CHESS

Faint-hearted King, sly Bishop, ruthless Queen,
straightforward Rook and deceitful Pawn -
over the checkered black-and-white terrain
they seek out and begin their armed campaign.

They do not know it is the player's hand
that dominates and guides their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
controls their will and lays the battle plan.

The player too is captive of caprice
(the words are Omar's) on another board
where black nights alternate with whiter days.

God moves the player, he, in turn, the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
of dust and time and sleep and agonies?

Thanks to you and <Eyal> I'll be reading <Borges> this summer for fun.

Didn't he write in <Spanish>? Or did he write in <English> as well?

Reason I ask is, what is the Spanish word for <adamantine>?

You have to like any work that has <adamantine> in it.

Or <Mepamorphisis>, for that matter.

This us each having our own forum is confusing.

Why don't the three of us amalgamate and make one GIANT FORUM?

Bill could join too since he don't wanna start his own.

I say we all quietly disband our fora and post only at FROGSPAWN- THE magazine that thinks your'e a bleedin frog, for Cripes Sake.

The Spanish word in the original for <adamantine> is "adamantino" - heh.

Reminds me of something my Dad used to say all the time whenever I'd complain about something, when I was a kid:

<Well Jess, you know what they say in the Mexican Marines: El tuffo crappo>

LOL Good old Dad!!

(he never learned another language. If American was good enough for Jesus...)

Nice Duchamp quote, btw. I don't recall seeing it before, but then I don't recall my own name at times.

Speaking of Conrad, what's the current academic stance on <The African-American Chap of the Narcissus>? Is it simply unspeakable under its original name, has it acquired a new one, is it spoken with a special inflexion, or has it been erased from history?

One of Agatha Christie's books got renamed two or three or ten times: Ten Little African Americans, Ten Little Native Americans, Ten Little First Peoples, Ten Little Mexican Midgets Named Adamantino, And Then There Were None.

For example, Marlow says "his was an impenetrable darkness" -- therefore he couldn't have seen the candle, could he? So he was lying in the dark after all...

Maybe that's what Frogs do, nitpick. Derrida certainly did.

If I read you right, you're saying that Duchamp said chessplayers were cloudy mobsters ... capo di capo di strato-cumulus ... cirrus mafiosi ...

<Marlowe> mentions that <Kurtz> was sitting upright in the glow of a lamp when he said he was "lying in the dark waiting for death."

Hence, two factual errors. He was not lying down and he was not in the dark (within the logic of the novel's world, or- <diagesis>, which I used correctly btw)...

and of course it's meant metaphorically.

Maybe you get 75% then.

He means he has been lying the whole time he was out there in the bush "getting himself adored" rather than helping the natives. This is the penultimate epiphany, when it dawns on <Kurtz> the truth of the matter- he is not grand, special, or talented, but rather monstrously evil.

He did not know this about himself. He gains this self-awareness just before his death, and it is the self-awareness that leads <Marlowe> to prefer <Kurtz> over the other ivory traders.

They are just as evil, BUT THEY LIE.

Kurtz finally sees and tells the truth.

So he's better.

As Marlowe says, "He had something to say and he said it."

Case Closed.

Actually, that's pretty funny if you think about it.

OK I changed my mind.

Jess of the Poltically Correct Incorrect.

Special Insane old Batte who should be put in a Old age home or a ice floe division.

Well, let's not get you into any more trouble.

I'm pretty sure you can't get in trouble for something already published for school kids etc.

One of the best books about chess + politics I ever read- better, I think, than <Fred Waitzkin's> very fine <Mortal Games>

I recommend this book highly

(you should read it on an airplane)

HAHAHAHAHAHA

- You can't say 'Narcissus' in here, even if you *are* a botanist! It's, it's, it's... narcissistic, is what it is!

"The fleet is all lit up" ... "it's like fairyland" ... as some famously inebriated announcer once said on live radio.

The novel was originally published in 1939 in Britain under the title <Ten Little @#$%*&s>. For the US edition of 1940 the title was changed to <And Then There Were None> (the last words of the nursery rhyme), which I believe is used today in nearly all English-language editions. In 1965 the title of the British edition was changed to <Ten Little Indians>, which was also the name given to several films based on the novel.

The word "@#$%*&" (or its versions in different languages) survives, however, in the titles of many translations - such as the French one (<Dix petits nègres>), and in the novel itself - in my HarperCollins edition, at least, the island is called "@#$%*& Island", and the quoted poem also uses the word @#$%*&s throughout.

when asked by an interviewer (such as yourself) if his experience in the Congo was really as bad as portrayed in <Heart of Darkness>.

Conrad, who rarely gave interviews (to non Irishmen anyway), tersely replied:

<"It was worse.">

<Eyal> that's the funniest post ever and it's going in my profile, if that's safe.

I figure what's the worst they could do? close down my forum? They wouldn't dare! Right <dom>??

Cripes.

Anyhoo I've gone insane, apropos of nothing- nice pun on the <made men> there- I wotched <Goodfellas> on TV for the fortieth time last night.

You should see <The Long Good Friday> Dom if you haven't, it's brilliant and for my money the best <British Gangster> flick yet made- better than <Lock Stock> even.

<diagesis>.

The <Vaginanary> does not <vaginate> words. Rather, it simply records their usage over time. Usage must begin with one use. Ergo, by spelling it <diagesis> I am beginning a trend that will result in my spelling becoming included in the <Vaginationary> by the year 3111.

<Dom> I think your site is turning into a haven for these types.

"Something Funny Happened on the Way to Bill's forum"

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Actually, I find that computers invariably transpose the Tchigorin (on the black side) into a kind of closed sicilian--setting up a dragon-like configuration (bishop posted on g7) with a fight to control the d4 square.