The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued

Page 260

the four boxes which were left in the game room, and if necessary the four boxes which were left in the guest bedroom, and if necessary .......................... Through my wanderings I have already determined that they are all of different sizes and empty, and that they will all fit inside the largest box. This is a tedious process and I have a Plan B. Rather than experiencing infinite boredom, at some point I may find it fun to just throw all the old junk out.

I’d rather spend the time ruminating about the ancient Japanese game of ‘Go.’ Such things are most fun when one is a novice. At this point I find it unclear what the rules defining “surround” are. The board configurations I’ve thus far seen look like the stones are willy-nilly all over the place. In certain venues, ignorance is indeed bliss, and I’d rather not get bogged down with the details of “surround.” What does pique my interest is the name of the game. It seems to me that it must have been baptized by someone with a sarcastic sense of humor. The still stones cannot move. They resemble a graveyard, while in Chess, a Knight and a Queen can hop or slide around the board theoretically forever. As an aside it seems patently absurd for mathematicians to say that ‘Go’ has more possibilities than Chess, when the Knight and Queen can keep hopping and sliding to infinity. I don’t care to hear any math maven’s “explanation.”