My first chess entry in my new blog and it is only links. A shame. I wanted to write about the Kramnik - Deep Fritz match, especially about the game where Kramnik morphed into Tal but I will keep that for later.

It is Bobby Fischer then. Two interesting articles on a genius who turned mad. The Philadelphia Inquirer (via eier, erbsen etc.) about Fischer's paranoid mother and possible father. Apparently the FBI has been watching both his mother and him. This sheds a new light on his persecution mania concerning the United States.

A long article on Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame. Paranoia, hubris, and hatred—the unraveling of the greatest chess player ever in The Atlantic Monthly (via sofa blogger).

Mississippi John Hurt - The Complete Studio Recordings 3 CDs This really calms me down. So relaxing and uplifting. The mellowest folk blues I can think of. The subtlest guitar playing technique of any bluesman. John Fahey got his fingerpicking style from Mr Hurt.

Klaus Schulze - 2001 I can't think of any electronic music except Boards of Canada I ever loved. But there are some tracks on this selection which click with me. Especially impressionistic pieces like e.g. Gewitter, the beginning of Blanche or Crystal Lake. I don't like it when Schulze takes himself for the Wagner of electronic music like in Ludwig II. von Bayern.

The The - Disinfected I listened to this once and haven't made my mind up yet. It seems an album that takes some time to sink in. No really outstanding tunes and rhythms like on Mind Bomb. I think I will like it after the next two listens.

Comsat Angels – My Mind's Eye I didn't know this band from Sheffield at all and was very positively surprised by this album from the early 90s. Andy Kellman gave me the idea to check them out. I don't remember if it was in his now closed blog Permafrost or in the AMG. The next fave band of Andy on my discovery list is Bark Psychosis now. My Mind's Eye is dark melodic rock. Quite powerful with addictive tunes. Somehow it makes sense to me that they originated in the early new wave.

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump limited edition 2 CDs I listened to this once and I liked what I heard though I wasn't overwhelmed. The most obvious influence seems to be Pavement. Though Grandaddy's music is less abrasive and lighter. The drones by the Dandy Warhols aren't too far neither. Soft & sunny central Californian psychedelia.

Hayden – Skyscraper National Park The guitar in the beginning of this album really made me think this was a lost album by Neil Young. A bluesy occasionally slightly distorted rock guitar with a folk feel. Hayden's voice is different from Young's but it is strange as well. It is not really a good singing voice, too raspy. But this album is very good. Definitely in my top ten this year. Simple with haunting impressive melodies. Only reproach: it is a little on the short side.

Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas I didn't yet listen to more than two songs of this. I liked those songs and I am 100% confident that Mr Darnielle is not going to disappoint me. We are talking about rather primitive and rough sounding songwriter stuff here.

Neu! - 75 I almost regretted the purchase of this album immediately after the first listen. Compared to the first Neu! album this is so smoothly produced and unidimensional. I find it plain boring.

No-Man – Returning Jesus Another let-down. No-Man sound like Talk Talk with Mark Almond singing plus a very uninspired production. I don't like the schmaltzy voice, I don't like the rather foreseeable synth-heavy arrangements, I don't like the weak tunes. Maybe it will grow on me but I seriously doubt it.

Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs Great proto-punk from Cleveland, Ohio. Besides David Thomas and Peter Laughner the other two members of the band sing as well. First I thought the Satisfaction cover was a little too short but then I realised that 10 seconds are more than enough. Stand-out tracks are Sonic Reducer, 30 Seconds over Tokyo and Final Solution. There is not a second wasted on this washed-out nugget from 1975.

Sonic Youth & ICP & The EX - In the Fishtank Free-jazzy, improvisational, difficult stuff. It would have been published within the experimental SYR series if it hadn't been part of the fishtank band encounters. I don't understand why I still continue to buy all these Sonic Youth albums when I never listen to them. Obsessed by one of all-time's greatest indie bands I guess.

An mp3 of Chan Marshall's He War (via ToT) from her new album You Are Free which is scheduled for release on February, 18th, 2003. A return to form after the rather disappointing Covers Album? This track is less depressive and more upbeat than her usual songs.

