My Dots for Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Gary Kasparov is going toe-to-toe with Putin. This has spelled death for other people who have attempted the same thing in the past. His new book sounds fascinating.

Quoted: What lifts this book high above the run of such confidence-boosters is the extraordinary personality of its author. Kasparov is not only the greatest chess player the world has ever seen, he is also the leader of the opposition and the last hope of democracy in Russia. He has been brave enough to defy the man he refers to contemptuously as “a mere lieutenant-colonel in the KGB” with nothing more than his wits to live by. So the game Kasparov is now playing with President Putin is for his life. This fact gives his thoughts about chess and life an extra edge. Scattered throughout How Life Imitates Chess are autobiographical anecdotes that build up a portrait of a man who has hovered between insider and outsider throughout his career.

They’re going to open a Dickens theme park in Kent next month. Definitely a stop I need to add for the inaugural London trip I’ve been trying to plan for years. Now if the exchange rate could just get reasonable!

Quoted: Sandwiched between a cinema multiplex and a factory outlet, and housed in a hangar the size of four football pitches, Dickens World is a theme park based on the Victorian answer to Mickey Mouse. Opening in Kent at the end of next month, it’s a day out for the family that brings to life the 15 novels by Charles Dickens; actually make that 13 - they haven’t managed to squeeze in Barnaby Rudge or Bleak House. Never mind that the books tackle child exploitation, poverty, murder and domestic violence; the indoor attraction is based on designs by the creator of Santa World in Sweden so the emphasis is firmly on fun, fun, fun.

Somebody purporting to be a former classmate of the Virginia Tech shooter has posted a couple of Cho Seung-Hui’s plays on AOL. I warn you, they’re disturbed, puerile, and graphic. If somebody had written one of these in a writing workshop I was in, I would have been very concerned.

Here is what his former classmate said:

Quoted: When we read Cho’s plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn’t have even thought of. Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter. I was even thinking of scenarios of what I would do in case he did come in with a gun, I was that freaked out about him. When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap. Even the professor didn’t pressure him to give closing comments.