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| Jun-27-07 | | whiteshark: <IMlday:> Looking into the 1st booklet of "KAISSIBER", issued Mai 1996, I see on page 19 a nice picture. You in a dialogue with "Kody" <You: "1. e4 e5 2. f4!?"
<Kody: "Is it edible?"
>>
I always loved it.... |
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Jun-27-07
 | | IMlday: That is indeed a really funny picture, even more so in German. Kody's thought balloon was realistic considering her husky/wolf priorities. |
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Jun-28-07
 | | BishopBerkeley: <IMlday> The Chess Canada commune! I had not heard of this before: it sounds like a fascinating experiment. I would be interested to learn more about it. I wonder, what is your opinion of "The Glass Bead Game" as a work of literature? The following remarks from Anders Österling's 1946 Nobel Prize (in Literature) presentation speech (in honor of Hermann Hesse) certainly make it sound interesting: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/... =====
This year's Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to a writer of German origin who has had wide critical acclaim and who has created his work regardless of public favour. The sixty-nine-year-old Hermann Hesse can look back on a considerable achievement consisting of novels, short stories, and poems, partly available in Swedish translation.... In Hesse's more recent work the vast novel Das Glasperlenspiel (1943) [Magister Ludi] [or The Glass Bead Game] occupies a special position. It is a fantasy about a mysterious intellectual order, on the same heroic and ascetic level as that of the Jesuits, based on the exercise of meditation as a kind of therapy. The novel has an imperious structure in which the concept of the game and its role in civilization has surprising parallels with the ingenious study Homo ludens by the Dutch scholar Huizinga. Hesse's attitude is ambiguous. In a period of collapse it is a precious task to preserve the cultural tradition. But civilization cannot be permanently kept alive by turning it into a cult for the few. If it is possible to reduce the variety of knowledge to an abstract system of formulas, we have on the one hand proof that civilization rests on an organic system; on the other, this high knowledge cannot be considered permanent. It is as fragile and destructible as the glass pearls themselves, and the child that finds the glittering pearls in the rubble no longer knows their meaning. A philosophical novel of this kind easily runs the risk of being called recondite, but Hesse defended his with a few gentle lines in the motto of the book, «...then in certain cases and for irresponsible men it may be that non-existent things can be described more easily and with less responsibility in words than the existent, and therefore the reverse applies for pious and scholarly historians; for nothing destroys description so much as words, and yet there is nothing more necessary than to place before the eyes of men certain things the existence of which is neither provable nor probable, but which, for this very reason, pious and scholarly men treat to a certain extent as existent in order that they may be led a step further toward their being and their becoming....» =====
Thanks in advance, should you choose to reply!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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Jun-28-07
| | IMlday: <a mysterious intellectual order, on the same heroic and ascetic level as that of the Jesuits, based on the exercise of meditation as a kind of therapy>
Well, ours was based on chess. By definition a Canadian chess professional will be 'ascetic'. Whether it's heroic..hmm..sort of depends on tournament results eh.
<In a period of collapse it is a precious task to preserve the cultural tradition> Absobloominglutely!
This is the best stuff, parallels Asimov's Second Foundation, even its defencelessness.
<it is possible to reduce the variety of knowledge to an abstract system of formulas> Indeed: School of Numbers and Symbols, calculus like Shao Yung taught Liebniz and Newton, or Lao Nai-Hsuan to Carl Jung explaining archetype logic and alchemical code. I reviewed it in Chess Canada mag mentioning Hesse's earlier books as searching and finding but Magister Ludi about the aftermath--teaching it to the next generation. 5 star stuff imo. |
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| Jun-28-07 | | dabearsrock1010: I tried to read the glass bead game and I thought it was so boring but huge thumbs up to siddhartha and demian. |
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| Aug-12-07 | | vonKrolock: "The Glass Bead Game" - A very thoughtful essay on-line by Charles Cameron titled <"A Game Designer's Holy Grail...">, but no mention of a possible connection between Hesse's novel and the 'philosopher's game' - <Rythmomachy> http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/fulke... |
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| Nov-18-07 | | whiteshark: <Das Glasperlenspiel> Musik des Weltalls und Musik der Meister
Sind wir bereit in Ehrfurcht anzuhören,
Zu reiner Feier die verehrten Geister
Begnadeter Zeiten zu beschwören.