An older review of her concert in New York, October, 3rd from Glorious Noise:

So besides me there is someone else getting excited about this Welsh punk outfit somewhere in between the Pixies, the Jesus Lizard and the Sex Pistols:

Next year in exactly eight months time is my 40th birthday. A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to prepare my inner self for this shock by reviewing my favourite albums from 1963-2002 with the restriction of choosing one album per year. It is a way of looking back at my past life in terms of the music I listened to and I still love. As I didn't listen to music in 1963 for example I will always pick my current favourite. I am not sure if I will succeed in finishing this "project" until July, 14th, I would have to make an entry every six days or so till then, but I hope with posting my first choice for 1972 I will put myself enough under pressure to reach the finish of this little music marathon.

There will be no rules concerning the order of the years I will choose. To start with 1972 turned out to be quite a challenge as it was probably one of the most exciting years in the history of pop music. Just look at Piero Scaruffi's list with 90 records of which I don't even know the top spot: Klaus Schulze's Irrlicht. I own 33 albums (CD, LP or tape) recorded in 1972. And about six of them have been favourites of mine from that year at one point of my life (the years are approximate):

• 1976 Genesis - Foxtrot
• 1980 Nick Drake - Pink Moon
• 1987 Neil Young - Harvest
• 1990 Rolling Stones - Exile in on Main Street
(relistening to this was a major disappointment)
• 2002 Neu! - Neu!

There are bands I've been getting into almost instantly at first listen like Velvet Underground or The Smiths and there are others which took me a long time to appreciate. Like Joy Division Roxy Music belong into this group.

My first audio encounter with their singer and main songwriter Bryan Ferry dates back to the summer of 1976. It was the first time I was in a foreign country without my parents and I was in Bournemouth in a guest family. Two songs were everywhere in that very dry & hot English summer: Let's Stick Together by Ferry and Here Comes the Sun by Cockney Rebel. I liked both of them and didn't realize for a long time that Here Comes the Sun was a Beatles cover. Ferry's sleazy crooner's voice was hard to resist and he was good looking too which could impress a thirteen year old.

But somehow for a long time I had a problem to connect the pop singer Ferry to the more experimental and challenging band Roxy Music which was lauded in music critics circles. And I didn't understand what was so special about them. I don't remember the name of the first song by them I ever listened to and it didn't mark me at all but I know that it was in my philosophy class at school around 1979 (our teacher was young). The class was about existentialism and the teacher said that this song was new wave.

There is a party going on. People talking, tinkling glasses. A seemingly average rock song starts with a kind of bar piano line. Ferry sings forgettable lyrics about the sweetest queen he has ever seen. With his staccato intonation he sounds like the blueprint for David Byrne in the Talking Heads. Phil Manzanera tries to be Jimi Hendrix and he almost succeeds. And suddenly the song takes a turn. The saxophone becomes freestyle, there is some guitar distortion, the piano becomes atonal, the song morphs into a free jazz session. It slows down at the end like as if the record player is plugged off and the speed is slowing down. A nice drum solo and a fireworks noise finish the song.

A lyrical classical oboe theme starts Ladytron. A song for romantic candle-light dinners. But beware this one speeds up. Never trust the beginning of a Roxy Music song. Eno adds some electronic spices to this.

My favourite song is no.3 If There Is Something. The first 90 seconds constitute about the most boring country rock ballad I have ever heard. But when Andy Mackay's sax and later oboe join in and play a new theme everything changes. Suddenly we are in melodramatic land. Ferry sings vibrato as if he had swallowed one gallon of his own tears:

The theme is repeated by the piano and varied upon. It is really fascinating how the guitar also merges in. All instruments seem to fuse into one. The oboe is reaching heights where no man has ever been. Ferry almost drowns in his tears now. How can a voice sound so desperate from deep inside? The last minute is a tad boring again with the over and over repeated line When you were young but the four minutes in between 1'30'' and 5'30'' are about the most exciting four minutes in any piece of rock I know.

Marginal note: I just read here in the AMG that there is a probably even superior 12 minute (!) live version of this song performed at the John Peel radio show in January 1972. I really need this now.

The next song is Virginia Plain and I think I'll finish now as everyone will know this anyway. As sparkling as rock music can get. I have to add that there is no weak song on this album. That there are two small rock mini-operas The Bob (Medley) and Sea Breeze which piss on Supper's Ready or anything released by The Who in this field. 2 H.B. and the beginning of The Bob foreshadow ambient. And there is Would You Believe? which anticipates the dreadful Rocky Horror Picture Show without its one-dimensionality. The end is Bitters End, the party is over, the girl is gone and has found another and Bryan asks

will someone find me?

