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Month: June 2021
وسوسه – Whispers (Lie to Me) – improvisation, 1st draft
Waswasa means delusion, misgiving, or suspicion in Arabic; literally, “the sound of a whisper, rustling”, a secret word repeated endlessly in the heart is called waswasa; thus it’s association with Shai’tan (Satan/the Devil), and the playing on the folly of human desire. Habibi (حبيبي) means “beloved”, “darling”, “my love”, and is used in this sense. I think it’s a fun word.
Hubb means “love” – I’ve chosen the varying words for the vocal/tonal quality and nothing else. Well, not only…
This is an improvisation and it will not be corrected; part of the piece is the mistakes we make in attempting to paint the portrait of our expression, and to tilt the frame to better portray the artifice cheapens the expression posing it.
Waswasa (Whispers)1st draft. Final draft. Improv. Finished product.
1
In the long shadow of silence there is violence, there is spare,
numerous forms and shapes of fear rising in the fire;
and the smokeless forms that rise, in the dust-storm of the night,
lights up Sahara with fear and delight;
The desert is cool in beneath
from the winds in the street up to ha-kok’vim.
in the dust-storm and the flares,
lights up the night with fear and delight
in a tempest of storms and arabesque;
How can unseen things with such fury
Pull grain into a kingdom of sand in the rain;
within these waking dreams
we see these things
that no one deserves but who would refrain?
2
Who would not weep when they fade with smoke,
and are replaced by desires cast at a stroke,
Desires deep and strange which coat
The face in sweat the eyes in webs;
passions and desires cast on our tongue,
deep and strange
And we utter words in such a way as though we don’t
know what we say;
Glossolalia, speak in tongue, they say.
but the tracks they leave behind fade away,
and leave us staring into the day
With eyes wide open seeing nothing, just to say,
A whisper on our lips witgh love in mind,
With the fire in our eyes and desperation on our mind. the tracks they leave behind, the trace, the wrinkles under eyes
keeps us staring blindly in the fire.
3
Waswasa habibi, whisper my love,
Tell me all I want to hear my dear, my Hubb*
Tell me all I need to do is listen to you
Tell me you’ll always be there
Dear fantasy why don’t you lie to me
Why don’t you cradle me with a false reality
Waswasa habibi, whisper my love
And tell me all the right ways
the reason why I should stop or should stay
Why I should take a stand against an uprising
take back a first impression or just move on
Waswasa, habibi, waswasa to me,
Tell me the lies I need,
I need,
I need…
And the devil drives a hard bargain
For a man beset by greed.
4
There was a whisper ever neater
that spoke to me from in the mirror:
A smile curled like a thumbnail moon
An alabaster face of gloom
Dim headlights are dim though bright
is the flicker of fear and fright
of what the whisper tells us at night
in the silence, the violence of quiet
when all is calm and still
Waswasa is there, to jinx and to dare
To pull you like a fish out into the air
4
Oh whisper to me, waswasa, habibi
Show me the oasis and the coke machine
The machinery of delirious dreams
Deliver to me my pain and I’ll feed
Away on myself until I will bleed;
Habibi, my love, waswasa, come on,
hm, hmm, hm, hmm, hm hmm…come on my hubb,
Hm, deh, hmm,
In life I may have been much less,
But in death by my last breath
I’ll have spent such time, immense,
That in the end they’ll say “ze mensch!”
5
Waswasa habibi, whisper my love,
Tell me all I want to hear
Tell me all I need to do is listen to you
Tell me you’ll always be there
Dear fantasy why don’t you lie to me
Why don’t you cradle me with a false reality
Waswasa habibi, whisper my hubb,
Meh’ho’ved kok’vim, Respecting the stars,
strewn through space in such divine disregard,
Bless us all below;
Bah’ruch be our love, blessed be our hubb;
And tell me all the right ways
the reason why I should stop or should stay
Why I should take a stand against an uprising
take back a first impression or just move on
Waswasa, habibi, waswasa to me,
Tell me the lies I need,
I need,
I need…
It’s more than I can muster but the devil, he’s a hustler
say what you will but he will deal
if the price is only right…
But such a price is never right one’s soul cannot be bought
nor price
6
Whispers in the dark are echoes of a spark
A spirit struck a chord and fluttered through the park
Between the hole in the wall and the fall
Where we walk between the raindrops and freeze
When we see the oasis and drink machine;
is it cool to touch, habibi? Waswasa to me;
Oh genie could you grant, you demon if you cant,
no wish – just silence – if you can?
Delirium is more than some
over active imagination
desire is more than greed taken form
And waswasa more than whispers are born:
Habibi my love, habibi my sin,
shut the door on your way in.
Atlas would not stand for this
And Sisyphus is missing this with his rock and scissors kit
Paper covers rock and wins and the rock slides down again.
7
Whisper to me, tell me you need,
All the things that I have dreamed
To hear from you, that I need it too,
That I need something more than I do,
That I need more money or things to fill
The hole in my soul where God should live
And if it should remain a hole,
Let it stay that way and go!
