Chess+India+Gettysburg+Bourdain -- All in One Blog

7/13/2021

Rajasthani Chess Set

Colin Phelan is 23, a writer and teacher in Massachusetts, a recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru scholarship to India next year, and a friend of a family close to us.
Our friend raved about his website, so I volunteered to take a look and was knocked over by what he knows, what he cares about.
Back home in the States during the pandemic, Phelan has not lacked for adventures – taking his bike across country, going into Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado as fearsome sand tornadoes swirled ominously ahead, and so on.

Passing through St. Louis, he discovered a World Chess Hall of Fame – who knew? -- and perhaps because he gets hammered by his students in their early teens, he explored the museum. Of course, he did.
The exhibits fascinated Phelan with the various themes of chess sets around the world, and he also began to understand the role India played in the worldwide popularity of chess.

Phelan's blog also links warfare and chess, comparing the chess tactic of dominating the flank to one of the key moves of the Battle of Gettysburg, on July 2, 1863 -- how a professor from Bowdoin College in Maine, Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, told his troops to fix bayonets and rush downhill, into what became the gruesome but decisive Battle of Little Round Top.

(Phelan caught my interest because, in my three years of college ROTC, Gettysburg was still being used as a key lesson in battlefield tactics, now of course outmoded, but still an object lesson in planning and reacting.
I have walked the battlefield with our grandson George, who lives not far away. I recommended that Phelan read the magnificent restored first section of the novel, “O Lost,” by Thomas Wolfe, which takes place north of Gettysburg, a few days before the battle.)

Anthony Bourdain after dining with President Obama at Bun Cha Huong Lien in Hanoi, May 23, 2016.

Phelan has done most of the teaching in our interchange. His blog includes copious photos of chess sets from around the world – including a fruit-and-vegetable set – as he veers into an appreciation of Anthony Bourdain’s lust for life:

“As a devotee to Anthony Bourdain’s ability to discover culture and companionship through food, I’ve for long tried to discover another means through which people wedged apart by language or other barriers can not only coexist, but catch glimpses of another’s personality and being,” Phelan wrote.

I would not have expected poor Bourdain to pop up in a riff on chess, but there he is. Colin Phelan is living at a fast clip, so many interests and observations and opinions.
Phelan has already had adventures on his first visit to Kolkata and Delhi, teaching English, learning the local languages. Now he’s back in the States for a school year, having adventures. Nice to be 23.
* * *
I have not begun to explore all the corners of this website. Please explore and enjoy:

https://www.colinephelan.com/post/from-chaturanga-to-chess-successful-cultural-transmission-or-lost-in-translation

My friend Alan Rubin, mentor to goalkeepers, former Lehigh keeper, has very eclectic interests, as readers know by now. He sent two photos, and when I asked him to describe them, he wrote, "I’m not sure what the motif would be, but it has a monolithic or Stonehenge feel to it. " GV

Randolph

7/15/2021 10:49:21 am

George,
It was so nice, on this fine day, to read about a smart young man, a teacher, a world traveler who is interested in people and places throughout this big old goofy world. A young guy like that makes me think that humankind might be OK after all.

Yesterday, I was honored to gather with a small circle of people to recognize a woman that we loved. She was a native of northern India, from a Hindu tradition, who practiced meditation at a small Buddhist forest temple. A few family members had traveled from New York City to rural Virginia. They and a few friends from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and I, an Appalachian hillbilly, followed an ancient funeral tradition to celebrate our friends life.

Synchronicity…… Reading your post this morning that celebrated a young man walking fearlessly into the world……India, chess, Anthony Bourdain and cycling. So very nice.
RF

PS I must add that things look good for the future of newspapers. On today’s Tour de France, as the temperature dropped at 7000 feet, riders on the tour were still stuffing newspapers in their jerseys to stay warm.
You see, a digital newspaper would just not work.

George

7/15/2021 01:23:00 pm

Randolph: MY condolences you (and all of us) have suffered.
You told me that your friend had known Gandhi as a child, he had spoken to her or read to her....And there she was, in Appalachia.

As for the Tour, I have fallen away from cycling since Lance was in our lives. I do remember the nip in the air at a couple of Arrivee bases in the Pyrenees or Alps. Never saw newspapers used.
I do remember cyclists whispering "Pousse, pousse..." asking fans to give them a discreet push up some steep incline.
Part of the Tour....never saw it penalized.

And as for emergency maneuvers....I covered the first Tour de Georgia one year....early 2000s....and the lads were in some pleasant town just south of Atlanta...and people came out of their homes to watch....and all of a sudden the whole Tour stopped ....One resident said, "Here we are, waiting for Lance Armstrong, and they all get off and pee on our lawns." Welcome to the Tour. GV

Altenir Silva

7/15/2021 05:33:38 pm

Dear George,
I checked out the website. It’s amazing. I love the adventure of knowledge. It’s better when a clever guy shares his experiences.
Best/Altenir

George

7/16/2021 02:31:14 pm

Dear Altenir: I knew you, a Brazilian writing in English, a Yankee fan, whose son was baptized in Greenwich Village, would get the vast interests of our colleague...
I've been reading about the film on Bourdain. I loved what he did, and where he did it (Bahia!), but he made me very uncomfortable. Maybe because I went through a rehab center as part of my book with Bob Welch, who got sober there. I felt Bourdain's torment so vividly, I could hardly watch. The man needed a rehab center or some other form of therapy....but his fame got in the way. (The place Welch went did not care in the slightest for fame....the group sessions went right after you.)
I also have a problem with the "documentary" since it ducks the issue of his final liaison,how it affected him. A documentary on WWII that ends in 1944? I don;tthink so.
Hope winter is being kind to you and Celia and Neo, in your southern home town.
GV

Altenir Silva

7/15/2021 07:19:58 pm

Dear George,
As you cited Anthony Bourdain. I’m sharing this piece from CBS Sunday Morning about a documentary of him. I think it will be worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFh9GSu6_5w
Best/Altenir

Diane Tuman

7/15/2021 08:28:41 pm

India? Chess? Gettysburg? Bourdain? You have a gift for weaving seemingly disparate topics together. Laura did the same thing. You read to the end and ahhh.

