Today is my birthday and in the mail I received a copy of "Fischer, Kasparov
and Others, The best of CHESSDON and much more", with a signed note inside
from Don himself addressed to chess journalists and also another note with
terse instructions from my publisher to "savage it as only you can."

Of course, I immediately looked in the index and there is an index! This was
a better start than the cover, because what can 'much more' ever mean? And
who is Don playing in the park? It looks like Ben Finegold as a young man
but could be one of those cosmetically altered pictures of the young Larry
Parr.

Larry Parr is in fact mentioned everywhere in the book, and whether by
disinclination or shear rudeness is the only person out of thousands not to
have his photo included. Perhaps its true that Larry looked just as he does
today when he was 10 years old, and since tace is the Latin for candle...

On the back cover we encounter the 'other' Larry, GM Larry Other, who
thought fit to write "this memoir is a potentially valuable
contribution...". Dr Brady is not so mean, and says "Could have beeen one of
the most interesting chess books...", GM Arthur Dake say "A remarkable book,
so many humorless facts!" A former delegate to Fide from The Virgin Islands
professed to staying up until 3 am reading it "until I threw up." IM Walter
Shipman was more objective, "Either an informative or a valuable book" he
intoned. The president of the Florida chess associations said "For a
fascinating, full treatment of chess organisation struggles and successes we
will have to wait, in the meantime there is Chessdon!".

So, seriously now...

That's just the covers. Shall I do the decent thing and look inside? There
is sure to be a lot of USCF politics in there, plus an assortment of
international blokes the politician met.

Shall I write it as a fair stab at what never looked liked working from a
purely organisational level, by those who gave it the old college try
anyway, or shall I view these mostly American subjects as might an emigree
visiting a country to which chess was a minor curiosity in the culture
despite Fischer and Morphy, and with sufficiently cool and ironic detachment
to compare all this activity to what it objectively achieved?

Probably the second. Almost all other reviewers have been within the pool of
native influence, and of relatively little exposure to chess elsewhere.

I must also determine to separate Don from the record of events which
surrounded him, which would be a proper pedagogical approach in any history:
One thing is not necessarily consequent on another, and may be merely
contiguous or contemporary with it.

Don looks like a jovial sort of man. Flicking through his photos in the book
he seems to project a generally expansive note, and from previous private
and public writing together I know he tends to a generosity of view of other
people which is nevertheless combined with a steady determination to bring
things to a working level of practice and idea, admirable in any manager.

How much of the book will be about him thereby, and how much considered by
more saturnian light, an impartial and perhaps impersonal rendering of 35
years of chess history in the USA?

Do I yet uncover my own prejudices before I crack the cover?

Cordially, Phil Innes

But here you say nothing of value. You see, to be serious about the book
means to separate personality from events, re-linking them together if that
is indicated. I think that was the intent of my original latter paragraphs.

Otherwise you fall into the same trap as the person you accuse! Which has to
be said, is a particularly American behavioral trap, an excess of personal
emphasise on the course of events.

I am not an American.

What /is/ interesting for me to consider before beginning the title is this
sort of assessment:-

to what degree does Don achieve any differentiation between what happened in
US chess history, and the extent of his role in it, a role strongly
identified with USCF?

Otherwise, will you appreciate (?), you start into one of these things and
then can only react to what's inside. However, I try to determine my own
prejudice beforehand, and also know my prejudice or orientation to what I
would consider to be fair reporting of history.

From my alien perspective to your chess culture, your response is as absent
of sense and sensibility as the nature of your own criticism to its subject.
Do you understand that I wish to make a fair review of the title, not by
your lights but by my own, and that will never be the same as yours - how
could it be?

My previous post was about me, not about Don Schultz.

Cordially, Phil Innes

"Doctor SBD" wrote in message
...
and from previous private
and public writing together I know he tends to a generosity of view of
other
people which is nevertheless combined with a steady determination to
bring
things to a working level of practice and idea, admirable in any manager.

My goodness, how easily fooled are you?

Unless of course, you really meant by "generosity of view of other
people," "he
knows there is a sucker born every minute who will buy my bull****."

Having suffered through all the levels of hell that was CHESSDON, I am
sure
reading the book will tell you all you need to know. And Don invented
quite a
few levels Dante never dreamt of....

SBD

"Doctor SBD" wrote in message
...
Do you understand that I wish to make a fair review of the title, not by
your lights but by my own, and that will never be the same as yours - how
could it be

Phil, perhaps my advice was buried in the sarcasm. Just read it, and
provide
that perspective.

I am not being sufficnetly clear. I am not asking for your perspective! I
don't want to evaluate what you have already decided before /I/ read the
book. I want to determine /my/ perspective and prejudices beforehand.

My guess is that it will not vary much from most people who
were subjected to the first self-published piece of nonsense he put out,
but as
you note, that is my opinion!

And your opinion remains a guess. You havn't read it either )

If anything I think your European perspective will make you even more
critical.
The time I spent in Germany and saw how chess could be run has ruined me
for
life.... As you noted in your homeland, lots of activity, lifetime club
members,etc.

I hope I will have a critique, rather than 'be critical' like some sort of
judgemental writing.

Please try to understand me; what can any manager do that is not a
reflection of his own community of influence? I would answer my own
question, nothing! Now, this stops being a potential 'criticism' of Don
Shultz, and starts to become about YOU. You Americans

You tend to isolate and glorify/villify [same psychological mechanism] your
leaders and heros as if they exist without the culture which emerses them.
The very point so saying that American culture is often over-personal is to
emphasise the 'over-ness' of your collective behavior towards individuals.

I would certainly not shrink from even astringent criticism of your
collective behavior if I thought it warranted, but I make the specific point
that this sort of criticism would not reside in any leader alone.

American attitudes to leading personalities in their culture are fickle!

I was thinking very early this morning about Fischer, and of the many ways
that people have perceived him.

Almost the only way that he is /not/ represented is if anyone actually cared
about Bobby the person, rather than Bobby the chess icon, Bobby the
Sovier-slayer, Bobby the Lone-wolf genius of the West! The regenerator of
chess interest in the USA, the booster of USCF memberships by 40,000
players...

What does any American care about the fate of the individual that acheived
that?

All we hear is that the person seems to have an unbalanced social
appreciation occassioned by an overconcentration on chess and of little
else, and makes rash and naive statements which are not designed to win any
popularity contests, into microphones shoved under his nose by, who should
say, 'friends', and that he let down our hopes... Our society, our hopes,
our dissapointment.

But does any American here actually care about the personal well-being of
the person, Robert Fischer? I have yet to read about it.

Phil Innes

SBD

"Chess One" writes:

But here you say nothing of value.

He's just returning the favor.

...

--
Kenneth Sloan
Computer and Information Sciences (205) 934-2213
University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX (205) 934-5473
Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/

Chess One wrote:

Today is my birthday


cosmicznt

Today it's the 9th. of July in Sydney, which means that yesterday Phil
had his birthday, happy birthday Phil - sunkissed & an eight (8) person
too!..