No wish from me foul djinn, you fiend!
You genie of darkness and monsterous things
Waswasa was more than a whisper, it seems,
it was a reflection talking back at me.
8
Waswasa habibi, whisper my love,
Tell me all I want to hear
Tell me all I need to do is listen to you
Tell me you’ll always be there
Dear fantasy why don’t you lie to me
Why don’t you cradle me with a false reality
Waswasa habibi, whisper my love
And tell me all the right ways
the reason why I should stop or should stay
Why I should take a stand against an uprising
take back a first impression or just move on;
But there is no moving forward now, not when
You’ve kissed the floor in the valley of sin.
History Abridged ep. 2: The Adventures of Chinese Jesus
Game of the Month, June 2021 – 2071
With this game Brandon joined the top 1000 classical players on all registered players on lichess.org, with his highest rating thus far on the site,
As well as playing in the high 96th percentile of classical players;
And being another milestone and facing off against an opponent over 2050, Brandon played a quiet, positional game throughout the opening and towards the middle transition. Though white blundered a piece, the final assault of the pagan, when it came, must have put the fear of God into Bran’s opponent.
Now, what would the pagan do?
You should see it …
Move 24 and the 2040 opponent blunders into a forced mate. Can you find it?
You want to bring another piece in without giving up the coverage of pieces you already have on good squares; so, though. Therefore, rook f8 check, though still winning, loses the forced mate.
Only one move and …
Pull the dark squared bishop back now and that’s it,
a demonstrative game where black’s better piece placement allowed for him to sacrifice the rook to destroy white’s king safety and, after a slip, white finds himself mated before move 25 with an entirely undeveloped queen side and no pieces with chances to do any damage to black’s position. Tactics from from a superior position, and here Brandon’s coordination and keen tactical awareness was a clinic on proper development, timely trades, and how no matter how off beat your opening, by following the fundamentals of development and principles of piece coordination one can get into a comfortable position with almost any opening — as long as one knows what the point of the opening is.
For more commentary check back tomorrow, to watch the game live — replayed at actual speed – with running move analysis check out the following video:
Move 24 and the 2040 opponent blunders into a forced mate. Can you find it?
You want to bring another piece in without giving up the coverage of pieces you already have on good squares; so, though. Therefore, rook f8 check, though still winning, loses the forced mate. Only one move and …
My novel, “Nobody,” on reissued for $9.99
Positional Games for a Tactical Player
A sequence of forcing moves and a retreat — A Pagan’s Way of Thinking
In most positions where you’re up material, you want to trade down. But, this position is completely winning due to the material loss, but how would you put it away quickly and most effeciently?
Think Like a Pagan.
And, after pawn takes, you can disregard your bishop as well.
So, pawn takes, of course, and?
Think like a pagan —
[Resigns]
In a less obvious game, it might be more difficult to come up with an ever progressive threat; you might first need to build a pawn structure that both works against your opponent’s setup — their development and coordination potential — and then work on coordinating points, or targets. Targets are created and agitated by targeting, the piling of pieces on a single square or piece. Like hitting a pinned piece again; it is good practice.
This game was played against a really strong Belgian player. In this position, to make progress, you first make threats…
Now he will have to guard the base of his pawn chain with pieces, tying down forces which would otherwise attack, while doubling up on this weakness is relatively easy, for white to coordinate his pieces is more difficult.
And here, Brandon shows his long term strategic thinking is just as sharp as his tactical, forcing sequences and combinations. Sometimes to go forward, we must …
And white has some shit to deal with here…
if he notices what’s coming with the re-route.
As we see in all of his best games, Brandon’s initial set-up – his defensive structure has made his opponent’s pieces useless in the long term. Only two pieces are development, and it’s not easy for the others to quickly make their presence felt. But each of Brandon’s pieces are on effective and optimal squares, even the rook on a8, which can easily come into the game via a6, a possibility afforded by the early threat against the queen on a5–a move that shows its immediate and long term purpose here as the final sequence falls into place.
But under enough pressure, your opponent will blunder. Not only pieces, but their entire position can go from slightly worse. From the position where the bishop begins to reroute with Be8, black has a decisive advanage (-4, which is the equivalent of being up a piece):
Black to play and win.
(You’ll at least win the exchange)
But, should the opponent make a mistake and not block with the rook, he’ll face mate.
And he makes the mistake…
And here I just took the rook.
We don’t always play the absolute best move every time. Sometimes we just play like humans. In a game played quickly, or if you see a winning move – outright winning a piece, it’s not a hard decision. And the game is lost for white, regardless.
And he makes the mistake of taking a pawn and attacking a rook. So do you move the rook or find a better move? Again, black to play and mate.
THE PAGAN FINDS IT THE 2ND TIME! WHITE PLAYS ON THOUGH HE SHOULD RESIGN!
