Everyone admires the monument: no one admires the workers
cursing, swearing, scratching, bitching, cutting hands bloody,
like a reminder: remember, you are mortal.

No one admires the mortal: they admire the sweet, the easy
the beautiful. The mixing of mortar is not a sacrament, the
bloody afterbirth is to be buried. From a distance, we admire
the marketing materials.

With my hair up, in a shining dress, I am lovelier than a monument, sacred
and bloody-minded. From my lips spill the praise song of workers
scratching their asses
swearing
weeping
living something more real
than all the monuments of the world.

There are four primary means of evaluating the strength of the two relative positions in a single game of chess:¹ pawn structure, material, space, and initiative. I would argue that, while important to learn and essential to execute an opening, pawn structure empowers the triad of other characteristics rather than stands up an equal before them.…

I struggled with the new configuration. You'd think stuff like this would have been easy to figure out but apparently not for me. Maybe I was getting too old. The younger kids seemed to have a much easier time with it.

I called up IT. A cheerful voice answered on the other end.

"I'm having a hard time hooking up the new accessories," I told him, trying not to sound like a has-been.

"I'll send someone up," he said. "For more information, consult your ticket."

So…