huffington post / even more USCL photos

I've recently discovered (I know, very late) the Huffington Post. It's a nice way for me to read news and opinion articles that mimic and reinforce my ingrained personal beliefs. Also, I watched some nice videos of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

I also enjoyed John Kerry's response to Sarah Palin's Washington Post op-ed piece on cap and trade emissions regulation. It's kind of great, right, actual debate in a public forum by politicians on an important and little understood issue? Kudos to Sarah Palin for taking on such an important question and being wrong so visibly and in such an easy-to-explain way.

As you know, I love Michael Steele. I watch him now and it occurs to me that Republicans used to sound conservative and boring to me, but now sometimes they seem to share this one same manic, incoherant, inappropriately personal speaking style?

other people (/news sources) aside, I'm doing pretty ok. I've felt insanely busy the last few weeks, but life is possibly getting back to normal. I teach summer camp from 8:30-12:30 Monday-Thursday. I'm going to a scholastic tournament tomorrow and taking kids to the Marshall Saturday (g/60), but that's my choice, and overall it doesn't feel like I'm working much.

I spent last week attending the US Chess School. I spent this afternoon writing the student bios for the clo article. It struck me how chill and noncrazy and happy the genius kids were. Greg elected me camp disciplinarian, and at one point I had to take a coca-cola bottle away from a nine year old who is higher rated than me because the child was playing an elaborate game transferring coke from a plastic cup to his mouth to the bottle and back. But they are simultaneously incredible chess machines/lovers (I don't know which I mean, probably both) -- a lot of them study 3-7 hours a day and play 3 tournaments a week or 4.5 hours a day on ICC*. All of them want to play blitz every day, every lunch break. But they also write short stories (with introductory character descriptions and colored pen maps) about an army of mice (allied with weasels and some chickens) that frees a country from its evil rat rulers.

I would say that they were some very interesting, cool kids.

here are some more pictures of them that I did not post earlier because I was in a rush one morning and then my computer broke and then I forgot.

Tommy He

Sarah Chiang

Justus Williams

Arthur Shen

Anna Matlin

Kayden Troff

Joshua Colas

Onischuk watches Joshua Colas and Sarah Chiang play their training game.


training games

*It makes me realize I am not in any way ambitious as a chess player.

more pictures from the 9th US Chess School

participants in the tenth US Chess School

first row: Joshua Colas, Luke Harmon, Tommy He, Christopher Wu, Jonathan Chiang, Kapil Chandran

back row: Arthur Shen, Michael Bodek, Justus Williams, Kayden Troff, Anna Matlin, Sarah Chiang

group picture with teacher GM Alex Onischuk

pizza party Friday afternoon at the Marshall

Tommy He plays guest student Miguel Garcia in the blitz tournament

Mike Bodek and Justus Williams

Jonathan Chiang and Michael Bodek eat lunch in Washington Square Park

Tommy He and Christopher Wu choose cookies at the "cookie party"

Alex Onischuk has an advisory conference with Christopher Wu

GM Alex Onischuk

Anna Matlin

Christopher Wu

Jonathan Chiang

Kayden Troff

Luke Harmon

Justus Williams

Michael BodekSarah Chiang

Tommy He

us chess school 9 first photos

under construction. captions tomorrow.

GM Alex Onischuk, Kapil Chandran

The 9th US Chess School is being held at the Marshall Chess Club. The students are:
1. Arthur Shen: 2112 USCF, 12 years old, NJ
2. Tommy He: 2080 USCF, 9 years old, TX
3. Kayden Troff: 2013 USCF, 10 years old, UT
4. Luke Harmon: 2008 USCF, 10 years old, ID
5. Sarah Chiang: 2000 USCF, 12 years old, TX
6. Anna Matlin: 1995 USCF, 13 years old, NJ
7. Christopher Wu: 1967 USCF, 10 years old, NJ
8. Michael Bodek: 1963 USCF, 11 years old, NY
9. Joshua Colas: 1951 USCF, 10 years old, NY
10. Justus Williams: 1944 USCF, 10 years old, NY
11. Jonathan Chiang, 1905 USCF, 10 years old, TX
12. Kapil Chandran: 1895 USCF, 10 years old, CT

supervised bughouse

Michael Bodek in Washington Square Park

Arthur Shen plays blitz. Tommy He eats a cookie. Greg chats with Ava Harmon.

