Where the bee sucks, there suck I ...

My relationship with alcohol is profoundly boring and negates the Erse stereotype. I'm not even an exciting total-abstinence nondrinker like you <Jess>. I drink, but only sometimes, and only one. Currently I prefer lemming tea. Inebriation does not occur, ever -- far too much the control freak, my dyuh, to let somebody else's molecule dictate my altered state.

The bursts of sheer, well, insanity that occur sporadically are not induced by 'drink' or even 'drugs', but by neurotransmitters and suchlike, which I manufacture in a small workshop wedged in behind my hypothalamus.

Keyed to DNA so I can't be tempted to mass-produce them and get rich by turning people into synthetic versions of myself.

It's a variant take on William Burroughs' version of Buddhism: <"So Buddha got tired of sitting around waiting for the man, and said 'I'll by god manufacture my own junk'...">

<Open Defence> "Poor Lemmings"

"I believe you, Mister Wilson
I believe the things you say
And when I listen to your music
I'm still thousands of miles away...
A prisoner of Cal-i-forn-i-ay..."

John Cale, <Mr Wilson>

Wild guesses, don't know the Cale song.

"Why do you want to learn Dutch?" he said.
"Well, uh", I replied, "it's pretty much the only Germanic language that I know nothing about. I thought I should try to, um, plug that gap."

"What about Danish?" he said. "You visit Denmark, don't you? You have Danish relatives, yes? How *is* your Danish anyway?"

*Pisspoor" I mumbled. And, giving in to peer pressure, dropped the Dutch book and bought a Danish one instead.

Later, I remembered the Unholy Trinity Bargain Basement Defense -- get Nederlands, throw in Flemish and Afrikaans for free. And maybe even Friesian, which is Anglo-Saxon with a brogue.

But it was too late. However, today I spoke to a Swede in something approximating to Swedish, and was seemingly understood. But Swedes can be quite polite when people try to speak their language.

I will tackle Dutch again. I have to -- not just on Germanic Philology Grounds (I don't know much Gothic either, actually, or Old Prussian, or Pennsylvania Dutch...) -- but also because I like to play 1.d4 f5.

Play an opening/defence, speak the language. And I can get by in French and English. If I factor in Dutch that covers most chessboard contingencies.

At least while theory of the Tlingit Countergambit is still fluid...

And most chessplayers speak Hopi. They play a move and Hopi it works.

This guy?

Seemingly Cale wrote the song in musical homage to Brian Wilson, with surf-style harmonies. But Wilson thought it was evil and sardonic.

Kale, yes. Same, ah, root, as Coleslaw, acksherly. Cabbage is variously named Kale, Cale, Cole, etc.

Calembour: a pun

Calefaction: the act of heating

Calender: member of a mendicant order of wandering dervishes in Persia

Calendula: a preparation of marigold flowers formerly used in plasters for the healing of wounds

Calenture: tropical fever, delirium caused by heat. Victims imagine that the ocean is a rolling green meadow, and throw themselves in for a cooling roll in the hay. Or maybe they think a meadow is the sea, and drown?

"We picked up Dracula in Memphis
It was just about the break of day
And stranded in between
Were the fishermen who wished
They could sail from Tennessee to Arizona"

(John Cale, Ship of Fools)

I've just been given a 49th birthday present (approximate, might be days, weeks, years out...) of the book <What's Welsh For Zen> by John Cale.

My Zen Buddhist ex donated it. It's a win-win situation. She sheds a possession and nears enlightenment. I gain a coveted object and -- being a lower life-form trapped in the gauzy veils of maya and illusion -- might conceivably climb a karmic rung by exposure to the words of a master.

It's certainly better than having a Christian ex who wants you to go to heaven, or a Satanist ex who wants you to go to hell.

No stamina, these delusional litterateurs and litterateuses.

Spring is here. Come croak along with your buddies.

Events, Speeches, Academic Bickering, Vendettas, Binge Drinking, Hopping, Skipping, Jumping, Casual yet inept Fornication, PoMo Hippety Hop – all the Convention Regulars.

Papers include (paper-hangers to be confirmed):

Prof Doktor Nietzsche-Frosch:
“Froschmann über Alles – Spawn of the Dragon”

Arminius Rana:
“The Winawer SWARM: Irresistible Grace of the Immovable Object”

NN:
"Spawn of Santa -- How to Accept a Gift from your Opponent"

Johann Wilkürlich Fernsprechzelle:
“How was it for you, Frau Lincoln? – The Frog Defense as Answering Machine”

GM Domdaniel:
“Entropy, Entropanto, Entropantomime, Entscheidungsproblem: Chess as a Children’s Amusement in a Dead Language”.

