Here's my favorite envelope story, concerning something that I almost *didn't* get. About ten years ago, the London Sunday Times owed me about £500 for some work. The cheque aka check failed to arrive. Calling the paper was useless: they just advised me to wait, as cancelling the old one and authorising a replacement would quite literally take a year. I was in no position to wait that long.

Then, miraculously, after a month, it showed up. The computer printer had run out of ink when almost finished with my address: it had everything right, except the last line, where IRELAND got truncated to IR.

Some automated UK post office system had concluded this meant IRAN, and sent my money there. Where, for the first time, a human being entered the equation. Somebody in Tehran had looked at my name and address and written 'try Ireland' beside it, along with an Iranian postmark.

So then it got here, slowly: snailmail at its best. I'm still grateful to the *person* in Iran who was smarter than two British computers, and much more lateral. The Iranians could probably have *cashed* the damn thing, given the chaos of international checking systems, and fed their family for a year on the proceeds. I'm glad there are humans in Iran.

Solution: play in a 5-round swiss event. There's one coming up. What's more, it's limited to u-1900: I've avoided such events.

Very useful upload there! Or something. Or not... :s

Thanks for the "excellent" rating and the great anecdote, which conclusively proves that Iranian citizens may possess functional brains, as well as decency and a sense of humor. Loved it! :)

Just try not to mention - ugh! - the Netanyahu thing. The guy makes the media refer to him as "Bibi" - an affectionate nickname - because otherwise it would never occur to anybody to call him anything like that.

I was trying really hard to forget that he's PM again. :\ What's really depressing is the short memory of the voters... only back in '99, after Netanyahu's first term as Prime Minister, all Ehud Barak needed to win the elections - by a large margin - was one slogan: "Just not (i.e., anybody but) Bibi!" :s

heh

Dan

Look I hope you are well. I found that Duchamp chess film- it's been reposted on youtube.

Here it is, and what a glorious documentary it be:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apt5...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEu2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stf3...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cqz...

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

It's not really about chess- it's a retrospective of his life, art, and wonderful opinions on just about everything.

It's hard to believe a man with such a playful, puckish nature can carry such immense gravitas, not to mention humility.

Truly a great, great man.

I will be making a video about his chess career- after I finish Charousek and Pillsbury.

So not until the fall will I start.

Will you help me with a Duchamp chess film?

I can offer you a "co-producer" credit and the sum of 0.0 English pounds, if that's any help.

You don't have to of course.

I hope all is well with you!

I realize it's me who owes you an email- maybe this is a good time to respond to your last one.

It's been over a year!

Talk about procrastinating.

I remember it well- I even wrote a critique of two of your story ideas in my head.

I think I shall revisit and actually send them to you.

I've come across a few other points where chess and conceptual art connect. The Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa had an exhibition (Philadelphia 2007) entitled 'Capablanca's Real Passion'. The centrepiece is a chessboard with building instead of pieces, reflecting the unfinished architecture of post-revolution Havana. The position on the board is from Capablanca-Marshall, 1918 -- I think it's the game in which Marshall first sprung his eponymous gambit on the maestro.

Garaicoa has also said that Cuba and the USA have been playing a chess match for the past 100 years.

I've just finished writing an article about him, which is why I know this stuff. He uses model buildings a lot, as a critique of utopian and totalitarian projects in architecture. Games also figure: as well as chess, there's a piece based on Chinese checkers (which was invented in 19th century America and has no Chinese connection - the name was a marketing ploy).

Garaicoa's use of Capa-vs-Marshall reminds me of a sci-fi novel by John Brunner, The Squares of the City. It's set in a fictional Latin American city in a state of revolution, and the plot mirrors a game by Lasker.

After all those movies with wrongly set boards and risible checkmates, it's good to see people like Garaicoa and Brunner incorporate real GM games into art and fiction.

As for Duchamp: he became really besotted with chess in the early 1920s, and studied it deeply. That's around the time he said he was giving up art to play chess - a change which the art world, with a few exceptions, has never really understood.

One thing that interests me: by 1924, when he played in Paris, Duchamp was already well schooled in hypermodern opening theory. He played Alekhine's Defence, among others. I'm curious to know how typical this was of strong amateurs and 'weak' masters at the time, and what their sources of information were. I suspect magazines and newspaper columns played a large part in spreading the gospel according to Nimzo, but it needs more research.