Wednesday, January 22, 2003
87850733:: 9:56 AM

my window at dawn and dusk.

Saturday, January 18, 2003
87649429:: 12:16 PM

The final round of the US Chess Championship is happening today, with 8 grandmasters tied for first place. Yesterday GM Shabalov was in clear first, with a sharp but promising game against GM Benjamin. I left work at 6 to catch the end of this game and arrived right after the point where Shabalov's pawn center had been destroyed for the worse. Its a shame since a win or a draw would have nearly guaranteed him the $25,000 first prize. I caught him as he was leaving the tourament hall and he signed my board. -- I had missed a chance to get the board signed by him 10 years ago at a Philidelphia Tournament.

In the skittles room I ran into IM Yury Lapshun who had played for Cornell in the 96 Amateur Team East (I played for Brooklyn College B, go figure). The circles that chess players travel in are pretty small. He was analyzing his last game -- extemely complicated with a QRN against a swarm of minor pieces. He lost too.

I took the monorail and walked home from downtown. On the way home a homeless man half climbed over a highway rail leaning over a 60 foot drop into oncoming traffic. The two bags he carried spilled bottles onto the sidewalk behind him as he swung a leg over the rail. He made a scene of it until about 5 people had stopped to stare. I kept walking and after about 50 more feet I heard him laughing loudly at all his spectators as he climb back to the safe side.

Saturday, January 11, 2003
87280566:: 3:12 PM

Today I attended my grandfather's funeral.

He was my father's father, and was the grandparent I had spent the most time with. The funeral speakers spoke in Taiwanese, Mandarin and English, and during a particularly long Taiwanese portion (of which I understood almost nothing) I meditated on him, remembering all the ways he had been part of my of life and the things I would say if I had volunteered to speak.

I imagined him putting on his felt hat and marching into the 90+ Washington heat to tend to the garden. He stayed with many of his children and tended a garden at each house. Ours was quite amazing: I remember the long beans twisting up the hand-tied lattices of white string, and the rows of cabbage, tomato, and kong-ching vegetable, the heavy gourds and cucumbers and strawberries. More than anything I remember the heat - and how I would spend those summer days at age 9 looking for the coolest spot in the basement to lie exhaustedly while my 76 year-old grandfather would plow and sow to bring food to our table.

At this point, I got swatted by my sister (who thought I was asleep) :: I told her that I wasn't and went back to it. This time I tried to focus on all the things he had taught me. He had been a teacher back in Taiwan and there was much to learn from him, though we didn't speak much since my mandarin was pretty dismal. Still I learned many lessons just from being around him. When not gardening, my grandfather and I would play Chinese chess and went fishing a great deal in those summers. I was pretty good at chess and I remember the slow progression from being mostly beaten to mostly winning. From those games I learned that each move, each step in life, was another chance to build something -- but you *have to think*. Otherwise your pieces will wander in all directions, getting lost in corners or simply not be ready when a real challenge came down the line. From fishing I learned the value of patience, waking up early, and the joy that a warm sun and quiet lake can bring. From his gardening I got a sense of the hard work it takes to really care for something.

But just as he tended to the garden he also tended to his family. He and my grandmother raised 2 daughters and 5 sons through tumultuous times (japanese occupation, arrival of the nationalists, etc), and was able to instill in them the right properties to bring success to their lives and pass this success onto their children.

Thursday, January 09, 2003
87180563:: 12:24 PM

In the office next door, portishead (dummy) is playing. It played yesterday too: nearly a whole day :: it's fascinating where music ends up. Portishead probably never imagined that those beautiful songs of claustrophia and loss would be creeping softly under the walls of Microsoft 10 years down the line. The notes, the sounds -- stretch like infinite threads dragged along by each listener... through cables and headphone cords, through angular interstices of gray matter.

I had the same thought while Kid Loco suffused into the desert air over a Rio Grande sunset Dec 31. 2000. This is one of the most powerful aspects of music to me. It's ability to connect memory :: to align an array of events dotted in space, strung out in time. Really there are many things that do this (scraps of paper, ticket stubs, a couch), but a song is a coherent block that makes memories into testable events. I listen to this song today and I feel different than when I was 15. Why? The song is the same. But this music which casts the same light reveals a different picture because I have changed.