Did You See Jupiter?

I played a lot of chess this weekend and failed increasingly miserably by the game, flaming out in the fourth and final one with a whimper. I’m liking chess right now because I’m hating it; I’ve gotten to a point where I sense vague recognitions of the character of each game as it takes shape, where I respond to the properties of certain alignments and appreciate what they say about the moves that made them so and the kind of moves they portend—where I understand the very nature of each game and how it differs from that of any other that has or will come to pass. But I still don’t know what best to actually do in almost every situation. I lack for vision. I dwell on differentiating aspects at the exclusion of likenesses. Each move is an isolated instance, an existential event with no sense of history or wisdom accrued. It’s frustrating, and fascinating—like being lost and then slowly figuring out, with increasing clarity, how lost you really are. Does the process of deciphering and systematizing the ways in which you are lost make you more or less lost in the end?

Today started with coffee sipped while interviewing Lindsey Buckingham at the Ritz Carlton and ended with beer finished just as two guys in (really rather convincing) gorilla suits bounded onstage to join the 10 other earthy/galactic freaks making a go of it at a Basement Jaxx show at Webster Hall.