FORTH GO

For the Fall chess tournament, we play two 15 minute games per match instead of one 30 minute game. I got bumped up to the A group this time and started out against the club’s strongest player. [I'm trying to set-up a JavaScript PGN player, but I don't have that ready yet.] The first position is from late in the first game with me playing black. It’s black to move, what do you do? Most moves, including the one I picked lead to quick death, but there is one move that keeps the game going.

I played white in the second game and started out a little unusual by getting my queen out early and breaking up his fianchettoed bishop. I didn’t know if it was sound, but thought it best to do something strange since I don’t know openings that well and may fall into a trap. Computer analysis doesn’t show any problem with the position. Black was worried about a kingside attack and quickly arranged to trade queens. After more trading and a lost pawn, I ran out of time in a poor position with a knight and rook and a few scattered pawns.

Thursday night brought out the jazz geeks, mostly to see jazz legend Marian McPartland. She’s the only performer I’ve seen to get a standing ovation before the performance began. Though 87 years old, you couldn’t tell it from her energetic piano play or witty demeanor. She was accompanied by a cellist and drummer, who got to play impressive solos.

I really enjoyed the preformace, and just as I was trying to put my finger on the difference between jazz and classical piano playing, McPartland slipped a classical music sequence into one of her jazz pieces. It made for a nice constrast, and she later said it was the only classical music she remembered from school.

The second half of the evening featured Dee Dee Bridgewater, an American singer who’s been living in France for 20 years. The songs were a mix of French and English, and the French bandmembers were entertaining. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the thing for the Marian McPartland fans, some of whom started leaving early.

Celebrity sighting: Various teachers and former teachers from the NC School of Science and Math.

Japanese violinist Midori (Goto) performed with pianist Charles Abramovic last night. (I didn’t catch the name of the other performer — the guy turning the pages for the pianist.) She’s apparently a world-class violinist, and we overheard someone at intermission explaining how they’d been trying to see a Midori performance for years. The crowd was near sell-out and was very pleased with the performance. Midori was energetic with her whole body and produced sounds from the violin I never expected.

Bonnie and I mused about how much of the performance is skill and how much is art. Certainly it takes an incredible amount of skill to play so well. Surely there must be an art component, too, but I would probably have to see other violinists perform the same pieces to recognize the art component. Later, I read through the “Random Thoughts” section of Midori’s web site where she explains the importance of a performer’s interpretation of a work.

I don’t know if I had a clue or or it was something else, but I mentioned to Bonnie how the piano sounded sort of dull in the first set, and then we saw some guy spend the entire intermission tuning the piano. Maybe it just required a different sound for the rest of the concert, or just maybe I know what I’m talking about …

Celebrity sighting: Lee Buck front row and center.

We went to the mountains for a long week-end, expecting to catch some fall color. But the only leaf color I saw was green. Maybe next week-end will be good as the cool weather finally blows in this week…

Flipping through the local paper, the Moutain Breeze, we saw that my dad, Buddy Gregg, was the “golfer of the month” with a nice picture of him and his dog Elmer, a. k. a. my step-brother.

To my surprise the Prius got great mileage even in the mountains, getting over 52 MPG traveling around Lake Lure and Asheville. I guess that regenerative breaking is good for something.

Last week-end I played in the Raleigh sectional at the Jaycee Center (pictured) with a pick-up partner, Louise Watson, and this week-end I played in a Durham tournament for non-life masters with my mom. Louise has only been playing bridge for a year or so. We met her in Wilmington, and she and my mother kept in touch. Louise and I got along fine as partners, but we didn’t do well enough to place in the two sessions we played.

The Durham tournament was well attended, almost doubling the attendance from the previous year. Hard to tell that bridge is dying out.

Mom and I played in four sessions, getting an overall first place in one session and a placing in two others. The competition, at least at this level, is pretty friendly, and many opponents joked about being scared of us as they remembered our four first place finishes in the July Durham sectional. Usually, I’d remind them that we had come in last place on the final day of that event.

I guess this is (was) a raccoon. It looks like its insides have been sucked out without disturbing its outsides.

We unfortunately missed DJ Spooky and Los Lobos while on vacation. We gave our tickets to friends who said both events were very good.

Friday night we saw Tift Merritt and Nanci Griffith. I have to admit I’m not a big fan of music with so much “twang” in it. Nor do I like sit-down popular-music concerts for two reasons: you can’t move around like at a club and live music isn’t mixed as cleanly as a studio production, so you can’t make out the lyrics as easily, for instance (though if I were a real fan I’d know all the lyrics already). Nonetheless, both half-concerts were well done and enjoyable.

Tift Merritt got off to a rocky start. The band entered the unlit stage and Tift walked right off the front of it and fell about four feet. She jumped right back up and got to the music, after suggesting that the auditorium provide lighting next time when the banding is walking out. After attending classes at UNC (and almost graduating), she was obviously excited about playing at Memorial Hall and added a couple of local interest anecdotes to her performance. The band was very good with several impressive instrumental stretches. Merritt herself showed her musical range by alternating between guitar, harmonica, tambourine and piano.

In constrast to the “cross-over country” of Tift Merritt, Nanci Griffith’s portion of the concert was pure “activist folk” music. Every song had a story about who wrote it and when and why and who often performed it. Unfortunately, the live performance mixing that obscures lyrics is doubly harsh to folksingers, who so value the lyrics. 50-something Griffith came across as an old pro confident enough to spread credit and the spotlight to the rest of her talented band.

Both performers noted how quiet the crowd was. I don’t know if was the venue (the sit-and-watch seating), the reserved audience (maybe the “wine and cheese crowd” from the Dean Dome) or the disparity of the performers (splitting the audience between young and old or between country and folk).