Shurik v. Zenit (NOT sponsored by Sport-Express)

I am horrible at chess, but I know the moves and I can always chicken out siting huge workloads at my 2 jobs. Therefore, I do accept. And let it be sponsored by Vecherniy Kishinev, whose chess column with insightful info on the latest game tactics I never read.

1. e2-e4

 

I remember when I was a kid in that little goat-fornicating town I come from, we had a coal-burning facility right outside our four-story Khrushchev-era apartment building. I don't seem to be able to recall its exact function. As kids, we never thought of it. Maybe it provided our neighbourhood with hot water, maybe electricity, maybe it was built solely to burn all the paper products we as Young Pioneers had to collect in our school's standartized annual "recycling" campaign. To us it was just a really cool (well, hot) huge building with a big old pipe and lots of coal inside. Sometimes we would sneak in there becuase it was a nice dark place to hide in and smoke cigarettes. When the working crew discovered us, they would ask us to play chess with them. One of those guys had to be a freakin' grand-mastrer or something. An old dude, with grey scruff and an evil-smelling Belomor always hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He would challenge us to hang around for 20 moves against him and none of us ever could.
Ah, the innocent days. I bet Ukrainian kids do the same thing nowadays, substituting games of intelligence with heroin and whores.

2. Ng1-f3

 

Where the Hell , do you get Vecherka ?
My youthfull memories are recalling alcoholics playing chess outside of our 5-story box for a bottle of wine , and respectable fathers ( underground alcoholics) playing domino next to them. Since somewhat youthful age I was recruited by a certain oenophile fraction to represent them in hourly " Vin de Mase " Cup , due to a 90% success rate.
It was a wonderful relationship that lasted about 3 years , with an ugly ending involving nondelivery of a promised leather ( as opposed to rubber )soccer ball , pyromania and my Dad ( as well as a member of an esteemed aforementioned wine club )kicking the living crap outta me .
Any wonder I have not played chess ( or domino for that matter ) in over 2 decades?

 

P.S. The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte is my vote for the best chess thriller of all times.

 

I currently own a copy of The Club Dumas, an Inostrannaya Literatura edition. Plan to read it as soon as I am done with Akutagawa and the soon-to-be-delivered H.Potter-V.
I do not get Vecherka. I merely remember it. Its sports coverage ("Nistru - Dnepr Mogilyov 0:0. Att.: 8 th.") was consise and to the point and its corssword puzzles have taught life's valuable lessons, such as Feraru being Moldavian for Kuznetsov.

3. d2-d4

 

The thought of chess makes me a touch nauceous , so thanks for the invtation , but...

As far as Club Dumas goes , I find English to be more suitable for Spanish translations than Russian. May be 'cause numerous English speaking writers from Shakespeare to Greene have wrote on various aspects of " Latin Passion".
Perez-Reverte has written about 12 novels , only 5 of which he allowed to translate in English , finding the rest of them impossible to be properly interpreted through the language of Dickens and Ondaatje. I wonder if more than those 5 were translated into Russian?
My favourite in order are :
1/The Fencing Master
2/Nautical Chart
3/Club Dumas
4/Seville Communion
5/Flanders Panel

For literary value I'd say it is :
1/ Club Dumas
2/Seville Communion
3/Fencing Master
4/Flanders Panel
5/ Nautical Chart
P.S. There's a movie - " The 9th Gate of Hell" based on " Club Dumas " , but even though Polanski directed it , and Johnny Depp does an adequate role in playing the main character , it is a quite feeble interpretation of the novel.

Who 'dis Akutagawa?

I have first 4 HP's and may be read 20 pages of it , total, since it still scares my 9 yr. old daughter.

I have not read Akunin, how good is he ?

 

BTW Shurik , we have season seats for the Angels , and no one ever has brought a live , freakin' monkey to the Edison Field ( dressed up or in the nude) , no Disney character has appeared there either (not even Cruella DeVille or Emilio Estevez ).

The humour of the overall piece on the Swamp was colorful enough , that literary freedoms were more than justifiable.

 

I always prefer Russian translations from any language except English. However, nowadays there are too many translators in Russia with horrible command of either language and it makes buying books so much riskier.
I usually trust Inostrannaya Literatura, as they are a very respectable firm.
Akunin, by the way, works there. He is Russia's premiere authority in Japanese literature.
As for his detective novels, there are 3 major series: Erast Fandorin, Sister Pelagiya and Nicholas Fandorine. The first one is excuisite, the second is pretty good but short (3 books only), the third one is garbage (mainly because Akunin doesn't do contemporaty plots nearly as good as historical ones). This, of course, is tongue and cheek literature, full of references and parodies of other authors (Dostoeyevsky and Eco seem to be his favourites), but I enjoyed it immensely. Try Azazel, the first book of the Erast Fandorin series, and deside whether it's your cup of tea.

Akutagawa Ryunoske is a Japanese classic. One of Kurosawa's films is based on his novella In the Forest.

