Instead of a static photo today, here’s a video about Gammarelli in Rome (ecclesiatical tailor).
You will recall several vestment projects here on the blog, which caused a great deal of joy and continue to enrich sacred worship.
Before I was able, when my family would go up to receive Holy Communion, my mother would leave her missal with me, opened to this page.
I was fascinated, and righly so. pic.twitter.com/CtkPeuQ0u8
— Bishop Robert Reed ? (@BpRobertReed) March 20, 2025
And there’s this…
One of the most ingenious priest hides in England is Harvington’s Great Staircase (original now at Coughton Court) was installed c. 1603, and probably built by priest hide builder St. Nicholas Owen. The staircase was built to disguise what Owen was really doing: building hides.… pic.twitter.com/Tqqdp8O5MN
— Father V (@father_rmv) March 22, 2025
In chessy news…
Chess.com (I have an affiliate tag… sign up now and I’ll get credit… posted a jocular post inviting suggestions for renaming the bishop. (I immediately thought of a few which I can’t write here.) The joke provoked a hurricane of comments. Some got creatively funny. Other’s took it seriously. Some took it seriously and had a spittle-flecked nutty. BTW… the piece is called a bishop in English but that is not it’s equivalent in other languages. In Italian, for example, it’s an alfiere or “standard bearer”, in French it’s a fou “fool” (ehem), in German it’s a laufer “runner” and in some tongues it’s the word for an elephant. At chess.com suggestions for a change included “truck driver” and “Bob”.
Tomorrow will see the end of the American Cup in St. Louis. The winners of the lower brackets is set to take on the winner of the upper.
Here’s a cool thing that I don’t really want and don’t at all need but would be cool to have anyway.
Awesome folding chess set pic.twitter.com/vBWuBXEIc2
— Learn Something (@cooltechtipz) January 26, 2025
Black to move and mate in 3.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Meanwhile, …
Preserved chess figures of bishops from 12th century!
These were found among the Lewis chessmen, 79 distinctive 12th-century chess pieces discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. pic.twitter.com/XJWPKTRhL1
— Aristocratic Fury (@LandsknechtPike) March 16, 2025
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I really appreciate the video of the Tailor in Rome.
Right this moment I am tasked with acquiring vestments for our new Latin Mass Chapel here in Chile and for purchasing Cassocks and surplus for our altar boys and we have stepped forward and asked our local tailor to make several every day Cassocks for our priest who wears the Cassock as his daily attire.
It is quite a daunting task for me as I am not a cleric and I have no inside knowledge into the makings of such fine garments. In addition I will need to have made altar cloths or as they call them here the ORNAMENTS for the Altar, and all of the sacred articles needed for dressing the Altar for Mass. What things? Like candle sticks and a crucifix, Chalice and Ceborium and Patten and all the fabric items to complete the Altar for each time of the year.
So in effect we need to cloth the Altar boys, the Priest, and the Altar. Again I thank you Fr. Z for this video. I wish you had some on the proper Altar set up and cloths. That sure would be a help.
Please pray for our new growing Latin Mass Chapel here in Chile. There are very, very few locations, Only 4 in Chile, all of these other locations are over 3 hours to 14 hours drive away. We are fighting in the blind so to speak on growing our Chapel.
It appears that the Lewis Chessmen have been keeping up with the latest consistory lists.
Especially the rook!
Bh3+, Nxh3
Qf3+, Kg8
Nxh3#
“Shieldbiter” is one of the kennings for a berserker. I didn’t know that it was meant literally. Ouch.
1. . . . . . . . B-a3+
2. N×a3 . . Q-c3+
3. K-b1 . . Q-a1#
Correction to notation:
1. . . . . . . . B-h3+
2. N×h3 . . Q-f3+
3. K-g1 . . .Q-h1#
@Suburbanbanshee
Indeed. There is a reference to the practice in Grettir’s Saga, where a berserker bites his shield, only to have Grettir use it to his advantage by kicking the underside with substantial force.
By the way, I came across this in as ad for a memory supplement. Thought you might appreciate it.
The Brain-Boosting Secret of Chess Grandmasters
If you’re like most people, you associate the game of chess with intelligence. And no wonder. Even a casual game of chess requires focus, memory, and problem solving skills.
But playing chess at the Grandmaster level is far more difficult and demands immense brain power. To show you what I mean, consider chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen.
In a recent interview on the TV show 60 Minutes, Carlsen said he’s memorized a staggering 10,000 chess games. Think of your favorite sports team. Imagine the kind of memory you’d need to be able to recall every play and outcome of 10,000 games!
Just as amazing, Grandmaster Garry Kasparov – one of the few chess players to ever defeat Magnus Carlsen, in fact – can see dozens of moves ahead while he’s playing. In effect, Kasparov has memorized so many moves, and all the ways an opponent could react to those moves, he can “see the future” at a chessboard.
How do they do it? Well, both Kasparov and Carlsen credit much of their awesome brain power to physical exercise. That’s right, exercise.
Garry Kasparov starts his day with a long bike ride, followed by laps in the pool, before settling down to work at the chessboard. And Magnus Carlsen takes his exercise so seriously, he hired Olympic trainers to help create his workout regimen.
We’ve known for a long time that physical exercise is good for brain power and memory. And now we know why. It’s because exercise increases your brain’s production of something called “brain derived-neurotrophic factor”, or BDNF.
BDNF is the master molecule that builds and maintains the infrastructure in your brain. This infrastructure is a complex network of cells, called neurons, that your brain uses to communicate with itself and the rest of your body. The richer and more expansive this infrastructure is, the more active your brain cells are. And the more active your brain cells, the sharper your memory and the faster you learn new things.
For the longest time, scientists believed that adult brains couldn’t grow new brain cells. But thanks to pioneers like Nobel-Prize-Winning neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel, we now know the adult brain is flexible, not fixed. You can grow new brain cells in your 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond. And BDNF is like “fertilizer” that grows new brain cells that can enhance your memory, learning, thinking, and more. Here’s how we know…