11.22.2009
Chess Match (1)
ORANGE: Egmont, our interests have for years weighed upon my heart; I ever stand as over a chess-board, and regard no move of my adversary as insignificant; and as men of science carefully investigate the secrets of nature, so I hold it to be the duty, ay, the very vocation of a prince, to acquaint himself with the dispositions and intentions of all parties. I have reason to fear an outbreak.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Egmont (1788; translated by Anna Swanwick, 1909-14)
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First in an occasional series.
Joshua Glenn is a Boston, Mass.-based writer, editor, and cultural semiotics analyst. He's cofounder of HiLobrow (named by TIME one of the Best Blogs of 2010), Significant Objects, and Semionaut. He's been a columnist for the Boston Globe, the Observer (London), Feed.com, and the Idler; he's toiled as a magazine, website, and newspaper editor; and he's authored and edited Taking Things Seriously (2007) and The Idler's Glossary (2008). In the '90s he published the seminal intellectual/pop culture zine Hermenaut.
Read more from Joshua Glenn (323 posts) on Hilobrow.
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I like this opening gambit.
I want a friend named Egmont. Also one named Orange.