Memes, mementos and missives by Macauley
The Onion: Bush Tours America to Survey Damage Caused by Presidency
President Bush will seek to comfort victims of his presidency as they try to make sense of the destruction he has caused.
Gotta love The Onion!
I’m in the mid-west U.S.A. for a week, but had to share this bit of awesomeness. Matt is back, dancing the world away. It will invariably leave you grinning!
Matt could learn one thing, however, from ZeFrank, though: How to Dance Properly.
Much higher quality version at YouTube.
GM Gata Kamsky was at the top of a six-way tie for first at the National Open (June 5-8), part of the Las Vegas International Chess Festival. In this 8 minute interview with Chess.FM, recorded immediately after his Round Six draw against GM-elect Josh Friedel Kamsky discusses his time in Vegas and his thoughts on the upcoming World Championship candidates match with Veselin Topalov, scheduled for November in Lvov, Ukraine.
My video on the European Championships was incorporated into the World Chess News show (Episode 198) as part of their segment on the tournament beginning at 9:08 into the show:
World Chess News is a long-running, and nicely produced 28-minute chess news show. The show is in Swedish with English subtitles.
Back in January I had a little misunderstanding with the Krzymowski family team producing the WCN, after they embedded a severely edited version of my “Fischer Remembered” video without permission into an episode. However, we’ve had a pleasant correspondence about it subsequently, and now I’m quite happy to be able to help them out on the content side from time to time.
It’s a classy, high quality show, and they seem like good people with a healthy passion for chess. I know long it takes to produce a show like that and Adriana, Antonia, Amelia, Alfred and Albert should be commended for their consistent efforts.
I was John Watson’s guest on his ICC Chess.FM show Chess Talk earlier this month. Normally this show is restricted to ICC members only, however we decided to make this one available to all.
I give behind the scenes insights into Chess.FM’s tournament coverage over the past year and discuss my video work, hanging out with the world’s top players, chess journalism and more.
FYI…The ChessVibes comments in the discussion of journalism was from the April 23rd post.
Here are just the interviews I conducted/facilitated LIVE on the ICC Chess.FM broadcast during the recent M-Tel Masters:
Genna Sosonko
Vassily Ivanchuk
Boris Spassky
Last week I interviewed Sergey Tiviakov of the Netherlands, who was the surprise winner of the 2008 European Championship. Ukraine’s Kateryna Lahno won the women’s tournament, and Marie Sebag — the only woman playing in the Men’s group — scored her third GM norm.
This is the sound of the stream near a family member’s house. Soothing after a long time on the road…
[Houndbite.com hosting my audio, seems to have gone offline...]
Better late than never; here are my four favorites. All thirteen days, plus a few bonus videos are available free from ICC’s Chess.FM.
Lots of variety here, trying new things out. Why did we go back to 4:3 aspect ratio, you ask? It was largely an accident — for In Transit, in the Madrid airport, I didn’t bother to crop the video from my Macbook’s webcam (that’s just iMovieHD feeding itself, by the way) back to widescreen. And I’d switched off my DV cam’s anamorphic mode too. So, I just went with it.
Both In Transit and Macauley Vs. Magnus borrow the video blogging style of The Show with ZeFrank, a true pioneer. (Sorry, I’m just not that original.) Notice the Sports Racer shirt!
In Leko Snares Carlsen, Leko’s line, “I received the domination,” cracks me up every time I watch it!
Enjoy!
When Blunder Strikes
“Vassily Ivanchuk hangs a bishop in severe time pressure against Levon Aronian in Round 4. Macauley has the video of the fateful moment, and talks to Ivanchuk’s second, Manuel León Hoyos.”
A Spoiled Novelty
“Aronian’s facinating novelty on move 9 put Peter Leko into an 83 minute think. Leko survived the resulting time pressure to draw the game. The Chess.FM team has the full story.”
Macauley Vs. Magnus
“Macauley challenges Magnus Carlsen to a set of tennis, and lives to blog the tale.”
Leko Snares Carlsen
“Peter Leko discusses his Round 11 marathon win over Magnus Carlsen”
I’m providing video coverage for the tournament along with Peter Doggers of ChessVibes. My first video is below.
ICC blurb:
“The 17th Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament takes place March 14th-28th, 2008 at the grandiose Hotel Palais de la Mediterranée on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France.”
“With eight players from the world’s top ten (including the top four) and an average rating of 2752 (category 21), the line-up is even stronger than the super-tournaments in Wijk aan Zee and Morelia- Linares. These are the twelve participants: Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, Alexander Morozevich, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Peter Leko, Vasily Ivanchuk, Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand, Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin and Loek van Wely.”
