champion devised an impassioned explanation of his love for this intimate side of chess: “The very idea of chess composition is close to my heart. I would be happy to create works quite alone…But this opponent, this colleague forced on you…he brings so much disappointment to the true chess artist who desires not only to win but above all to create a work of enduring value!”
“Alekhine of course refused to accept such a handicap but right away asked all preset to solve a problem that he clearly recalled once the question of a handicapped game arose.”
“The conditions are the following,” Alekhine said. “White starts without both rooks. In return black plays without his f7 pawn and white plays the first eight moves, but can only move pieces within his half of the board. You need to set the white pieces up so that white can mate in four moves or less no matter what move black plays.”
“After this puzzle, Alekhine challenged us to another one. From the normal starting position, white’s first four moves have to be as follows: 1 f3 – 2 Kf2 – 3 Kg3 – 4 Kh4. Black replies to each of white’s moves, but he is not allowed to interrupt the imaginative march of the white king. Black has to checkmate white as soon as the latter’s king reaches h4. What are black’s moves?”
Concerning the marriage of Alekhine and Anneliese Ruegg it is written: “Alekhine’s marriage to Anneliese Ruegg fell apart almost immediately after his escape to Europe. They had totally different interests. Once in Germany, Alekhine immersed himself in chess, playing match after match and traveling from tournament to tournament. His Swiss wife, on the other hand, burned with the desire to turn the entire world communist.
Alexander Alekhine’s son, also called Alexander, was born on 2 November 1921. Nevertheless, the appearance of an heir failed to glue this fictive marriage. together. His son later said: “I really missed my father as a child. I saw him very rarely. Then my mother died [Anneliese died on 2 May 1934]. I was brought to Zurich, where my father was playing at the time. He already had a new wife, but my step-mother didn’t accept me, as she had her own children while my father was totally obsessed with his chess. They put me in boarding school. Naturally, I took offense. It was only when I grew up that I came to realize that chess for my father was much more than his family. It was his life.”
The book culminates with: ALEKHINE’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH AND LENGTHY BURIAL. Who killed Alekhine?
“It was also printed somewhere that a waiter from a restaurant in Estoril that Alekhine sometimes frequented had died. Before his death, this waiter admitted that he poured a light-colored powder into Alekhine’s food at the end of March 1946 for a large sum of money. Two foreigners provided him with the poison and the money.”
“Naturally, there was a suspicion that the death scene on the photo was a hasty fake. One could assume that the already dead Alekhine was hoisted into the chair (which seems to be confirmed by the resulting folds of his coat), then the meat was shoved down his throat, his lips were smeared with froth and various objects were set out in front of him for maximum effect: the chess board, dishes, and a book.”
“And what about the book? The inquest report refers to a novel entitled Vers l’Exile by the English Catholic writer Margaret Sothern (1502-1568). It was open at a page with the line, “This is the destiny of those who live in exile.” A hint at Alekhine’s demise?”
“It would have been possible to reopen the investigation, but nobody wanted to. That is why the main question – whose country’s secret service got rid of Alekhine? – remains unresolved. Actually, there aren’t too many alternatives.”
“Alekhine’s son, Alexander junior, considered this version, liquidation by the NKVD, as the most likely. And it does indeed appear to be the most convincing.”
“Nevertheless, this is all just speculation. Documents of the NKVD’s Fourth Department, or more precisely, Sudoplatov’s “Portuguese Diaries”, could provide answers to many of these questions. However, these archives are inaccessible to mere mortals. They are subject to a decree by President Boris Yeltsin dated 24 January 1998 “On the list of Information Classified as State Secrets.” Maybe one day the Russian leadership will change its mind?”
In a recent email GM Kevin Spraggett,
who lives in Portugal and has written extensively on the subject, wrote, “ps I just recently met someone in Portugal who might be able to add more facts to the case.” See: http://www.spraggettonchess.com/part-1-alekhines-death/
If you would like to wade into the deep, murky waters of a grand sweeping story as a backdrop to the Royal Game, this book is for you. If you would prefer a book with more of Alekhine’s Chess you will be disappointed. You may think this pedantic book would only be of interest to someone attempting to become a PhD in Russian studies before embarking on a life in the CIA, but you would be mistaken.
I give it a wholehearted recommendation.
