Fool's Mate: Part I

"The game of chess, like the game of love, can be played in an almost infinite number of variations. Some are wins, some are losses, some are draws, and a few happen to end in a stalemate." -- Tim Rice

In my freshman year of college, my University Writing class chose the Iraq War as our collective final paper topic. Since I loathe political discussions almost as much as I loathe current events, I instead wrote a lovely essay comparing warfare to the game of chess. About a third of that paper discussed the use of the game as a metaphor for war as presented in Chess, a brilliant musical written by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice. It's set at the World Chess Championship during the height of the Cold War, and it tells the story of an American player, a Russian player, the woman they love, and their fight for control of each other and themselves. The show explores both battle and the battle of the sexes in terms of tactical chess theory, and while I spent most of University Writing class exploring the former, I've never given the latter its due. It's a pity, really; as a hopeless romantic and former competitive chess player who has experienced wins, losses, draws, and stalemates in both games, I'm an authority on the subject. And since a new concert version of Chess (starring Josh Groban and Adam Pascal) is coming to PBS next year and the song "You and I" has been running through my head on a loop for the past four days for reasons that I won't discuss here, what better time than the present? Like every chess game, this entry will be broken into three parts: the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame.

I. Opening Combination

"The one I should not think of keeps roaming through my mind, and I don't want to let that go. No lover's ever faithful, no contract truly signed, there's nothing certain left to know. But how the cracks begin to show!" -- Tim Rice, from Chess

Every chess game between two experienced players starts with an opening combination. There's no free will when it comes to chess openings -- every move should be made according to historical precedent if a player wants to stand a chance of winning. Thus, every chess student is at some point forced to memorize the most common openings well enough to play them automatically in competition.

Trouble is, there are thousands of openings and many are separated by mere subtleties, all of which determine your opponent's reaction. For example, if both players advance their King's pawns, white moves a Knight to attack black's pawn, and black moves a knight to attack white's pawn, both players are expected to follow the Petroff line of play. If black moves the other Knight and white pushes a Bishop to c4, it becomes the Giucco Piano combination. Move the Bishop out one more square to b5 and both players have committed to the Ruy Lopez opening. If white leaves the Bishop alone and pushes his Queen's pawn two spaces, it's the Scotch Game. Most romantic interactions start this way as well: two people size each other up, they introduce themselves, one offers to buy the other a drink. Accepting it opens one avenue of play, while declining it opens another.

Some people play common openings, some people play rare openings, some play them strictly by the book, some like to innovate. In my tournament days, I favored the sneaky approach and played established versions of uncommon openings. The Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack was my favorite: I would push a pawn to b3 on my first move, fianchetto my Bishop to b2 on my second, and watch my opponent squirm when he had no idea what I was up to. I've always felt that a person's playing style can be ascertained by the way he navigates his opening combination, but maybe that's because my favorite opening represents me so well. I handle the first moments of personal interaction with a potential partner the same way I play the Nimzo-Larsen: I put something subtle and unique on the table and see how he reacts. If he's proactive and builds up his center, we end up with an interesting game. If he plays it safe and defends his Kingside, I almost always win, we shake hands, and we part ways. The opening is like a first impression: it shapes what happens in the rest of the game, but you don't really know who you're playing until after it's over.

In the musical Chess, four games appear almost immediately during the first half of the first act. First, we learn that the World Chess Championship will be played between an American champion and a Russian champion as both governments argue over the awaited outcome. Next, Freddie Trumper, the brash, immature American chess champion, arrives with Florence Vassy, an intelligent and diplomatic woman who has endured the torment of Freddie's company as his lover and tournament second for nearly a decade. Third, we become acquainted with Anatoly Sergievsky, the quietly brilliant Russian chess champion whose conscience battles against his knowledge that he's merely a puppet of his Communist government. Finally, we see the actual series of matches that Anatoly and Freddie play for the title of World Champion -- games constantly interrupted by Freddie's antics, Russian accusations, and dirty play from both sides. However, near the end of the first act, all of these pairings are revealed to be part of the opening combination, mere decoys designed to make the game more interesting. The true opponents in this game aren't the US and USSR, Freddie and Florence, or even Freddie and Anatoly.