Chessica F Queen: "The Academy in Peril, KK -- Mandatory Sentences for Woodpushing: three blunders & you're toast ... mate!"

AN Other: "Chess References in Kafka's 'A Sale of Two Titties'."

Marx & Spenser: “Ewige Froschkraft.” / “Vive la pouvoir des Grenouilles.”

(a midsession adjournment/karaoke interval and sing-along… your chance to croak... or hide in your room analysing with Fritz...)

Friendly Chess Tournament:
"There is no such thing as a friendly game of chess" (Bill Hartston)

The Spirit of Saint Nimzo Lecture: “Kraft, Standfestigkeit, Froschkraft. / Strength, Stability, Frogpower.”

The Overprotection Debate: Von Zugzwang zum Froschkraft

Doomed to Extinction: Kurtz’s Tree Frog and the Cunningham Gambit

The Isolani Closet -- Is British Chess Forswunk?
(NB -- *Not* in German – ‘forswink’ is a legitimate English word, a verb meaning ‘to exhaust by labour’.)

Closing Dinner (Vegans, Cannibals, etc, welcome)
Frogspawn: frogs’ eggs in nutrient jelly + vegetarian option (peanut butter and jelly sandwich)

Dancefloor: retro High School Hop -- no leggings -- (please wear braces on teeth, not ankles): Do the Frog; Do the Frog Again; Hucklebuck; Hokey-cokey; Rumpy-pumpy; Jiggy-Jig; The Shag; The Shagged Out.

Chillout & Vivisection Zone: Music for Dentists by Brian Eno

"Vivisectionists are animals too!"

Closing Gala: Frog Chorus and an Orgy of Abstractions –

Highlights include...

Paranoia watching his flanks; Lust watching everyone else’s flanks; Lot in Sodom and Sodom in Gomorrah; Hyperdulia cutting up rough; Voodoo Economics bringing pawns back from the dead; Laughter holding both his sides (plus his lovely assistant, Miss John Milton, gives her regular blindfold ‘simultaneous’; Repression slyly stroking Metaphor’s Rubber Calf … usw.

Venue: here, both sides of the Pond.

Directions: first queenside exit from the expressway, straight down the file to the next light square weakness, a hop and a jump past the doubled pawns, then queenside again and it's the 3rd on your kingside - don't fall in the pond. All welcome, except certain frogivores and birds.

The story I heard is that Allan Klein, who was manager of the Beatles, liked El Topo so much he bought it, and gave Jodorowsky a huge budget to shoot another film. But he wanted something 'sexy' like the art-porn novel The Story of O.

In the meantime, Jodorowsky had decided he wasn't a macho sexist movie-maker anymore, he was going to be a feminist and a Lacanian psychoanalyst instead. So he refused. Big falling out. Klein buried El Topo and another film for 30 years.

Then Jodorowsky called him up and said "Hey Allan, we're old men now, let's make up and be friendly". So they did.

Interesting. Were you aware that according to the BBC documentary on <Fischer-Spassky 72> that <John Lennon> was an avid chessplayer, and gave up the game to devote himself full time to the <Russian Revolution>?

Shades of <Kasparov>!!!

Your friend, <Dom, might have a point in assuming we *all* speak English.(That is have a working knowledge of it - speaking it properly is something else). The fast crowd surely does, the kids aged from 12-25 do, the ones above 25 to 55, working in the corporate arena, do, because you won't get a respectable job if you don't know English..

So does everyone speak English? No, the people with lower educations and among the 55-85 agegroup are likely to speak only a few words.. In Amsterdam as in Hengelo they may be the most fun to talk to actually. You'd never know..

So, what is the point I'm driving across? (sorry - towards) No clue.. Hmmm.. Yes,I think you should buy the "Teach yourself Dutch"- boekje. Because you never know who you'll meet in a bar or on a train, or anywhere. Seems better to have some basic knowledge if you'd stay in Holland for a few weeks or so, just to be able to have *some* conversation with people from any background.

I think the point in your post (I did enjoy it) was that learning, getting to know a language, simply is fun, from whatever angle you look at it. Plus there are so many advantages along with it, if you visit a country.. But it takes time.

Alexei Tsjitsjov, checkers champion, taught himself Dutch because he wanted to be able to read the books by genius Ton Sijbrands.

Spealing for myself, I once tried to learn Portugese/Brazilian, to be able to understand lyrics in Brazilian music and poetry..

Btw There is rain!! falling after almost 6 weeks - Nature sighs a breath in relief.. (Any good? - I tried to translate: "De natuur slaakt een zucht van verlichting" - something like that)

It probably should be: "Nature breathes a huge sigh of relief".

Er, I mean ... yes, of course, it'll probably be just the two of us as usual anyway, exchanging bad puns and falling over.