Dominic Lawson is the President of the English Chess Federation. An article he has written, “Dialogues of the deluded: Computers and the death of kibitzing,” was published in New In Chess 2014/7. He writes, “…the computer-aided kibitzing on chess websites has become increasingly ugly-and stupid.” This may, or may not be so, but what happens to the Royal game when fans lose interest and stop kibitzing?
Mr. Lawson goes on to further insult kibitzers, fans of chess, by writing, “There is an even less appealing explanation for some of the more savage online abuse of our leading grandmasters from patzers armed with large computer programs. Perhaps they are the chess equivalent of nonentities who try to assassinate great men-a grim feature of American public life over the decades. Just as the gun enables the inconsequential loner to somehow ‘equalize’ himself with, say, John Lennon or John F. Kennedy, so the computer allows the talentless to prove themselves ‘better’ than celebrated grandmasters. And via online comments they can broadcast their imaginary superiority to the world.”
This man, Lawson, is a citizen of Great Britain, yet he has chosen to disparage America. Need he be reminded of the assassinations that occurred in his country long before there was an America? Why the man chose to single out America when assassinations have taken place in almost every country in the world is beyond my comprehension. If that is not bad enough, Lawson has continued to promulgate the shibboleth that an “inconsequential loner,” i.e. a “lone-nut,” was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 on the streets of Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Nothing could be further from the truth. With a modicum of research Lawson would have known this fact, but he obviously did not do his due diligence, and nor did the editors of New In Chess magazine, which is published in The Netherlands.
All of these people, Lawson and everyone at New In Chess, must be unaware that “The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr..” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_Assassinations)
“The Final Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations presents the HSCA’s findings in the murders of both President John F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The HSCA found a “probable conspiracy” in the JFK assassination, but was unable to determine its nature or participants.” (http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_report.htm)
It is impossible for there to be a conspiracy of one “inconsequential loner.” Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman, who rode in the front of the Presidential limousine during JFK’s assassination, describing what the Warren Commission would later describe as a single fatal shot said, “Now, in the seconds that I talked just now, a flurry of shots come into the car.” (http://history-matters.com/index.htm) Secret Service Agent Kellerman, who had taken a vow to protect the POTUS, sat in the front seat talking on the radio in lieu of thrusting himself into the back seat in order to try and save the life of his President. It has been written in many books on the assassination that Jackie Kennedy, after the assassination of her husband, was at a party and saw a picture of Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman. She then took a pen and wrote, “Killerman” on it.
Lee Harvey Oswald, a paid informant of the FBI at the time of the assassination, has been blamed for killing Kennedy. “No nitrates (contained in powders in gases when a weapon is discharged) were found on Oswald’s cheek when a paraffin test as conducted following his arrest.”
“Since the paraffin wax seeps deep down in to the pores, it is a very sensitive test,” wrote G. Paul Chambers in his scientific approach to the assassination, “Head Shot.” Even washing one’s face prior to the test will not remove all presence of nitrates. As someone who has worked extensively with ball powders, I can tell you that reacted powders have a very distinctive odor, which is difficult to get out of your skin and clothes. The presence of nitrates may indicate that he had fired a revolver, for instance (he was accused of shooting Officer Tippet on the same day as the assassination), however, nitrates could also have gotten on his hands from other sources, such as paper or ink. The absence of nitrates on his cheek is court-admissible evidence, however, that he had not fired a rifle that day.” This is taken from the book, “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ,” by Roger Stone. This is only one of a plethora of books about the assassination of JFK by LBJ. Others are, “LBJ and the Conspiracy to Kill Kennedy,” by Joseph P. Farrell; “LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination,” by Phillip F. Nelson; “Blood, Money, & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK,” by Barr McClellan; and LBJ and the Kennedy Killing, by eyewitness James T. Tague. Are you beginning to see a pattern, Mr. Lawson?
What Dominic Lawson wrote is an insult to all questioning and reasoning, Americans. What makes it even worse is the fact that the first books printed questioning the “official version” of the assassination of JFK were written in Europe by Europeans. The fact that New In Chess has printed such erroneous information only serves to sully the once fine reputation of the magazine. By publishing such nonsense New In Chess helps those who conspired to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. There is nothing better for the guilty than for people in positions of influence to continue to facilitate the cover-up, and the lie, that some “lone nut” shot JFK.
