Once Shy, Twice Bitten

"A friend's not a cheap little phony creep or a jerk trying to make a deal. A friend is a person who, most of all, cares about what you feel. And nothing is harder than learning a friend isn't real." -- Jason Robert Brown

Once upon a time, a prince from a faraway land was riding through the forest when he happened across a beautiful young maiden. She was weeping.

"Why are you crying, o fair maiden?" asked the prince. She showed him her hand, which was mangled and covered in blood. "I was feeding a beast and he bit me."

The prince unsheathed his sword. "Where did he run? I'll slay him!" he roared.

The maiden scrambled to her feet and clutched the prince's robes. "No, don't!" she pleaded, tears forming anew. "He's my friend, and he's been hunted and persecuted for so very long."

The prince gazed into her eyes, moved by the maiden's concern for the savage animal. He pried her uninjured hand from his chest and turned it in his own, examining it carefully. "Your skin is covered with scars. Are they all from him?"

"Yes. I keep feeding him and he keeps biting me."

"Why not just stop feeding him, then?"

"He's a beast, and biting is simply what beasts do. He still deserves kindness. I can't expect him to change his nature for me!"

The prince peered off through the trees. "Beasts can be tamed," he said. "He does have the ability to not bite the hand that feeds him, but he just won't show that courtesy to you." The maiden was silent. "Have you told him how much it hurts when he bites you?" asked the prince.

"All the time."

"Does he promise to stop biting you?"

"Always."

"Does he actually stop?"

"For a while. Then he bites me again. It seems like he forgets that I don't like being bitten. Either that or he doesn't realize how badly he keeps hurting me."

The prince ripped a strip of linen from his hem and began to bandage the maiden's hand with it. "In the faraway land where I was born, friends don't bite their friends," he told her. "Friends detest causing each other pain. You call your beast a friend, but remember: beasts aren't capable of compassion. In fact, it sounds to me like he thinks of you more as a meal ticket than a friend."

He bound off the linen in a perfect square knot, kissed it, and returned her hand with a rueful smile. "I'd tell you that your beast should be the one patching you up right now, but he clearly lacks the thumbs necessary for the task."

The maiden blushed. The prince gazed at her for a moment longer, then turned to mount his horse. "You deserve better than this, my dear," he told her as he gathered up his reins. He gave his steed a gentle nudge and it began to canter away.

With the prince's words fresh in her mind, the maiden sat to contemplate their conversation. She rose again, however, when the hoof beats of the prince's horse ceased. "Oh maiden?" the prince called over his shoulder. "A word of advice... forget beasts. Try for a prince next time." He winked and galloped off.

The maiden never bothered with animals again. And she met many wonderful princes who always treated her with the love and respect that a human deserves. And when the beast inevitably returned to her looking for another meal -- because, after all, he only ever sought her company when he was hungry -- she braised him in wine and baked him into a pot roast.

The End.

Memory

"Oh dear, that was a great mistake! My mind wandered from repenting to thinking it wouldn't have been a sin if [the roles were reversed]. And changing them over has made me realize more and more how I have spoilt the memory... how will I face my wretched future?" -- Dodie Smith

I didn't sleep last night and spent most of my day wandering aimlessly around the upper east side. I was lost in thought, or rather, lost in memory.

One memory in particular was at the epicenter of my thoughts. For one amazing evening, I was bold, I was uncharacteristically reckless but in complete command of every nerve ending in my body, and I enjoyed an enormous payoff for my risk. Between then and now, this memory has mentally fused with other memories -- some more melancholy than others, but all of the intense, hopeful, satisfied variety -- and the resulting web has generated a full range of associated emotions. Now, calling on any of those emotions evokes the memories and dwelling on any of the experiences recalls the feelings.

Last night, as I lay awake, a new memory became ensnared in this particular web. Its similarity to the epicenter memory guaranteed similar mental categorization, but the point-of-view shift evoked the less delicious aspects of my other related experiences. And one by one, as the minutes of the night ticked by, each memory in the web mutated. An appreciative gift became pity. Pent-up longing became boredom. The epicenter memory remained relatively pristine until mid-morning, but it inevitably turned on me too.

I walked and thought and remembered, and by the time I circled back to my own neighborhood, time had been rewritten. I have a completely new set of memories now. And unlike the ones they replaced -- those blessed moments that sustained me during some pretty dark times -- these new ones make me feel terrible. I know I won't be able to call on them to help me through a single damn thing.