In a development that shocked me when I first became acquainted with Chess, our players are actually Anatoly and Florence. They interact as skilled chess masters should during the show's first few songs – they follow traditional opening play, stake and fortify their positions, interact only when necessary. They make all their moves by the book, but as they play, Anatoly begins to appreciate Florence's smart, civilized, nurturing style and Florence can't help but notice Anatoly's quiet intensity and honorable nature. Catalyzed by Freddie's irresponsibility, Florence and Anatoly find that, though they are technically opponents, they can't think of anything they'd rather do than spend time with each other. There's a mutual attraction, but with Freddie hovering close by and the World Championship looming, they enter the middlegame at an impasse.

To be continued in Part II.

Subway Runs

"Fiction is an act of revenge." -- John Hawkes


I stand in the Times Square subway station during rush hour on a Friday afternoon. It's far more packed than usual because, "after an earlier incident," the N train has just resumed service to Queens. When a train finally arrives, I wedge myself into the last car, find a place to stand, and stare daggers down at the pack of giggly, perfectly healthy teenagers who dare to deprive tired, older commuters of valuable seat space. (What? It's my favorite subway hobby.) The teens disembark at 57th Street, leaving bench space for four, and I surreptitiously glance around to check whether one of my adjacent riders needs one of those seats more than I do. The standing-room-only crowdmembers are all close to my age, though, and they're all surveying me and each other exactly as I'm surveying them.

The decision is taken from us when a young, morbidly obese man with a briefcase elbows his way into our car. He takes a seat -- two seats, actually -- and places his briefcase on the bench next to him. A meager foot of bench space remains between the end of the man's briefcase and the handrail next to the subway doors. I long to yell at the seat hoarder for his rudeness, yearn to point out that putting one's crap on subway seats is illegal, but I hold my tongue.

At Fifth Avenue, an elderly woman with several large shopping bags gets on the train. She eyes the minuscule space between the briefcase and the rail, eyes Seat Hoarder, catches his eye.

"Excuse me, but can you please move your briefcase?" she asks in a sweet old-lady voice, and Seat Hoarder gives a histrionic groan.

"Look lady, I'm tired, I've had a long week, I can't deal with this right now. The nerve of some people."

No one says a word; I think we're all too shocked.

Seat Hoarder is still muttering to himself when we reach Lexington Avenue and a large middle-aged man with crutches and a knee brace boards the train. Knee Brace eyes the minuscule space between the briefcase and the rail, eyes Seat Hoarder, shrugs, and sits. He is half-sitting on the briefcase, but Seat Hoarder still won't move it. The train moves through the tunnel into Queens as the two men cast subtle glances of loathing at one another.

A few moments after the train emerges from the tunnel into daylight, Knee Brace's cell phone rings. He answers it, then after a normal greeting, he says, "Yeah, I'm fine," entirely too loudly. "I had to take a few painkillers in the office, but I feel okay."

Knee Brace pauses again, then he looks up at me... and winks. "But man," he continues into the cell phone, "I had the runs today! Yeah, diarrhea! The runs! I had them so badly, I must have gone about five times. I'm still sick to my stomach... yeah, I do, hopefully I can hold it in until I get home."

Seat Hoarder moved that briefcase of his so quickly that he nearly unseated Knee Brace in the process.

Souvenir

"I've seen the lights go out on Broadway. I watched the mighty skyline fall. The folks were waiting at the Battery. The union went on strike; they never sailed at all. They sent a carrier out from Norfolk and picked the Yankees up for free. They said the Mets could play for one last game at Shea and sank Manhattan out at sea." -- Billy Joel on 7/18/2008

I'm sure you've heard the praise, the acclaim, the media fawning over William M. Joel's history-making series of concerts at William A. Shea Stadium this past week. I was there for the last show, and though I don't know if I can rave about the performance more uniquely than some others have already raved about it, I'll put my thoughts out there anyway.

