Checkmate

From my library's corner sale I acquired my very own chess set.  It was only a dollar, so I thought, why not pick it up?  I am now on the slow but steady path to learning how to play chess properly.  On this journey with me is my little sister.  We decided that we would learn to become masters of chess together.

My chess set is a plastic one, molded in the 'authentic Staunton design', according to the side of the box.  You can tell just from looking at the box that this is an older set.  The yellowed tape, the style of the type, the discoloration of the box.  Upon inspection of one side of the box I found a date; 1969.  It may not be as pretty as some of the chess sets in the book my sister and I are using for instruction, but it does have some sort of charm to it.  I'm certainly glad I have it, and that it simply wasn't tossed into a dumpster somewhere.

The book we are reading from is "Chess move by move" by Paul Langfield.  It was written in 1968, just a year before my chess set was made.  I think that makes my chess set and it a pretty good pair, don't you?  I was amused to see the fictional quote it has printed on it's copyright page.

'I declare it's marked out just like a large chess board!' Alice said as last . . . 'It's a great huge game of chess that's being played–all over the world . . . I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join–though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.'

THROUGH THE LOOKING–GLASS

Lewis Carroll 

I thought it was a fitting quote to add in there.

We've gotten through the first chapter, which explains to us how to properly set the game up.  The two things I have learned from it are a) the bottom right-hand corner of the board must always be a while square for each player, and b) the white queen goes on a white square and the black queen goes on a black square, always.  The idea that the king should always go on your right-hand side and the queen on your left is wrong.  This puts the king and the queen diagonal from each other across the chess board, and doesn't create the king's side and the queen's side of the board like it should.

When the queens are set up properly, a grid is created, as shown above.  This is especially important if you are recording the game in ledger or some other thing.

We haven't gotten to any of the actual moves yet, so we might not be able to out wit you as of this moment, but so far my sister and I can at least keep your board straight and even record the match properly if you so wanted us to.

There are many varied and unique chess sets pictured inside our book.  It almost makes me want to go out and start collecting them, just for the looks of it.  But if I started collecting anything else, I'd end up on an episode of Extreme Hoarders one day.  That's what I'm told, anyways.  Though, arguably, is it really hoarding if all the stuff is really cool stuff?  I don't think so.  Still, I am living on limited space at the moment, and limited cash, so there will be no old chess set collecting for now.

For now.

By the end of this book I will be a chess master ( probably ), and so will my sister ( maybe ).  Either way, we're going to have fun with it, and that's all that will matter when the covers are closed.

Em

Calligraphy, Someday

So once again, my local library ends up being totally and completely awesome.

There is this one very special corner by the front doors that has books for sale all the time.  You can stroll over, find what you want, and drop the required payment into a wooden box before strolling out with more books you obviously need despite not actually having room for them anymore.

There's not always something good over there ( it's mostly beat up romance paperbacks and unwanted children's books ), because the stock for it comes strictly from donations made to the library.  But every now and then you find something that's pretty neat.  Or, in this case, really neat.

"The Complete Calligraphy Set" was standing suggestively on the bottom shelf when I turned, just about to leave the library, to see it staring at me.

"Come," it said to me.  "You KNOW you want to take me home."

"I do?" I wondered.  And then, "Yes.  Yes I DO want to take you home."

But did I have enough cash to take it home?  Or was money going to come between us?

The little yellow sticker on the top of it said it was only $6.  So no, thank goodness, money was not going to come between us.

Thus it now stands along side my other meager calligraphy items, slowly preparing me for the day when I will actually sit down and teach myself calligraphy.  It has been a dream of mine since last summer, when I checked out no less than 10 calligraphy books to do just that, but sadly, Life came in and slapped me back to reality.

I did not have enough time, you see, to sit for hours and hours to properly be able to learn calligraphy, nor do I really have the time right now, not with everything else I'm trying to do all at once.  One day, when I finish with the 12 dozen other things I having going on right now, I'll do it.

( Though I'll have to go get some more ink first, as the little bottle my set came with, is all used up. )

And when I do, you can guess how absolutely fabulous this blog is going to look.

Em

Bibliophile Book Sale Spree

I got 41 books for $8 over the weekend.

Don't believe me?

Here's how it happened.

My library had it's spring book sale on Friday and Saturday.  It's always super cheap.  50 cents for a paperback, $1 for a hardback, or $7 for however many books you can fit into a plastic grocery bag.  If you buy more than one bag, you get a dollar off for every bag you buy, down the lowest price of $4 a bag.  They also have super rare and old books, but they are sold separately for $3 a book, and are not included in the bag price.

My sister and I went to this sale.  Together we got 3 bags; one for me, two for her.  That meant each bag only cost $5 instead of $7.  I fit 18 books into my bag.  And I thought that was the end of it.

But then on the second day of the sale, I noticed that during the final hour of the sale, everything was listed as half off, including the old, rarer books.  With spare change included, I had $6 of pocket money left.  So I went back to the book sale to get myself 4 old books to add to my collection.

