Yes, Edna, if there was a motto that best summarises your way of looking at life, it should be: peace, love, and tiramisus

Courtesy of Craiyon LLC

The In Between

陈冲 (Joan Chén) being made up by 李威廉 (William Lee), while 孙周 (Sūn Zhōu) and 张海儿 (Zhāng Hǎi’er) watching, 龙华宾馆 (Lónghuá Hotel), 上海 (Shànghǎi), 1999. Photo © 张海儿 (Zhāng Hǎi’er). Courtesy of Photography of China.

Yet, Edna, with so many billionaires and multimillionaires around the world, one has every right to think that it is better to ask for alms than to work

Artwork © popcomicshop

In a Wing Chair

谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) – 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn)

Women’s World Chess Championship 2025; match game 2; 上海 (Shànghǎi), April 4, 2025

English Opening A29

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Bc5 7. 0-0 0-0 8. d3 h6 9. Nxd5 Qxd5 10. Bd2 Qd6 11. Bc3 Qe7 12. Nd2 Nd4 13. e3 Nb5 14. a4 Nxc3 15. bxc3 c6 16. a5 Bd7 17. Qb3 Rab8 18. Ne4 Bd6 19. Nxd6 Qxd6 20. d4 b6 21. axb6 axb6 22. Ra7 Be6 23. Qa4 Rfc8 24. Rb1 Bd5 (24. ... b5 25. Qa6 h5 26. h4 Bc4=)
25. dxe5 Qxe5 26. Qd4 Qxd4 27. exd4 Bxg2 28. Kxg2 b5 29. Re1 Ra8 30. Ree7 Rxa7 31. Rxa7 c5 32. Kf3 cxd4 33. cxd4 Kf8 34. Rb7 Rc3+ 35. Ke4 Rc2 36. Ke3 Rc3+ 37. Kd2 Rf3 38. Ke2

38. ... Rf5!? Many commentators were surprised by 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn)’s solution. It may work, after all, but 38. ... Rb3! was much easier and more thematic; for example: 39. d5 Ke8 40. d6 Ra3 41. Rxb5 g6 42. Re5+ Kd7 43. Re7+ Kxd6 44. Rxf7 Ke6 with a draw coming soon.
39. Ke3 h5 40. f4

40. ... Ke8? No wonder Judit Polgár did not miss the critical moment: “This is move 40 — how typical it is that you make a serious mistake on move 40!”. 40. ... b4!! 41. Kxb4 Ra5 was now the only way to go for a draw.
41. Ke4 Rf6 42. Rxb5 g6 43. d5 Ra6 44. Ke5 f6+ 45. Kd4 Ra2 46. Kc5 Rxh2 47. Rb8+ Kd7 48. Rb7+ Kc8 49. Rg7 g5 50. f5! Of course not 50. fxg5?? in view of 50. ... fxg5 51. Rxg5 h4 forcing a draw.
50. ... h4 51. gxh4 gxh4 52. Rh7 h3. With a salvific intention, for a salvific twisting: Δ ... Rh2-c2+ followed by ... h3-h2 saving the day with a draw.

53. Kd6! Kb8 54. Kd7 Kb7 55. d6 Kb6 56. Kd8 Rh1 57. d7 h2 58. Rh3 Kb7 59. Rb3+ Ka7 60. Rb2 Ka6 61. Re2 Kb7 62. Ke7 1–0.

谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) took such merciless advantage of her opponent’s hesitations and inaccuracies. Photo: Anna Shtourman/FIDE.

Of course, Edna, when the going gets tough, the tough get going

Artwork © Beyza Koçak

First is not best

居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) – 谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí)

Women’s World Chess Championship 2025; match game 1; 上海 (Shànghǎi), April 3, 2025

Sicilian Defence B40

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bf4 d5 8. Nd2 g6 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bh4 Be7 11. 0-0 a5 12. Qe2 0-0 13. Rad1 Nd7 14. Bxe7 Qxe7 15. c4 Ne5 16. exd5 Nxd3 17. Qxd3 cxd5