 

You mean to tell me that the "Rally Monkey" is a figment of my imagination?
I will leave the whole "season baseball tickets" thing on your consciense. Everybody chooses his own path to hell, I guess.

 

I have found 4 Perez-Riverte books in Russian on ozon.ru: Club Dumas, El maestro de esgrima (Fensing Master), La piel del tambor (Seville Communion), La tabla de flandes (Flanders Panel).

 

For some reason whenever somebody attempts to bring me into the flock of the Church Of Fastball and Skoal, they always mention things like hot dogs, the smell of the grass, the warm summer day, the peanuts, the Takemeouttotheballgame, the first catcher's mit on birthday, the sound the crack of the bat and of Babe Ruth scratching his belly and all this non-game-related stuff. I guess, the only thing in baseball not worthy of exhalting is the game itself.

Your move, sir...

 

Priv'yet. Go Zenit. Or should I want Shurik to win? He does not support my rival team.

 

What do you know... An exclusive Dinamo SPb fan. So you are the one!!! I bet one hundered broken bats (courtesy of Semi "Fat Man Swinging" Saucer) that you are over 89 years old!

 

Actually no. I just got frustrated with Zenit, so I turned my attention toward a winning team. I'm 29.

 

I admire your desision. However, you do realise that the last time The Winning Team played in the Premier League you were minus-10 years old, right?

 

That is about to change. Dinamo is doing very well at this point in the season.

 

Rally Monkey only appears on the jumbotron and is pre-recorded , it is the same trained monkey that has appeared in numerous sitcoms and movies , originally in Ace Ventura.
That does not preclude that a multitude of it's plush counterparts does not appear on a daily basis at the stadium. God knows I get tired sometimes of lugging my daughter's " Floppyjack " and "Mr. Glaus" every night , but, methinks, I would not have it any other way.
As far as the " Road to Hell" , to mention Mr. Rea's immortal classic, consider the alternatives.

Both of you Gentlemen have an outstanding offer to visit my humble confines by the beach , and partake in boogey boarding lessons ,a long evening at Edison Field , and a pilgrimage to the Home Depot Center , even though I can't stand Galaxatives.
Re : Akutagawa - I've seen his Kurosawa's interpretation , would you recommend him ?
Ian Pears' "The Instance of the Fingerpost" was inspired by that book , and is actually quite good.


Zenit : I made it a point once to visit as many BB parks as humanly possible , and I'd say that atmosphere vise you're absolutely correct - i.e. : A/ 1st base side at Fenway , 20 rows up as in the " Field of Dreams" ,

B/left field bleachers on the aisle at Wrigley as in " Bleacher Bums " ,

C/right field in Edison Field as in " Angels in the Outfield", Gene Autry BBQ grilled jumbos and Heineken or Tecate drafts , and Tim Salmon throwing out 'bout 9 balls a game to the faithfull. Catching one , and getting it autoed later , went farther in my daughter's eyes than coaching her soccer teams or reading with her every night,

D/right field bleachers in Yankee Stadium for pure vocabulary expansion value , and the view simliar to the Babe's Day photo from 1948

E/top deck at the Dodger Stadium - day game , for Chavez Ravine view, Dodger Dogs - grilled , and the scoreboard angle simlar to the one from Koufax's perfect game against the Cubs;


F/ Club level, first base side at PacBell for the simultaneous view of boats in McCovey's Cove and San Francisco skyline , as well as lack of lines for Anchor Steam or Lagunitas draft;

...enogh already , this can go on for a while.

Shurik if you ever decide to attempt a journey towards enlightment by baseball , let me know , and I'll recommend reading and viewing collateral.

Meanwhile ,if you read the first chapter or actually, prologue to Don DeLillo's "Underworld" , which s generally considered (not by me ) the best American novel of the '90's ('bout an hour of your time) and read to your daughter " Teammates" by Peter Golenbock , as a bedtime story ('bout 10 minutes of your time), you may take a trip to Camden Yards on your own : be sure to visit Boog Powell's BBQ ( in right field if memory serves me right).
Cheers.

 

That's another thing everyone does when they try to convert me: they always assume I know nothing about the game. Believe me, despite of what I've written in the article, I am quite familiar with the subtle arts of the Testicle-Scratching Game. Unlike some Americans who are quick to point out that they "hate Communism", I like to know what I hate and hate what I know.

Zenit, here is my point. When you hear a football fan waxing nostalgic about his favourite sport, I bet you the first sentence out of his mouth is going to include words like "dribbling", "diving header", "cross into the box", "a friggin' impossible save, lad" and/or "that blind monkey of a ref".
Everybody's attempts to win my soul for Salami Souza so far (NO EXHEPTION!!!!) have always started with ambience, food and complex father-son relationships.

4. Nf3 x d4

TORPEDO,
Akutagawa was a genius. Try his novellas, you won't regret it. The Sufferings of Hell is a particularly good one. It's not about baseball, however.

I have a son and if he ever desides to take up baseball, it's going to be disowning time in our household.