One of the coolest stories I think in recent American Pop History is the life of Bobby Fischer who died yesterday. Aside from being one of the greatest chess players in the world, he lived a life only a spy could dream of. Popping up across the globe like Jason Bourne. It's crazy to think that despite being very Anti-Semitic and Anti-America, he was (is) still championed as an American hero. He beat the Russians. He's America's great hope. Only in this country could we hold someone with so much disdain for us on such a high pedestal.
“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as esthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity,” wrote Harold C. Schonberg.
A couple years ago I remember seeing a piece on ESPN with Jeremy Schapp called "Finding Bobby Fischer." It was about how Schapp's father, a famous journalist, had been a father figure to Fischer and how Bobby later became crazy and anti-semitic. Bobby was very angry about some things Dick Schapp had said about him and confronted Jeremy about it at a press conference Schapp was at when Bobby was released from a prison in Iceland. I couldn't find it on youtube but I found an article about the piece that is worth checking out.
Anyways, more soon. Go big and stuff...
-M, p, z & shredder
oh ps - Searching for bobby fischer is an amazing movie and if you haven't seen it yet, don't watch the clip, it's the ending of the movie. instead go rent it or go on youtube and you can watch the whole thing. i think it's been broken up into 11 clips.
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