At the Tea Lounge this morning, I sat next to an empty table with a pronounced slant. I wondered if two people were to sit at that table and play a chess game, would the advantage go to the person playing downhill (the white pieces), or might it fall to the person playing black, who could exploit reckless advances by white? I posed this question to friends Rex and Mat. Mat, a world-class jazz violinist, pointed out that in the face of immanent defeat, whoever sat on the uphill side would have an easier time lifting the tabletop to dump the pieces (and tea cups) on the floor. “F*ck it!”
I liked that insight and thought it no coincidence that the idea of liberating the pieces from their sixty-four-square prison into the anarchic freedom of spilled tea and shards of freshly-shattered porcelain came from a jazzer.
– Jacob Slichter has just recorded an album with his band, Resistor.
http://youtu.be/pw-wiPsq2jk
