ROME SHOT 902 – Wherein Fr. Z rants

One more day until EPIPHANY.  In some places the big gift giving day, for obvious reasons.  Please remember me when  shopping online. US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

In Rome after Mass sometimes a couple of us would go for breakfast at a friendly shop up the street which makes their own pastries. Here you can see a couple of “maritozzo“.

This morning for me, however, nothing of the sort.  Black coffee, strong, and a kimchi with cheese omelet.

I do miss Rome.  It is about time to start fundraising again for Easter.

On the Rome theme, yesterday I had a note from a long-time reader and kind donor who said that she received the postcard I sent last October.

WELCOME REGISTRANT:
Radiant Rae

In other news, I understand that, after saying that there would be no further explanations of the 5000 word FS… or Fallacia superans as some call it… there was a “press release” of a couple thousand words to explain FS.  Apart from where it says that there can’t be interpretations that vary, even though resistance forced this press release, bishops cannot resist FS, even though they do.  Also it says that bishops are the best ones to interpret the document in their own places because they know their flocks.   Except they aren’t.  Just like Traditionis custodes… right?  There’s a nickname for that one, too.  Anyway, I saw a great description of FS: “A blessing that is not a blessing on a couple that is not a couple by a doctrine that is not a doctrine according to clarification that is not a clarification.”

And there is this on an entirely different topic, but one dear to my beady black heart:

I warmly endorse these portable altars by “St Joseph Apprentice”. I helped make him visible when he started out when I saw what he was doing. I have one he made for my silver anniversary and another, lighter “pack” altar which I have used with an antimension. Over the years he… https://t.co/kzKQ9Dqam8

— Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (@fatherz) January 5, 2024

Meanwhile, here is a poser. I puzzled and puzzled and puzzled some more over this puzzling puzzle from American Chess Magazine which says “White to play and mate in 2”. IN TWO?!?

Here’s the FEN: 2b5/B1kq3R/8/3QR3/8/8/8/K7 w – – 0 1

Who cares about spoilers today! I want the answer NOW.   I can’t get my head around this mate in TWO.  It has to be a mistake.  Gotta be mate in THREE.  For example:

1. Qc5+ Kb7 2. Qb6+ Ka8 3. Qb8#

A couple of other ways too.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

My affiliate link!

Meanwhile, it is official: Magnus announced on the global platform of promulgation… I’m surprised the DDF doesn’t use it for explanations… that he is NOT playing in the Candidates.  He’s qualified, but he’s not going to play.  He is disenchanted with the format and playing these long classical slogs.  Besides… think about it… it takes a long time to prepare, you need coaching whom you in justice must pay and transport and lodge for quite a while.  If your heart isn’t into it, and you have nothing to prove… why do it?  Besides, he’ll have time to do other things.  Still, a world championship without Magnus Carlsen involved seems a little deficient.

He is a great player even though he walks like a girl.

Ceterum autem censeo Firouza esse delendum.

In other news, last night I experimented a little with Twitch.  Hooo boy.  I’m thinking about starting a live stream channel in which I am regularly and publicly humiliated on my self-imposed anabasis of reaching 2000 before I die, a steep path for a someone sliding into senescence.    I set a few goals for the new year… read Kristen, get one of my books together, get a new roof on my house, start the ELO climb.

However, Twitch… very strange.   Teens and agéd teens and exhibitionists playing video games with music that must be the soundtrack of the Inferno’s First Circle, Limbo of the Heathens.   I called to mind what Dante wrote (Canto 4 translation Esolen):

Indeed I found myself upon the brink
of the valley of the sorrowful abyss
thundering with the roar of endless woe.
So dark it was and deep and bleared with mist,
that though I fixed my gaze upon the bottom
I still could not discern a single thing.

To be fair, there are some very good normal looking human beings playing chess on Twitter, such as Eric Rosen – always soft spoken and gentlemanly – and Danya Naroditsky – whose hyperbullet games are terrifying – and others.  They don’t have face hardware and their vocabulary goes beyond snuffle and grunt.  Hikaru Nakamura’s channel… quite developed.  There’s almost as much going on visually there as at a state fair midway.

I would need a tech Virgil to be my “Cicerone” to get me set up. The studio software is bewildering.

“Into the blind world let us now descend,”
began the poet, his face as pale as death.
I will go first, and you will follow me.”

I would absolutely need moderators, too.  I can imagine what sort of dreck would be attempted in the chat.

Perhaps the Brompton Oratory Choir music in the background rather than the soul-annihilating mayhem of a band called something like Zombie Lizard Outhouse.

I’m too old to start a garage band but I think it would have to be named The Backwardists.

What would my dream scenario be?  Find a devout Catholic GM who leans “trad” who wants to pair up with me for this.   You would think there would be one out there… traditional Catholic GM, retired, maybe a little bored, ready to talk about chess and the faith while shellacking a priest over the 64.  No?  Anyone?

HOWEVER… I’ll be posting about a new set of tools which podcasters and others, businesses of all sizes, will be able to use with great effect and the data is YOURS, ENCRYPTED and you CAN’T BE CANCELLED.   Very exciting.  Were I a diocesan bishop or running anything with sensitive material and many users, I’d shift like a bolt of lightning to this new cloud based and private structure and get out of the SaaS expensive tread mill.  I’ll be doing that for myself.  This may be a much better approach for me than Twitch, though Twitch has a really large pool of viewers for possible revenue.  Decisions decisions.

A note about Virgil and Italian “Cicerone”.  In Italian a “Cicerone” (chee-chair-OH-nay) is a “guide” and not a fried pork rind.  Why?  Because Virgil was Dante’s guide… see?  In other words, someone got the wrong ancient Roman author as the guide and it stuck.