About Me

Living life one dream at a time.

Words of the Wise

"What after all is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean."
-Christopher Fry, The Lady's not for Burning

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, 'I'll try again tomorrow.'"
-Mary Anne Radmacher

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
-Erica Jong

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you...We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us; It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Nelson Mandella, 1994 Inaugural Speech

"Until this moment I had believed forgiveness to be a special virtue, a beneficence God expected of good people. But it wasn't that at all. Forgiveness was an instinct, a desperate impulse to stay connected to the people you needed, no matter what their betrayals."
-Monica Wood, My Only Story

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."
-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried when you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for the want of a teller but for the want of an understanding ear."
-Stephen King

"Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."
-Neil Gaiman, Sandman: The Kindly Ones

"Being always overavid, I demand from those I love a love equal to mine which, being balanced people, they cannot supply."
-Sylvia Ashton-Warner

"What I need is someone who will make me do what I can."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson


"You know, when you crawl that far down into the abyss, you really shouldn't bring stuff back up with you. Some things are meant to live in the dark. Your blog is like one of those fish with no eyes. Only slightly more disturbing."
Monday, January 21, 2008

Does the player exist in any human endeavour?

7:30 PM | Posted by Christine | Edit Post
The great, tragic, bizarre life of Chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer has come to an end. I've never been sure quite what to make of him, besides the fact that he was a horrible genius whose inspiration was only exceeded by his desperation.

In honor of his death, I spent some time today listening to one of my favorite old musicals - Chess, by Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus (yes, of Abba fame). Unfortunately, this work was also rather tragic - the concept album was completely bastardized by the time it hit the stage. In its own way, it was a sadly appropriate evolution for a piece inspired by the paranoid, tortured life of Mr. Fischer.

Dark and thoughtful, Chess tells the tale of genius gone wrong, egos that consumed all that lay in their paths, and the loves that were strangled by them.


How can I love you so much,
yet make no move?
I pray the days and nights
in their aimless, weary procession
soon overwhelm my sad obsession.

You and I, we've seen it all
chasing our hearts desires.
But we go on pretending
stories like ours have happy endings...

Rest in peace, Mr. Fischer. Here's hoping your happiness will come after the ending.

2 comments:

Wes said...

This is an all too familiar scene...well, for us, anyway.

Y'know, I've had Chess going around in my head this week too, and for the same reason.

WF

January 22, 2008 at 8:29 AM
Jonathan Ahl said...

In my opinion, Bobby Fischer was not right in the head. His disease made him both the best chess player to ever live, and the freakishly wierd due he became later in life.

And by the way, one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble.

January 25, 2008 at 7:33 PM
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