18. Qe3! 18. cxd5 Ba6 19. Nc4 exd5 20. Qxd5 Rfd8 would give Black more than enough compensation for the Pawn.
18. ... Qg5! 19. Qxg5 hxg5 20. cxd5 exd5 21. Rfe1 (21. Nf3 g4 22. Nd4 Re8)
21. ... Rb8 22. b3 g4 23. Nf1

23. ... a4! 24. bxa4 Rb4 25. a5 Ra4. As Judit Polgár noted, “It’s frustrating to defend something which is completely drawish — just because objectively it is it doesn’t mean that you can hold it!”.
26. Rxd5 Be6 27. Rc5 Rxa2 28. Ne3 Ra8 29. Nd5 R8xa5 30. Rxa5 Rxa5 31. Nf4 Bf5 32. h3 gxh3 33. Nxh3 Bxh3 34. gxh3 Kg7 35. Kg2 Rg5+ 36. Kf3 Rf5+ 37. Kg2 Rg5+ 38. Kf3 Rf5+ 39. Kg2 ½–½.

Despite playing Black, the challenger held her own, with apparent ease, throughout the whole game. Photo: Anna Shtourman/FIDE.

What say, Edna? May the best lady win — whoever she may be

Artwork © Nutting Over Lovejoy

Through the Looking Glasses

Be confident, Edna: he will raise tariffs against everyone except you, without demanding, in return, any of your conscious attentions

Artwork © addictedtodisney.uk (@addictedtodisney.uk)

Giraffe Reflections

Oh yes, Edna, they know that without you, there is no realm. No throne. No crown. Without you, their only hope is to live as servants to a feudal tenure — or as courtiers, or worse

Artwork © TAnimation777

A Crown of Wishes

The Women’s World Chess Championship 2025 will take place in 上海 (Shànghǎi) and 重庆 (Chóngqìng), China, April 3–21. Will 谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) regain the crown she won in 2017? Or will 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) win the match, and her fifth consecutive world title?

Take easy, Edna! All your worshippers shall hope to see you one of these days in 静安区 (Jìng’ān) — if not at Zin’oe Zy, at least at the breakfast buffet table in the dining room

Artwork © Jose-Ramiro

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

A woman is going on a bike ride around downtown 南京 (Nánjīng), 江苏省 (Jiāngsū province), China. Photo: 王文瀾 (Wáng Wénlán).

No, Edna; no one can guess which way the answer will be blowin’ in the wind

Artwork © DobleT

A Dragon’s Witch

罗洋 (Luó Yáng), 斋藤丽罗 (Layla Saito), 2018. Photo © 罗洋 (Luó Yáng).

A Summer at Sea

Esteban Canal – Alex Crisovan
2nd International Festival; San Benedetto del Tronto, July 1953
French Defence C01

Notes by G. Z., Het Vaderland, Saturday, November 28, 1953, p. 14.

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5. The Exchange French often leads to arid and dull play, and hence it is sometimes called “a draw variation”. However, it can also be lively, as this game shows.
3. ... exd5 4. Nf3. 4. Bd3 is usually played here.
4. ... Bd6. Black readily deviates from the symmetry (4. ... Nf6).
5. c4! White leaves the c3-square free for the Knight, which stands better there than on d2, and at the same time “dictates” Black’s next moves:
5. ... c6 6. Nc3 Ne7 7. Bd3 0-0 8. 0-0 Bf5. This offer of exchange, which deprives the d5-Pawn of a defender, does not seem advisable to us. 8. ... Be6 was preferable.
9. Bxf5 Nxf5 10. cxd5 cxd5 11. Qb3 Nc6 12. Qxd5 Nfxd4? The intent of Black’s manoeuvre now becomes clear: the exchange of the d5-Pawn for the d4-Pawn. However, what he has overlooked is that he will end up losing a piece.
13. Nxd4 Nxd4 14. Rd1. It is obvious that White cannot immediately take on d4 — 14. Qxd4 — because of 14. ...Bxh2+.
14. ... Re8? Can Black have been so naive as to rely upon the checkmate 15. Rxd4 Re1#?
15. Bg5 1–0. Black resigns. After 15. Bg5 Qc7 16. Rxd4 Black could still console himself with a Pawn (16. ...Bxh2+), but defeat would be certain in the long run.