Appropriately, between the time I left my apartment this morning and the time I returned this afternoon, James De La Vega had been at work in my neighborhood. De La Vega, a prolific artist who chalks words of wisdom on the streets of New York City, wrote the following message on the pavement a few blocks away from my apartment:

Many of De La Vega's messages tend to repeat -- "become your dream" and "you are your best investment" are two common ones -- but I'd never seen this one before. It's a lot less uplifting than his usual stuff too, which makes me wonder whether his muses intended it for my eyes only today.

Open Up My Eager Eyes

"But it's just the price I pay. Destiny is calling me." -- The Killers

I visited my parents last weekend and, in passing, I mentioned "Mr. Brightside," the prolific rock anthem by The Killers. My mother wasn't familiar with the song, so I pulled out my iPod to play her a verse or two. She never got to hear it, though; she got bored and wandered away as I tried to find it.

I have "Mr. Brightside" on my iPod. Of course I do. And all of my music tracks are meticulously labeled and catalogued, making these types of searches simple. What was the problem, then? I live for well-done covers, and I have so many cover versions of "Mr. Brightside" on my iPod that the original gets lost when I try to search for it by title.

I've often joked that I could fill an entire CD with "Mr. Brightside" covers and not make it sound monotonous, so today, I've decided to share some of the best with you. It's one song made to sound like five, played in completely different styles yet seeming like it was written for each, which is the truest testament to its brilliance that I can imagine.

First, here is the original Killers track and its moving music video (starring Eric Roberts as Brandon Flowers' nemesis):

Here's an incredible piano and violin cover by musician Eric Wuest:

Here's music legend Paul Anka's big band/swing version: link to Stereogum.

Boyce Avenue kills it on acoustic guitar here:



British boy band McFly recorded this pop version for charity in 2005.



And here's my favorite version, the Los Angeles Orchestral Academy's symphonic cover. It just begs to be blasted as high as your stereo can go.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

"It's too late for me and Sally. I know her too well. That's why it didn't work out -- by the time I saw her naked, she was already a person." -- Steven Moffat, from Coupling

Usually, my Quotes of the Day are inspired by my blog entries, but today, I'm posting an entire entry inspired by the quote you've just read. Spurred by my Jack Davenport love, I re-watched Series Three of Coupling this weekend. For the uninitiated, Coupling is sort of the British combination of Friends and Seinfeld: a comedic, extraordinarily well-written foray into love, lust, friendship, the battle of the sexes, and how all four intertwine to make life interesting. I highly recommend it if you ever have the chance to watch a few episodes.

The third season of the show focuses on the relationship (or lack thereof) of Sally and Patrick. They start the series interested in each other, but by a combination of confusing circumstances, they remain trapped in friendship mode. They become such excellent friends, however, that they eventually end up in bed together. And the experience is so terrible that it ruins the amazing friendship they've built and screws over their social lives for the next thirteen episodes.

Of course, since this is happy sitcom land, both of them are able to get over themselves and they eventually get married and live a long wonderful life together. But does that sort of fairy-tale ending actually occur in the real world? I can only think of two friends-first couples who have enjoyed a similar fate.

I can't speak from personal experience, either; I've never had a friendship ruined by sex, so I've never had such a friendship miraculously repair itself. I've recently acquired a friendship that has the potential to turn into something worth ruining, though, so I'm giving myself license to wonder as a precaution.

Is Patrick on to something? Is intimacy early in a relationship -- revealing the biggest secret right away and saving all the little ones for later -- really more advantageous than withholding the biggest secret until you have no secrets left to tell? Is it better to constantly long for a walk-off home run, or is it better to hit one out of the park in the first inning and hope your pitching staff can keep the lead?

Sometimes you have no choice; you meet someone you desperately want to "Patrick" but you realize that doing so would be an incredibly bad idea right now. So you elect to become friends. You keep finding more crap in common with each other, you coexist with full knowledge that you'll probably end up in a closet together one day, you long for it to happen but you put it off in fear of wrecking the incredible connection you already possess. And maybe -- and I felt extraordinarily profound when I thought of this on my walk home today -- that's how you separate the wheat from the chaff. If you can share your mind, your body, and, of course, your heart with someone and still find more stuff to talk about at the end of the day, maybe you've got a relationship worth keeping.

