GM Jesse Kraai - Writer

Hola darlings!  Well, I practically fell off this chair (no, it does not resemble a bar stool) earlier this evening when I was scrolling through about 100 emails (when did I get so popular?) and I saw one from Jesse Kraai.

I went - WHAT?  Maybe my eyes bugged out a little, too, you know, like the cartoons -- BOIIINNNGG!

Then I thought, nah, that can't possibly be an email from GM Jesse Kraai.  Why on earth would he be writing to me?  But, turns out, I was dead wrong about that.  HOLY HATHOR!

Well, maybe he's written to half the female chess bloggers on the face of the earth, but that's okay.  What he asked was if I'd be interested in reviewing his new novel - about a young chess femme who learns the game under the tutelage of a Russian chessmaster.  It was a story he had to write. 

I mean, come on, how could I possibly resist?  Of course I said yes, send me the book at once, you understand - at once!  Nah, I wasn't quite that demanding.  I do have good manners on occasion and Grandma Newton would be proud of me, I brought them out tonight. 

So, I'm excited about this new project I've accepted.  It has been many moons since I've done a chess book review and this is the time of year in southeastern Wisconsin where settling in with a good book before the fireplace would be a perfect way to spend a few chilly afternoons on a weekend.

I quickly visited the link to the website Jesse sent me, and read this little tease of a post (really Jesse? One teensy-weensy post?  Give us something more please!) -- excerpted here:

The chess pieces knew how they moved. They knew what they wanted too.

and thought - OHMYGODDESS!  How on earth could he possibly know that THAT is exactly how I feel about chess and how it SHOULD work for a player who has IT, and how much I want to have IT and see those pieces dancing around the chessboard like the ibau that the ancient Egyptians called their boardgame pieces -- a pun on their words for dancers (ibau) and ivory (ebou, ebu, abu) .

Brooklyn Museum:  A partial gameboard of 30 squares (a/k/a Senet) and two different types of ibau, these made
of Egyptian faience, not ivory (ebou), as the earliest gaming pieces were carved from c. 5000 years ago. Taken in
May, 2009 during our second trip to New York. 

Of course chess pieces have a mind of their own!  Just ask me when a rook (most recent game against William, a pick-up game at chess.com) or a bishop (a game a week or so ago with my chess buddy Shira Evans Sanford) just seem so damn determined to HANG THEMSELVES.  They just dance right over to the absolutely worst square on the board they could possibly pick, and laugh about it, rubbing their teeny little hands together in glee thinking how brilliantly they are performing.  No vision of the Big Bad Wolf with super-long blood-coated teeth just waiting to chomp them down ever enters into their vision, nope. 

Of course, those players who have IT, their pieces never have the thought of hanging themselves; they move about the board on angels' wings, like feathers, touching here, a toe there, a turn, a lunge, a pirouette and poof, there goes your Rook, white pieces, ha!  And it's checkmate in three and YOU don't see it coming for a change.  Ah yes, the stuff I dream about at night.  Do you know how damn frustrating it is, playing such chess in your dreams, only to turn into the Ash Girl, or in my case, old enough to be an Ash Grandma, in the morning?  I have not been able to shut down the chess dreams. May as well deliberately try and stop my own heart beating.  Ach!  I can truly say with what wisdom I have  garnered over 62 years that I sympathize with those chessplayers who have gone off the deep end when, like The Red Shoes, the ibau never stop dancing...

Jesse, are you going to turn this into a series, like a chessly Hermione Granger?  We need a better role model than Beth Harmon, Walter Bevis' creation -- and I only re-read his book five times, couldn't get enough of Beth and that fantastic, wonderful, glorious chess she played. Can't wait to meet Lisa! 

Listen to me - the book hasn't even been put into the mail yet.  Maybe Jesse will change his mind and decide he doesn't want me reviewing his book after all...

Okay, peoples, forget you read this blog post!

