Checkmate
Former chess champion and certified crazy person Bobby Fischer is dead at the age of 64.
I've always believed that the line between brilliance and insanity is extraordinarily thin, and I don't know if anyone crossed that line so dramatically as Fischer, a man known as much for being a chess prodigy as for his rabid anti-Semitism (despite being half-Jewish) and anti-Americanism (despite being a born there).
I think I'll remember the laughs more than anything, like when he praised the 9/11 terrorist attacks or when he called the United States, Australia and the U.K. the "allies of Evil."
Yes, it's the laughs that I'll remember most.
[Here's a piece I wrote for the Y.P.R. Book Club in October, 2004 called Checkmate, at which time we spoofed Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint
I've always believed that the line between brilliance and insanity is extraordinarily thin, and I don't know if anyone crossed that line so dramatically as Fischer, a man known as much for being a chess prodigy as for his rabid anti-Semitism (despite being half-Jewish) and anti-Americanism (despite being a born there).
I think I'll remember the laughs more than anything, like when he praised the 9/11 terrorist attacks or when he called the United States, Australia and the U.K. the "allies of Evil."
Yes, it's the laughs that I'll remember most.
[Here's a piece I wrote for the Y.P.R. Book Club in October, 2004 called Checkmate, at which time we spoofed Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint
Labels: Bobby Fischer, chess, crazy people
posted by G.Wo @ 1:25 PM
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