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| Oct-06-08 | | Karpova: John S. Hilbert's 'The "Megaphone Man":
The Curious Story of J. Henry Smythe, Jr.' from 2002: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skitt...An excerpt: <Certainly Stanley P. Johnston, the strong Chicago amateur and chess editor of the Chicago Tribune had great pleasure in writing in his September 20, 1903, column, that “Some months ago a spasm of sermonizing swept over this country
because a chess player named J. Henry Smythe Jr. had been confined in a
sanitarium, and chess and craziness, suimates and suicide were declared to be Siamese twins. Editorial owls lugubriously declared that sacrificial combinations were a menace to sanity and that the Lopez transmuted lucidity into lunacy. And now the ‘text’ of these anti-chess screeds has ‘fully recovered from his late indisposition.’”> J. Henry Smythe Jr. was, despite starting to play chess at a very late age, something of a boy prodigy. But he is not famous for his chess skills but for <succumbing to excessive chess playing> and becoming <The Megaphone Man> in 1904 in 1908 (though the latter one was described the Megaphone Man's <Waterloo>. |
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| Oct-16-08 | | brankat: I'd say there is much more lunacy in other areas of human endeavour than in the world of Chess. |
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| Oct-18-14 | | ljfyffe: <when he died is not known> He died in 1956. |
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Oct-18-14
 | | Stonehenge: There's a John Henry Smythe Jr. here:
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/...
Probably https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903... but born on the 11th of October. |
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Oct-18-14
 | | Tabanus: http://interactive.ancestry.com/245... says he was born 10 October, as says his Word War II card: http://interactive.ancestry.com/100.... |
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| Oct-18-14 | | ljfyffe: In his 2012 Writings in Chess History, Hilbert gives Oct. 10, not 16. |
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Oct-18-14
| | Tabanus: Also 10 October 1883 in his membership application for "The Sons of the American Revolution": http://interactive.ancestry.com/220... |
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| Oct-18-14 | | ljfyffe: Hilbert references the Indianapolis Star of Mar.,
25, 1911 as giving the 1883 month and day. |
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Oct-18-14
| | Tabanus: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstra... If this is him, which I suspect (age and activity fit), he died Tuesday 14 Aug 1956. |
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Oct-18-14
| | Stonehenge: Great, next problem: William Nicoll Woodbury :) |
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| Oct-18-14 | | ljfyffe: well, we can at least assume that he was buried in the wood. |
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| Jun-21-17 | | zanzibar: <Whitaker vs Smythe> Given the appearance of players the LOC estimate <[between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920]> seems right(*). Which means Smythe was playing chess long after Kemeny's comment: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resourc... (*) the 1943 marking on the photo is not the date it was taken - look at the player's appearance, etc. . |
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| Jun-22-17 | | crawfb5: The time estimate for the photo is possibly based on the use of a glass plate negative, which began to decline in use around that time. |
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| Jun-22-17 | | zanzibar: <crawfb5> interesting - you must be a bit of a photographer yourself would be my (rhetorical) summation. |
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Jun-23-17
 | | offramp: In the UK Smythe is simply the Irish spelling of Smith and is normally pronounced identically to Smith. After all, the name is derived from the occupation and it would be pronounced the same. |
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| Jun-23-17 | | zanzibar: The myth of Smith explained. |
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Jun-24-17
 | | Retireborn: Let's not forget the Wodehouse version, Psmith. |
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| Jun-24-17 | | crawfb5: <z> Yes, my current photography is mostly dogs and birds, although I've done landscapes and flower closeups in the past. It took some time to develop negative substrates for the large-format cameras that would not curl, so glass plates were common, despite their fragile nature (Lincoln's last formal sitting is only with us from a print made from a cracked negative plate that was discarded). After the Civil War, interest in war photographs sharply declined, and many of the glass negatives were sold for use in greenhouses where the images burned off over time in the sun. In any event, here's another photo of Smythe, sitting with his father: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resourc... |
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Jun-24-17
| | offramp: <crawfb5: <z> Yes, my current photography is mostly dogs and birds, although I've done landscapes and flower closeups in the past.> Which smartphone gives the best results? |
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| Jun-24-17 | | crawfb5: <offramp: <crawfb5: <z> Yes, my current photography is mostly dogs and birds, although I've done landscapes and flower closeups in the past.> Which smartphone gives the best results?> Don't know. I hate the things and have never owned one. |
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| Jun-24-17 | | zanzibar: <offramp> still waiting for the promised link to the facebook page with the photos of Blackburnes handiwork: Joseph Henry Blackburne (kibitz #185) What smartphone did you use?
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Jun-24-17
| | offramp: <zanzibar: <offramp> still waiting for the promised link to the facebook page with the photos of Blackburnes handiwork:
Joseph Henry Blackburne (kibitz #185)
What smartphone did you use?>
I tore those photos up in a rage. I was using a standard Nokia 6230. |
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| Jun-24-17 | | zanzibar: <offramp> I hope <crawfb5> doesn't mind my telling - but I've seen some of his photography. It's really quite, quite good. Professional level. He's got the eagle eye, when it comes to composing the shot! . |
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Oct-24-17
 | | Domdaniel: <offramp> - < In the UK Smythe is simply the Irish spelling of Smith and is normally pronounced identically to Smith.> The Irish (Gaelic) version of Smith, unlikely as it seems, is actually MacGowan - derived from the Irish word for the occupation. Both 'Smith' (rhymes with Sith) and Smythe (rhymes with blithe) are found in Ireland, though Smythe is rarer. |
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Oct-25-17
| | offramp: User: Domdaniel I did not know that about MacGowan. It's a true oddity! Ferrari also means Smith, of course. But owning a Smith motor car does not have the right RING to it. |
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