I started taking dance lessons when I was in Kindergarten. My mother didn't see the point of jazz dance, so while all of my friends pointed and kicked and grapevined, I tapped and flapped and shuffle-ball-changed. Their jazz class ended five minutes before my tap class started, so I would watch them as I put on my shoes. Their recital routine was choreographed to "Uptown Girl" that year, and the song fast became my obsession.

My parents gave me the two-CD set of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits for my sixth birthday and made the mistake of teaching me how to use the "replay" button on our stereo. I probably listened to "Uptown Girl" for two months straight before my father gently suggested that I try out the rest of the album, too. I did, I appreciated, and by the time River of Dreams was released in 1994, I owned every album Billy Joel had ever released.

I listened to Billy's music so much that I was soon able to recite every word to every song on every album. And when I say "every word," I mean every word. Of course I knew "Piano Man" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," but I also knew "Falling of the Rain" and "Zanzibar" and "Scandinavian Skies." I could never give a straight answer whenever anyone asked me to name my favorite Billy Joel song, so I came up with a Top Five list:

1. Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)
2. Angry Young Man
3. Summer, Highland Falls
4. The Ballad of Billy the Kid
5. Shameless

It's a weird selection, but it hasn't deviated in over a decade. Because it's a weird selection, though, I didn't get to hear any of my favorites when I saw Billy in concert for the first time in 1996. I got to hear him play "Miami 2017" live in 2001, but since that performance was part of The Concert for New York City, the experience was more sorrowful than satisfying. Six and a half years passed, and though my musical tastes expanded, my appreciation for the genius of Billy's songwriting only grew. When I heard that he was playing at Shea Stadium this July, I expressed interest in going but never thought that anything would come of it. On Thursday I got a call that a ticket was waiting for me, and on Friday night, I found myself sitting in a Shea Stadium field box to the right of the stage.

Oddly enough, the crowd seemed more enthused about the concert's rumored guest stars than the Piano Man himself. Garth Brooks, Elton John, Aerosmith, Keith Richards, Roger Daltrey, Bon Jovi, and Paul McCartney/Ringo Starr/Julian Lennon/Dhani Harrison were all mentioned by various patrons before the show, and people speculated that the previous concert's guest stars -- Tony Bennett, John Mayer, and John Mellencamp -- would return for this performance. The general lack of enthusiasm for Billy Joel at a Billy Joel concert made me think of Robert Plant famously stating that his band's concerts were worthless because Led Zeppelin had become a Led Zeppelin tribute band. I wondered if the same had happened for my Billy, then prepared myself for the worst when he waddled onstage sweating and looking older than I ever thought possible.

I should have known better. He sat down at his piano without uttering a word to the 65,000 people filling every corner of Shea, sang the national anthem in a surprisingly agile voice, and plunked out the opening notes to "Miami 2017." He followed that song with "Angry Young Man" plus its complete prelude, and only after that did he greet the audience. He revealed that the badge pinned to his suit jacket was worn by Ringo Starr when the Beatles played their legendary concerts at Shea in 1965, which caused my father (who was holding out hope for the speculated quasi-Beatles reunion) to raise his eyebrows in my direction.

Billy Joel played for close to four hours, and he in no way resembled a Billy Joel tribute band during that time. Sure, he played the hits, but he mixed them up with enough little-known material to present a totally unique show. He played "Zanzibar," he played the instrumental "Root Beer Rag" from his second studio album, he played a ballad with a hook stolen from Beethoven called "This Night," he played rarely-played-live songs like "Keeping The Faith" and "The Downeaster Alexa." My Top Five were all played, and he even prefaced the cinematic "Ballad of Billy the Kid" with a piano rendition of the main theme from one of my favorite films, The Magnificent Seven. He also mixed up some of his more popular songs a bit, pausing in the middle of "River of Dreams" to sing "A Hard Day's Night" and hitting high notes in "An Innocent Man" that he wouldn't even attempt twenty-five years ago. The light show ranged from fantastic (when a photograph of every person, object or event mentioned in "We Didn't Start The Fire" flickered onscreen as he sang) to abysmal (like the Windows Screensaver-esque psychedelia projected during "Captain Jack"). Billy even redeemed my least favorite part of his live performances -- the military veterans singing the chorus of the Vietnam tribute "Good Night, Saigon" -- by including New York City firefighters and police officers alongside his usual lineup of army, navy, and marines representatives.

