litlog77++

[Senna Jawa]

Everybody is welcome to contribute to this litlog.

Another winter. Right now it's not too bad. I used to post here some winter poems a couple of years ago. A few days ago I posted another 2-part winter poem but on FaceBook, and in Polish.

Last Friday, just before h.15 (i.e. 3 pm), I was approaching a local grocery store when I saw a very pale man, about 60y old, with a protruding stomach, walking in an uncertain way, he couldn't keep himself straight. I looked at him expectantly, ready to help him but he ignored me. He passed me but I still kept watching him. He got worse, walking from one edge of the sidewalk to the other, ... I rushed after him, caught him gently by his coat so that he finally could stand comfortably still, and I talked to him. He quietly claimed that he's fine. I asked him where was he going to. He was heading toward the homeless shelter some 200-250m away (some 700 feet), he would turn toward it after half of this distance. I had offered to assist him. He had his own ideas.

I don't believe in impositions, I let him go since that was his wish. I still watched him for another hundred feet or so. To my relief this time he was walking fine. I hope that he had made it. I am afraid that he will not last long anyway, I hope I am wrong but that's how life and death is.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Clean music/video ap riv.yt

We enjoy around this board sharing youtube videos, especially music videos. Unwillingly, we share also the advertisements and other junk attached to the video. Now we can avoid junk, we can share the pure gold by itself. Go to page:

RIV.YT​

(Lower case riv.yt works equally well). You may simply click on this link right here. You will see three discs (1) (2) (3), with the disc (1) displaying a red background color. Thus you're at stage 1. Below, it says "Find a video", and just underneath there is either an empty line or some something unimportant is written on it. Just type there or over that something unimportant whatever you want to find, say

Rubinstein nocturnes​

and press "Enter" (or "return") key. The line you have typed went up the window, and underneath you will see a selection of videos. Click on the sign "use this video" (white font on red background) under the video which you have selected. The page will move up.

You'll see the three circles (1) (2) (3), this time (2) will have a red background. Under these discs, you'll see "Choose a design" sign/phrase. Underneath, indeed, you have a choice of designs. Click on one. The window will move up.

Now disc (3) will have a red background, you're at the last stage. Under the discs, you see the sign "Share it!". OK. do it. You will see a link underneath. In this case https://riv.yt/1/KiWI5OIi17Y, i.e.:

Chopin/Rubinstein nocturne op.9 - 72​

Click on it and enjoy the music (minus advertisements), beautiful! beauooooootiful!

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Also, under the sign "share it!) and above the actual link there, you have an optional choice of places to post that link on, like Facebook "f".

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Just try it, you'll love it.

 

[Senna Jawa]

a contradiction

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A poem cannot be meaningful and egoful at the same time.
​

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wh,
2019-03-04

PS. I made up word egoful. Then I checked if it existed before, the Google search engine didn't find it.

 

[Senna Jawa]

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk -- a chess player and a... poet.

Recently a former chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik has retired. I had a chain of associations which ended at Alexandra Kosteniuk. I'll write about Kramnik and also about comparing chess and poetry in another post (perhaps).

Alexandra is one of the world leading chess players among women. Oh, she had a fair share of success also in general chess competitions which include both men and women. She has won the "man" (i.e. general) highest chess rank, that of grandmaster (which is more valuable than the "woman grandmaster" title). She has dual citizenship, Russian and Swiss. She won the Swiss championship (for men and women) as well as a separate women Swiss championship -- both the same year. Alexandra was also the women world champion at one time. etc., etc., e.g. she got chess team Olympic gold medals, the same for European championships. She even won a blitz chess game against world champion Magnus Carlsen (oh, he was not happy about it).

You may read on the Internet that Alexandra is into poetry and that she has published some of her poems in one of her books. However, I was not able to find any on the Internet. I read some of Alexandra's poems anyway. How?

It's simple, we were friends before she was 16 (or even before 15). We were members of the Internet Chess Club (ICC). She was way too strong for me to play a game against her. She used to make some money on ICC, by teaching some members. She was very good at this, both chess wise and in operating ICC software smoothly. She was applying advanced software features.

Mainly, I was watching her games against others (ICC makes it possible to watch), and the two of us were chatting in Russian (which was awkward since we used the English alphabet).

