And now you say it's actually been half-inched? Or centimetered, as I suppose we'll have to learn to say instead. Strong magic, anyhow.

I can see that you've got yourself int something strange as always...

<The urge to say more is always wit' me And I would, I would, I would, but
Somebody might hit me ...>

The <ostranenie> principle tells us that strangeness, qua strangeness, is only strangeness as long as it retains the power to surprise. Anything that happens "as always" is, by definition, not strange.

Strange, no? Here's my current soundtrack:

"Now I know that you're all King Horse/
Between tenderness and brute force."
(Elvis Costello, King Horse, from the album <Get Happy!!>)

Now a 'King Horse' might be a sort of super-schizoid chess piece, like a Knight susceptible to being checkmated. Or it might be a drug: horse was an old slang term for heroin. Or it might be an evolutionary cousin of what Viv Stanshall sang about in 'Equestrian Statue' -- leading us to human/horse hybrids like the Centaur (also, of course, a chessplaying human/engine duo).

<Centaurine>: a poisonous alkaloid secreted by centaurs, implicated in the demise of several figures from Greek Myth (<Pricking Ancient Bubbles & Other Stories>, by Dom & me, unpublished as I/we only just thought of it - but Bubble, from 'bubble and squeak' is slang for 'Greek').

Wasn't Atalanta raped by centaurs? And wasn't there a tricky centaur who exacted posthumous revenge by saying his blood was curative when it was actually a deadly poison?

<Centaurine> The Sheet of Bulls, transposed into words. A Frogspawn specialty, usually served with moon-dried Ostranenie, some Quark, and a dash of strangeness and charm. Sprinkle with poisoned pawns before serving.

But I regress. There *is* a point here, and we'll come to it shortly.

"Till I have the possession of everything she touches, Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches, Till I speak Double Dutch to a real double Duchess ..." - Elvis Costello, New Amsterdam

Costello's <Get Happy!!> circa 1980 was his 4th album, following the astonishing Armed Forces. I saw him play live in early 1978, just as This Year's Model was released -- and there was no doubt about the scale of his talent and ambition. He was, as critic Nick Kent said, the man who would be King. Lyrically and musically and in terms of sheer left-field originality, Elvis was *it* ... the punk/new-wave moment had produced its own genius, to rank with Dylan and whoever else you care to name.

Against this backdrop, Costello toured America and made some allegedly vile racist comments about certain African-American musicians. 'Allegedly' because even now he says he was so drunk he has no memory of saying anything; and anyway he was clumsily trying to be provocative, to do the punk thing - like Rotten & Vicious saying 'fook' and 'wankair' on TV.

He failed to grasp that America had a different attitude to race, and he was pressing buttons that went way beyond provocative. The capacity to *think* such things, never mind say them, disqualified you from civil society, maybe from the human race.

If there is a human race, which personally I tend to doubt.

With a couple of drunken ugly sentences - which were actually in complete opposition to his real opinions - Costello killed off his chance of ever breaking through in the USA. His records were publicly burned. He apologized. But the damage was done.

I can add my own footnote. At that 1978 gig, he kicked off by saying something like "I'm just back from America, and it's good to play for human beings again". Somehow, I don't think Costello and the USA were ever going to be on the same wavelength.

But, ironically, he loved American music. <Get Happy> was saturated with the sound of Motown, filtered thru Britain's Northern Soul scene. He abandoned his pop-punk sound for this odd hybrid of punk, soul, and his unique lyrical dexterity.

Then he stirred it up again by going country - still seen as redneck music by many.

Ever since, he's continued to make music and release records. I haven't followed him closely: I've only got a handful of them. But 'Blood and Chocolate' from later in the 1980s, is soul-searing stuff that nearly matches Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks'.

As for <ostranenie> - making strange or making Mondegreens - for 27 years I've been hearing that King Horse line as either "filled with tenderness..." or "guilty tenderness".

Today I bought the CD, on a whim. Been a long time since I listened to old Elv. A Lyric sheet was included: the line is "Between tenderness and brute force" ...

Pffft. Pfui. Another illusion vanishes. At this rate they'll end up on the endangered species list.