The Blues

"Letting go, facing up to the truth that it is time to part. Giving way to the day that well may break my heart. It's not a thing I choose; to win, I have to lose." -- from Jekyll & Hyde

This weekend, I wore my favorite pair of jeans to run some errands. They're Gap boot-cut stretch denim, blue with a greenish wash, size 6 long, faded on the thighs and the back pockets. Those jeans have served me well for close to a decade, through high school and college, through the city and the chemistry lab, through shopping and the machine shop, through living and lounging and learning, through football games and the mating game, through the Freshman Fifteen and the Senior Negative Five that, somehow, also negated two dress sizes.

I've worn them so roughly and so often that the denim is brushed baby-soft and the cut conforms to every curve of my body. I wore them on my bloated days and my skinny days, I wore them to kick around the lab and to mingle at formal events. When the contents of my right front pocket sliced a hole clear through the fabric covering my groin last autumn, I continued to wear them. When that hole ripped and widened to the point where I very nearly flashed passers-by with every step, I sewed it up and continued to wear them.

Then I graduated college. The contents of my closet have shifted in the time since commencement, with dress trousers and blouses and sky-high heels taking places of honor away from my Chucks and tees and, of course, my favorite jeans. Opportunities to slip into my beloved blues and spend quality time with them are few and far between these days, so I relished the feeling of the yielding fabric against my body on Saturday. Then I spun to check out my booty in the mirror -- come on, all women do this -- and noticed that I could see my panties clear through the fabric.

In utter denial, I threw on a shirt long enough to cover my rear and went about my business, vowing to not survey the damage until later that evening. I held out for as long as I could, then, close to midnight, I shrugged out of my jeans and took a look.

The fabric hadn't ripped; it was worn transparent. Too many years of sitting on the stoop and sitting on the sidewalk and sitting on the Steps, I guess. About nine square inches are threadbare; the damage is too diffuse to stitch up. I could try to patch them, but the results would most likely be hideous. Alternatively, I could cut my losses, savor the good years, and toss them out with the garbage.

I washed them, pressed them, and tucked them back into my closet. I'll decide another day.

Wordless in Washington

"You dropped me off at the train station and put a kiss on top of my head. You watched me wave, you watched me wait. Then I went on home to my skyscrapers, neon lights and waiting papers that I call home. I call it home?" -- Brandi Carlile




Click here to enlarge.

Fool's Mate: Part III

For Part I, click here. For Part II, click here.

III. Endgame

"I won't look back any more... and if I do, just for a moment. I can't imagine a time when I won't care. But here we are today, and it's over! Hold me and tell me we'll meet again..." --Tim Rice, from Chess

Both players have given and taken everything they easily can. The board is bare, both kings are exposed. The pace of the game quickens but the moves become more focused. The players dance around each other, trying desperately to either end things swiftly or keep up the dance as long as possible.

A chess game can end in one of four ways. Wins and losses are the easy ones to characterize -- you either walk away with satisfaction and a higher rating or you walk away acknowledging that whatever you brought to the table wasn't good enough. One player leaves the game in a better place than before, while the other player leaves with a part of himself destroyed.

Draws are slightly more interesting, since they seem to defy the competitive spirit of the game. This is the chess equivalent of the mutual break-up -- when both players feel like they can't pull a satisfying win out of their situation, they simply shake hands, stand up, and walk away. No one wins, no one loses, and you can still remain friends afterwards.

Lastly, and most rarely, a chess game can end in a stalemate. Stalemates depend on two key rules of chess: it is illegal for a player to expose his own King to attack (also called "check"), and the game ends when a player's King is checked without a means of escape (also called "checkmate"). A stalemated position is one where a player's King is NOT in check, but every possible move on the board is illegal because it would result in check. A stalemate is an automatic draw -- no one wins and no one loses. The situation feels entirely different, though.

Sometimes a stalemate just happens -- you reach to move a piece and realize quite suddenly that there are no legal moves left. Other times, stalemates are engineered by sneaky players who are guaranteed losses otherwise. Once they sense defeat, they move with the sole intent of working themselves into a position where it is impossible for their partners to properly end the game. Some people can trick opponents into stalemates with astounding ease; I've only ended a game in a stalemate once during my entire chess career, but I know some players who are masters at it.

During the last game of his world championship match against Freddie -- a game which he seems poised to win -- Anatoly is given an ultimatum. He can keep Florence and his freedom if he wins the game, but both governments promise to make life hell for Florence's family and Anatoly's estranged wife and children if he dares. If he throws the game, he must leave Florence and return to Russia in exchange for the ensured safety of everyone in his life.

Ultimately, what choice does Anatoly make? In a true representation of the uncertainty of life, love, and the game of chess, the ending of the musical is continually rewritten. Sometimes Anatoly wins, sometimes he loses, sometimes he does neither. The outcome of the game changes with every production of the musical.

