Chess, 1864

This is right in so many ways for me. In this photograph by Mathew Brady (the famed Civil War photographer), taken in New York in 1864, we find Miss Minnie Warren and Commodore Nutt, who served as bridesmaid and groomsman to Mr. and Mrs. General Tom Thumb at their famous “fairy wedding,” and they are playing chess. What a fabulous confluence of favorites.

Key West, 1898

“The Key West Hotel was a bedlam of a place while we waited for the war to begin. And when other diversion failed, you could stroll around the corner to the resort known as the ‘Eagle Bird’ where a gentlemanly gambler, as well-groomed as and decorous as Jack Oakhurst, spun the roulette wheel. And there you would be most apt to find Stephen Crane, sometimes bucking the goddess of chance in contented solitude, a genius who burned the candle at both ends and whose spark of life was to be tragically quenched before he was thirty years old. With his tired smile he would drawl these cryptic lines, when about to take another fling at the ‘Eagle Bird’:

‘Oh, five white mice of chance,
Shirts of wool and corduroy pants,
Gold and wine, women and sin,
All for you if you’ll let me come in –
Into the house of chance.’”

– From Roads of Adventure (1922) by Ralph D. Paine, in which Paine, writing about the first days of the Spanish-American War, alludes to “A Passage in the Life of Mr. John Oakhurst” (1874) by Bret Harte and quotes Stephen Crane quoting his own short story, “The Five White Mice” (1898)

On Elephant Polo

” ‘This is not an easy game,’ warned Colonel Raj Kalaan, the former stud of the Indian national horse-polo team, moments before our second match. ‘There are three minds–yours, the mahout’s, and the elephant’s.’ “

– From “Riding Giants” by Josh Dean, Outside magazine, November 2009

Disrepair

“… I thought I knew why chess tended to favor disrepair. Chess players did not make money. The impoverished state of their pieces and equipment was a badge of honor. In chess, it was ideas that gleamed: If you cared too much about how white the pieces were, or what the board was made of, or even if you thought too much about the very fact of pieces and boards, it only meant that you weren’t thinking enough about the game.”

– J.C. Hallman in The Chess Artist (2003)

On Power

“Power, I thought, was the ability to say anything that came into your head and have others nod at the wisdom.”

– J.C. Hallman in The Chess Artist (2003)

The Ninth Princess

My friend John Backe sends this welcome news from New York:

“Being the grandfather of a 4.5 year old girl creates unique opportunities. The new Disney film, The Princess & The Frog, opens nationwide next week. (Tiana, the first African-American Princess, joins the other eight.) But for these few weeks, the movie is available at one theater in N.Y.C. and one in L.A., and includes a unique ‘Disney experience.’  Leah and I went yesterday.

“Arriving at the theater, you first go in one line to have your tickets checked and get a wristband. (We also got purple Mardi Gras beads.) Ten yards later, at the door, you are checked for a wristband. Ten yards into the theater, a bag check; any cameras or recoding devices must be checked to be returned after the film. Ten yards farther, each adult is wanded with a metal detector. That couple who got into the White House would not have made it into the movie.

“First learning:  An inordinate number of little girls have elaborate princess gowns that they wear to events like this, and, I suppose, elsewhere. Good preparation for Rocky Horror fandom later in life.

“The movie was described by another parent as ‘the same crap’ but that may have been the point. The children were delighted.

“Then the experience, at a theater two blocks away. There were games, Disney memorabilia, crafts and educational exhibits about animation. But that wasn’t why we were there. Right there, in the Roseland Ballroom, were all nine princesses, live. In the flesh. Lovely flesh. More on that later.

“Some of you may be of an age or cultural background that you are unaware that there are nine princesses. It isn’t vital information if you are not four, or don’t hang around with four-year-olds. But if you are in that circumstance, do not confuse who is who. Don’t call Belle ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ Trust me.

“Each princess had her own stage and children (and a few dads) could approach each one, talk to them and have pictures taken, or in Leah’s case, hug each one. We were there on a weekday with a small crowd; some shows could be psychotic. Most of the kids were dumbstruck; their little heads were almost exploding trying to comprehend that these women were there and all in one place!

“I think it is an interesting (?) gig for the actresses, probably better than being Santa Claus, but weird. There are other weird acting jobs in N.Y. (e.g. toilet ambassador) but I think this is in a class by itself.