What has been written, and published, is analogous to my writing on this blog that the Queen of England ordered the assassination of Princess Diana. I cannot write that Queen Elizabeth of England, acting as a lone nut, ordered the cold-blooded murder of Princess Diana because I have no facts to confirm that the Queen of England, Elizabeth, gave the order to eliminate Princess Diana “by any means necessary.” For all I know, Harry Pearce, of MI-5, gave the order to agent 007, James Bond. But there are, and will continue to be, rumors. A reasoning man deals in facts, Mr. Lawson.
As for the assassination of John Lennon I would suggest Mr. Lawson to read, “Rethinking John Lennon’s Assassination: The FBI’s War on Rock Stars,” by Salvador Astucia.
Clyde Lewis hosts the “Ground Zero” radio program. Clyde usually writes an accompanying article, which he posts on his website (http://www.groundzeromedia.org/). Clyde’s December 8, 2014 article is, “A MISSILE CALLED CHRIST.” The topic is, as Clyde writes, “The latest resolution by the US Congress calls for renewed political, and military support for Fascist and Neo-Nazi-sympathizing regime in Kiev, Ukraine, which will include:
US aid for Kiev regime to keep using its military against ethnic Russians in east Ukraine.
US funding for more weapons and military support in the Ukraine.
More US funding for foreign language, pro-US, and anti-Russian propaganda throughout Eastern Europe and in countries bordering Russia.
In all but name, this US resolution is preliminary declaration of war, moving Washington right up to the final step, which is a formal declaration of war. Based on its recent record of engaging in foreign conflicts, it is unlikely a final declaration will come, as the US has already set numerous precedents already by waging Wiemar-style undeclared wars, or by simply bypassing its domestic checks-and-balances by waging any war through NATO.
The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a document which strongly condemns Moscow’s actions against its neighbors, calling them a policy of aggression.
Passed with 411-10 votes, the resolution slams Russia’s “continuing political, economic, and military aggression” against Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and the “continuing violation of their sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.”
The resolution calls for Russia to stop supporting local militias in eastern Ukraine and for the cancellation of Crimea’s decision to join Russia. In addition, it calls on Moscow to withdraw its troops which the US claims are in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
The House calls on President Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with defense equipment and training.
This secret war against Russia has slowly grown into a major problem that will face America in the future and may contribute to instabilities that have already been used as a smokescreen here in the homeland.”
If you are wondering what this has to do with chess…is chess not a war game? When it comes to war much has been written alluding to chess, such as the most famous statement of the cold war, given by Jeane Kirkpatrick in a speech given during the 1988 Barrick Lecture Series at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas “Russia is playing chess, while we are playing Monopoly. The only question is whether they will checkmate us before we bankrupt them.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeane_Kirkpatrick#Political_views)
Could it be that the Great Game continues? Consider this from, “Putin in Ukraine: The game is poker, not chess,” by Jim Picht, Communities Digital News:
WASHINGTON, March 4, 2014 —”Russia’s President Putin has been called “delusional” and a “chess master,” accused of playing recklessly or brilliantly in Ukraine. House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told “Fox News Sunday” that “Putin is playing chess, and I think we’re playing marbles.”
The truth is that he’s neither delusional, brilliant, nor a great leader. He does, however, know which game he’s playing: The game is poker, not chess.” (http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/putin-in-ukraine-the-game-is-poker-not-chess-11536/#m9401FFEJbfBKS74.99)
Later Clyde writes, “Obama seems to be doing what both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt did during war time. Wilson was frustrated that Congress wouldn’t grant him unbridled power over natural resources, so he too invoked the powers given him under an executive order to assume absolute and unilateral authority much like what President Obama is doing now.
Barack Obama has been briefed and convinced that continued war or in his words “The Right War” will bring to the United States a better and more sound economy. He already has indicated through actions (similar to those of FDR against the Japanese) that he is more than capable of pushing a potential enemy into attacking us. Obama has taken the draconian measures of economic sanctions against Russia and has funneled money to neo-con traitors to make deals with neo-Nazis in order to destabilize the areas that Putin is stepping in to protect
You do not have to be a war planner to understand this game of chess. History has given us an example of FDR’s moves before the attacks on Pearl Harbor.” (http://www.groundzeromedia.org/a-missile-called-christ/)
Actually, the most famous chess quote of the cold war, and arguably the most famous of all-time, comes from President John F. Kennedy, who “…may have played chess. He received a very nice chess set as a birthday gift in 1962 from a very close friend. In a Cold War statement, referring to the USSR, he said, “We play poker, they play chess.” (http://www.chess.com/article/view/us-presidents-and-chess)
Armchair Warrior 