Friday, November 9, 2007
Opening... Redux
Glen is returning to blogging, after over a year off, but during that time his blog has gone dead. To revive it, we decided to simply set it up again from scratch. So what follows was originally posted by Glen in July 2006:
I want to thank Mike Goeller for providing me with this opportunity and for convincing me that I might actually have something of value to post through this new blog (see note below) hosted by the Kenilworth Chess Club website!
As a weak Class B player there is probably nothing of value that I can add to a serious chess website, I thought. Especially a site with a blog as rich and well done as Mike's Kenilworthian. I do enjoy writing, however, and after several discussions about chess libraries, chess culture, memorabilia and the like, Mike managed to convince me that there may be some subjects that I can add to or expound upon, and that there may even be an audience interested in reading. Beyond this, I thought that, given a forum to present chess material, I might get more serious about analyzing some of my own efforts before commiting them to world (blogosphere?!) for inspection. Yes, the blog might actually compel me to work harder at improving my game and make me a better player! (We'll see about that!)
Let's not get that serious yet. Another of my interests that I try to find the time to indulge is reading. I don't ususally go in for the typical summer beach book fare, but on a recent trip to Barnes & Noble looking for some reading materials, and thinking about what I might do in this space, I happened across a mystery novel entitled "Grandmaster," by the husband and wife writing team of Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran. (They were engaged to be married while writing "Grandmaster," were married shortly after the book was published in 1984, and have since gone their separate ways.) The edition that I bought is a 2005 re-release with an introduction by Otto Penzler, the founder of Mysterious Press and the proprietor of New York City's Mysterious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019). I was immediately intrigued because I have read many novels where chess is used as a theme or as the driving force in the book (including works by Walter Tevis, Paolo Maurensig, Vladimir Nabokov, Stefan Zweig, Glyn, et. al.), yet I did not recall ever seeing or hearing of this work before, and the book had won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for best paperback original in the year after it was published in 1985. Wonderful!, I thought, I will read this and provide a review for the new blog. (Look for this soon!)
There are some other chess related topics I'd like to explore in this space. Chess in advertising and chess as metaphor in business and life is an area I will explore. (Indeed my own employer - a large construction and engineering firm - uses a chess based opening, middlegame and endgame theme as its major sales approach in engaging new clients.) I am interested in chess memorabilia too, and I will share some of this in both words and pictures, when I figure out how to publish those here.
There are of course my over-the-board antics as well. And if I am going to share any of these gems I had better get the board out and start analyzing......Until next time, thanks very much for navigating over, and please leave comments.
Best regards,The Center Square
Note: In naming the blog the reference to the center squares of the chessboard is obvious. What is not obvious is that this is my handle at both the ICC and the Playchess.com servers, though admittedly I don't play very much at either site, prefering to use my accounts to observe tournaments in progress, which I find quite enjoyable. The team that I organize and captain each year in the United States Amateur Team championship East (USATE) has been known in some years as "The Center Squares" (but in recent years we have simply taken the name "Checkmate Hairstyling").
I want to thank Mike Goeller for providing me with this opportunity and for convincing me that I might actually have something of value to post through this new blog (see note below) hosted by the Kenilworth Chess Club website!
As a weak Class B player there is probably nothing of value that I can add to a serious chess website, I thought. Especially a site with a blog as rich and well done as Mike's Kenilworthian. I do enjoy writing, however, and after several discussions about chess libraries, chess culture, memorabilia and the like, Mike managed to convince me that there may be some subjects that I can add to or expound upon, and that there may even be an audience interested in reading. Beyond this, I thought that, given a forum to present chess material, I might get more serious about analyzing some of my own efforts before commiting them to world (blogosphere?!) for inspection. Yes, the blog might actually compel me to work harder at improving my game and make me a better player! (We'll see about that!)
Let's not get that serious yet. Another of my interests that I try to find the time to indulge is reading. I don't ususally go in for the typical summer beach book fare, but on a recent trip to Barnes & Noble looking for some reading materials, and thinking about what I might do in this space, I happened across a mystery novel entitled "Grandmaster," by the husband and wife writing team of Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran. (They were engaged to be married while writing "Grandmaster," were married shortly after the book was published in 1984, and have since gone their separate ways.) The edition that I bought is a 2005 re-release with an introduction by Otto Penzler, the founder of Mysterious Press and the proprietor of New York City's Mysterious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019). I was immediately intrigued because I have read many novels where chess is used as a theme or as the driving force in the book (including works by Walter Tevis, Paolo Maurensig, Vladimir Nabokov, Stefan Zweig, Glyn, et. al.), yet I did not recall ever seeing or hearing of this work before, and the book had won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for best paperback original in the year after it was published in 1985. Wonderful!, I thought, I will read this and provide a review for the new blog. (Look for this soon!)
There are some other chess related topics I'd like to explore in this space. Chess in advertising and chess as metaphor in business and life is an area I will explore. (Indeed my own employer - a large construction and engineering firm - uses a chess based opening, middlegame and endgame theme as its major sales approach in engaging new clients.) I am interested in chess memorabilia too, and I will share some of this in both words and pictures, when I figure out how to publish those here.
There are of course my over-the-board antics as well. And if I am going to share any of these gems I had better get the board out and start analyzing......Until next time, thanks very much for navigating over, and please leave comments.
Best regards,The Center Square
Note: In naming the blog the reference to the center squares of the chessboard is obvious. What is not obvious is that this is my handle at both the ICC and the Playchess.com servers, though admittedly I don't play very much at either site, prefering to use my accounts to observe tournaments in progress, which I find quite enjoyable. The team that I organize and captain each year in the United States Amateur Team championship East (USATE) has been known in some years as "The Center Squares" (but in recent years we have simply taken the name "Checkmate Hairstyling").
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