we play chess so you don't have to.
A week turned into a month, turned into a year, turned into four years. Alas, we hope to bring Ruy back from the dead shortly. The show, not the person. That would be weird and likely gross.
We just have to find a time slot that works with a three hour time difference, 5 children and two full time jobs.
It’s been too long. We aplogize for the pain we have caused; the heartache and distress of missing so dear a friend as the Ruy Lopez show. Hopefully we can ease your pain briefly with a new show.
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Songs: J. Tillman, My Waking Days: Lenlow, Kanye Mahna: I Am Robot and Proud, Learn from Mistakes: Radiohead, Cuttoth
Another podcast? So soon? Not only that, but we have an extended conversation about pooping in public. Everybody wins.
More engrossing description upcoming. For now:
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Songs: Andrew Bird, A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left: Beck, Halo of Gold: The Dust Dive, I’d Rather Not Know: East River Pipe, What Does T.S. Eliot Know About You?: Belle and Sebastian, O Come O Come Emmanuel
We had a podcast two weeks ago or so (really, we promise) but it was lost in the technological jungle that is my laptop. It was savagely attacked by static and wild beasts and is lost forever. We will miss it, but it is easily replaced.
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Our month-long vacation was unplanned. A Ruy Lopez documentary? We would be first in line. Podcasting does not make for a cool “look.” Surprising, considering the headsets with attached microphones. Jay knows absolutely nothing about hockey. The podcasting police shoots down Anne’s backseat podcasting. We can’t find ourselves on Yahoo’s confusing chess rooms. Too many numbers.
Josh’s second installment of bad chess. Jay knows more about football than hockey.
Forget free music, we’re tempted to overstep all of the RIAA boundries and play whatever we want. They don’t know where we live, right? The painful chess game finally draws to a close. MacGyver; if it’s being played on an oboe and no one hears it, is it making any sound? Jay has some more words about pretentious band names, yet has gotten hooked on Broken Social Scene.
Jay’s theoretical surfing and honest arguing. More NHL talk; twice in one podcast. Some kind of podcasting rules are going to be created due to this event. Jay has to check out, but not before Josh admits he watches The Apprentice: Martha Stewart Edition. James and Josh continue the intriguing conversation. Own your own piece of history while supplies last. The Onion: always reverted to during late-night post-podcasting. Eric’s on thin ice in this organization through no fault of his own. Save Ted! Call us! The subaqueous operator needs your help to avoid an untimely demise!
Songs: Lenlow, The D is for Dirt: Bell Orchestre, Throw it on a Fire: The Double, Idiocy: Charlemagne, Your Scars
I’ve come to find out that I’m really really dull. James is awol (absent with leave), but Jay slogs on without him.
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This week’s topics:
Jay talks about not having James, but he’s in the mood to spin some mp3s.
Jay distances himself from the dorky dj; talks about how a lot is going on but then doesn’t talk about what it is. Some more talk about missing James. Oh so lonely.
Popular music can be good music? Maybe? We’ll find out someday. However, it is for sure the first time we’ve used the term “false dichotomy” in a podcast. Shout out to Point Loma.
Songs: Lisa Hannigan, Be My Husband: The Jai-Alai Savant, Scarlet Johansen Why Don’t You Love Me: DJ BC, Hold it Together Now: Voxtrot, Raised By Wolves: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, House Fire
I know, two non-podcast posts in one day, but Lenlow sent me this article from Books & Culture. All the stuff I was trying to say on the 50-odd minutes with Lenlow show about irony and mashups; well this guy says it better.
We want to podcast. We want to stretch out across the void into your little ipods and straight to the part of your brain that controls your chess thoughts and your indie music thoughts. But you must have patience. In the meantime, here’s the classic first chess tip (the one with the Indiana Jones reference).
Courage:
There comes a time in every chess game that requires courage. It is this aspect of chess that makes it a great game. Courage is a part of chess regardless of skill level. A player can carefully – even exhaustively – evaluate a position. The skill and accuracy of that evaluation depends on the experience, intelligence, and skill of the player, but a careful analysis is still never quite enough. There comes a time when the way the pieces have been placed on the board – the diagonals that are ruled by the bishops and the distribution of the pawns or the placement of the queen – that is completely unique to that game to that time to those opponents.
You look and you study and you concentrate and you see nothing but an impenetrable defense. You see pitfalls at every turn. But suddenly and unexpectedly you see that risky opportunity. Before you are a move or a series of moves that hadn’t occurred to you before and hopefully hasn’t occurred to your opponent either. It’s like that moment in Indiana Jones when the sun strikes the medallion in the Tomb of Souls at the right time at the right angle and there’s that bright burning beam of light in your mind’s eye on the board.
But then at the very moment of inspiration, there is also an equally strong cloud of doubt. Could it be, you wonder, that this clear path is a trap that has been laid for me by my opponent? Could it be that I am only seeing what he wants me to see? The role of the chess player is to wage the war between these two emotions – the intuition and the doubt. At some point in the game you are forced to make the dangerous move and to make the move you must have courage.
After our however many week long hiatus, we’re back. You’d think we’d have been preparing for this.
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This week’s topics:
Grayson’s intro: far better than anything Jay or James could have done? At least it’s cuter.
The Grayson joke is also back after a lengthy hiatus and with surprising, if not confusing results. Jokes are more funny when they’re explained anyway. Some rusty chess playing, listening to “good American” books on CD, and why we haven’t done a podcast in a long time. The eternal question: do dogs go to heaven?
Jay is out, Dina is in as a special guest co-host. An old mini-poodle, mortality and sensitive digestive tracts. We play exciting two-player card games so you don’t have to.
More KG/Cagey discussion. To be fair to Cagey House, our guest co-host hasn’t listened to the entire song. It’s a great song. Dina’s unusually afraid of big dogs: can they sense fear? Magazines don’t count towards reading material. “We” play chess so you don’t have to. The second time the Three Amigos has come up on the Ruy Lopez show.
And a big shout out to Dave Keifer of Cagey House for actually emailing us and introducing us to his music. To quote Dave, “The music is a sort of psychedelic psuedo-post-avante-synth-rock-exotica (so to speak)—and it’s lots of fun and catchy, but also a little anxiety-producing.”
Songs: DJ BC, Einstein on the Beast: Hemstad, Fyllekarring: Cagey House, Outside After Bedtime: Group Sounds, Things Fall Apart