This was a party as it should be. It was fun but it was a disappointment as well. A good pretext for another party, don't you think?

Maybe tomorrow Pink Moon will be my 1972 favourite again but today it is Roxy Music.

Isn't this the most succinct sentence to wrap up what love is?

I have no control when I fall in love. I can't choose love, it chooses me. It is unavoidable fate. There is something irrational involved. And usually it is not even the "fault" of the person to which the love is directed. This person can almost do what she wants it won't change my feelings towards her. I am at her mercy and I enjoy it. Everything she does has a meaning which only I can see. I don't think it is correct to say that my love is blind. Quite the opposite is true: love is like a mind-expanding drug. Every gesture, every look and every small word confirms my love. It is like being awakened from the dead. I notice so many details I haven't paid attention to before. When I am with her everything around is so much more intense: the colours and perfumes of the flowers, the cool breeze, the clear sky full of stars, the music playing in the background at her place. Everything is magic and who could resist magic...

Love is a present I can't refuse. But usually it doesn't last long. Can't help falling out of love is as frequent as the opposite.

Josh triggered this with his post from Sunday.

The next entry will be on music, I promise.

Staying away from the internet for a week and getting back into it is weird. When rereading the blogs and internet sites I usually "flick through" (or maybe more accurate "scroll") I found out that I didn't miss much in that week. It is almost hard to get back into the habit of flying through almost a hundred sites per day. My internet addiction doesn't seem to be too serious yet.

On the other hand this reminds me a lot of another of my addictions. When I stop smoking for a week in hindsight I never have the feeling I missed anything. And when I slip then the first cigarettes are always terrible. I need to smoke at least twenty to find them tasty again. And after another 2,000 they are disgusting again and I have to stop again. Those bloody vicious circles.

An old daily philosophical quotation I kept in my inbox as it somehow got stuck in my craw:

This reasoning seems so plain wrong to me. Death is the most trivial event in life. Next to the beginning of life after the most banal and animalistic pastime which is sex. And the door to death is open all life long. We can die at any time. There is nothing mysterious about physical death. Thinking about what comes after is what gives death its special aura. And of course we do not achieve death at all. Death comes to us. Like life actually. Or did you achieve life?

Behind those sentences there seems to hide a calvinistic work ethic: you should earn your death! And then as a bonus death is a relief for you. What a bizarre way of thinking.

On the contrary I would argue that after this often painful life we merit a painless death. What's the point in suffering just to die and disappear or whatever happens after? If medicine was only capable to reduce the pain of those dying of horrible diseases and wounds medicine already would be worth it.

The lonely rider left the saloon. He had been the last guest anyway. There was only the barmaid left who stood behind the counter. He had met many people that night but for some reason now all their faces had become blurred images. Maybe it was the drinks. Maybe his tiredness. They had talked about this and that. Nothing important really. In the beginning he had tried to listen to what the others said but after a while their voices had turned into noises he couldn’t make sense of anymore. Whenever he had said something the others simply had ignored him and had carried on with their talk. And he couldn't blame them really. For he had said too many things he shouldn't have said to people he didn't know. Outside of the saloon they were strangers.

In the road a fresh wind from the North was blowing. It was a relief. Slowly his mind cleared up again. The barmaid stepped out of the door and started the conversation:

B: Hey man, you forgot something. LR: You know that’s what I am really good at. Forgetting things. What was it this time? B: Your notebook. I have seen you writing in it when you were sitting at the bar on your own a couple of hours ago. LR: Oh yes. You are right. But you know what. I think I wanted to forget it and apparently it worked. I didn’t forget it like I forget umbrellas in cafés when the rain has stopped. It was kind of intentional. If you want you can keep it. B: Are you sure? LR: Positive. B: Can I ask you something personal? LR: Go ahead. B: Where are you going at this time of the night? LR: I am going into the desert. B: You mean you will ride into the desert? LR: No. I don’t have a horse. I will walk into the desert. B: And what will you do there? LR: I will try to get back to the heart of things. There is a world outside the saloon, you know. B: Will you ever come back here? LR: I guess so. B: When will it be? LR: Count your heartbeats, girl. When you are at half a million you will see a man on the horizon. That man will be me. B: And if I get the counting wrong? LR: In that case we will never see each other again, I guess.

She counted till one hundred until his footsteps had died away. The lonely rider disappeared into the night, heading South.