Don’t be deceived by their tricky equivocations and linguistic lies, Edna: labyrinths are not mazes!

Artwork © Ihoi

Earth and World

Castles of Sand

After all, Edna, it comes to this: where there is a public there is a featured performer — who, as in your case, makes more public

Artwork © Alessandra Granieri (@sogni_di_fimo_art_creations)

Time and Space

罗洋 (Luó Yáng), 斋藤丽罗 (Layla Saito), 2018. Photo © 罗洋 (Luó Yáng).

It goes without saying, Edna, that if all the world’s a stage, they can’t be anything but the audience, can they?

Artwork © Gilvan Abreu

Sirens of the Lambs

No, Edna, there’s no dress code in heaven — no bouncer god not letting you in because you don’t look like a beguine

Artwork © MeJustMe

Eyes to the Sky

The Paradoxes of Freedom

Chinese national and social media influencer 刘振亚 (Liú Zhènyà) (centre), known as “亚亚在台湾” (“Yàyà in Taiwan”), is escorted by Taiwanese police officers after her press conference in Taipei. 刘振亚 (Liú Zhènyà) received a deportation notice for allegedly making several social media posts advocating cross-strait unification by force, violating regulations for Chinese residents in Taiwan, according to the National Immigration Agency. Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA.

To be sure, Edna; a true champion shows fair play and respect for opponents, whether winning or losing

Artwork © tanasweet123

Time Out of Joint

Of course, Edna, a question arises spontaneously at this point. How come they waste time searching for goddesses all around the universe, when they have one right under their noses?

Artwork © Pshunya

Divinely Enough

Only a God can save us

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, March 21, 2025

Heidegger’s abrupt assertion in his 1976 interview with Der Spiegel: “Only a God can save us” has always aroused perplexity. To understand it, one must first to return it to its context. Heidegger has just spoken of the planetary dominion of technology which nothing seems capable of governing. Philosophy and other spiritual powers — poetry, religion, arts, politcs — have lost the ability to shake, or at least to orient, the life of the peoples of the West. Hence the bitter diagnosis that they “are unable to effect any immediate change in the current state of the world” and the inevitable consequence according to which “only a God can save us”. That what is at issue here is anything but a millenarian prophecy is confirmed immediately afterwards by the clarification that we must prepare ourselves not only “for the appearance of a God”, but also, and rather, “for the absence of a God in [our] decline, insofar as in view of the absent god we are in a state of decline”.
It goes without saying that up to now, Heidegger’s diagnosis has lost none of its topicality; indeed, if possible, it is even more irrefutable and true. Humanity has renounced the decisive rank of spiritual problems and has created a special sphere in which to confine them: culture. Art, poetry, philosophy and other spiritual powers, when they are not simply extinguished and exhausted, are confined to museums and cultural institutions of any kind, where they survive as more or less interesting leisures and distractions from the boredom of existence (and often no less boring).
How then should we get on with the philosopher’s bitter diagnosis? In what sense “only a God can save us”? For almost two centuries — since Hegel and Nietzsche declared its death, the West has lost its god. But what we have lost is only a god to whom it is possible to give a name and an identity. The death of God is, in truth, the loss of the divine names (“holy names are lacking”, Hölderlin lamented). Beyond the names, the most important thing remains: the divine. As long as we are able to sense a flower, a face, a bird, a gesture or a thread of grass as divine, we can do without a God that can be named. The divine is enough for us; we care more for the adjective than the noun. Not “a God” — rather: “only divine can save us”.

(Emglish translation by I, Robot)

Magnus, Marlene Dietrich & Betty Boop, 1985.

Make love, not war

陈漫 (Chén Màn), No. 10 1942 ISAAC ASIMOV WRITES THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS, 2016. Photo © 陈漫 (Chén Màn).

