January 4, 2009
Post New Years Nostrum
1) Rules of Shot Glass Chess
1. Select your favorite alcoholic beverage and pour it into your opponent's 16 glasses. The following quantities are our recommendations, discovered after extensive research and development:
Pawn: 0.5 parts
Bishop: 1 part
Knight: 1 part
Rook: 2 parts
Queen: 3 parts
King: 2 parts
2. Begin the game of chess as normal. Whenever a player makes a capture he must drink the contents of that piece.
3. Illegal moves are permissible as long as neither player notices.
4. The losing player must drink his own king as the final ignominy of defeat.
2) Beer Chess same basic rules as Shot Glass Chess - with beer as the pieces
Combinations of the above two games lead quite reasonably to...
100 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About the Human Brain - By Alisa Miller - "The human brain has amazed and baffled people throughout the ages. Some scientists and researchers have devoted their entire lives to learning how the brain works. It is no wonder that people enjoy learning facts about this incredible organ in the human body."
and possibly also..
Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of Lord Byron (the poet who spent some time in a Swiss jail -- in Chillon, not too far from Lausanne...). She was the assistant and patron of Charles Babbage; she wrote programs for his "Analytical Engine."
Too many shots of chess and you may find your ear pressed firmly against a table of some sort.
Counting Boards - Approximately
Is it my imagination or do some of the following sites seem to need reminding of a few possible ludic and divination foundations? Why? Perhaps the need to appear utterly rational overwrites some of the earlier wisdom ...
A History of Counting Machines TIMELINE From the Salamis Tablet to the first PC
An Ancient Base-60 Calculator? by Stephen K. Stephenson How did the Babylonians actually do their base-60 numeric calculations?
A Brief History of the Abacus Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words abax or abakon (meaning "table" or "tablet") which in turn, possibly originated from the Semitic word abq,meaning "sand".
A Brief History of Zero Kristen McQuillin, July 1997 (revised January 2004)
The following represent antedotes to rote historical approaches listed above ...
Chinese numerals Thousands of bones and tortoise shells ... inscribed with ancient Chinese characters. The importance of these finds, as far as learning about the ancient Chinese number system, was that many of the inscriptions contained numerical information about men lost in battle, prisoners taken in battle, the number of sacrifices made, the number of animals killed on hunts, the number of days or months, etc.
Mathematical Treasures by Frank J. Swetz and Victor J. Katz "During the first half of the twentieth century, David Eugene Smith (1860-1944) ... led the way in teaching reforms attuned to the Progressive Education Movement. He firmly believed that the teaching of mathematics should be closely associated with the history of the subject." (Ed. Note: Scroll down this site for an informative illustrated essay.)
Sungka - a mancala based "calculus", board game and divination medium from the Phillipines.
Manansala, Paul. Sungka mathematics of the Philippines. Indian J. Hist. Sci. 30 (1995), no. 1, 13--29. (Reviewer: J. S. Joel.) SC: 01A29 (01A13), MR: 96g:01009.
The author discusses the Sungka Board, which may once have been used as a kind of abacus. The word sungka is from the Philippines, but the author tells us that a similar board is "known over a wide area of the Malayo-Polynesian world from Madagascar to Polynesia, and also through Southeast Asia, India, and even mainland Africa."
Wikimanqala ?! and more Sungka basics
Dakon and Sungka
"The question of origin and spread of the 16-sign geomancy is quite a matter of controversy. Often it is tied together with similar theories on games/gambling of the type described under the general terms mancala or sungka.
H.J.R. Murray: "...the game was common ... in the Philippine Islands, where a boat-shape board with sixteen holes is also used the game being called Chungcajon ..."
http://www.tendreams.org/varo.htm
Surrealist Maria de los Remedios Varo Uranga - a recent Centennial by Dennis Shay
Remedios Varo: The Creative Woman and the Female Quest (a Google book entry)
December 28, 2008 - On Vacation!
December 21, 2008
A visitation by The Ghost of Christmas Presents!
Surprise Stocking Stuffer:
Not a lump of coal - but if the shoe fits...
Down in the cola mine... a commerical gem:
The ultimate game of strategy, Chess, showcases the red COCA-COLA team led by Santa matching wits with the white COKE team headed by the Polar Bear.
Custom chess pieces feature authentic COCA-COLA memorabilia in this version of one of the world's most time-honored games. Using an army of contour bottles, vintage vending machines, vintage cans, bell glasses and bottle caps, these "Kings" of the COCA-COLA world battle for supremacy.
