<Jess> heh. Yeah, it can go that way, I hear. Luckily, symptoms vary.

<Dom> yep, 10.Nf3 was just for the chance of 11.Nd6#. There <is> something particularly appealing to the <primate> sense of humor in these traps, nesspah? ;)

Fine, fine. I prefer catching up and overtaking m'self. Well, perhaps not *overtaking myself* ...

<There was a young person named Whyte Who traveled much faster than light
And set out one day
In a relative way
To return on the previous night.>

Speaking of limericks -- aka *stab city blues* -- I think somebody on the Anand-Topalov match page accidentally challenged me to rewrite Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in limerick form.

He seemed to think that this would be a challenge, and yet a reflection on the book's incoherence. Neither, of course, is the case.

I have an appalling facility with limericks and doggerel in general. I'm not *proud* of this: I just find it easier than writing prose.

CG has recognized this facility (while asking me not to exercise it *too* often). After one egregious outbreak of AABBAs, it was hinted that "if jessicafischerqueen and I want to write dirty limericks" there are dedicated sites for that.

But writing them here is more fun. Still - having been shut down that time - I *try* to obey orders.

Insubordination, eh? Gets you every time. When I was much younger they even had an institution called 'holy orders'.

Heh. Well, there's quite a bit of hardwiring in the species to ensure enjoyment of "thrills" of one sort or another... and, um, you do play chess too, you know? ;)

Then there's also the "nobody ever won a game by resigning" aspect. And not by not playing either. "Catching up" without engaging in the pursuit part in any way? Innaresting idea - nirvana and all that - but mostly works via the "moving the goalposts" technique, methinks. Now, I'm pretty good at autosuggestion meself, but every now and then that pesky BS-meter does act up. Darn program incompatibilities anyway. :p

<Phonemically, that guy was a jealous god.>

Ya, and every other way, though in his defense, I don't much like to phone'em either. :s

So it has been said. New evidence just in, btw: G McCarthy vs J Joyce, 2010

<Depends, maybe, whether you like books with a lot of diverse *stuff* in them. I do.>

reminded me of neal stephenson's writing style. have you read any of his books? if not, i recommend to start with cryptonomicon, you might like it. there's definitely lots and lots of diverse *stuff* in there.

cheers,

I had an idea for <Xtianity 2.0>, but I remembered that they called it the Reformation last time. So I'm working on a total redesign job. I'll probably get as far as Buddhism and start wondering where the Dalai Lama stands on plagiarism.

In fact, I may run for the positions of Dalai Lama and Pope when they become vacant. A long shot, I know -- but only because I'm neither a reincarnation of the last incumbent nor a cardinal-elector of the Roman church.

Congrats! Vewy Pwetty. You seem to have embarked on a new career in fashion design, and proceeded to introduce his King to the latest line in the Imperial New Clothes label. :D

How about uploading that Galway win you mentioned too? :)

One very odd point about Stephenson is the sharp rise of his quality graph. Early novels, eg Zodiac, were not that good. Snow Crash was better, but still ersatz Gibson. Diamond Age showed real originality, and then he took off: Crypto and the Baroque books are astonishing. The most recent, Anathem, is at least on the plateau.

In contrast, Pynchon started brilliantly with V, hit an incredible peak of intensity with Gravity's Rainbow, and has wobbled about ever since. And I think he has some quality of depth that Stephenson somehow lacks. Neal is an ubergeek with a huge range of interests, he's less murky than Pynchon, and better at communicating actual ideas. But Pynchon has the range (and the machinery for change) ... and more word magic, maybe.

It's not that I always land on my feet, like a cat. I simply define the bit that hits the ground first as a 'foot', even when it's at the wrong end and wears glasses. And you get headaches in your heels, and vice versa, but them's the breakages.

In this case, as it happens, I wasn't actually thinking of *that* kind of pursuit at all. More an idealized abstract Platonic version of pursuit.