Anna Matlin

Kapil Chandran

Kayden Troff

Justus Williams

Justus, Michael, Josh
Josh, Luke, Mike, Carl


After lunch, Greg analyzes the game Jonathan Chiang - Justus Williams (0-1) with the group.

oh. I get it now.

Is Sarah Palin the First Post-Modern Politician?

(you might want to watch this first*)
Let's start with a multiple-choice question: Which answer is correct?

1) Sarah Palin's resignation less than two/thirds of the way through her term as governor is a violation of her compact with the voters, a flaky act that destroys her credibility as a serious politician.
2) Her resignation was a brilliant tactical move that makes her the de facto frontrunner for the GOP nomination.
3) Who gives a @#%$ @#$ about your traditional political conventions?

If you answered #1 or #2 you missed the point. Sarah Palin is not part of your frame of reference. She isn't participating in the worldview you share with your allies and opponents alike.

....

"We're not retreating," Sarah Palin quoted Gen. MacArthur as saying, "we're advancing in another direction." Anyone who doesn't recognize the essential truth behind that statement runs the risk of not only misunderstanding Palin, but of failing to foresee the threat she could represent. And those who judge her performance on traditional lines will overlook her genuine talent.

Palin may be as erratic as many people say. I wasn't the only observer who noted a hopped up, free-associating, almost amphetamine-like quality to the cadence of her resignation speech. But another way to view her speech is as the latest example of a style that could, in the end, prove revolutionary. Call it "post-modern" politics.

Look up postmodernism (or "PoMo," as some call it) and you'll get a broad range of definitions. It's almost like the Supreme Court definition of obscenity: You can't define it, but you know it when you see it. It was born of the sense that there are no underlying principles or conventions we can trust. It involves identifying, naming, and ultimately shattering the rules under which we've all been operating. It's related to the theater concept of "breaking the proscenium" or "knocking down the fourth wall," acknowledging that some of us are actors and some are spectators in what is, after all, only a performance.

Coherence? That's so yesterday.

It was very postmodern of Palin to characterize her resignation - an outrageous act by any reasonable standard - as a principled refusal to "go with the flow." Her vision of politics is so profoundly radical that even performing the duties of office becomes unimportant. The job you sought is no longer the point. It's all about the performance. It's politics as Conceptual Art.
...

*my favorite bit is at the end when she says that in basketball "you have to keep your eyes on the basket"

hula hoops, juggling, perudo

Hi readers,
I know it's been a long time, but my computer broke. I have to get this one cord, but can't, huge nightmare.

It's called the AIW 9600 output adapter, but they don't seem to make it anymore. Any ideas, helpful readers?

In the meantime, my social life has picked up just as my virtual life died, so I've been having a jolly time, having houseguests, visiting Greg, sunning myself, playing games. Sorry there aren't more stories, I do have some funny ones to tell you, it's just hard to motivate to write when I'm sitting at a computer at work. (I'm teaching chess camp this summer, but it's just 8:30-12:30 Mon-Thursday, so it barely feels like anything.)
The US Chess School (Onischuk + 12 genius children age 10-12) starts tomorrow, so expect some photos. and maybe stories.

playing perudo in the park (Alan Stein, Greg Shahade, Susan Lin)

Greg thinks



Susan



Susan, Perudo Champion!

Alan Stein

Greg
this is all you are going to see of me

walking home

Jesse Kraai on my roof

chess camp

Greg and Susan, July 4, Philly, waiting for fireworks

Greg hula hoops while juggling, kinda

Alan juggles

more love from the graffiti artist

Greg, angry, with juggling ball

my name was awesome

What an interesting performance! What do you guys think? Alan thought Sanford's body language suggested he was completely lying/performing.(suspicious behaviors?: shrugging his shoulders, looking down a lot, having his tongue in his mouth) Alan is a big expert on the non verbal cues.
Jesse thought he was apologizing for something he knew his social circle would disapprove of, but that he himself didn't really feel was so wrong. That made a lot of sense to me.