RA RA RA
At the end of the game, again we see good coordination, piece coordination, and the strategic retreat and replacement of the bishop generated enough threats so that black dictated the terms of battle throughout the entire engagement. And it wouldn’t be a proper Brandon game without a gift to the Goddess of Chess, Caissa, of a knight at the end for a forced mate.
Check out the whole game here:
https://lichess.org/FYeOXxgK/black
Win w/ black vs 2100+ Brutal tactic forces resignation!
A solid game with brutal, tactical finish.
If white plays
then the game goes on… but …. white blunders:
Black has one move that wins on the spot …
and only one…
he fails to save his queen, but bails properly:
He takes the knight and the rook for the queen.
The game winds down to this position, but there’s one move that forces immediate resignation:
Pause the video and find the winning tactic here…
Check out the whole game here:
Live game – to the strongest!
Walking & Chewing Gum
Colloquialisms and the untranslatable in literature, the Bible, Quran and the problem of translation generally. In learning Biblical Hebrew and reading the book of Ruth, I came across a segment which appeared to be … sexually suggestive. Now, I’m sure to many scholars who work with these materials in their native language consistently, but this was one of the first times I would make a special study on the Hebrew bible, as it exists today, and the various and multitude of English and Russian translations, including an old Church Slavonic Bible which included books of the Apocrypha absent from the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible, the former following the tradition of Luther in which books without Hebrew precedent were not considered “truly” true. They were apocryphal, which meant okay to make laws but not enough to go to hell for breaking them one’s self.
In the book of Ruth when our girl is hedging about the edge of Boaz’s great property, she spends time at the gleaming tree. The gleaming tree is another such thing which makes little sense without knowing the cultural context of the gleaming tree and what it stood for; it was thought to be a charity and prescribed by the law, that is the Torah, that large orchards should be left to overhang their boundary markers, so the excess fruit might fall into public land, so that anyone who should pass by and find themselves hungry, they would find food. Not only does Boaz give her something to eat but he gives her the meat, too.
Now I don’t mean to be crude, but when Ruth is in bed with Boaz and is “about his feet”, what we are reading here in Holy Scripture is the description of Ruth taking our boy Boaz ball’s deep. There it is, for all to read and laugh, but when Boaz says, in English translation, “What are you doing … about my feet?” Or “Around my feet?” – something you may find in a “proper” translation. A real translation would make it necessary to include the context that to refer to one’s feet in such a manner, culturally speaking, at that time was known to mean the genitals and penis.
Another important and lasting image is that of the threshing floor, among beautiful, poetic passages of comfort and the presence of God:
Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, now realizes that God was not against her but was caring for her even in her difficulties. She is now excited that one of her redeemers (and thus, Ruth’s redeemer) is showing an interest in Ruth. No longer “bitter,” Naomi now plans. Ruth has now been working in Boaz’s field for about two months (Ruth 2:23).
Game of the Day – A Perfect Game With Back vs 2000+
An interesting, near perfect classical game to reach 2070 in live rating.
WOODPECKER, WOODPECKER, KNOCK ON WOOD
A knickknocking carpenter so into its work that its beak
Doubles as a sledgehammer and in Hollywood we find the nestling grounds of a number of Carolina whites;
They burrow in the dead trees throughout Sumter National, a protected land where entropy is allowed to flourish
And the forests rattle like a put of rattlers, snakes where
Put in a spin cycle, re-shingled and fit to gift
Woodpecker, woodpecker, what have you done
Granny heard the knocking in the middle of the night
Left her bedside walked through curtains
Stood on the back porch and her sight
Focused on the bird whose song was metal as could be
fear and loathing in the occupied territories, which include the settlements beyond the purple-line, which concluded withIsrael
To build its house for its crew and its bae
It headbands into its foundation most of the day.
But what a forest is set is to create we forget
That the purpose for the wood pecking is for the nest
The woodpecker pecks and pecks at his best
Lest another pass by and parasite the nest
Woodpecker woodpecker you made her scared
She loaded up the 12 gauge before she left the stairs
The moon was out and she could see when she passed
Beneath the eaves
And there she heard the creak and craw of antique feet
In an antique hall,
She heard the strangest mating call,
Such as it was it was as a dove who said unintelligible words of love
And she could not sleep with such fears,
That love should come back after these years
With her and her grandson, the coming one, the soon to be granddaughter too
She had to protect them and prowler would get them
And turn em all upside down
And shake with a laugh like a cartoon where the pockets are empty save one puff of air
Woodpecker woodpecker why come here?
She was 14 to be 15 that year
I remember begging my step-bro to put
The broken family heirloom, Sput
A big heavy gun for such young uns as us and we just pointed it at each other
boom boom
With prowlers about when we heard the shout it was human as human can be
But the sound of the gun was deafened at once and throbbing, piercing pain
Engulfed the scene as a window beam of sun caught the last
Of the lightbulb spatter the glass
The day was damp and so it did
Not dry as we hope, not quick
Woodpecker peck peck and pecked you do
She loaded the broken gun and it go boom
News Without the Bulls%#t – May, 2021
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brandon the writer | author & staff writer for sir swag 