RIP Bobby Fischer
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:58 am
He was someone who straddled the line separating genius from idiocy.
Too bad such genius has left the world without leaving behind any substatial benefit to the world.
Page 1 of 1
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:19 am
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:13 am
Not all genius is beneficial. The Nazi leaders were geniuses at mass killings, for an extreme example. A more neutral form of genius might be the ability to solve a Rubik's cube in 10 seconds. Nice trick, but what's the benefit to the world? (I could use that last line to describe Paris Hilton.)BackInTex wrote:He was someone who straddled the line separating genius from idiocy.
Too bad such genius has left the world without leaving behind any substantial benefit to the world.
A saying that I read in junior high has stuck with me all these years:
Everyone's a genius, only in different subjects.
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:38 am
I love the English use of understatement.After the attacks of September 11 2001, Fischer launched an outspoken denunciation of his home country during a live radio interview. "This is all wonderful news," he declared. "I applaud the act. The US and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them. No one gave a shit. Now it’s coming back to the US. F*** the US. I want to see the US wiped out. Death to the US." This outburst was not well received.
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:47 pm
Somehow, a vision of one partcular scene from Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal pops into my head.
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:47 pm
He may have started by straddling the line. He crossed it and dissappeared over the horizon of idiocy some time ago.BackInTex wrote:He was someone who straddled the line separating genius from idiocy.
Too bad such genius has left the world without leaving behind any substatial benefit to the world.
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:31 pm
I loved the guy. I wasn't interested in the political subtleties of the Fischer-Spassky match, I just saw a fabulous rebel genius taking on a stodgy chess empire. For a long time, I saved the Sports Illustrated with his and Spassky's line drawings in it. It was sorta like this, except both were full-faced, and the artist gave Fischer this wicked/impish/devilish/whacky/bring-it-on grin.
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:23 am
The movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" was very good.
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:59 pm
His 1972 run to the world championship was the single greatest chess accomplishment in over a century. No one could beat the daylights out of the top grandmasters in the world by a sequence of win after win after win, with either white or black, without intervening drawn games. But Fischer did. Once. And never could again.
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:28 pm
The late Dick Schapp said Fischer "didn't have a sane bone in his body."
He was right.
My question is: did his genius for chess screw him up, or are the genius and insanity somehow linked?
He was right.
My question is: did his genius for chess screw him up, or are the genius and insanity somehow linked?