The Grand Cosmic Chess Board?

Log 24: Principles Before Personalities

Chess seemed to be the game on everyone's minds at the end of 2020 the Year of the Rat , thanks to the popularity of the Netflix series 'The Queen's Gambit'.

I wrote about watching the series in this recent post -

The ABSOLUT Proof Is Out There?

Pop Culture Happy Hour?

Although chess was big in the pop culture of 1984, the Year of the Rat also it seems.

Born in 1948, the Year of the Rat?-)

Born in 1996, the Year of the Rat?-)

The Queen's Gambit is a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, exploring the life of fictional female chess prodigy Beth Harmon.

A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, it covers themes of adoption, feminism, chess, drug addiction and alcoholism.

The book was adapted for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name.

Piper Laurie, a Spazzy Cat and a Movie That Probes the Stranger?!

I mainly watched 'The Queen's Gambit' because it was made from a Walter Tevis novel and starred Anya Taylor-Joy from Josh Boone's movie 'The New Mutants' -

Released in 2020, the Year of the Rat?-)

'Fault in Our Stars' and 'The New Mutants' Director Josh Boone Interviews Whitley Strieber About Whitley's New Book 'A New World'?

Died in 1984, the Year of the Rat?-)

I was expecting something more exciting than this chess series from the author who wrote 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' as well.

Not that I have read any of his books yet, but I did see the movie a few times.

I might have to read a copy of 'Mockingbird' though?-)

Anne McCaffrey commented, "I've read other novels extrapolating the dangers of computerization, but Mockingbird stings me, the writer, the hardest.

The notion, the possibility, that people might indeed lose the ability, and worse, the desire to read, is made acutely probable."
When a new edition was published in 1999, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, Pat Holt stated that, "The book often feels like a combination 1984 and Brave New World, with a dash of the movie Escape from New York thrown in."
Reviewing the 1999 edition, James Sallis declared that "Mockingbird collapses the whole of mankind's perverse, self-destructive, indomitable history, cruelty and kindness alike, into its black-humor narrative of a robot's death wish."

The Grand Chessboard in 2020?

A scene from 'The Queen's Gambit' episode 'End Game'

I prefer playing checkers to chess, so I have to wonder if Beth could beat Mr. Burt at his own game?-)

Burt Reynolds as Mr. Burt in
The X-Files episode 'Improbable'

How Improbable is it That Burt Reynolds Would Pass Away on September 6th After Starring in an X-Files Episode That Was Heavily Based on the Numbers 6 and 9?

Born in 1936, the Year of the Rat?-)

A quote about Beth from 'The Queen's Gambit':-)

Chess might be the "in" game right now, but it's the 'Game of Life' that I'm out to master:-)

The DemocRATs and the Years of the Rat?