Of course, one ending is closer to my heart than all the others. Out of perceived obligation, Anatoly gives into Freddie. He throws the game, believing that he is acting in Florence's best interests, fully knowing that he has surrendered his own freedom and happiness to secure hers.

When Anatoly and Florence meet after the match, they fall into each other's arms and reflect on the choice he's made and the happy ending they always knew they could never truly experience. Their time together is limited, though, since deportation is a consequence of Anatoly's loss. His wife and several Russian officials wait in the wings to reclaim him.

Anatoly kisses Florence goodbye and walks out of her life without a backwards glance. Alone onstage, she pauses, wipes away a tear, and, in a trembling voice, sings lyrics previously delivered by Anatoly's neglected wife:

Wasn't it good? Wasn't he fine? Isn't it madness...?

Her voice trails off and she weeps openly. Her heart is broken, her life is in shambles, her cultural identity is lost. She is left with nothing except her memories... but suddenly, blindingly, she realizes that's all she needs to rebuild her existence. The orchestra swells. Florence sings again, but this time her words are Anatoly's. She belts his "Anthem" from the first-act finale, but she fits it with sentiments entirely her own:

How can I live now? Where do I start? Let man's petty nations tear themselves apart! My land's only borders lie around my heart!

For once in her life, Florence is her own woman. And though Anatoly joins her in singing the show's final lyrics, you must listen carefully to even notice that he's there. Anatoly may lose the game, but strangely, beautifully, I can't decide whether Florence wins, loses, draws, or stalemates.

Fool's Mate: Part II

(Click here for Part I: Opening Combination)

II. Middlegame


"Though I'd move my world to be with him, still the gap between us is too wide. Looking back, I could have played it differently... won a few more moments, who can tell? But it took time to understand the man. Now at least I know I know him well." -- Tim Rice, from Chess

You shake hands with your partner and both of you take a seat. You make a move, he reacts, you react to his reaction. You keep offering possibilities. So does he. You feed off of each other, more connections are made, more possible outcomes are offered with every response. You fortify your position, refine your focus, and your partner does the same. You watch his movements carefully in search of what he's thinking, what he's longing to do to you. Then, at any given moment, one of you finally strikes. He takes, you take, he takes again, and the exchange continues until the position is spent. You pause, you take a breath. Things slow down. The rules of the game are completely different now and so is the board in front of you, so you must reassess where you stand in terms of both.

Daters call the next phase of this game a steady relationship, but to chess players, it's the middlegame. In both cases, its boundaries are pretty ill-defined and vary from player to player. Some people think the middlegame starts once the textbook opening combination ends, but others, including me, think that the rapid-fire exchange of captures that inevitably follows every opening is the true mark of the middlegame. After this point, both of you have committed to the game, you've exchanged parts of yourself, and you're willing to navigate the new board arrangement together. And though one player may enter the middlegame with a bit of an advantage in terms of captured pieces or position, the players are always on pretty even footing if the pairing is well-matched.

Once again, my middlegame style reflects my personality with astounding accuracy. The middlegame has always been the strongest part of my gameplay because it depends on imagination as much as it depends on strong tactical skill. I have enough tricks up my sleeve to give my partner everything he could ever want in a game, and I can use them creatively enough to keep the game interesting. I'm good at keeping an open, centralized position and moving with both subtlety and decisiveness. All of my exchanges – and the middlegame almost completely depends on smart trades between players – are thought-out and innovative. I'm not afraid to pin pieces, make sacrifices, or surrender position if I know that it will make the game better in the long run. I screw myself over more often than not while playing chess, but it very rarely happens in this phase of the game.

How does the middlegame pan out for Florence and Anatoly? They fortify their positions and defeat Freddie at the World Championship. They complement each other perfectly; Anatoly's love gives Florence the strength to sever all ties with Freddie, and Florence's love gives Anatoly the strength to leave his oppressive government. They both give, they both take, and they both navigate the middlegame with even material and positions. By the time the middlegame finishes, the board is clear of all pieces but a few. The best line of play for both of them seems obvious, but Florence's family, Anatoly's family, Anatoly's career, the national-scale baggage of both players, and, of course, the constant meddling of Freddie complicate matters. When we enter the endgame, Anatoly has a choice to make. He can either remain with Florence at the cost of his perceived honor or give into Freddie at the cost of his own happiness.

To be continued in Part III.

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.