Wir lassen vom Geheimnis uns erheben
Der magischen Formelschrift, in deren Bann
Das Uferlose, Stürmende, das Leben
Zu klaren Gleichnissen gerann.
Sternbildern gleich ertönen sie kristallen,
In ihrem Dienst ward unserm Leben Sinn,
Und keiner kann aus ihren Kreisen fallen
Als nach der heiligen Mitte hin. |
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| Nov-18-07 | | talisman: steppinwolf?...is that you? |
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| May-26-08 | | brankat: An amazing career that stretches from 1803 to 1948. Four games played, one every 36 years. Mr.Hesse's preparation must have been absolutely meticulous. |
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| May-26-09 | | gus inn: <brankat> Lol!
You can respond next year :) |
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| May-26-10 | | Winter: The guy has 60% winning percentage! I cannot wait for another one of his game to come out. |
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| May-26-10 | | wordfunph: <brankat: An amazing career that stretches from 1803 to 1948. Four games played, one every 36 years.> Herman Hesse over-indulged himself in playing chess. :-0 |
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| Jan-01-11 | | whiteshark: Alle Tage rauscht die Fülle der Welt an uns vorüber;
alle Tage blühen Blumen, strahlt das Licht, lacht die Freude.
Manchmal trinken wir uns daran dankbar satt,
manchmal sind wir müde und verdrießlich
und mögen nichts davon wissen;
immer aber umgibt uns ein Überfluss des Schönen.
Das ist das Herrliche an jeder Freude,
dass sie unverdient kommt und niemals käuflich ist
sie ist frei und ein Gottesgeschenk für jedermann,
wie der wehende Duft einer Lindenblüte.
-- Hermann Hesse |
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| Apr-02-12 | | kellmano: Sorry to join the discussion 5 years too late, but i thought Glass Bead Game was a poor book. I say that as a huge Hesse fan. It struck me terribly elitist. Narziss and Goldmund was probably my favourite. |
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| Jul-26-14 | | torrefan: Magister Ludi should post here. |
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| Jul-26-14 | | torrefan: Magister Ludi is Harry Potter without its female characters, its magic and magicians. Here we have Castalia, a "province" [more like the seminaries of today] where it population of masters and students devote themselves to studies, or to the "things of the mind". Outside of Castalia is the practical world [the world which most of us live in] devoted to knowledge not for its own sake, but knowledge to better the physical aspects of living. In Harry Potter, there's the battle between the good and bad magicians. Here, the struggle mostly happens between ideas and within oneself. Castalia is known for its Glass Bead Game. How this game is played, you'll never know even if you read the book a hundred times. It is similar to chess only because it involves thinking and the games can be recorded and admired. But it is so unlike chess because it takes so very long to finish [10 days to two weeks] and a game would involve meditation. The game is supposed to be a combination of music and other arts and sciences. The Magister Ludi ["Master of the Game"] heads Castalia [like the Vatican has a Pope]. The main protagonist here is Joseph Knecht, a brilliant man who grew up and studied in Castalia and later bacame its Magister Ludi. I would like to spoil your fun of reading this by saying here that in the end Joseph Knecht resigned as Magister Ludi and then drowned. But before this, the book is a long constant debate of the relevance, importance, meaning of, on the one hand, Castalia [with its "things of the mind"] vis-a-vis [or in contrast with), the outside world, with its practical sciences, its politics, its wars. By the way, the author Hermann Hesse was born in 1877 and was brought up on a missionary household where it was assumed that he would study for the ministry. Then he had a religious crisis, left the seminary where he was staying, and attempted suicide. |
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Nov-10-22
 | | FSR: For such a strong player, we don't know much about him. I've seen his name in old issues of "Chess Review," and always wondered if his parents named him after the writer of the same name. It appears that the writer was mildly famous by 1910, when this Hesse was born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herma... |
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Nov-10-22
| | FSR: Hermann Hesse (the writer) playing chess with his third wife, Ninon: https://www.facebook.com/1088536624... |
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Nov-11-22
 | | paulalbert: See my January 2, 2005 comment. Hesse never came to the Friday night sessions at the Allentown, PA YMCA Chess Club where a few of the best schoolboy players from the Lehigh Valley area were invited to participate. I was lucky enough to be invited. The strongest among us was the late Bruce Alberston.