Old Chess Nugget:
Banta was amazed to find Santa playing chess with his dog. He watched the game in astonishment for a while.
“I can hardly believe my eyes!” Banta exclaimed. “That’s the smartest dog I’ve ever seen.”
“Nah, he’s not so smart,” Santa replied. “I’ve beaten him three games out of five”
Jan Xena's Travel Wish List:
10-day Discover Egypt from Gate -1 Travel
Price (starting from $2299 per person, double occupancy) includes:
a. Round trip flights NYC-Cairo
b. Airline fuel surcharges
c. Intra-Egypt flights
d. 8 nights accommodations in your choice of hotels
Special Features:
a. Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the Egyptian Museum
b. Valley of the Kings & Queens, Luxor
c. King's Chamber, Great Pyramid
d. The Colossi of Memnon
Or how about a week in Scotland with luxury travel expert Tauck?
Eight days starts at $3,390.00, not including airfare to and from
Glasgow where your journey starts.
For the budget-minded, Gate-1 Travel (great to window-shop there) is offering a 9-day London/Paris escorted tour starting at $799 per
person, double occupancy, that includes round-trip airfare from New York.
book bling:
Books from the collection of chess historian van der Lasa: VIDA, Marcus Hieronymus (ca. 1490-1566, Bishop of Alba. Scacchia Ludus; or, The Game of Chess, a poem, [translated into English
by W. Erskine], [no imprint] 1735, 2 parts in one volume, 8°, FIRST
EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION, engraved frontispiece (title creased,
final leaves dampstained), contemporary panelled calf, spine gilt
(extremities rubbed) [Schachlitteratur 797; KB 4580; Lasa 797]
JONES, Sir William. Caïssa, or the Game of Chess, Oxford, at the
Clarendon Press, 1772, 8°, FIRST EDITION, contemporary calf
(covers detached) [Schachlitteratur 1341]; and another by Sir John Denham (Poems and Translations, London, 1719).
Sold at Christie's for $885.00, sale 4645
Robert Blass chess book collection
8 May 1992
London, South Kensington
game bling:
A Gothic Revival enamel, pearl- and paste-set gilt-metal chess set CIRCA 1850
Surmounted by a hinged blue and white enamelled chequed playing
surface, the red velvet-lined interior fitted with chains to hold thechess pieces toegether, each side with coats-of-arms, knights on horses,
soldiers and trophies, flanked to each side by a galloping horse above a further coat-of-arms, on four pierced foliate feet; the chess pieces
depicting two sets of one King, one Queen, two bishops, two Knights,
two Towers and eight soldiers
22 in. (56 cm.) square.
Sold at Christies for $16,76.00, sale 6560
19th century furniture and sculpture
21 March 2002
London, King Street
bling bling:
Nothing says elegance quite like pearls paired with gemstones.
Here is a gorgeous pair of South Seas cultured black pearl and diamond earrings from the premiere house of pearl fashion: Mikimoto, at a relatively
modest $3,400.00. (Ho! Ho! Ouch!)
practical bling:
All Jan wants for Christmas is dondelion arriving in Milwaukee safe,
sound and on time, two days in Las Vegas with Isis and Michelle, and
this Toro single-stage snowblower: Why a snowblower, you may ask? The answer... Brrrrr!
fantasy bling:
Weight Loss Spa Resort at Hilton Head
High fashion mink coat, only $2,999.00
Natural Lunaraine Female Mink Full Let Out Stroller
dig for archaeological bling:
Search for just the right dig (world wide) at the Archaeological Institute of America
Great last minute gift bling:
Starting at only $19.95 plus standard shipping of $5.95, a gift basket from Wine Country Gift Baskets is guaranteed to please. This treat-filled "Penguin Box Set"
is so cute and the treats are first-quality and fresh!
Peace and good will to all from the gang at Goddesschess!
Nation by nation, peace on earth
Penn Museum celebrates holidays and cultures
Project-Peace on Earth is an annual worldwide telecast concert of Superstar musicians performing Sacred Music from the most mystical concert venues on the planet: Egypt's Great Pyramids, England’s Stonehenge, Australia's Ayers Rock, Peru's Inca Pyramids, Japan's Mount Fuji, and California's Mount Shasta to name a few.
December 14, 2008
What's new in the treasury and heirlooms department? Open these files and have a look!
The director of Harvard's Peabody Museum said he wants to return about 50 ancient carved Mayan jade pieces to Mexico, almost a century after a U.S. consul dredged the artifacts from the sacred lake at the ruins of Chichen Itza.
