Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Coruscating Brilliance of Chessloser, Again

I've always wanted to use the word "coruscating" in a post but the chance never came--until now.

I mentioned chessloser in terms of laughter a couple of weeks ago, but now he's reached the level of art, of prose/poetry so ravishingly beautiful that lachrymosity is a real possibility.

Chess is fun again.

I'm feeling the bonds of worry over my silly USCF rating weakening, fear of making a blunder receding. A great joy has been restored; I'm seeing the chess world with new eyes, like a babe born at the beginning of the universe, the big bang, which obviously contained the seed of chess within the original constants of nature...otherwise it wouldn't be here. In plain language, chessloser has confirmed the Strong Anthropic Principle for me, somehow, not directly but through the humor, the kind of playfulness G-d showed when He created the Knight, en passant and Nimzovich's Threat stronger than his Execution.

Enough, here's the stuff of genius from today's post:

yesterday i became a real chessman. yesterday, the postman delivered the one thing that makes me a bona fide chessplayer. yesterday, i got my chessclock. that’s like a surfer getting his surfboard, or a postal worker getting his high powered rifle with the scope. anyone can play chess, but only those who are commited (or should be, ha ha) have a chess clock. it is black and sleek, hand crafted out of only the finest in cheap plastic, lovingly and carefully assembled by the skilled artisinal hands of cheap chinese labor. that’s right, just like a lambourghini or fine wine, i have an IMPORT. i have an IMPORTED chess clock. how classy is that?

Tell it, man, tell it...

i think my role in the chess world is to set up challenging situations for people to work out, get out of, then turn the tables and send me and my brand new chess clock home with nothing to show for my efforts.

No my friend, your role is to make men happy...

i will flaunt my cool chess clock pretentiously, like the dorks who sit around in public, “reading” a thomas pynchon novel. (pardon me, i hope my reading “the crying of lot 49″ isn’t getting in your way, is it?”)

(...)

i need to stay mentally alert in the tournament. when i lose, i can’t let it affect my next games. this could be a problem. i’m italian, and so i get passionate. sadly, i’ve become passionate about something i suck at.

at least i have a cool chess clock though.

That was so damn beautiful. Especially the Tom Pynchon reference. I would've used Gravity's Rainbow, though. It's a lot thicker.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey man, i'm gonna have to start paying you as my minister of publicity. you have the rocking vocabulary, you totally win on that one. as for pynchon, i was going to use "V" but i went with the crying of lot 49 because it's the only book of his i could finish...

thank you for such kind words and such a huge compliment, i really appreciate it.

Unknown said...

The nose needs to be in front of the books and in front of the board...Anyone can build a vocabulary so long as they're not too lazy to open a dictionary or thesaurus. Just a friendly reminder not to be distracted, otherwise you won't reach your chess goals, whatever they are.

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