The tortured genius and the celebrity recluse are two archetypes by which the popular imagination appears incurably enthralled. They occupy extreme but ambiguous positions in the social firmament, simultaneously familiar and unknowable, often winning our sympathy even as they fail our understanding. Working as Mephistophelean morality tales, they reassuringly remind us that exceptional talent can be an affliction as well as a gift and that sometimes the price of success is one that we – the average, the normal, the unchosen – would not wish to pay. No one in recent times has combined these two roles with more tragedy or pathos than Fischer.

His descent into wild and irrational behaviour is far from a unique narrative, particularly in chess. The history of the game contains many similar trajectories. As GK Chesterton noted in arguing that reason bred insanity: "Poets do not go mad, but chess players do." Akiba Rubinstein, the early 20th-century Polish grandmaster, would hide in the corner of the competition hall between moves, owing to his anthropophobia (fear of people), retiring from the game when schizophrenia got the better of him. William Steinitz, the Austrian who was the world's first undisputed chess champion, died in an asylum. Then there was Paul Morphy, the American who was said to be the 19th-century's finest player and to whom Fischer has frequently been compared: he quit the game, having beaten all his rivals, and began a decline into paranoid delusion. Aged 47, he was found dead in his bath, surrounded by women's shoes.

via The Observer.

"The thing that strikes me about Fischer's chess," Short says, "is that it's very clear. There are no mysterious rook moves or obscure manoeuvrings. He's very direct. There's a great deal of logic to the chess. It's not as though it's not incredibly difficult – it is incredibly difficult. It's just that when you look at it you can understand it – afterwards. He just makes chess look very easy, which it isn't."

In the 1860s, Chinese laborers immigrated to the United States to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. At night, they would rub their sore, tired muscles with ointment made from Chinese water snake (Enhydris chinensis), an ancient Chinese remedy they shared with their American co-workers.

A 2007 story in Scientific American explains that California neurophysiology researcher Richard Kunin made the connection between Chinese water snakes and omega-3 fatty acids in the 1980s.

“Kunin visited San Francisco’s Chinatown to buy such snake oil and analyze it. According to his 1989 analysis published in the Western Journal of Medicine, Chinese water-snake oil contains 20 percent eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), one of the two types of omega-3 fatty acids most readily used by our bodies. Salmon, one of the most popular food sources of omega-3s, contains a maximum of 18 percent EPA, lower than that of snake oil.”

However, it wasn’t until several years after Kunin’s research that American scientists discovered that omega-3s are vital for human metabolism. Not only do they sooth inflammation in muscles and joints, but also, they can help “cognitive function and reduce blood pressure, cholesterol, and even depression.”

via Collectors Weekly.

@mattbartley sent me there.

I guess it wasn't as guaranteed as Harold Camping believed.

Barth CD I/2 11:46 am

"to love the neighbour is plainly & simply to be to him a witness of Jesus Christ [in word, deed & attitude]"

12:06 pm

"how can I praise God & love my neighbour when my attitude is ultimately heathen?"

Around 6pm in New Zealand is when it begins, according to Harold Camping. 2am EST.

I guess I'll be asleep when it all comes down. Or goes up.

Harold Camping's promised final show Thursday night was much like his others. For an hour and a half, before a backdrop of wood paneling and fake plants in an Oakland studio, the self-styled scriptural scholar fielded calls from the devout, the derisive and the curious. He is 89 and bone-thin, making the leather-bound Bible on his lap seem enormous, and his voice was slow and unflappable.

Near the show's end, Camping cut short a caller to announce that this would be his last appearance on the "Open Forum" TV and radio show he's hosted for decades. After all, he explained with a warm smile, the world would be ending Saturday night.

Then he shook hands with a couple of crewmen. "I probably won't see you again," he announced. "I won't be here again."

via latimes.com.

The apocalypse will strike, Camping teaches, on May 21, wherever it happens to be 6 p.m. That means it will be Friday night in America when what Camping calls "super terrible" earthquakes will hit the New Zealand region.

The earthquakes will then roll on, time zone by time zone. The saved, perhaps 2% to 3% of the world population, will be whisked to God, while the rest will be obliterated in what he calls "a super horror story."

...

Camping has announced that he will spend Saturday with his family in Oakland.

But he has acknowledged that his preoccupation with the apocalypse has alienated him from many of the people he loves. "It's so bad, most of my family I can't even talk about it with," Camping said.

Of his six living children, only one believes his message. "The grandkids aren't around that much," Tuter said. "I think Harold has a very sad life. I've been around him every day for 23 years. I do not envy his life."