Friday Night Miscellany

Hola Darlings! Man oh man, it is HOT and HUMID out there. Yech! After bussing it from downtown (where I work) and trekking a half mile from the bus stop to the supermarket, and then lugging home 16 pounds of groceries (I have it down to an art - I can carry eight pounds in bags dangling from each hand) and walking the mile home, I am pooped! And sweaty - double yech! I am very girly when it comes to sweat - I hate it, even though it is designed to cool one off. I just get drippy and my make-up starts to run, I don't get any cooler. So tonight I'm just winging it while I sit front and center next to the cooling vent and slowly decompress (and dry off). I'm taking the night almost-off! I wanted to mention first off about Susan Polgar's appearance and involvement with the 2007 Canadian Youth Championship. All those great photographs she's had posted at her blog makes me want to visit Ottawa. My significant other is a Canadian and a few years ago we talked about taking a road tour to Ottawa, I think I'll resurrect the subject :) It looks like a lovely city. I think it's just great that Susan Polgar has made herself so accessible to the young chess players, as well as giving lectures and simuls and signing autographs and advice - whew! The CYC is just the latest in a string of events that she has been involved in. The woman is a whirlwind! I may not always agree with her views or some of her actions, but I do admire her and have a great deal of respect for her, both for her accomplishments (which are myriad) and for her personal integrity. Although I do not know her personally and have never met her, I also find her to be a warm woman, and a committed and caring and passionate woman. Those qualities come through in her posts and photographs. She'd be someone really nice to get a hug from if you needed one, and someone you could always rely upon to cover your back in battle - er, just everyday life. Moving on - I received the July edition of Chess Life Magazine in the mail today. I've just been flipping through it here and there. It's fabulous that the cover this month is of Jesse Krai, who at age 34 recently earned his third and final GM norm. WAY TO GO JESSE! He is also, as the cover by-line reads, the first American-born person in TEN FRICKING YEARS to earn a GM title. Well, it doesn't exactly say that - but that's the point it makes! Okay - I'm a little emotional over the subject, I'll admit. We have 300 million people in the USA and at least some of them have been BORN here - why aren't we producing more GMs (of both sexes)? (Darlings - that was a rhetorical question...) Just skimming through Jennifer Shahade's interview with Jesse on page 25, he was pleased to note "that I could still do well with the ladies and ride my bike around!" (even though he was "materially poor"). Well yes of course, darling! Some women prefer guys with great legs, and biking gives a man great legs. My own main man bikes all over Montreal and environs and has really great legs :) (Gee, maybe I shouldn't write that, he may get embarrassed - oh, what the heck). Back on page 8, in an article about the Fairfield Knights chess team of Fairfield High School in Ohio - I noted only one girl in the photograph of a group of "fans" that includes nine bare-chested teenaged boys who have no business going shirtless because they just don't have the physiques for it :) She was fully dressed, by the way, and quite cute, too. Alas, what kind of role-models do those shirtless boys - who painted letters on their under-developed chests spelling out "CHECK MATE" - have? They are only emulating what they see on television during football season - grown men who should know better parade around half-naked and painted in NFL stadiums all across the land. LOL and blech! I'd really rather not see all those shots of gelantinous blobs of men who need bras, serious diets and liposuction. Now here's a thought - if a baby was hungry and needed milk, could a man with such breasts nurse, do you think? With a blanket thrown over the offending boob, of course! We wouldn't want to offend anyone's sensibilities, after all... You know, I'm sure I read a story somewhere - perhaps the National Inquirer? - about just such a man who, under dire circumstances, nursed an infant from his man boobs. Hmmm... Getting back to that article on page 8 of Chess Life - the article was "signed" by one Jonathan Hilton and he has a sense of humor, yippee! He actually led off the article with a "cheer" regarding Bobby Fischer that was performed at one time or other on Saturday Night Live. I don't recall ever seeing the cheer performed but just reading the words - and being familiar with the zanies who have populated the show over the years - I was laughing out loud "seeing" it performed in my mind's eye. This introduction caught my attention and I read the rest of the article to find it very interesting - and well done. Okay - one more entry while my bubble bath is filling up - I'll go back and read the entire article later on but I have to mention the ending to the "All Girls' National Again a Success" article on pages 36-37 by Betsy Dynako which ends "If you looked at the sea of chess players studying moves while in dresses and pigtails, many with stuffed animals at their side, it may lead you to believe that the players are weak. Most boys would consider those "girly" things a sign of weakness, ..." Well, the only photograph of the event in the article shows NO girls with pigtails and they are wearing teeshirts (probably with jeans or shorts). As for the stuffed animals "on the side," if it's good enough for Judith Polgar, it's good enough for me, darlings!