At one time I showed her a game which I won against a computer program (at ICC they dumb chess programs down so that you can select a computer chess program playing on about every level). She decided on her own to analyze my game, and never mind that I was a weak player and that the game was against a computer. She went to a depth of analysis which made my head spin, it was too much for me. She went on and on, it was her art, it was her thing.

Somehow, we talked about poetry too. Possibly, I sent her one of my Russian poems (or even some in English, I don't remember), and for sure she sent me several of hers. Well, Alexandra was young, and she was clearly infinitely better at chess. (We are talking about 1998-2002 years. I didn't see her newer poems).

Alexandra was in a dramatically difficult material situation. I guess this made her go after a modeling career. Thus she sent me privately a somewhat risque photo of her -- nothing so-to-speak illegal but a bit adventurous. Perhaps I thanked her, I think so, but otherwise, I didn't comment at all. It was sweet of her but I didn't want to introduce any unnecessary accent. Some year later the same picture was presented by her, within a large collection, officially on the Internet, on her portals.

Alexandra got a HUGE chess success (after many earlier impressive results) in 2001 when she became women world vice-champion. Since then our contact nearly disappeared, she was too busy.

A few more years and I had a Google+ account. I made posting there available to her. She sent so many announcements to my account that I simply let it be, I kept my account but passively only, I stopped using it otherwise -- thus she was using it and it only made me smile.

You may read about Alexandra in many Internet places. You may start with:

Alexandra Kosteniuk (Wikipedia)​

Enjoy.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Art (violin kids) and chess (Vladimir Kramnik)

About art (violin kids), read the unique monograph

PRODUCING
_ EXCELLENCE
The making of Virtuosos
by
Izabela Wagner
​

This is nicely complemented by Kramnik's YouTube video about his childhood till his sixteen:

Kramnik's story
​

You see the combination: incredible talent, environment, hard day-in-day-out work, teachers, luck.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Poetry and chess -- some similarities

If you write prose than your "games" take long. In the case of poetry and chess, as a rule, you play fast.

As a poet and as a chess player, you need to know a lot about strategy and about tactics too. Even youngsters have to or else they're no good. You need to know and understand several different notions.

How is it possible to apply strategy and tactics, and to play fast? -- simple, you have to know a lot, and you have to practice a lot. You should practice not just one element of tactics or strategy but several of both types, strategy, and tactics.

Thinking without knowing strategy and tactics wastes time, is hopelessly inefficient.

Practice develops intuition and taste. It allows you to go in a good direction efficiently. During playing/writing, a feedback loop is going in your head like crazy without you even noticing it. This loop has a chance to work when you know a lot. The knowledge and good taste keep you honest. The feedback loop rejects instantly wrong attempts so that you try better and better. (Of course, the intensity or the speed of the loop varies from one moment to another depending on the circumstances).

In the world of chess, it is well known that you do not get any far at all without studying and knowing strategy and tactics.

You could learn from Kramnik's videos (see an earlier post) that he studied on his own systematically already as a child! He studied the best that there was, namely the games of Anatoly Karpov who was the world champion at the time. By studied, I don't mean simply reading, but thinking deeply about those Karpov's games.

Later, Kramnik studied under the best possible chess trainers/teachers, namely under the famous world ex-champion Botvinnik, and under the then world champion Kasparov.

 

[Senna Jawa]

poetic tactics and strategy

Poetic tactics include rhythm, rhymes, alliteration, neologisms, the artistic means like simile, metaphor, juxtaposition, kennings, ... These are local considerations, each instance relates to a small part of a poem. It will be a large part of a poem when the poem in question is short like haiku.

The strategic considerations in a poem are of two types. The direct considerations address the poem as a total. Thus the composition of a poem is a strategic concern -- strategic means global. But there are also meta-poetic issues, and they tend to be largely global, they even address not one poem but an entire type or all of poetry.

Some (perhaps excellent) poems do not include any local metaphor but the whole poem is a metaphor. The notion of a global metaphor is strategic (of course). Thus also the distinction between local and global metaphor is a strategic consideration, it is a meta-poetic notion (the distinction).

A lot is said about composition, especially at school. This would be useful but of limited value, especially in the case of poetry. There are also not the direct but meta-composition artistic issues. A poem may be lacking the composition in the standard sense but there might be a strict composition underneath in terms such as the game of colors, the emotional melody, the tempo of the text, etc.