Another part of Billy's stage shows that I don't usually enjoy was also redeemed in a pretty remarkable way. Call me a fool, call me un-American, but I don't like the way "New York State of Mind" sounds when it's played live. Not sure why, but I can't stand it and I never have. On Friday, I rolled my eyes when its first chords played and listened politely during the first verse, then Tony Bennett walked onstage to sing the second verse. Like any self-respecting Astoria girl, I worship the ground Tony Bennett walks upon, and even at the ripe age of 82, he's still in remarkable voice. Despite their song choice, Billy's and Tony's duet was one of the highlights of my evening.

Tony was the first guest star, but certainly not the last. Garth Brooks joined Billy on "Shameless," adding a beautiful vocal to what I consider one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Steven Tyler, as outrageous, commanding, and ageless as always, delivered "Walk This Way" with Billy singing backup and playing guitar. (This, incidentally, was the only song I didn't sing word-for-word all night.) Billy again sang backup and played guitar for Roger Daltrey on "My Generation," and in proper Who fashion, he smashed his guitar at the end of the song.

Billy ended the show, then came onstage for an encore of "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" and "Only The Good Die Young." Between those songs, a stage manager ran out and whispered something in his ear, something which Billy whispered to the rest of his band. They all came out for a second encore, started playing the opening notes to "I Saw Her Standing There," and out strolled Paul McCartney, guitar in hand, resplendent in a white Oxford shirt.

No Ringo, no Julian or Dhani, just Macca. And honestly, you didn't need the others. The stadium was shaking in a way I haven't felt outside of the Yankee Stadium upper deck during the World Series. He came, he saw, he conquered, then he left after a very lengthy curtain call. Billy then delivered his three concert-enders: he played "Piano Man," let the crowd sing the last verse to him, told us not to take no shit from nobody, and tried to walk offstage.

The stage manager blocked his path and, once again, whispered something. Billy turned around, walked back onstage, past his piano, past his microphone stand, and welcomed back Paul McCartney. Macca gave a wave, sat down at Joel's piano, and played "Let It Be." The crowd was silent, contemplative. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever been conscious of history being made. That was it.

Paul McCartney playing a simple, beautiful song was the real ending of Billy Joel's show, this loud, obnoxious, kickass rock concert, the last concert ever at Shea Stadium, and Billy had close to nothing to do with it. He sang a little back-up on "Let It Be," but he spent most of the song watching McCartney play from a seat atop the baby grand's lid. At first, I pitied him for not getting the last word at his own show, but I can't think of a better finish for Shea than having it opened and closed by the Beatles. As a New Yorker and Beatles fan himself, I'm sure Billy would agree.

East Side Story

"Another hundred people just got off of the train and came up through the ground, while another hundred people just got off of the bus and are looking around at another hundred people who got off of the plane and are looking at us who got off of the train and the plane and the bus maybe yesterday..." -- Stephen Sondheim


42nd Street and Third Avenue. 8:58 AM on a Tuesday morning. I prepare to sprint across the avenue before the orange hand stops blinking. I glance up, notice that the opposite light has already turned yellow, slow my pace, and pivot to cross the street in the other direction. Dozens of pedestrians queue up behind me, next to me. Most carry coffee, some carry iPods, others carry newspapers. All of us will be late for work in two minutes.

A cab blows through the yellow light and attempts to drive past us, but he has nowhere to go. Rush-hour traffic sandwiches the vehicle; the front of the cab blocks the crosswalk and the back of the cab blocks part of the intersection.

My phalanx of pedestrians needs to get to work, though. Half of my throng crosses the street by squeezing through the one-foot gap between the cab's bumper and the SUV in front of it, while the rest of us dart into the intersection to loop around the cab's back end. All of us shoot dirty looks at the cab driver, and some of us shoot a few choice words at him as well. For a brief moment, midtown becomes Bedlam.