And thus, Edna, to each opera its own phantom

© Disney/Pixar

Sino-Indian Rivalry

朱锦尔 (Zhū Jǐn’ěr) – Divya Deshmukh
FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2024–25; 4th stage; Nicosia, March 22, 2025
French Defence C11

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3 Be7 8. Qd2 a6 9. a3 0-0 10. dxc5 Nxc5 11. Bd3 f5 12. exf6 Nxd3+ 13. Qxd3 Bxf6 14. 0-0-0 b5 15. Ne2 Bd7 16. Bc5 $1 Rf7 17. h4 Qc7 18. Ng5 Bxg5 19. hxg5 g6 20. Be3 b4 21. a4 b3 22. Qxb3 Na5 23. Qb6 Bxa4 24. Nc3 Nc4 25. Qxc7 Rxc7 26. Bd4 Bc6 27. Rde1 Re8 28. b3 Na3 29. Be5 Rb7 30. Nd1 d4 31. Nf2 Bxg2

Black has gained a Pawn, but at the cost of conceding her opponent a dangerous initiative.
32. Ng4! Bxh1 33. Nf6+ Kf7? The losing move; she ought to play 33. ... Kf8! 34. Rxh1 Ree7 35. Bd6 Nb5! with better chances of defence.
34. Rxh1 h5 35. gxh6! Rc8 36. h7 Rxc2+ 37. Kd1 1–0. There could still follow 37. ... Rxb3 38. h8=N+! Ke7 (38. ... Kf8 39. Bd6+ Kg7 40. Rh7+ Kxf6 41. Rf7#) 39. Rh7+ Kf8 40. Nf7+ Kc8 41. Nd6+ Kb8 42. Nb5+ and mate will come in a few more moves.

Today 朱锦尔 (Zhū Jǐn’ěr) got the better of Divya Deshmukh. Photo: Mark Livshitz/FIDE.

Yeah, Edna, in a big city there is always an anniversary to celebrate where to sneak in and scrounge some tiramisu dessert

Courtesy of Disneyland Treasures

Teatimes

Workers harvesting 龍井 (Lóngjǐng) tea leaves at a tea garden in 杭州 (Hángzhōu), 浙江省 (Zhèjiāng province), China. Photo: VCG/Getty Images.

Naturally, Edna: one ice cream stick never made anyone fat

Artwork © Ozma Kayt (@ozmadestudio)

3D Sweeties

Come on, Edna, take a break and eat a tiramisu the size of a dinosaur’s foot

Courtesy of Coconut Press

The Abandoned Room

“Technology is a tool, not a substitute for living”. Caption & photo: 陈漫 (Chén Màn).

Yes, Edna, that’s why one should be wary of war profiteers whose only interest is to perpetuate conflicts throughout the whole world

Artwork © Beautiful Enneagram (@beautiful_enneagram)

When the Apricots Bloom

A farmer pollinates apricot flowers in 枣庄 (Zǎozhuāng), 山东省 (Shāndōng province), eastern China. Photo: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock.

No, Edna, no one can really know what anyone else is reading and thinking within one’s own four walls

Artwork © 💀alyssa💀 (@old_man_mom)

Uncle Vanya Goes East

丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén), the only one World Chess Champion from China, appeared as a guest of honour at the T-Bank’s seminar “One Move Ahead” in Moscow, Russia, on Monday, March 17, 2025, in which he advocated the importance of chess as a means to develop strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
In the free time, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) gave a long interview to Sport24, in which, once again, he vindicated his affection for Moscow, “where I’ve been so many times that I can’t recollect”.
The interview conveys a portrait of 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) as cultured and sensitive, questing for meanings and spiritual growth while wandering in and around the Moscow Metro stations of the Soviet era. With a thought for Boris Vasilievich Spassky, the king who did not want to become king and who was rejected as king by Caïssa. “His death deeply upset me”, said 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén). “The more I read of him, the more I recognise myself in him”.
Finally, he is an avid reader of literature, not only Chinese, but Russian as well. “I really like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya — a masterpiece”.

On the occasion, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) was accompanied by a dedicated interpreter: Woman Grandmaster 谷笑冰 (Gǔ Xiàobīng). Photo: Chess Federation of Russia.

Blue Bleu

To be sure, Edna, life is a gift, but also a burden

AI illustration via Shutterstock

African Sky

Here is the first batch of photos from the Rocchini family trip to Kenya. More to come soon! Below, from top to bottom, are pictured some of the highlights: Maestro Geppetto, Kilimanjaro, children of Maasai Village, elephants of Amboseli (it means dust), zebras. Caption & photos: Viola Rocchini.