Myself, I think who you are sleeping with is your pretty much entirely your own business, so I felt some initial sympathy for the guy. On the other hand, it's annoying when people only figure out that life is complicated when they themselves fuck up.

(from the NY Times: The governor was not known as a moralist but has frowned on infidelity and as a congressman voted to impeach President Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky affair. “He lied under a different oath, and that’s the oath to his wife,” Mr. Sanford said at the time on CNN. “So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”)

Also, I don't know what people even mean to convey when they apologize for something they thought about and decided to do. Sorry how? And these fantastic leaked emails,

("I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...")

Jon Stewart's take: "Just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis."

FOX News' take?

He's a Democrat.... (!!)

just like Mark Foley was.

update: (July 6) ok, if I were married to this guy, I would divorce him for being unable to shut up. It feels almost like he's exaggerating his own debasement but allowing himself to hold on to this one, redemptive excuse of love.

Pictures from NY International/ Glowing Rectangles

Irina Krush
Irina Krush, Jesse Kraai
Jesse Kraai Kassa Korley
Jaan Ehlvest and Giorgi Kachiashvili
Giorgi Kachiashvili and Jaan Ehlvest


Sam Shankland

Lev Milman

Alex Ostrovskiy

Adithya Balasubramanian

Jaan Ehlvest

Oliver Barbosa

Alex Lenderman

Giorgi Kacheishvili

Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles

PALO ALTO, CA—A new report published this week by researchers at Stanford University suggests that Americans spend the vast majority of each day staring at, interacting with, and deriving satisfaction from glowing rectangles.

...

Researchers were able to identify nearly 30 varieties of glowing rectangles that play some role throughout the course of each day. Among them: handheld rectangles, music-playing rectangles, mobile communication rectangles, personal work rectangles, and bright alarm cubes, which emit a high-pitched reminder that it's time to rise from one's bed and move toward the rectangles in one's kitchen.

"We discovered in almost all cases that Americans find it enjoyable and rewarding to put their faces in front of glowing rectangles for hours on end," said Howard West, a prominent sociologist on the Stanford team.

"Furthermore, when citizens are not staring slack-jawed at these mesmerizing shapes, many appear to become lost, confused, and unsure of what they should be doing to occupy themselves."

Added West, "Some even become irritated and angry when these rectangles are not around."

...

On average, Americans interact with anywhere from 53 to 107 pulsating rectangles every week. For many, however, this is simply not enough. Despite having a leisure rectangle in every bedroom, along with multiple work rectangles, a rectangle just for the children, and one or two rectangles that can do the work of several rectangles in one, many citizens admit to being dissatisfied.

...

"I wish ours was bigger," said Susan Miller, an Iowa homemaker who feels a deep sense of emptiness and fear when not in front of a luminous two-dimensional object. "Our neighbors across the street have one twice the size of ours. Harold, why can't our rectangle be more like their rectangle? Harold, are you listening to me? They seem happier than we are. Why can't we be happy like them? Honey? Are you even home?"

today is the best day for

three houseguests play games

Thanks for all your comments, readers! It warms my heart, really. In return, I will now show you some amusing candid photos of my houseguests:

Jesse Kraai

Alan Stein

Greg Shahade

Greg, Alan, and I are at a wine bar playing High Society, which is a great game.

not to brag or anything, but guess who won?

later that evening:

Jesse shows me online personal ads of weird looking Brooklyn women he might be attracted to. Greg and Alan play blitz incessantly.

Jesse shows us his second round draw against Igor Sorkin.

In other news, I went to see Kooza, the new cirque du soleil show, today, and it's fantastic, and also closing in NY so tickets are half price. go see it.

why do I love you? because I do

The lovelorn graffiti artist has been hard at work: