Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
Archaeologists working in the ancient Greek city of Soli Pompeipolis in the southern Mersin province in Turkey have unveiled the memorial tomb of the Greek poet and astronomer Aratus, who was born in 315 BC.
The
city, located in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, was still prominent during
Roman times but was only rediscovered in the 1800s with the unearthing of the
ruins of Zımbıllı Tepe in the Black Sea region of the country.
Soli
Pompeipolis, lying just across the river from Taşköprü, in the Gökırmak (Greek:
Amnias) Valley, in ancient times stretched as far as the Küre and Ilgaz
mountains
The
tomb of the gifted poet and astronomer is being excavated by Professor Remzi
Yağcı, who is the head of the Department of Museology at Turkey’s Dokuz Eylül
University.
According
to the archaeologist, the discovery is of lasting importance to the history of
the area and will be of great interest to travelers who will want to see the
monument. Speaking to interviewers from the Anadolu News Agency, Yağcı said
“For the first time, a memorial tomb has been unearthed linked to the
archaeology of the ancient city of Soli Pompeiopolis.
“Aside
from more familiar structures, such as the colonnaded streets, the ancient
port, the theater, and the bathhouse, something very unique has been found.
This find brings dynamism to the ancient city and can influence tourism in the
region – for both those interested in cultural heritage and general visitors to
the region.”
The
unearthing of the ruins has been ongoing since July 20 of this year, Yağcı
said. Showing photographs of the unique discovery, he indicated the two rows of
hexagonal structures and arches around the memorial tomb that had been
unearthed by his workers.
“This
place looks like a crater,” he explained, “and has a circular area (that could
have been used by) an astronomer. We have also come across a solid and large
monumental structure.”
Yağcı
added that Aratus was widely known during both the Hellenistic and Roman
periods and his works on astronomy, as well as his poetry, are still read and
studied to this day.
Additionally,
he noted that NASA had named a crater on the moon after the brilliant Greek
thinker, leading the archaeologist to hope that the tomb of the great man will
one day be included on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
The Cherubina de Gabriak hoax of 1909.
According to an account in the Russian book The Fate of the
Silver Age Poets, in August of 1909, Russia’s preeminent literary arts
publication, Apollo, received a curious letter. The envelope contained poems
written in exquisite handwriting, on perfumed paper, signed only with the
Cyrillic letter Ч (che). The unsolicited submission raised the suspicions of
Apollo’s de facto publisher and noted Russian art scene figure, Sergey
Makovsky, until later that day, when the author called their office.
The woman on the phone identified herself as Cherubina de
Gabriak, an unknown poet, looking to find her break in Apollo. Makovsky, who
found the mystery poet’s voice quite charming, agreed to publish her work. In
the October issue of Apollo, 12 of de Gabriak’s poems were included.
While the author remained a near complete mystery, tidbits of
information about de Gabriak emerged through her poetry and correspondence.
Supposedly, she was a young girl of French-Polish descent who lived in an
oppressive Catholic household, which did not allow her to associate with the
outside world. Her admirers caught only glimpses of her life, such as a poem
that described her family’s coat of arms, but the riddles surrounding her past
just made her all the more alluring. Soon, she was being published in a number
of magazines, not just Apollo.
The mystique surrounding de Gabriak created quite a stir among
the Russian poets of the day, and a number of Apollo contributors fell in love
with her. Most famously, then up-and-coming poet Nikolay Gumilyov, who would go
on to become a giant of Russian Symbolist poetry, began a red-blooded
correspondence with de Gabriak, writing her a series of love letters.
Not everyone in the scene was quite convinced of the enigmatic
poet, however, noting that if she was such a talent, she had no reason to hide.
In November of 1909, it was finally revealed that (as you have
surely surmised) Cherubina de Gabriak was a fake persona. In reality, de
Gabriak’s true identity was Elizaveta Dmitrieva, a school teacher who had
worked with the poet Maximilian Voloshin to scam their contemporaries and get
her work noticed. The name Cherubina de Gabriak, was a combination of
references to a short story and a wooden imp that Voloshin had once given
Dmitrieva. Voloshin was also an editor at Apollo, and knew Makovsky well enough
to know what buttons to push to make their character appeal to him.
