It doesn’t really mention what Friedman’s argument was, other than that he believed polygamy was efficient. Does anyone know?

… that having a missionary companion is good practice for later in life when you get married. To a dude.

Christmastime approaches! You might profitably spend an evening home with your family staging a dramatic reading of my favorite Christmas story.

Don’t worry, just as soon as I’m interested in reading your comments about Conference I’ll let you know.

Via Google Chat:

GST:
“But most of us turn slow to see
The figure hanging on a tree
And stumble on and blindly grope
Upheld by intermittent hope,
God grant before we die we all
May see the light as did St. Paul.”

If I were any good, I might have written that.

Greenwood: In more than one sense of good. Me too. Who did write it? Curious.

GST: An Anglican, of all people! Betjeman.

Greenwood: Oh. I’ve read some stuff of his I liked. Not enough, it appears. Post the poem, or twitter it, or put it up on Facebook, whatever it is you do these days. It has the right stuff.

Scott B. at BCC once asked me if Adam Greenwood had a Facebook account. I said, “No. Of course not. What do you take him for?”

Notwithstanding the official position of the Junior Ganymede on social media, I signed up for a Twitter account. But there is a catch: like Ozzy refusing to go on stage until he gets his one thousand brown M&Ms in a brandy glass, I’m not posting anything on Twitter until 100 of you become my followers or acolytes or whatever the term is.

If you do so, here is my pledge to you: I promise not to bother you with items about chess like I do here, nor pictures of my kids, like I do on Facebook. It will be nothing but jokes, pure jokes, of the finest quality. So follow me @K6GST.

I do try to note here for your edification on any links, however tenuous, between Mormonism and chess. This past weekend reading Frank Brady’s new book on Fischer I was pleased to find that the teenager, living alone in his Brooklyn apartment while his mother traipsed around the world, liked to listen to religious programming on the radio. (Page 119.) This included Music and the Spoken Word, featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He preferred, however, the radio show of Herbert W. Armstrong and subsequently became engaged with his Worldwide Church of God.

I’m not aware of evidence that he exhibited any further interest in Mormonism.

Senator Goldwater K7UGA (SK) at the South Pole, patching through a phone call from WFB to Mrs. B in Connecticut. Bertie makes an appearance. Here. (.pdf download. Skip to “Buckley on the Party Line.”)

Muad’dib would have at first relied on the weirding module for translating the plates, but later would have outgrown it.

“Gazelom” would be a killing word.

Gurney Halleck would be on the run from Missouri authorities after taking a shot at Governor Boggs.

Joseph would have commissioned a hymnal from Emma and the other Bene Gesserit witches.

The Fremen wouldn’t receive the priesthood until 12178.

Irrigation projects would eventually make Arrakis bloom like the rose.

Stick pulling would be done with a thumper.

Joseph’s arhythmic limp would have the advantage of not attracting the worm.

Those of us that voted for him because of his stated opposition to gay marriage are now sorely disappointed by the direction his Justice Department is taking on DOMA.

There is an interesting retrospective interview with Mark Taimanov in ChessBase on the occasion of the former top grandmaster and concert pianist’s 85th birthday.

He is best remembered for having been steamrolled by Fischer in the 1971 World Championship Candidates match in Vancouver. Fischer’s result against Taimanov, 6-0 (six wins, no losses, no ties), was virtually unheard of in that level of chess. Daniel Johnson recounts in his wonderful book that Taimanov was reduced to a babbling psychological mess who could only repeat, “Fischer knows everything, Fischer knows everything…”

The Soviets were unwilling to accept that there was not some sort of political explanation for that kind of result, and stripped Taimanov of the considerable privileges the state afforded its top chess players. The pretext was a samizdat copy of Solzhenitsyn found in Taimanov’s baggage as he returned to Russia. But the fact that they even looked in his bags meant that they had decided that he no longer merited the kind of special treatment they ordinarily gave their grandmasters. He was later rehabilitated when it became clear that Fischer really was sui generis.

He’s also notable for having been a creditable concert pianist. Again, unlike in the West, in Soviet Russia, a top grandmaster didn’t really need a second career unless he wanted one.

I just read something interesting in British Chess Magazine. “Kubrick’s Rubric” by Antonio Gude: “The odd thing was that, despite them both [Kubrick and Nabokov] being chess aficionados, there is no report if them playing chess. Nabokov was a scriptwriter on the film [Lolita, from his novel] and surely must have come into contact with Kubrick. If they ever did play, we have no record of games played between them.”

We know that Kubrick did play on set against George C. Scott, Shelley Duvall, and Arliss Howard.

An excellent tribute, including problems.

Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888)

Zukertort was the main rival to the first official world chess champion Wilhelm Steinitz. Reading a bit of the history of the Mechanics’ Institute chess club in San Francisco, where I sometimes play, I came across a reference to Zukertort’s visit to the western United States in 1884. It is reported in Volume VI of The Chess-Monthly, edited (and presumably written) by Zukertort himself:

(more…)

[Lord Lovat] was ordering now, as they waded up Sword Beach, in that drawly voice of his: “Give us a tune, piper.” Mr Millin thought him a mad bastard. The man beside him, on the point of jumping off, had taken a bullet in the face and gone under. But there was Lovat, strolling through fire quite calmly in his aristocratic way, allegedly wearing a monogrammed white pullover under his jacket and carrying an ancient Winchester rifle, so if he was mad Mr Millin thought he might as well be ridiculous too, and struck up “Hielan’ Laddie”. Lovat approved it with a thumbs-up, and asked for “The Road to the Isles”. Mr Millin inquired, half-joking, whether he should walk up and down in the traditional way of pipers. “Oh, yes. That would be lovely.”

Dead at 88.