Chess is, of course, the greatest strategy game in the world; I don’t think the readers of this blog need to be convinced of that.…
CIPC #111: The smurfs, Vol.11: The Olympic Smurfs
In the more than two years I have been discussing chess in popular culture on this blog, I have seen the most horrible atrocities being…
CIPC #110: Hummel, Schachpartie im Palais Voss, Berlin
Originally, this was planned to be a sequel to last week’s post. I was going to dissect another slightly less obscure 19th century German painting.…
CIPC #109: Haaga, Schachstilleben
Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you end up in Hannover. Assume, still completely hypothetically, that you have strolled through the Herrenhäuser Gärten…
CIPC #108: Toyota Tacoma commercial
Having a contest with the grim reaper with one’s life at stake is a very old trope. Older than chess, in fact. But in medieval…
CIPC #107: The big bang theory, S5 E18: The werewolf transformation
If you’ve been living under a rock for half your life, you are probably an invertebrate. Also, you might not know about The big bang…
CIPC #106: Ao no ekusoshisuto, Chapter 15
Today I’m absolutely in terra incognita, but sooner or later it had to happen. In this day and age, one cannot be a critic of…
CIPC #105: The bone collector
The bone collector. With a title like that, who can blame me that I was expecting a thrilling tale of ruthless rivalry, fierce competition, and…
CIPC #104: The Strokes, You only live once
This is perhaps the hardest one I have ever talked about. But it’s not my fault! No, the culprit is Julian Casablancas,1 or whoever came…
CIPC #103: Bertina Henrichs, Die Schachspielerin
The long-time readers of this blog might remember how, quite a while ago, I made a few blog posts about my impressions while watching movies…