Dmitrieva had been stricken with tuberculosis at a young age,
leaving her with a lifelong limp that made it extremely difficult for her to
walk. Her brothers were known to taunt her by tearing one leg off of each of
her dolls. Far from being a poet princess cloistered in some far off tower,
Dmitrieva was a teacher and studied French and Spanish literature. She had been
trying to get her poetry published for some time, including sending
unsuccessful submissions to Apollo.
As Voloshin would tell it, when they first met in the summer of
1909, she was writing “simple, sentimentally sweet poems.” But over time, her
work evolved. Once the hoax was revealed, many found it hard to believe that
Dmitrieva’s talent could have sprung from obscurity, instead choosing to
believe that Voloshin must have been the true author. Both Voloshin and
Dmitrieva insisted that it was she who wrote the words, while Voloshin edited her
(today, it is widely accepted that Dmitrieva was the true author based on
comparisons with her later work).
Neither Makovsky nor Gumilyov took the news very well. Both men,
embarrassed at having been had, began publicly disparaging Dmitrieva. At one
point, Voloshin overheard Gumilyov talking rudely about his affair with
Dmitrieva “in the crudest sexual terms,” as 1994’s Dictionary of Russian Women
Writers puts it. Voloshin, who was equally enamored with Dmitrieva, decided
that enough was enough. He slapped Gumilyov in the face, inviting him to a
duel.
Dmitrieva truly did have feelings for Gumilyov, and Voloshin as
well. A critical analysis of her poetry from a 2013 issue of The Slavic and
East European Journal describes her as “a natural seductress who maintained
complex love relations with a number of Modernist poets, and was the cause of
the well-publicized duel between Voloshin and Gumilev, both contenders for her
heart and hand.”
Gumilyov agreed to the duel, and they met on the shore of the
Chernaya River on November 22, near the same spot where the famed Russian poet
and novelist Alexander Pushkin had been fatally wounded over half a century
earlier. Gumilyov, an excellent marksman, fired at Voloshin but missed,
possibly intentionally, and Voloshin’s gun repeatedly misfired. Both men walked
away with their lives, though animosity would characterize their relationship
for years to come.
Voloshin and Gumilyov went on to become some of the most
important Russian poets of their time. As for Dmitrieva, while she continued to
write, she was never able to reach the same level of fame during her lifetime
as she had when she was de Gabriak.
Today, Dmitrieva’s life and work is finally receiving some much
deserved attention. In addition to more academic explorations of her poetry, in
2008, the playwright Paul Cohen unveiled a poorly reviewed stage play based on
the story of the hoax, Cherubina. The Village Voice said that it “softened and
simplified the story […] bleaching it of much of its nuance and oddity.” Still,
critical analysis of Dmitrieva’s work is beginning to place her as a vital
member of the Symbolist movement, even if her story will always be tied to the
scandal that brought her into the light.
Why chess fans dislike chess in film
From backwards boards to king-flipping, Hollywood just cannot get chess right.
BY CARA GIAIMO
THE SCENE FROM THE classic Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal, has a unique premise. Death—a cloaked figure with a very pale face—has come for Antonius, a knight fresh off the Crusades who just wants to live out his life in peace. Understandably frustrated, Antonius does what any of us would: he challenges Death to a game of chess, with his soul as the prize.
A regular schmo watching this scene picks up on a few things: the terror, the suspense, the artful composition of the shots. A chess aficionado, though, is only looking at one thing. That game board that decides Antonius’s fate? It’s set up totally backwards.
Movies and television shows are full of blunders, some more noticeable than others, and each with their specific guild of victims. Ornithologists fume when British period dramas are overdubbed with American birdsongs. Government employees will tell you that the supposed main White House staffer in Contact has a nonexistent job. Archeologists hate movie shipwrecks, and marine biologists are already mad about the zombie sharks in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean installment, which, as cartilaginous fishes, should not have ribs—even ghostly ones.
But these are merely occasional grievances. There’s one group of experts who can barely flip on the television without being exposed to egregious, head-on-desk mistakes: chess players.
“There are a ton of chess mistakes in TV and in film,” says Mike Klein, a writer and videographer for Chess.com. While different experts cite different error ratios, from “20 percent” to “much more often than not,” all agree: Hollywood is terrible at chess, even though they really don’t have to be. “There are so many [errors], it’s hard to keep track,” says Grandmaster Ilja Zaragatski, of chess24. “And there are constantly [new ones] coming out.”