Turns out, the ladies running the book sale had dropped the price even lower than what they originally said.  It was now only $1 a bag, and the old books were now included in the bag price instead of being sold separately!  So that's when 4 more books turned into 1 more bag.

Then, as I was browsing, one of the ladies came up to me, super excited to see a younger person interested in books, and began to help me put books into my bag.  When that one filled up, she got me another one, and then one more.  And that's when 1 more bag turned into 3 more bags.  3 bags that I only paid $3 for.

So both days combined, I only spent $8 for 4 bags of books.  And in those 4 bags, I managed to fit 41 books.

Shall I go through what they all are, or would that be too long and boring for you?

You know what, I'm so excited that I'm going to do it anyways, just in case you can't read all the spine labels.  So let's go top to bottom in the pictures.  Please forgive me.

To start with, my wonderful, super heavy dictionary set from 1927.  These puppies hold the real english language in it if you ask me.  There are so many old words that don't make it into today's dictionarys, and there's no twerking or selfie nonsense to be had.  These dictionarys have style, from back when the English language had class.  And as a bonus, there's a built in Thesaurus, a proper name dictionary for looking up famous people of history and myth, and a cities and countries dictionary in the back of the second volume.

"The Beacon Lights of History" set.  I have volumes 1, 3, 8, 10, and 14.  I don't how many there are all together or where I could ever find the others, but these are still gems.  Inside of one of them was a newspaper clipping from 1899.  Can you believe it?  I got to read how the stocks and weather were that day in November over a century ago!  How cool is that?

Then there's "Twelve Way to Build a Better Vocabulary".  "Cathcart's Literary Reader" and "History of English Literature" are for studying all the famous written works without having to actually read them.  "Great Adventures and Explorations" are about the old explorers.  The last book in that picture is, "The Art of Clear Thinking".

"The Elegant Auctioneers", I'm not even sure what's it's about.  But it's stamped on the inside, saying it came from a New York hospital library.  "Paradise Lost and Other Poems", "A Tale of Two Cities", and "Bleak House".  I'm pretty sure "Pearls From Many Seas" is a work of fiction, but the first few pages are so dry that they're cracking, so I haven't looked further.

"Stories to Remember", "Hurlbut's Story of the Bible", "The Possessed" ( translated from Russian; should be fun to read ), "Life's Extras" ( something uplifting and inspiring ), and "Silver Wings", which is a collection of addresses to children, about life, I'm assuming.

I also have a copy of The Constitution ( and apparently California's, too ),"The Unheavenly City", about the future of our urban areas, Red Cross guides to home nursing and first aid, "Ex Libris", a book about books that is one of my all time favorite books, "The Day is Dancing", an old elementary school book of poems, "The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes", and "The Pearl / The Red Pony" all wrapped up in one.

"Essays Literary and Critical by Matthew Arnold", "The Old Yellow Book", Le Morte D'arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory Volume 2", "The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson by Robert Southly", and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush".  I'm going to be honest.  I have no idea what those ones are about beyond what their titles say.  And then there's my first little Bible.  It's illustrated, too, and super cute!

That one with the face on it is called "Evangeline", and I don't know what it is.  "Don't" is a manners book written by an American in 1880, then re-published in England in from 1986-1998.  "Sunshine and Smiles" is a collection of sermons and biographical stories.

"Austen Country" is all about, you guessed it!  Jane Austen and the region she lived in.  That book on top of it is an old school book from one of the county school's from the early 1900's.  It's falling to pieces, and it makes me so sad to see it.  I want to restore it one day, if it's possible.

So there's all of them!  Some where signed, one had a sticker from a book store in Canada, and one had a whole list of previous owners starting back in the year 1895!  That's what I love most about these old books, and what makes me sad about them.  The last imprint of people's lives are left in some of these books, and then these books are just left to crumble and be ruined.  So many stories lost, not just in the pages, but of the people who once held them.  I wish there was a way to get all those stories back.

For now all I can do is seek out and hold dear as many of these books as I can find.  I hope that there are many, many people who feel the same way about them as I do, so that more of them can be saved.

You see to me a book isn't just a book.  When some really cares about writing, they put their soul down onto those pages.  It becomes a piece of them.  Long after you die, what you write might just be in the hands of a reader somewhere, and that person will hear your thoughts, will be reading a little piece of your soul, so that while those pages are still being turned, it's almost as if you never truly died at all.

That little piece of you will live on, and as long as it exists, so do you.  If you destroy a book, you are, in a way, killing the person who wrote it.  Because as soon as all their works are gone, so too is their last memory.  Nothing can last forever, but I will work to keep these stories, and these people, alive for as long as possible.

I think all writers are a bit afraid of being lost to the sands of time.  The thought that as soon as they are gone, so too are all their thoughts and memories.  I believe that is at the heart of why we write.  A book, in my opinion, is the closest thing humans can get to immortality, at least for a while.

It's comforting to me, at least, to think that one day after I'm gone, someone might still be reading my books, knowing that there was once a time when I existed.

Em