I pause on the opposite corner, waiting for the light to change so I can once again attempt to cross the avenue. To my left stands a uniformed traffic cop, passively staring at the cab, the crowd, and the chaos. She says nothing, does nothing.

Soundtrack of a workweek

"I'll forgive you for what you've done... if you say that I'm the one." -- Gavin DeGraw

My musical tastes usually fall pretty far from mainstream, but Gavin DeGraw owns my heart and my iPod right now. I don't often hear songs with lyrics that feel ripped from my soul, but Chariot, Gavin's superb debut album, features no fewer than nine. The first incarnation of this blog featured a lengthy article discussing the ability of song lyrics to speak one's heart in terms far more poetic than spoken words ever could, and those sentiments haven't changed in the slightest. Maybe I'll rework it and republish it one of these days.

"So before this goes too far, let me tell you what you are: you're amazing, I'm attracted, but I'm totally distracted." -- Gavin DeGraw

I consider myself a decent writer, but I've never even pretended to be a good public speaker or conversationalist. I also consider myself a pretty witty individual, but owing to my aforementioned speaking ineptitude, I always tend to spit out the perfect comeback ten minutes too late. I can be effortlessly funny only when I'm writing or typing; in-person quickness doesn't happen too often. However, I once met a person whose sense of humor was so similar to mine that every word out of his mouth felt like a great set-up, memorable conversations happened organically and entirely too often, I never had to explain myself to him, and he would understand even my most obscure references. For close to a decade, he was in a class of his own. Last week, someone teased me, I snapped back far more quickly than usual, and now there are two.

I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately! -- Gavin DeGraw

Out of anger over still being forced to inhabit it at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I cleaned my bedroom today. Every personal object more than four years old that wasn't a book or an autographed baseball got thrown away. It was definitely cathartic and definitely gave me a few more surfaces for book storage, but it didn't solve my desperate need for closet space. My house was built in the '20s -- back when people didn't have more than a few outfits apiece -- and the closets are designed accordingly. I think I might get rid of my desk, get a smaller one, and put a freestanding closet in there, so if anyone sees anything good, let me know.

Let's Get Physical

"Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1986!" -- from The Wedding Singer


I unearthed this ultimate example of the glamour of yesteryear while cleaning out the closet this evening. Draw your own conclusions.

And, sadly enough, you can use the stupid thing to do a pretty decent approximation of a hack squat...

Bloodletting

"Have I lost my way? The path of least resistance is catching up with me again today." -- Brandi Carlile

Mom found a bunch of unused Barnes & Noble gift cards in my stash this morning and commented that I never read for pleasure any more. "I don't have time for it," I responded, and she shrugged. "You didn't have time for it. Now you do." Thus, for the first time in a year, I picked up a book that wasn't filled with medical diagrams and transport equations: Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. From what I gather after twenty pages, the book follows a group of people from pre-med classes through med school through their early years as doctors. And even though it's well-written and interesting, my ESC is acting up and preventing me from fully enjoying Lam's work.

"ESC" stands for "Engineering Superiority Complex," and you'll be hard-pressed to find an engineer who doesn't have one. In order to obtain our degrees, we had to study copious amounts of science and math. However, while pure scientists could ace their classes simply by memorizing their textbooks, we were forced to understand the material deeply enough to manipulate it, apply it, and use it to solve technological problems. Our GPAs end up lower than they should be as a result of this expectation, but we emerge from our studies with a deep appreciation for and innate knowledge of what makes science tick.

And maybe I'm doubly biased in this respect, but I think the most valid justification for the existence of ESC is the difference between bio/chem/neuroscience pre-meds and BME/ChemE pre-meds. At Columbia, engineers felt so much disdain for "normal" pre-meds that they avoided using the term on themselves; my friends would always say "I'm a biomedical engineer who is going to med school" instead of "I'm a pre-med" out of fear of incurring the unholy wrath of their fellow BMEs. Most med-school bound BMEs study biology by learning the concepts, their applications, and all of the math behind their every nuance. Most normal pre-meds memorize what they need to know to get into med school. And because the system is flawed and rewards regurgitation rather than passion, regurgitators ruin the curves in our classes and get into med school before we do.