George

7/16/2021 02:37:29 pm

Di, thanks for the nice words. Mostly I was following the lead of Colin, who has a lot of interests....As for Laura, yes, when she was a terrific news reporter upstate, she found the breadth of life on farms and in towns...and when she was a sports columnist, she called a certain ball player for taking the money and running....(Pay-Rod, she called him)....and when she was a political columnist in Harrisburg she called a certain mayor for endangering the civic coffers...Now she writes about real-estate madness...See you soon. G

Alan Rubin link

7/16/2021 06:26:19 pm

Colin Phelan certainly is an interesting and well-traveled young man. The Indian chess set shown is a remarkable example of chess sets that double as art.

We were amazed by the beauty and creativity of the glass chess sets in the Venetian ghetto during our visit many years ago. It was not in our budget, and probably tricky to transport, but we almost purchased a set.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=religious+jews+venttian+glass+chess+sets&t=newext&atb=v233-1&iax=images&ia=images

However, we did purchase a kiddish cup as a wedding gift for Sandi’s niece. Since it was hand made and they had many orders to fill, it took nine months for it to arrive.

Family lore has it that my father was a chess genius in his native Ukraine. He arrived by boat at age 12 in 1921 having won all his games against older men during the voyage.

I learned chess at a very early age. However, my progress was measured by how much longer it took for my father Leon to win. He was always patient and explained how to think ahead.

Many years ago, my wife gave me a modern hand-made ceramic chess set as a birthday gift. I do not use it much now, but it is a joy to look at.

My daughter Jen’s son Eli picked up the family chess tradition, which included Lean’s older brother Jack and my cousin. They both played correspondence chess, but I did not have the patience to play chess by postcard.

In high school, Eli taught chess to elementary school students. He began at age 8 and left me in the dust by the time his was 12.

Getting back to Colin. I can imagine how bright his future will be since he has accomplished so much so far.

Edwin W Martin Jr aka ED

7/17/2021 12:38:15 pm

I have always taken pleasure in seeing chess players, outdoors in NYC. One special place is Washington Square Park, where a mosaic of players may be found.
“ Chess. For some, the game conjures images of child prodigies like Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen, deftly taking pawns with laser-focused, lightning-fast speed. For others, chess has cozier, slower associations; memories of rainy days, stuck inside, waging a long, drawn out battle against your sibling or neighborhood friend. In Greenwich Village, the game of chess evokes yet another quintessential New York image: the players of Washington Square Park.

As part of a longstanding tradition, players gather at the Park’s west end, where a stretch of game tables makes up the area known as Chess Plaza. Each table is embedded with its own checkerboard, so the players need only bring a set, a clock, and maybe a cup of coffee. It’s a familiar sight for most Greenwich Village residents: the players, many of them notorious, sitting across from tourists and locals alike, casually moving the pieces across the board. Even the child prodigy, Josh Waitzkin, for whom the film Searching for Bobby Fischer is based, discovered the game at age six while strolling through Washington Square Park with his mother. In fact, many of the park’s players are considered legends, like Cornbread and Russian Paul, and you might even end up sitting across the table from someone who has played a grandmaster.” Washington Park Hotel site.

Alan Rubin link

7/17/2021 05:06:22 pm

Ed-I’m sure that there were other hubs for chess in NYC in addition to Washington Square Park in the Village, but two well know ones were near the entrance to Fort Tryon Park and at the Symphony movie theater at Broadway and 95th Street.

I remember watching the older men, mostly non-English speaking, playing at the many concrete chess tables near the 190th Street entrance to Fort Tryon Park. I occasional played a game with them, but they were my father’s equal and would often explains things as he did.

The current Symphony Space entertainment venue at Broadway and 95th Street on the Upper Westside used to house two movie theaters and a large open space on the second floor. This was used for many things, but it was mostly known as the home of a chess club.

Bobby Fisher once simultaneously played about twenty of more games by continually making the rounds of every game. He barely slowed when he observed the board and his moves were made in a matter of seconds.

It was an amazing experience.

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QUOTES
“They may hate the cultural context they now find themselves teaching in, but they love their work. The Achilles’ heel of schoolteachers, one all too easily exploited by politicians, is that they love their students.”
(One of the best reads in the NYT these days is Margaret Renkl, in Nashville. In her latest post, Renkl describes the dedicated core of “born teachers” – the majority, she submits.)
***
(From Madeleine Albright in one of her final interviews in February):
“Putin is small and pale,” I wrote, “so cold as to be almost reptilian.” He claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse. “Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.” – Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, recalling her first meeting with the relatively unknown Vladimir Putin in 2000. – The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2022.

Chess+India+Gettysburg+Bourdain -- All in One Blog

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