But, in the end, we *need* to keep our strangeness strange. We need Weberian Charisma, before it gets routinized by bureaucrats. We need Costello as well as Dylan, Suttles as well as Fischer.

Bad analogy. Everyone I love is weird. And that applies musically, chessically, and in the few remaining corners of RL where the air is still breathable.

As Cohen put it: "And here's to the few who forgive what you do/ And the fewer who don't even care".

And Costello: "She said she was working for ABC News/ That was all of the alphabet that she knew how to use..."

I'll sine out now, Trig, cos I'll never get a tan at this rate, and the hyperbolics won't have me.

Get Happy, O my droogs and tadpoles:

"Though you say I'm being unkind/ I'm being as nice as I can" (Motel Matches)

"Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere/
Even presidents have newspaper lovers
Ministers go crawling under covers/
No more heroes, no more saints/
They're all covered up with whitewash and greasepaint." (New Lace Sleeves)

"It's not a matter of life or death/
But what is, what is?" (Hoover Factory)

"Let's make meaning
Make it strange for me
Ostranenie went down on History"

"Is it out of the question
Between you and me?"

True, the ghost of electricity it isn't. But it's the way he sings 'em -- and <Get Happy> is a wonderful record which I wasn't equipped to understand first time around.

Reasons for same: insufficient experience of (a) Heartbreak, (b) Checkmate, (c) Stalemate, (d) Paronomasia,(e) Miscellaneous Other Stuff which accumulates in your brain until overload kicks in ...

EC's Pertinent Chess Quote:

"Checking on a checkmate
Grassing on a classmate
So beautiful and fortunate ..."

This guy is good. It's taken a lotta years to grasp that fully.

And I've been writing an *essay* -- makes those two long posts back there seem like a quip, a koan, a soundbite. Not that it's excessively long or anything: but I think Elvis's infamous N-word debacle is a fascinating pivot in time. Among other things:

- He already had little in common with British punk, started by the Sex Pistols and continued by an endless gaggle of gobbers, But he *did* have the potential to become a key player in the nascent New York New Wave scene, featuring Television, Blondie, Verlaine, etc plus some honorary 'oldies' like John Cale and Iggy Pop.

- The N-word incident, drunk or not, seems a bit like Dylan's 'motorcycle accident' - a way to relieve the pressure for good by lowering expectations, dynamiting his own myth.

- There's more but it doesn't make sense yet, and this -- for all its manifold batrachian odd balls -- sic -- is not a Costello fan site, nor will it ever be while I live to guard the entrance.

There's a well-known photo of Bob Dylan playing chess in the early 60s. It looks like '64 or '65, he's seated outdoors at a bar/cafe, playing White.

I can't fully reconstruct the game, as the black side is not visible. But roughly 6-9 moves have been played, and Dylan's opening idea can be deduced.

He may have played 1.b4 or 2.b4 -- An Orangutan, aka Polish Attack, aka Santasiere's Folly, aka Sokolsky opening.

It looks like there's been a central pawn exchange - conceivably a sac or novel gambit- in the centre. Dubiously, Dylan has protected b4 and the long diagonal a1/h8 by playing c3.

Nevertheless I'd rate it as equal. Dylan's opening would no doubt be termed a patzer effort by some, just for not being a Najdorf or Slav.

But it's actually fine: half-open with lines for pieces. At their presumed level, it's *game on*, with plenty of room for play - which is what one wants, and a crucial thing to learn.

The folks who call this patzerish are largely the same ones who call Van Wely bad names for losing to top ten GMs. I believe they truly have no sense at all of how murderously strong a 'weak GM' is, let alone a member of the 2700+ elite.

And Dylan coulda made 'em crawl...

Incidentally, if the moves are ever recovered and it *does* prove to be a 'novel pawn sac', I propose naming it <The Tarantula Gambit>. Unless Sting played it first, of course, in which scenario it becomes <Sumner Knights>.

Or mebbe <Happiness is a Warm Trigger>. Or <Taking Trigger Mountain By Strategy>. Or <Crouching Trigger, Hidden Catenary>.

