Daily Rome Shot 511, etc.

For this reason, I need to start a new fundraiser: airfare, apartment and chow.  Another thing, the chalice and paten I had made for my ordination needs refurbishing.  I want to take it back to the shop in Rome where it was made.  I consulted them in June and they will be able to do it.  Hence, wavvy flag.

The last time in Rome, I recorded the names of everyone who contributed and I very often said Mass for them, as my benefactors, several times a week depending on “emergency” intentions for the sick or dying. I also remember the regular monthly and ad hoc donors and those of you who send items from my wish list. Many prayers were raised for you at the altars of saints in Rome.  It’s a tremendous boost to reflect on your care for me and to read your notes.  Especially in these dark days.

UPDATE: Thanks!

MH, RO, DM,

Selling or buying a new home?  Check out Real Estate for Life.  A portion of the sale/commission goes to pro-life causes.

CHESS: Fifty years ago in Reykjavík, Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer had a rest day.  Spassky spent time playing ping pong at the large rec center where the games were held and kids ran for the errant balls.  He seems to have been fairly laid back after the amazing Game 6.  Game 7 will be remembered tomorrow.

Here’s a puzzle in the meantime.  Be careful, this is trickier than it first appears.  Watch out for a nasty fork as you strive to promote that pawn.  That white knight!  Such nobility.  A very Catholic knight.

White to move.

BTW… speaking of Catholic, I am grateful to a reader, BC, who sent an intriguing book (and a super spiffy travel chess set of leather, suede with wood pieces that rolls up).

Birth of the Chess Queen: A History

US HERE – UK HERE

NB: This is a “feminist” view of the history of the development of chess’ Queen.  The writer is at Stanford’s “Institute for Research on Women and Gender”, which sounds absolutely horrifying.  So far, however, in my reading, she has not gone off the rails into the darkness of nutty.  The acknowledgments section, which I usually don’t read, reveals that she did serious work and consultation in trying to get things right in other languages, etc.  Of course there will be a whole section (I’m not there yet) on Isabella of Castile, whose cause for canonization is on the books.

One thing I learned that makes the book worthwhile already.

Once upon a time in India, etc., the piece we now know as a Bishop was an Elephant.  As the game migrated into Western Europe and began to be enculturated, one of the developments of the Elephant, especially in France, was into the Jester with a cap and bells, perhaps a modification of the tusks.  Today’s Bishop has the two pronged miter.  BUT… another version of the Bishop is…

“Want the Traditional Latin Mass?  Sure!  Ha ha!  The joke’s on yoooou!”