Here’s video of a 20-minute talk I gave on my dad’s Ping-Pong hustling, my paying my Harvard tuition in cash, the 60 million Americans who broke the law in bed every night, chess obsession, and mathematical beauty. (In the video, my talk starts just after minute 3:00 on the time stamp.) The webzine Gelf asked me to speak at their first “Geeking Out” evening at the Jan Larsen Art Studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn. In advance of my talk, Gelf published an interview with me called The Man Who Loved Numbers, Writing, Puzzles, and Chess.
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thepHtest 
April 18, 2009 at 9:52 am |
That is really funny stuff. Looks fun.
April 26, 2009 at 7:40 am |
Paul,
I love your chess book; it’s extraordinary. I live in the Village (12th and Sixth) so I know the chess scene well.
My own chess history is a cautionary tale of how life can go wrong. I grew up in Stalin’s Russia. At the age of seven, I won the Leningrad All-Soviet Invitational, beating Botvinnik in the final game. Unfortunately, my father was foolish and indiscreet enough to publicly comment that Stalin “is a stupid Georgian monkey”. As soon as the NKVD found out, my chess career was over. My chess record was wiped clean, my triumph at Leningrad was erased, and I was forbidden to travel to the West for a year. Also, our family shopping privileges at the Party supermarket were revoked and our cable TV was disconnected (reversed on appeal). Such is life…