the machine

One week ago, Aijia and I threw all of my worldly east-coast possessions into a Uhaul truck and we drove away. She valiantly drove this great beast of a vehicle half a mile away, parallel parking it like a pro, and, I'm sorry Trouble, but we haven't looked back since. I now live in an illegal basement room in a beautiful, plain white apartment that we found at the very last minute with Aijia, her cat Griffin, and two new friends who have just started school with us. Thank goodness. And we just got our internet installed yesterday! I need nothing else.

Tonight Mrs. Tuckersman and I went to see a play at the Park Avenue Armory called The Machine. It was about the 1997 chess match when Garry Kasparov played against IBM's Deep Blue and it was powerful and fantastic. I feel funny about how there's no way to properly convey how great some things were. The play was staged in a historic armory from 1880 currently hosting "unconventional works in the performing and visual arts," the acting was really really good, and we had front-row seats to it all. The excellent theater experiences that Mrs. Tuckersman finds are one of my favorite things about New York. Afterwards we had late-night mozarella sticks and beverages at TGI Fridays, which is the kind of activity that is one of my favorite things about life.

It's New York Fashion Week and all of a sudden there seem to be leggy, Brobdingnagian, urbanesque model people everywhere stalking about on the streets, subways, etc., laughing and looking young and carefree and not hungry.

This is what the stage looked like -

In 1997, Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest grandmasters the chess world has ever produced, arrived in New York City for the match of his life. He was playing against Deep Blue, conceived by IBM as the most powerful super-computer on the planet. What started as a bid by IBM to raise its profile and stock price became a historic encounter that pitted Kasparov against Deep Blue and its creator Doctor Hsu, a genius in his own right with a lifelong dedication to the game.

Staged by Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Josie Rourke, this new work by British playwright Matt Charman explores Kasparov’s dramatic battle with Deep Blue and its wunderkind inventor as the world breathlessly watched on live television. The Drill Hall will be transformed into an intensely intimate environment to capture this epic struggle of man against machine.

“An arena extravaganza … a whirl of activity”
–The Guardian (London)

“... the pace and grip of this theatrical thriller made for a memorable evening.”
–THE INDEPENDENT (London)

“Josie Rourke… is no ordinary director, as was shown by her skillful pacing of the action, by turns fast and furious, and then dramatically breaking into moments of unexpected poignancy.”
–The Independent (London)

“[Matt] Charman is no ordinary playwright, as his immensely compelling firecracker script revealed.”
–The Independent (London)