Or Dylan's <Billy>, from the soundtrack to <Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid>:

"So hang on to your woman if you've got one,
Remember in El Paso once you shot one,
Down in Santa Fe you bought one ...
Billy, you've been running for too long."

Then play this one-

A pistol shot, by the bar
The bells of Heaven ring
Tell me, whatcha done it for?
No I wont,
Tell you a thing

(later)

Pick up your China Doll
It's only fractured
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust
A little nervous from the fall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyq9...

It'll rip your heart out.

Pure beauty.

Way to go Jerry.

And hats off to you for suing Ben and Jerry's Ice cream before you died.

<Cherry Garcia>

Harumph,.

No idea, but with <Der Fuhrer> Stephen Harper in charge it wouldnt surprise me.

I only hope that unfortunate <deportments> leave with their head held high, with a pleasant demeanour, and hopefully with a tasteful handbag.

they should walk firmly but not swagger.

When they finish their jail sentences in the US they should probably join <Al Queda> after they get out.

Ok now that I've printed <Al Queda> here-- you understand that the NSA will actually pay someone to read <Frogspawn>?

It's true. And it's bloody pathetic.

Almost too retarded to believe.

Almost.

OK I'm off to watch <Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo> even though it's a witless film.

So, the position! It looks like it's white to play, because in the photo Zimmy is temporarily distracted whilst Vic is staring intently at the board. I'd be willing to bet Bob has just played Nc4:

click for larger view

How do you kill a circus?

I saw your detailed explainations about your strange issues..

That's in a book - The Bob Dylan Scrapbook - which I bought absurdly cheaply during the week. I was idly glancing over an outdoor book stall in Dublin's Temple Bar ... and it was about to rain, so they were starting to pack up ... and nobody sane lingers in Temple Bar, unless they enjoy being screeched at by stag/hen parties, importuned by junkies/alkies, robbed by professional baby-wielding beggar/dippers, etc.

So I see this book - not quite the size of a vinyl LP, but if you ever had a vinyl ten-inch record (they got made sometimes, can't recall why) that's about the size. Boxed, in a slipcase - inside all these pics and biog material, plus an incredible set of facsimiles: everything from handwrit lyrics, tickets to NYC folk gigs, family photos, early newspaper reviews, album PR releases etc - each of them printed to look like the original, on faded-looking newsprint or 60s photo paper, or whatever. And each of these has a pocket to dwell in - the thing folds out and opens up in innumerable ways.

An absurd object, in a way. I'd actually seen a copy before, but assumed it was far too expensive to consider. But I asked 'how much?' anyway - expecting to hear 50 euro as minimum, maybe twice that - and was told '18 euro'. As I hesitated, the woman pointed to the novel in my other hand, priced at a fiver, and said "I'll give you both for twenty".

I took it. Feeling the Gods of Haggle were with me, I found a shop that sold me a pair of leather gloves and a good umbrella: for twelve euro.

It only lasted a few hours, sadly, before I went back to my usual wastrel ways -- paying too much for crap, losing cash, giving it away by accident, finding myself broke because I hadn't been keeping count, wondering if I could get a partial refund from the last beggar if he hadn't already scooted off to find his dealer ...

But I quite enjoyed being a bargain hunter while it lasted. All I needed was a woman to impress and I'd have had the whole caveman man-the-hunter routine down pat.

And the Dylan book really is a cool artefact. Wonder if anyone's done the same with Duchamp's Green Box? There *is* an incredibly dear fine art edition, but I don't see that turning up on bookstalls, somehow.

"I told you when I came I was a stranger ..."

Y'know, just between us, I don't think I generate the strangeness. I think it lives inside those who come here, like some sort of distributed cyber-poltergeist, and it just accrues, or accumulates around me. I'm a (miaow) catalyst, maybe.

and

"You've seen that man before, his golden arm dispatching cards, but now it's rusted from the elbow to the finger ..."

As for Roy Rogers. I vaguely recall that he left instructions in his will along the lines of "When I go, just have me stuffed and mounted on Trigger".

But time passed, as it does, and some callow young taxidermist mixed the names up, and he ended up stuffed and mounted on Dale instead.