j’adoube or game and gambit

After being invented in the India sub-continent, the game of chess in its recognisable and modern was one of those cultural commodities, like language, writing and religion, which was quickly disseminated all over the world and was firmly entrenched by the year one thousand. The game was so popular and universally played that societies were also quick to undertake reimaging their boards and chessmen after their own iconography and values.

The rules of engagement were the same but sculptors and artists were given great license to reflect their own outlook on the world. Chessboards from Islamic countries hosted an army of abstract figures because of the proscription against making things in the likeness of natural beings and had a vizier accompanying the sultan instead of a queen, Asian boards represented their court traditions, pawns all around were simple and anonymous, and these finely crafts objects would have been treasured and handed down as heirlooms. The historical details of the place and period in which these playing pieces were made comes across, as does the makers’ sense of hierarchy and how to mount defenses. Instead of our modern Rook, the Tower, the Viking royals of this set discovered on Scottish Lewis Island under Norse rule are flanked by fearsome berserkers. All the queens of these sets share the same forlorn and distant look, and perhaps because she is frustrated that her movement is limited to one diagonal square at a time. The question of mobility for this sovereign was one of the only major changes to the rules in centuries—though sadly not an attitude adopted by society at large until much, much later: about five hundred years later going from having even less range than a pawn to becoming the most versatile and powerful piece on the chessboard. For a time, this liberation caused the European game to be named “Mad Queen” chess, which sounds like a story for Lewis Carroll.

candida or grist for the mill

This is somewhat of a delicate subject, especially coming from those who are not exactly sympathetic to the matter, but I learned that the germ candida, a species of yeast, that’s responsible for infections in women also presents itself as diaper-rash in infants, thrush (a particularly nasty coated-tongue that young children get), acne in adolescents and most interestingly the dry patches of skin that usually attributed to psoriasis and dandruff (glands in the skin and hair folicals are designed to prevent these out-breaks but are often compromised by other factors). This yeast travels with us as part of our gut flora all our lives but is mostly kept in check by other beneficial bacteria that complement our digestive tracts that compete for space and nutrients, symbiotically breaking down those foodstuffs that we can’t handle whole ourselves. Though not the only cause of fungal infections, repairing too quickly to antibiotics or other such non-discriminatory treatments that, like a wrecking-ball, kill off those good germs that keeps us balanced.

data knows best

Via the Browser comes a clever and creepy piece by writer Sarah Wilson on the potential—nay, inevitably paternalistic nature of the internet of things, wherein one’s smart appliances, imbued with a life and will of their own collaborate to ensure that their human masters are given exactly what they need and to remain ever vigilant. I wouldn’t qualify the scenario as a satirical one since we are all lurching—or being dragged in that direction anyway, towards a silent intrusiveness and helpless against this obliging conspiracy.  I wonder if we might want to grow more dispossessed with this notion of hinging everything together.  What do you think?  Are we already too far gone to have a choice in the matter?

like a picture print from currier and ives

As the fourth Advent comes rolling in, here are a few scenes from Christmas markets in Wiesbaden, Leipzig and Erfurt to celebrate the season. PfRC wishes you all good cheer, be kind to one another, and thanks for visiting.