All the adults there considered Herman Hesse the strongest player in the whole Lehigh Valley, but discussed him as an eccentric. I do not know whether he had a university education, but if he drove a cab in Bethlehem for a living he did not make use of any higher education. Hesse's uncle was a successful engineering graduate of Lehigh University in Bethlehem. I never heard any discussion about Herman's name and whether it was after the famous writer, but I do not know whether the adults there were literature buffs. At the time , being about 14 or 15 I was probably not familiar with the literary association with Mr. Hesse's name. Having never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Hesse all I can relay is what I remember hearing from the adult banter. |
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Nov-11-22
 | | HeMateMe: This is off topic, but Lehigh Pennsylvania has punched <ABOVE> their weight in scholastic wrestling. They have been great collegiate wrestlers over the years. ok, back to chess. |
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Nov-12-22
| | paulalbert: To:HeHateMe
Not off topic to me.
In addition to being a decent chess player, wrestling was my best sport, wrestling before I went away to boarding school in NJ on the Emmaus PA High School team. Lehigh has been a long time NCAA wrestling powerhouse. In the Lehigh Valley and the state of Pennsylvania both high school and college wrestling is a very high visibility and high proficiency sport.
I was very familiar with Lehigh University, one of my dad's business partners being an engineering graduate and generous alumni donor. Our Episcopal minister and close friend of my dad ( both WWII veterans ) who eventually became Bishop of the Harrisburg, PA Diocese, was a graduate and star basketball player at Lehigh and he with his family hosted a house on the campus where Lehigh students aspiring to the Episcopal ministry lived. |
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Nov-13-22
| | HeMateMe: Hi Paul. I wrestled too, though not nearly of the caliber to make the Lehigh squad. I was aware of the many successes of their high school and college teams. If Penn State was <Linebacker U.> then Lehigh was probably <The wrestling factory>, or something like that. Of course the Iowa Hawkeyes and Dan Gable might have something to say about that... |
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Nov-13-22
| | paulalbert: Yes the powerhouse wrestling schools and states fluctuate, with Iowa and Oklahoma also being consistently up there, but it is certainly more diverse now. Both Penn State and Lehigh represent PA well. In the Ivy league it has typically been Princeton and Cornell. When I was at Princeton, ancient class of 1964 ) ( I was not of varsity caliber ) our best wrestler was my classmate Jim Leach, former Iowa Congressman, who had been Iowa state high school champion.
Amazingly when Princeton went coed they eventually eliminated varsity wrestling, absurd Title 9 statistics maneuver. With a lot of alumni pressure varsity wrestling finally returned and produced two NCAA finalists last year, so stronger than ever. |
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Nov-15-22
| | HeMateMe: But when the Ivy league has great wrestlers or say, great hockey teams these aren't really home grown talents are they? I was under the impression that the Ivy league schools offer greatly reduced tuition (though not quite free ride scholarships) to outstanding hockey players and wrestlers. That's how you might see a Harvard team make the Frozen Four. I think they also offer female hockey greats, great high schoolers from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Massachusetts near free rides. BTW, was Bill Bradley playing when you were at Princeton? Just wondering if you saw any games with him playing. |
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Nov-16-22
| | paulalbert: At Princeton there are no athletic scholarships ( I think an ivy league rule ) but students get extensive financial aid based on need only so many of the current students including athletes might essentially attend for free, so Princeton graduates do not wind up with excessive student debt. At Princeton the athletes must be real students and are not required to continue on their teams if they choose not to compete, but they must do genuine academic work the same as all other students.
At Lehigh I understand the only athletic scholarships are for wrestling.
Bill Bradley was class of 1965 a year behind me. I saw him play even as a freshman. In those days freshman could not play at the varsity level. Bradley's father was a bank president in St. Louis so he received little if any financial aid or scholarships at Princeton. He was also a genuine scholar, winning a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford which is why he did not start his professional basketball career immediately after graduation from Princeton.
I saw him at Princeton reunions several years ago and have several pictures including at the dedication of his statue outside the Princeton gymnasium. One of my classmates is a well known sculptor who did the statue. I do not really know Bradley at all, although one of my late uncles, also a Princeton graduate, was part of the group backing Bradley for a potential Presidential candidacy.
As for hockey, certainly when I was there, it is correct that many of the top players on our team were Canadian, and Jim Leach, my class's top wrestler was from Iowa, but Jim was also a real scholar, I think majoring in Russian language and Slavic studies. |
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