I've learned to be careful with that P-word, platonic. Some people hear it as a philosophical term, but the meaning varies from 'reality of abstractions' to 'proto-fascist opponent of down-to-earth Aristotle'. And some bypass philosophy entirely.

I interviewed a filmmaker a few years ago. Very talented, very promising, doing really original work with no budget. Carefully scripted too: no 'point and click and edit later' stuff.

In a sense, that scripting was the, um, root of the problem. He saw himself as an artist-creator, totally responsible for the work of art, with no time for ideas of a collaborative nature. I've known musicians like that too: 'when you work with me, you work *for* me'.

But film is more collaborative by nature, and most writer-directors will concede that the actors or cinematographer etc had some input into the finished product.

This guy, let's call him CC because, uh, those were his initials, was uncompromising on the point. He used to paint on canvas; he'd also written and recorded music (and was talented in both areas). Now, as he saw it, he was continuing to make art - in film.

His zero budget practice - and the support of some close friends who acted and did basic production work - shielded him from the nasty realities of the movie biz. And there was no way to move 'up' from where he was: even the freakish luck whereby Peter Greenaway broke through as an art-house director required compromises that CC could not make.

We debated this. It went beyond the interview. I visited CC and his girlfriend at home. I was trying to be helpful, but we were talking different languages. He had a total dedication to art, and saw nothing unusual in this -- he had an idiot savant side, completely disconnected from anything that didn't already interest him.

To cut a long story short-ish, I said that his enterprise was essentially Platonic. He thought I was saying that he didn't have sex with his girlfriend, and kinda offered to demonstrate his virility on the spot. Maybe he thought that *I* wanted to ... no, no, all too messy. And the P-word did the damage.

Then there was that time with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. He thought his virility was being challenged too, but sadly he did *not* respond by saying "Get your kit off, Nic, and we'll show this ... *writer* ... how things are done down under."

Or the alternative "Y'know, Kid, I *have* lost interest. You got it right: we don't do it anymore. So you want her, she's yours. She picked you out from that line earlier, remember? Now you know why. Have fun, kiddies - I'm off to marry a similarly freakish scientologist ..."

The first thing I read of him was Anathem. By accident I stumbled over his Google-talk and I was intrigued, so I wanted to check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnq-...

I liked Anathem, but I was not totally convinced. On the other hand, Cryptonomicon has blown me away (except the whole Qwghlm-thing, I simply don't get the point). Snow Crash was fun but definitely nothing special. I liked the Diamond Age much more.

I like the long digressions, much more so than the actual stories. There are hilarious gags and there's a lot of excitement in many action-packed passages. On the other hand, there is a lot of stuff I'm not so interested in. And, as you say, he somehow lacks depth which is probably why I don't care too much about most of his characters, they simply don't take shape as persons in my mind. Moreover, as a language-geek I'm quite disappointed in his many linguistic carelessnesses that could easily be avoided by asking a native speaker.

I've occasionally tackled some of these writers in translation, partly to see what they were like, and partly to test my ability to read languages other than English. I can read newspaper stories in several languages, but any fiction worth reading tends to be much more difficult. This is perhaps a key difference between Pynchon and Stephenson -- Pynchon, like good poetry, is harder to translate.

JG Ballard - whom I forgot to mention before - is another of my favorite writers. I met him a few times -- he died recently, and I caught myself thinking last week, with the skies of Europe closed to aviation, "What will Ballard make of this?" Great writer, a visionary, and a great loss.

I've read practically everything by Ballard in the original English: he's a classic storyteller who avoids linguistic trickery. One exception might be 'The Atrocity Exhibition', an experimental *condensed fiction* from the 1960s, full of lists and random references to celebrities.

Hmmm. Lists, random celebs ... perhaps Ballard saw the 21st century media landscape before anyone else.

