La Vie en rose

Hollywoodly speaking, Edna, can you be absolutely certain that after all, tomorrow is another day?

Artwork © Jose-Ramiro

War and Peace in a Nonlinear World

Word Puzzlers

Day of the Locusts

Almond-Eyes & Long-Tail

A beautiful voice

Beauty and the Beast

Knowledge and knowability

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 5, 2026

Always and again we must question the primacy of knowledge in our culture, and ask ourselves whether indeed — according to the words which open Aristotle’s Metaphysics — what human beings desire is, first and foremost, to know. Indeed, if we restore truth to its etymological meaning of un-concealment (a-letheia), then what is at stake in truth is not knowledge, but knowability — the openess from which only something like knowledge becomes possible. If we call “face” the being manifest, the self-giving and appearing of each thing, then truth lies in this original openess; it is a remembrance of the faces of things, not their reduction to objects of knowledge and science. And since we feel pleasure and fall in love with appearances and faces, a knowledge which claims to do without it cannot in any way contribute to our happiness. If art and philosophy still hold our interest, it is because they deal not with knowledge, but with the knowability of things and people. A culture like the one we live in — which forgets faces and pursues knowledge at all costs — can only end, as is now evident, in a blind and destructive domination of the world by a science transformed into the most intolerant of religions.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Pavel Nikolayevich Filonov, Faces, 1940. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Seven To Eternity

Fugit Irreparabile Tempus

Lectures to the Working Classes

A general demobilisation

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 1, 2026

In 1932, Ernst Jünger published Der Arbeiter, The Worker (or, perhaps more precisely translated, The workman — Marx’s Arbeiterklasse translates to “the working class”), in which this new figure of human being defined the new world order. The centrality of labour corresponds to the dominance of technology. By carrying out concepts he articulated two years earlier in his essay, Total Mobilisation, Jünger writes: “technology is the way in which the form of the worker mobilises the world”. Such a diagnosis — which revisited Marx’s analyses from a radically different perspective — exerted considerable influence across both the political right and left.
It is all the more surprising that this crucial epochal figure has now vanished over the past few decades. Technology continues to rule the world and has certainly increased its power everywhere, yet it is no longer “the way in which the form of the worker mobilises the world”. On the contrary, in the form of artificial intelligence, it rather seems to imply the decline of the centrality of labour which Jünger had in mind. Instead of the servitude linked to exploitation and mobilisation, technoogy — by progressively blurring the lines between social strata and classes — appears now to aim for an unprecedented subservience through a sort of general demobilisation.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Erró, Chinese man at the Guggenheim, New York, 1976. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Gaza Riviera

Cinema Paradiso

Time to Play

Bibi Goes Hollywood

You know, Edna, no one comes into the world thinking they will never see justice

Photo © Ольга Нуарэ / Olga Noiret 🍀 (@noiret.dolls)

A Welcome in the Big Apple

Divine Punishment

Violin in a Weekend

Dead Leaves

Alberto Mario Giustolisi – Roberto Cosulich
37th Italian Chess Championship; Castelvecchio Pascoli, November 17, 1976
English Opening A22

Comments by Grandmaster Ludek Pachman, Trouw, Saturday, August 20, 1977, p. 21.

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bb4 4. Bg2 0-0 5. Nf3. A good alternative here is 5. e4.
5. ... e4 6. Nd4. 6. Ng5 Bxc3 leads to sharper play.
6. ... Re8. Also possible is 6. ... Bxc3 7. bxc3 d5.
7. Qc2 Qe7 8. a3 Bxc3 9. Qxc3. White thus prevents the doubling of his Pawns, though at the cost of falling somewhat behind in development.
9. ... c5 10. Nf5 Qe6 11. Ne3 Nc6 12. b4 d6 13. 0-0 Nd4 14. Re1 Qe5 15. Bb2 Qh5 16. d3!!

16. ... Bh3. Too dangerous would be: 16. ... Nxe2+ 17. Rxe2 Qxe2 18. Nd5 Re5 19. Nxf6+ gxf6 20. dxe4 followed by f2-f4.
17. dxe4 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 Nxe4 19. Qd3 Nxf2! Black goes for a drawing combination before White’s dark-square Bishop becomes too dangerous.
20.Kxf2 Rxe3! (20. ... Qxh2+? 21. Ng2 Re6 22. Bxd4 cxd4 23. Qxd4 Rf6+ 25. Qxf6! gxf6 26. Rh1)
21. Qxe3?? This loses immediately, whereas 21. Kxe3! Qh6+ 22. Kf2 Qxh2+ would have led to perpetual check.
21. ... Qxh2+ 22. Kf1 Nf5 23. Qf2 Nxg3+ 24. Qxg3 Qxg3 0–1.