US has Sun King's stolen gem, say French experts: French experts said they had proof that the Hope Diamond, a star exhibit in Washington's Smithsonian Institution, is a legendary gem once owned by King Louis XIV that was looted in the French Revolution.
Gold collar found in field 'best Iron Age loot in 50 years': An amateur treasure hunter hit gold when he found an Iron Age collar worth more than 350,000 pounds (414,000 euros, 520,000 dollars) in a field.
A set of 2,300 year old earrings found in Jumilla
4th Century BCE Thracian burial discovered: Bronze objects, silver earrings and a ring discovered in a looted tomb, which on-site experts say probably belonged to a Thracian king
2,000 Year Old Pearl and Emerald Earring (below) Found in Jerusalem: In this handout photo provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on November 10, 2008, a 2,000-year-old gold earring inlaid with pearls and precious stones is displayed after its discovery at the City of David archaeological excavation below the Old City walls in East Jerusalem, Israel.
Looters missed this one: Ancient tomb found near Machu Picchu
World’s Most Expensive Chess Set
Jewel Royale Chess Set
A detailed graphical look at the board and its pieces... Valued at over £5 million ($9.8m USD), this single chess set is the most expensive and exquisite game set of any kind in the world.
December 7, 2008
Dreams of High Flight
Space Chess! First and final frontier?
Kings in space? This Dynasty 1 (c. 3100 BCE) Egyptian game piece proclaims a pharaonic "Lord of the Ladder" from the Petrie collection.
Abydos, Umm el Qaab O (Ivory gaming piece)
Petrie R.T. II, 5.10
Newberry P.S.B.A. 34 (1912) 285
Vandier, Manuel I, 844
Spencer, E.D.O. 457
One Giant Leap for Space Chess - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 5:55 PM by Alan Boyle - NASA Astronaut Greg Chamitoff brought a chessboard to the international space station.
NASA's orbiting chess player is getting ready for the biggest move since his epic "Earth vs. space" match began: the move back down to Earth.
Earth's Latest Move
Video of Chamitoff explaining the game
Re-launching Babylonian chess ? ...
"The ancient Babylonians considered the liver of a sacrificial sheep, amutu, to be the mattalat šame, the "mirror of Heaven." In the same way that one can read the decisions of the Gods in the Heavens, by astrology, one can also read their minds in its image, the liver."
From Egyptian ladders and Babylonian livers to the "great beyond"... - See C.J. Gadd's essay on Babylonian Chess
3 D Space Chess - an interesting preoccupation of modern game inventors that never seems to have achieved "lift off" as a popular option to standard chess. (Click on the pic below for a larger view) "Unfortunately, the rules of the game are not so good." (Hans Bodlaender)
A patent application for 4D Chess (US Patent 5031917 - Three dimensional chess game
US Patent Issued on July 16, 1991 - Described as follows...
"A method of enabling the playing of a three dimensional chess game
comprising the steps of: providing eight chess boards, each chess board surface being divided into a grid of eight by eight squares, each of said squares being colored with
one of two different colors, the laterally and longitudinally adjacent
squares being of different colors to form a checkerboard pattern..."
On sale at E-Bay:
Space Chess Classic chess in exciting 4 dimensions (illustrated above)
Left and right moves
Forward and backward moves
Vertical, up and down moves
All pieces and instructions (copyright 1969) included
Box has wear and tear and masking tape marks
Space Chess in 3D (Click on the pic below for a larger view)
The Planetary Chess Game and Reincarnation by Jon Rappaport
- "In the many power struggles of the last century to establish more and more control over the populations of planet Earth, certain principles have been developed. There are at least two levels of this Plan.The first level involves concealment of the whole operation by giving it other faces and other reasons and other justifications."
The "idea" of militarization reinvested in "space chess" - a very old game with a variety of militant new faces we could probably do without...
The hidden symbolism in logic games by Ioni Lazarov "Actually the main trend here is to show how the logic games Chess and Go are connected with our view of the world, how they originate from our impulse for spirituality and enlightenment and how they can in turn bring us back to spirituality and enlightenment. As a whole the metaphysical issues will be ignored where appropriate and the psychological approach will be a priority.
"From Circle and Square to the Image of the World: A Possible Interpretation for some Pertroglyphs of Merels Boards" by Freidrich Berger (Rock Art Research 2004 - Volume 21, Number 1. pp. 11-25)
Looking for the lost secret of Astrology and Chess
Is Chess a Divine Game?
There are some evident correlations between the game of chess and the astrology which lead us to the conclusion that the Chess is a game inspired by the Universal Laws, maybe by the planetary movement.