Chess errors come in a few different flavors, these experts say. The most common is what we’ll call the Bad Setup. When you set up a chessboard, you’re supposed to orient it so that the square nearest to each player’s right side is light-colored. (There’s even a mnemonic for this—“right is light.”) Next, when you array the pieces, the white queen goes on white, and the black queen goes on black. “When I teach six-year-old girls, I say ‘the queen’s shoes have to match her dress!’” says Klein.
Six-year-olds may get this, but filmmakers often do not. Along with The Seventh Seal, movies that suffer from Bad Setups include Blade Runner, Austin Powers, From Russia with Love, The Shawshank Redemption, and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Shaft and What’s New Pussycat may not have much in common, but they do both feature backwards chessboards.
Slightly less common, and a little more understandable, is the Dramatic Checkmate. This blunder occurs when one opponent surprises another by winning out of nowhere—or, similarly, when some extra-smart character walks by a game in progress and points out a checkmate opportunity the players didn’t spot. (There are a bunch of good last moves and shocked faces in the helpful Checkmate Supercut above.)
While this is understandable from a dramatic standpoint, or even a character-building one, it’s not at all realistic, says Klein. “Two reasonable chess players never get surprised when checkmate happens,” he says. “That would be like a team making a three-pointer, and the other team only then looking at the scoreboard and suddenly realizing they’d lost.” Real players also don’t make a big thing out of winning: “Chess players almost never reveal any emotions,” says Zaragatski. “Being cool is key.”
Peter Doggers of Chess.com notes another Dramatic Checkmate move: the felled king. “Tipping over your king as a way of resigning the game is only done in movies,” he says. (See Mr. Holland’s Opus, in which Jay Thomas slaps his king down after being owned by Richard Dreyfuss). A normal chess player will just go in for a good-game-style handshake. “This falling king thing has somehow become a strong image in cinematography,” he says, “But chess players always think: ‘Oh no, there we go again…’”
Finally, there are the Deep Cuts—those errors that only the most knowledgable and dedicated chess hounds will notice. “Occasionally there is simply an illegal position,” says Klein—in other words, a midgame setup that just doesn’t make sense. In Back to the Future Part III, when Marty McFly loses a chess game to Copernicus the dog, he does so despite an illegal position, and one Season 5 episode of The Office has Jim with both of his bishops on white squares, an impossible orientation in that particular game.
In at least one case, unusual play has sparked decades of academic debate: Experts still argue over whether HAL, the computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, was cheating in his game against astronaut Frank Poole, or whether Kubrick simply made a mistake.
To the experts, such errors seem needless. “It’s like if you were reading something, and you see spelling mistakes,” says the chess historian Bill Wall. Wall has occasionally worked as a film chess consultant. Although most films don’t bother hiring one of those, there are other options: “There are around 6 million chess games easily accessible in online databases,” says Zaragatski.
They aren’t the only ones bothered. Browse over to one of the many forum posts on the topic, and you’ll find people noting down movie titles and scenes as though they’re working on a hit list. “I just wanted to know if I could find some moral internet support after seeing… illegal moves, repeat positions, the knight called a horse, etc.” writes Chess.com user Politicalmusic, beginning one such thread. “I haven’t seen a good chess scene in a non-chess movie since Harry Potter,” gripes user TitanCG.
There are some upsides to being one of the lonely few, says Klein, who admits to pausing most movie chess scenes to try to puzzle them out. “I enjoy being a detective,” he says. Sometimes, what he finds brings a bit more satisfaction: if a knowledgable person set up the board, it could be a puzzle, or a historical reference. He and Doggers both cited a recent Simpsons episode, which guest-starred chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen, as a good example, full of in-jokes and recreations of historically important games. “It’s so cool when the chess part is actually done very well,” says Doggers. “That’s just great.”
And when it’s not—well, most people will think the film is smart because it has chess in it, while a small group is left burdened with the truth.
A short story: Sven Carlson Struck It Rich
With the company’s blessing, the two old spies met once a week for a five mile stroll around Georgetown. He and the Old Man. He was called The Old Man, behind his back, because it was how the Old Man referred to virtually everyone “Now listen here, Old Man”
A short story: The unhappy ending of the four egg omelet.
I watched his face drop in complete shock and it captured me with such surprise that even the noise and bustle of Times Square faded away momentarily as I focused on his features.