The Forever Friends

At the closing ceremony of the “World Chess Championship Revenge Match of the Twentieth Century” (1992): Bobby Fischer and Boris Vasilievich Spassky share bread like brothers. Photo via Collin Gaylord.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Mission: Possible

Just a Few Lines

[Event "9th UISP Italian Chess Championship"]
[Site "Casciana Terme ITA"]
[Date "1988.12.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Mauro, Alan"]
[Black "Barsi, Lorenzo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C84"]
[PlyCount "42"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.e5 Ne4 7.O-O Be7 8.Nxd4 O-O 9.Nf5 d5 10.exd6 Bf5 11.dxe7 Nxe7 12.Qf3 Qd4 13.Bb3 Rad8 14.Nc3 Nxc3 15.bxc3 Qg4 16.Qxg4 Bxg4 17.Ba3 Rfe8 18.Rfe1 Nc6 19.f3 Be6 20.Rad1 Rxd1 21.Rxd1 Rd8 1/2-1/2

Dragon Wizard

The following game, published by Massimiliano Enzo Maria Orsi on his own website Italian Castling — which features a constantly updated archive of Italian chess history — if nothing, dispels any myth that Roberto Cosulich’s “theory of openings” lay on mere improvisation.

Roberto Olivotto – Roberto Cosulich
16th Italian Team Chess Championship; Venice, November 2, 1976
Sicilian Defence B35

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Be3 Nf6 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 0-0 8. f3?! A dubious line which gives Black a temporary upper hand.

8. ... Qb6! 9. Bb3. The only move to hold the balance. If, instead, 9. Bb5? then 9. ... Nxe4! with White’s position in tatters, Kelečević – Cosulich, 13th International Festival, Imperia 1971.
9. ... Ng4! Also good is 9. ... Nxe4! 10. Nd5 Qa5+ 11. c3 Nc5 12. Nxc6 dxc6 13. Nxe7+ Kh8 14. Nxc8 Raxc8 15. 0-0 Rcd8= with a soon draw, R. J. Fischer – Panno, Interzonal Tournament, Portorož 1958.
10. Nd5. 10. fxg4 Bxd4 11. Bxd4 Qxd4⩱ also slightly favours Black due to his sounder formation, Sakharov – L. Z. Stein, 32nd USSR Championship, Kiev 1965.
10. ... Nxe3 11. Nxb6 Bxd4!

12. Qe2? This is White’s losing mistake. Comparatively best was 12. Nxa8 Nxd1 13. Rxd1 Be5⩱ leaving Black with a somewhat better position — but nothing irremediable.
12. ... Bxb6. It does not take a chess engine to tell that in such a position the three pieces are much stronger than the Queen.
13. c3. Likewise after 13. Kd2 Na5 14. h4 Nxb3+ 15. axb3 d5! 16. h5 dxe4 17. hxg6 fxg6 18. Ra4 Bf5 19. g4 Rac8 20. c3 exf3 21. Qh2 Nf1+ 22. Rxf1 Rcd8+ 23. Ke1 f2+ 24. Rxf2 Bxf2+ 25. Qxf2 Bxg4 26. Qxf8+ Kxf8 27. Rxg4 Kf7 Black triumphed, Zagorovsky – Simagin, 29th Moscow City Chess Championship, Moscow 1951.
13. ... Rd8! 14. g4 Na5 15. h4 Nxb3 16. axb3 d5 17. h5 g5! Game over.
18. Ra4 dxe4 19. Rxe4 Rd1+ 20. Qxd1 Nxd1 21. Kxd1 Be6

White’s uncoordinated Rooks are no match for Black’s powerful two Bishops and Rook.
22. c4 h6 23. Kc2 Bc7 24. Rd1 Bd6 25. Ra1 a5 26. Rd1 Kg7 27. Kc3 b6 28. Kd3 Bd7 29. Ke2 Bc6 30. Re3 Rf8 31. Red3 f5 32. Rf1 fxg4 33. fxg4 Rf4 0–1.