This seems like a gross generalization, and I would readily admit it probably was one if I haven't seen it proven with my own eyes. In the last semester of my senior year of college, a few of those med school-bound BME friends of mine decided to take a normal pre-med physiology class, and because I had nothing better to do and could use the study time, I tagged along to their lectures. All of us had already taken two semesters of quantitative physiology as a BME requirement and expected the non-technical version to be a piece of cake. It was; the material required minimal complex thought and no computation. However, the normal pre-meds in the class often described it as "the hardest class I've ever taken in college." Moreover, every time the professor would ask a question that required any deductive reasoning, the normal pre-meds would recite the textbook and hope for the best. At least once a class, the following exchange would happen:

Professor: [asks a question]
Pre-med: [gives an answer]
Med school-bound BME: [nudges me and points to his class handout, where the pre-med's answer appears word-for-word]
Professor: [asks pre-med for clarification]
Pre-med: [pauses and re-phrases the regurgitated answer]

What prompted this rant? You see, in the first story of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, one character -- with a perfect GPA and an infallible studying technique -- gives a thoughtful, inquisitive, brilliant friend (who is failing his pre-med classes on grading technicalities) some advice:

"It's not that concepts are unimportant," Ming reassured Fitzgerald, "It's simply that they're not essential to scoring top marks."

If that seems ridiculous, it absolutely is. And yet that's the mindset of most of the people I know who are attending the country's top medical schools in the fall. It's sad and scary that America's med schools are filled with Mings while many of the Fitzgeralds in my life -- brilliant innovators and thinkers to whom I'd gladly trust my health and well-being -- struggled to even get interviews.



Pardon the rant; I have a lot of venting time on my hands, apparently. It's finally starting to dawn on me that, for the first time in years (and possibly my entire adult life), I have time to sit around and do nothing. Well, not nothing; I'm working on my pulp-comic cartooning skills, I made pizza from scratch today -- dough and all -- and grilled it on the barbecue, and I'm putting a dent in my KnitPicks laceweight sampler by making fingerless gloves, the finished one of which can be seen above. I'm not sitting in front of the TV for eight hours a day by any means, and yet I still feel like I'm wasting my time.

Train-ing

"Schadenfreude: making the world a better place to be." -- Avenue Q

The most amazing thing happened on the subway today.

I get on the train at Times Square and sit down next to a blonde, skater-boy-looking kid in his early twenties. At 57th Street, an old man with a cane gets on the train and stands in front of me. I spot him after a moment, stand up, and offer him my seat.

"No thank you, sit down miss," he says. I sit again and the man smiles warmly at me. "That was very nice of you." He then points to the kid sitting next to me.

"YOU, on the other hand! Who do you think you are?! You should be ashamed of yourself, sitting there like a king while an old man has to stand. And you let a woman give up her seat before you did!"

The guy remains seated, still and rapidly paling, his mouth hanging open. The old man continues, "Who is your father? Didn't he teach you any manners? What kind of a home did you grow up in?"

This goes on and on until halfway through the tunnel to Queensborough Plaza, when the old man pauses in his rant. "And WHY are you still sitting there? GET UP!"

The kid jumps out of his seat and points to it, and the old man shakes his head. "No. I'm not sitting there. You see, I'm a gentleman. My father taught me manners." He turns to a woman standing next to him, offers her the seat, and after a courteous protest, she sits.

The kid starts to inch away, but the old man won't stand for that. He asks, "Where do you come from, with such bad manners?"
"Um, Africa."
"Really! I guess you can't be blamed, then. You must have to sleep with a machete to prevent people from stealing your possessions in the jungle."
"Um, yeah..."

We've reached Queensborough Plaza by now, and as soon as the doors open, the kid runs off the train as fast as he possibly can.