Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

B is for Backgammon

Backgammon is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board.

When I was a kid, there was this weird board on the backside of my checkerboard; I had NO idea what it was there for. As it turned out, it was almost perfect for a game called backgammon. I never learned it, though, until I was in the latter stages of college in the mid-1970s. I went to a bar in New Paltz, NY, appropriately named Bacchus, and saw a bunch of people playing this game. I eventually befriended one of the players, a townie named Anne, and ended up playing a lot of the game.

I discovered that backgammon is an ancient game, certainly invented in some form in southwest Asia, perhaps Persia, before A.D. 800. A version of the game spread from India to China and Japan. It was introduced to Europe by the Arabs. From BOARD and TABLE Games from Many Civilizations by R.C. Bell: “Early in the seventeenth century, a new variant appeared…the old game enjoyed a tremendous revival and swept through Europe, being played in England as backgammon, in France as tric-trac…in Germany as puff, in Spain as tablas reales…”

It is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board. In the board above, the white pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into its inner board (the lower right quadrant) while the black pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into ITS inner board (the upper right quadrant) before bearing off. The clash occurs when an opposing piece wants to land on your space. A space with two or more checkers is safe, but one with only one checker is vulnerable to be hit and have that piece to start all over again.

All of this is laid out quite well in this rule book.

A lot of the calculation in backgammon involves probability. The odds of getting hit, specifically. Above are all the combinations of two dice. Say you have a piece that’s six unrestricted squares away; it’s quite vulnerable to a throw of 1/5, 2/4, 3/3, 4/2, 5/1, but also 6/1, 6/2, 6/3, 6/4, 6/5, or 6/6, or even 2/2, since throwing doubles means you get four of the number. In other words, there’s a 12 out of 36 chance of getting hit. Whereas being 11 away, there is only a 2 in 36 chance (5/6, 6/5) of being hit.

There is a doubling cube, whereby one raises the stakes of the game, but it can be played without using it; probably sacrilege, I know. I play at least once a month, and I enjoy it greatly.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

The recovery, at least in my tribe

Happy birthday, middle child.

My sister Leslie was employed at a company when her workload virtually doubled, responsible for the safety at 51 drug stores, rather than 26. This is, unfortunately, a rather common scenario in corporate America; one is given so much work that the only way one could possibly fulfill the obligations is to work 60 or 70 hours a week and get paid for only 40. Ultimately, her company was purchased by another company, and she lost her job a couple of years ago.

She survived primarily on short-term, part-time work, and the fact that she had one rental property, which at least allowed her to not end up on the street.

Earlier this year, she got a new job. I’d describe it more fully, except that it’s not entirely clear to me. I DO know that involves her being a safety coordinator. In one scenario, she had to get someone to get rid of bees that attached themselves to a newsstand. She didn’t have to deal with the insects herself, but she did get some city workers to remove the bees, then to ascertain who should get the bill, in this case, the newsstand owner.

Possibly not coincidentally, my father was the vice-president in charge of safety for the construction company for which he worked for a couple of decades. (Hmm – I’m the fire marshal for my office, and took training to use a defibrillator a couple of years back.)

I took her new employment as a sign that the economy recovery, however slow, is coming along.

Happy birthday, middle child.

It was a very Dark Knight

Maybe they would have stopped this guy, in a darkened room, after a gas canister had been set off, if they were Navy SEALS, or something.

 

I’ve never been to a midnight, opening night showing of a movie. I’ve gone to premieres, though, and I do know what cinematic anticipation feels like. There’s just something about seeing something before almost anyone else that provides an unusual sense of satisfaction. Your view of the film is not colored by what everyone else says.

If I were to have gone to a recent midnight showing, The Dark Knight Rises would not have been it.

While I’ve seen Batman movies starring Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and even Adam West, I passed on the George Clooney iteration, Batman and Robin, and I just haven’t seen any of the Christian Bale films, Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), or, obviously, the new one.

Of course, the shootings at the opening of TDKR in Aurora, Colorado were awful. I watched a bunch of news shows, trying, and failing, to make sense of it all. That often happens for me with tragedies, from the JFK assassination to 9/11. At some point, I find that I just had to stop. Not incidentally, read what Ken Levine wrote, especially about a movie trailer showing before the film; yikes.

