Sunday, September 02, 2007

Ray of Light.

OK Pop Pickers, here's a Madonna video for you. Pay attention around 3:45 or so. Not arf.







PS: Sorry for the dodgy quality of the clip. I couldn't find anything better.

10 comments:

ejh said...

What am I supposed to have seen that I did not see?

Anonymous said...

A very fast and very bad game of chess, with the board set up the wrong way round, black playing Qb7 Bd8 and h6,g6,f6,e6, white having 2 white squared bishops (no promotions either) and playing lightning fast despite having at least 40 minutes until the next time control. Either Madonna has less artistic control than anyone would have imagined or she should ask for a refund for the chess lessons she took (I think they were from Alan Norris).
Andrew

Anonymous said...

Two light squared Bishops because the Bishop and Knight are the wrong way around on the kingside.

Quite a few too many pawn moves

Tom Chivers said...

Terrible song too.

ejh said...

I thought it her best, actually.

Anonymous said...

Its an ok song I suppose, but its hardly in the same class as anything by Fields Of The Nephilim or New Model Army!
Andrew

Tom Chivers said...

If this is her best, how bad is her worst?

Anonymous said...

Can't stand her early stuff, things like Holiday etc.I would nominate that as her worst. There again most stuff from then is pretty grating.
Andrew

Tom Panelas said...

If this is what we live for--a few seconds of our maligned and exploited sport badly done in a Madonna video--I respectfully submit that we all need to get lives.

Myself included, of course.

steveross2851 said...

I didn't see the chess content in the Madonna videos before they were taken off for copyright reasons. But the comments posted here about the chess content in them have a ring of truth. Looks like Mandonna's chess is more the product of her publicity machine than of any genuine interest in the game by her. That's too bad because she certainly could be a good chess player if she wanted to put in the effort. And it would do wonders for chess.

Then again (although she obviously doesn't have to) Madonna letting chess players mingle with or play chess with her for free (or "only" the price of a tournament entry fee) even on the Internet, is about as likely her voluntarily permitting anyone to view one of her videos for free. It's never going to happen.

Nor are we ever likely to see a copy of any of Madonna's alleged chess games. Supposedly president Obama and his wife play chess too. But with few if any exceptions it seems that "A list celebrities" play chess if at all only with other A list celebrities. While security might be a concern, few celebrities who supposedly play chess want anyone to see how well or poorly they actually play the game. That is also too bad because it could be interesting. For example, Ray Charles played an interesting game with grandmaster Larry M Evans which was published in Chess Life. Generally we would not think any less of these celebrities if their chess was not very good but apparently they feel that their image would suffer if we saw any of their chess games.

All the more credit should be given to Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Sting, and Ray Charles for permitting one or more of their chess games to be recorded. They are among the all too few exceptions to the rule that celebrities only play chess in secret if at all.