“Perhaps not surprisingly, it was easy to get to see Mulan and Pochahontas. Having seen the movies, I hadn’t expected the real women to be quite so voluptuous. Glamorous, perhaps, but it felt a little like an upscale ‘gentlemen’s fantasy club.’ That’s what I’ve been told.

“I found Snow White a little creepy. The others are drawn as pretty women and that’s what they look like (except Ariel, who is in mermaid mode). Snow White has a unique facial structure and look, and they found someone who looks just like her. And has her gestures down.

“New York City, where fantasy and reality are frequently not distinguishable.”

Endurance

“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”

– Samuel Johnson in his review of Soame Jenyns’ “Free Enquiry into the Nature of the Origin of Good and Evil”

Sage Advice

“In chess, the winner is the one who makes the next-to-last mistake.”

– Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)

Ralph Delahaye Paine

Sometimes when I am reading, a passage of prose is so beautiful I have to stop, let the story wait, and read the passage again, perhaps even aloud, just for the pure pleasure of it. So it was the other evening when I was reading Blackbeard: Buccaneer by Ralph D. Paine.

I’ll freely admit it; I bought the book for the illustrations by Frank Schoonover; I love pirate books. But Ralph D. Paine has been one of the great and good surprises of my reading life; he is surely one of the most under-appreciated authors of the 20th century, probably because he wrote “boy’s books,” adventures for young men, and not “serious fiction.”

But consider this passage:

“While they were thus engaged, two pirates came flying down the ladder from the poop deck into the main cabin. They revolved like windmills in a jumble of arms and legs. Close behind them, in a manner more orderly came Captain Jonathan Wellsby who had tossed the one and tremendously booted the other.”

Or this:

“Then Jack heard two voices in grunts and maledictions. Fearing the enemy might have tracked him, he stood as still as a mouse in the leafage of the oak. Out of the swamp emerged a young man with a musket on his shoulder. Behind him came one very much older gaunt and wrinkled, his hair as gray as the Spanish moss that overhung his path.”

Lovely stuff, well worth reading aloud, and the author’s life was as much of an adventure as any of his stories. Ralph Delahaye Paine was born in 1871, and earned enough money as a lad to send himself to Yale, where he rowed on the crew team and was tapped for Skull & Bones. Serving as a war correspondent, he covered the Cuban Revolution of 1896 with his friend Stephen Crane; ever enthusiastic, the pair ended up smuggling arms and helping to sink a Spanish warship. When the Maine was sunk in 1898, Paine returned to Cuba as a correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War in a slightly less participatory fashion. In 1900 he went to China to report on the Boxer Rebellion, and in 1917 he covered the U.S. Navy’s action in World War I. Between wars, he made time to edit magazines, write articles and publish more than 40 books of college stories, adventures and naval history. Paine died in 1925, having packed an amazing life into just 54 years.

Ralph Delahaye Paine upon his graduation from Yale in 1894, and in 1922

At the end of his autobiographical Roads of Adventure (1922), he wrote:

“The pile of manuscript on my desk had been steadily growing in bulk, but I was wondering whether it ought not to include such stories as ‘The Spinster Ladies in Search of Pirates’ Gold,’ and ‘How Jordan was Kidnapped in Nagasaki,’ and ‘Why Jack Teal Bit off the Sheep-Herder’s Ear.’ Providentially one of my twin sons, aged eleven, sauntered to the desk and inquired, in a skeptical manner:

‘Do you expect people to read all that?’

‘Well, my son, we are always hoping for the improbable to happen.”

And so it has. Thank you, Ralph. You’re still being read.

* * *

Thanks to Quarter-Century Record, Class of 1894, Yale College (1922), Frederick Dwight, editor; Blackbeard Buccaneer (1923) by Ralph Delahaye Paine; and my sincere thanks to Katie Delahaye Paine, for taking the time to correspond with me about her remarkable grandfather.

On Laughter

“There are few things better for our mental health than laughter. A balanced dose of steam-letting irrreverence and taboo-busting satire keeps a society sane. Nor is it the transcendent power of big bands, high kicks and dazzling scenery to be sneered at. In the pursuit of changing the world, there is still room for sheer mood-lifting, brow-soothing entertainment. The trouble starts when it takes up too much room. Sit Back and Enjoy It is great as a part of a varied diet; on its own it can degenerate into Lie Back and Let It Wash Over You While We Numb Your Mind.”

– Harriet Walter in Other People’s Shoes: Thoughts on Acting (1999)