Ideally, this would be an opportunity for people to come together in their common grief. Instead, and all you need to read is a half dozen comments on just about any news site, that devolve into a debate about something divisive and snarky; Thom Wade addresses this. So we need to ban guns. No, everyone should have been packing heat, and they would have stopped this guy, in a darkened room, after a gas canister had been set off; maybe they would have if they were Navy SEALS or something. The shootings are the President’s fault because the alleged shooter was apparently on the dole, and the Obama welfare state encourages crazy behavior; no, I couldn’t follow that one either. It’s a continuation of the attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs; what?

(And don’t get me started on the pre-tragedy Rush Limbaugh’s “connection” between the movie villain Bane, created in 1993, and Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, as some sort of liberal political plot; well, maybe retroactively.)

I think, though, that inappropriate fan response to negative reviews, which forced the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to disable user commentary for the film, is a form of the same maddening mindset I find so disturbing in this country. Some so-called fans threatened violence against movie critics who did not think the movie was a perfect 10, threatening to crash critics’ websites.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims, their community, and indeed, all of us.

The Musical Bucket List QUESTIONS

I wrote: “Regret not seeing the Who in Albany in ’95.”

 

Eddie, in his tribute to Doc Watson, wrote:

“Never, ever pass up a chance to see a true musical legend. Every year we lose a few, and they can never be replaced. A few years ago, a mailing list I belong to started a “bucket list” of acts people want to see before they (the musicians, not the people making the lists) are gone. I’ve been lucky enough to have seen many of mine: [list, including Watson]. There are already more than a few that I’ll never get the chance to see again. And several others I never got the chance to see: [list]. I still need to see [list].”

I wrote: “Regret not seeing the Who in Albany in ’95.” I’m not positive about the year, but the venue was only six blocks from where I worked at the time. Also wished I’d seen James Brown (pictured) in the 1980s, though his erratic performances were what kept me away.

“Saw Billy Joel, Elton John, Dylan [though in fact, I didn’t love the show], Elvis Costello, Lyle Lovett, Joan Baez, Bruce Cockburn, Bruce Springsteen, John Hiatt, Talking Heads, the Temptations in their near-prime, Four Tops, Go-Gos, Joan Armatrading, Pete Seeger (numerous times).] Also Neville Brothers, Tony Bennett, Herbie Hancock,Crosby, Stills & Nash…

Probably should see [Paul] McCartney.” There are no doubt others.

What artists would be on your bucket list?

My first television interview caused a scandal

When I was five years old, I appeared on a local (Binghamton, NY) kids’ TV show.

Regarding the wake/funeral I was telling you about recently:

My friend Karen was the youngest of four children. I knew her youngest sibling, who was four years our senior, but the others, who were six and eight years older, not so well.

I get to the wake and decide to reintroduce myself to one of her sisters, at which point she says, “I remember YOU” and launches into this story.

When I was five years old, I appeared on a local (Binghamton, NY) kids’ TV show hosted by a guy named Bill Parker, who was portraying a cowboy or space captain or police officer; he played them all, at some point for Channel 12, WNBF-TV (now WBNG). And I guess I had mentioned this at school because all my friends were watching the live show.

Parker asked at some point what really made me really mad. I said, “When Karen Durkot snaps my suspenders!” At which point, the Durkot household received a boatload of telephone calls. “Did you hear what Roger Green just said on TV about Karen?”

And when Karen’s sister is introduced to my wife a short time after I spoke to her, she tells her this story, almost verbatim.

Here’s the kicker: I have zero recollection of this incident. I was on Parker’s shows, definitely TV Ranch Club, and probably Len Hathaway’s Admiral Appleby show two or three times, probably a function of the fact that my grandfather, McKinley Green, was a janitor at the TV/radio station. And I don’t specifically remember ever wearing suspenders.

So when I tell Karen that I don’t recall this incident, she mockingly notes my multiple appearances on television – “media maven” – as the reason for letting this piece of HER family lore slip from my memory.

Ramblin' with Roger
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