A meta-strategic is the difference between the technical analysis of poems and the psychological discussion of authors. It's traditional but it is to me very strange that literary critics confuse the two. These two should be strictly separated. One may talk about both in the same essay but with a clear understanding of how different they are.

This is only a little log (litlog or Literotica log) hence I will skip a zillion of items, I will say more only about integration and being organic, and about the difference between the two. Thus the two notions, integration and being organic, are strategic in the direct sense, while the distinction again is meta-poetic.

Integration is more advanced and sophisticated than composition. And organicism is even more sophisticated, and different from integration -- very few people (if any) understand these notions or even know about them. Organicism is strictly about quality. There is hardly any literature about organicism. The one that I know shows the feel but is totally confused since it is claimed that organicism is not an objective notion, it is claimed that it is the state of the author's soul or similar. Intelligent people and good artists can write total nonsense.

Let's say that you truly want to write good poems instead of just claiming it. Would an advanced understanding of poetic tactics and strategy be useful to you? Absolutely!

 

[Senna Jawa]

Greenmountaineer's request

(Greenmountaineer, how are you? Where are you?)

Some months ago -- the time's flying by -- GM asked me about my life under communism. To answer within one post would be impossible. Whatever I would write would be prone to simplifications and misinterpretations, possibly worse.

But GM's request stayed with me, I couldn't get away. Perhaps hardly anybody will care about any answer by me but nevertheless, I know how to address the difficulty. I'll divide my story into stages and aspect (a matrix format). Then one may choose and ask me about the particular stage or aspect or -- to make it narrower -- one may select a pair stage-aspect.

Isolating "communism" out of my story for the sake of presentation would be in my case highly artificial.

The listed stages and aspects are of uneven sizes which may make it a bit more interesting.

Stages:

• Urals (Russia)
• Ukraine
• Łódź (Poland)
• A gang of Mokotów neighboorhood kids (Warsaw, Poland);
• School (Warsaw, Poland);
• Summer of 1958 and 1959;
• University of Warsaw, 1958/10/01-1969/01/20;
• Moscow, 1967/8 (USSR)
• Vienn (Austria)
• Italy (mostly Rome)
• University of Michigan, 1969-1972;
• University of Texan, Austin (TX);
• The Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ);
• Carbondale (Illinois)
• London (Ontario);
• The government contractor business;
• Orlando (FL);
• Boca Raton (FL);
• Silicon Valley (1 of 3);
• ETC...

Aspects:

• chess;
• education -- student, teacher, EdRoom;
• freedom;
• linguistic activities;
• mathematics;
• sport.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Great people and poetry. 1: Alexander Grothendieck

It's about non-poets who are exceptional in the fields other than poetry and which still delight us with poetry being it an actual poem or simply profounding statements.
Here are quotes from Alexander Grothendieck:

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• Discovery is a child's privilege.
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• It's to that being inside of you who knows how to be alone, it is to this infant that I wish to speak, and no-one else.
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• (About solving a hard mathematical problem).
  
  I can illustrate the ... approach with the ... image of a nut to be opened. The first analogy that came to my mind is of immersing the nut in some softening liquid, and why not simply water? From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better, and otherwise, you let time pass. The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months — when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado! A different image came to me a few weeks ago. The unknown thing to be known appeared to me as some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration ... the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it ... yet finally it surrounds the resistant substance.
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• I am not really doing research, just trying to cultivate myself.
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[Senna Jawa]

Great people and poetry. 2: Boxing champion Marvin Hagler

Quotes from Marvin Hagler:

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• when I look at film of myself, I think, 'I wouldn't fight that guy.'
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• I like acting very much because I don't get punched, and it's not real.
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• It’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5am when you’ve been sleeping in silk pajamas.
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• If they cut my bald head open, they will find one big boxing glove.
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[Senna Jawa]

Some PF&D links

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30 Poems in 30 Days -- Neonurotic, 2006-02-10

a companion to 30 in 30 -- 2006-10-19 (the wh's original)


30 Poems in 30 Days (Redux) -- Neonurotic, 2013-12-12

30 in 30 Companion Thread -- Trixareforkids, 2016-01-24​

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