William Gibson is also an old friend of mine and an intuitive reader of the Zeitgeist -- we were in touch, on and off, in the 1990s, but I haven't spoken with him for a few years now. It was a running joke that we looked like identical twins, absurdly alike -- but we've diverged. Thankfully. I never wanted to be a body double for a writer.

His first three novels (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) along with the stories collected as Burning Chrome, *defined* cyberpunk fiction in the 1980s. He was the first to describe the 'space' created by networked computers as a 'consensual hallucination'.

Some hardcore fans of his early work have been disappointed by his gradual move away from sci-fi and into a recognizable present-day world ... still, however, with cutting edge technology, cultures, drugs, media, and (recently) politics and history.

I think, however, that he's still getting better. His last novel was the wonderful *Spook Country*. Another, loosely connected to it, is due out this year.

Basta. Thanks for dropping by: any friend of these writers is always welcome here.

Well, having grown up in (Swiss-)German-French surroundings, and using English on a daily basis for my job, certainly helps... I always try to read authors in the original whenever I feel I have a sufficient knowledge of the language. It may well be that many things (allusions, word-plays and so on) are way beyond me, but on the other hand, the non-obvious things that I do get fill me with immense satisfaction.

I'm not a frequent kibitzer simply because I think it's a waste of my precious time to participate in debates on Danailov/Topalov or to follow the endless babbling on the Carlsen/So pages (no offense, I'm not trying to denigrate anybody in particular). On this site, I enjoy watching much more than participating - this is in sharp contrast to my preference in so many other things in life...

Once again, thank you very much and talk to you some time in the future.

And yet it *is* possible to have an intelligent conversation on CG. There's no need for me to blow my Pynchonian trumpet -- the people who post on this page are proof enough.

So unlike the rest of us, who encounter more realities on an average Tuesday than *they* will in their toxic little lives.

Here, they're an eccentric minority. If we did persecutions, which we don't, they'd have elbowed their way to the head of the queue. They don't even read books, if you can imagine that. And they think of chess as being more like football than like art or science. C'est bizarre, ça.

Of course I support their right to be as different as they want. But I won't have any proselytising in my house.

*Elvis Presleytising* is acceptable, however. Priscilla is a lovely person. I never met the daughter so I can't really comment on her marital habits.

This year's <Detour de force> will take in the <Tour de France> and include an Antarctican leg.

It struck me, back there somewhere, that I didn't know what I was talking about. Not unusual, that one: but in this case I didn't know what you were talking about either. *Something* hadda be up, and I could rule out cerebral events and the like.

So. Seems we both stopped making sense, temporarily, around the same time. Good work in the short term, as a thought experiment, but not to be attempted for, let's say, longer than the half-life of a proto-moustache. There are safety protocols, not just arbitrary rules. Maybe a week?

That's 10101000 hours in binary. I believe the 'normals' call it a vacation. Or is it a vocation?

So easy, when on *Le dérive* to confuse one's vacances with one's vacancies.

I've been busy, I think you'll be pleased to hear, writing reams of stuff that bears no relation to any known genre. Which means, if nothing else, I'll have trouble getting anyone to pay me for it. Well, that's the price of artistry, innit?

(a) 1.e4 -- plain-spoken honesty or a suicidal bluff?

(b) 1.d4 -- same as (a), but Death lingers for Pudding.

(c) When 'Sister Squares' fall out and stop speaking. M. Duchamp recounts his traumatic childhood in bad endgame positions. Q+A, tea & coffee, life and death are things you just do when you're bored.

Ah. That happens a lot. I'm a *sponge* -- I soak up styles without really noticing. It means I often sound vaguely like whoever I've been reading lately, and it makes parody and pastiche pretty easy for me.

My wha'? My first language? Not at all. It's the first *official* language, I think, which means judges and public servants are meant to have some familiarity with it. But not I.

You know that story about the German Emperor -- Holy Roman rather than Kaiser, I think -- who spoke Latin to God, Italian to his wife, French to his mistress, Spanish to his soldiers and German to his horse? Or something like that.