The Strategy of Chess Pie
The holidays are just around the corner. It seems like a blur from Halloween to New Years. Thanksgiving in the United States is barely a blip now days, other than food advertisements from grocery stores.
Thanksgiving for all of my life has been about spending time with family and food. Which made me think about the holiday growing up. A dessert that I enjoyed was chess pie, which is an old Southern recipe.
Chess pie then reminded me of the board game chess. The strategy of the game is not unlike the diplomacy and strategy that happens at family gatherings for the holidays in order to keep some semblance of peace.
Chess and the Cold War
Growing up in the 1970s, the game of chess played a part in the Cold War and the politics between Russia and the United States. One match that received worldwide attention was the 1972 match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Fischer defeated Spassky in the World Chess Championship, becoming the first American-born world champion. I went to school with Bobby Fisher, not the same one, as we were much younger and his last name was spelled differently. Nevertheless, he would always get asked by adults if he was any good at chess when we were in elementary school.
I did also think of the Pixar animated short, Geri's Game, which loosely inspired the illustration.
Be kind to yourself on your creative journey.
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You have reached the end of the newsletter. Here is the song One Night In Bangkok from Chess the Musical.😊
Chess and the Cold War are the backdrop for Chess the Musical. The story involves a politically driven, Cold War-era chess tournament between two grandmasters, one American and the other Soviet, and their fight over a woman. The song One Night in Bangkok is from the musical.
Sharing school childhood with chess champion sounds cool