American Go E-Journal » 2014 » September

“You mention that you’re looking for a January 2002 article about go by Katy Kramer (Go Spotting: Northeastern University Magazine 6/7 EJ),” writes Harald Zellerer. “I really liked that article also and republished it on the website of the Amsterdam Go Club.” Click here to read “Go: With the Flow.”

Bob Joyce also sent us a copy of the article, noting that “featured is Sangit Chatterjee, who authored Cosmic Go, Galactic Go, and provided game commentaries for the book Go! More Than a Game by Peter Shotwell.  He describes the game’s complexity as ‘Go is like six chessboards joined together, with all six games happening at the same time.’” Joyce extended special thanks to Joan Lynch, Managing Editor, Marketing and Communications, Northeastern University,who provided a copy of the article.
Editor’s Note: This terrific article would make an excellent handout for local clubs to beginners or at public events.

History is Not Offensive: “Regarding the ‘offensive’ qualities of the ‘Highbrow’ item (Your Move/Readers Write: High/Low Brow Matrix Offensive 9/14 EJ), I’d like to rebut on behalf of the long-gone authors,” writes Peter St. John. “The thesis, which I believe was new in that era, is that appreciation of, and interest in, higher levels of abstraction is ‘high-brow’.  Go is more abstract than chess in the sense of being a level further removed from physical combat, the way Eisenhower immersed in logistics was a level removed from George Patton deploying tanks, who was several levels removed from the gunner pulling a trigger.” St. John also notes that “At the time of the article [1949] the only places to find go in America would be in the math and physics departments of universities. My dad learned, around that time, in a science laboratory from a mimeograph of a German article, because German scholars collaborated with Japanese scholars after the Russo-Japanese war. I urge people not to be offended by history. We can learn from it, not in the sense of learning from an Authority but in the sense of learning from an Experience. The grid is a bit of history.”

Celebrating Progress: Noah Doss agrees, saying that the matrix “simply records historically the type of people who, in the time period observed in the matrix, were most fascinated with go.” He goes on to say that “Nowadays, go is not, in America, a game of the elite, but just because modern man has made some progress in quashing these societal imbalances in some respects doesn’t mean we need be offended by the fact that they once existed. I truly believe go is for everyone and, to be honest, if it was the way of polo or lacrosse in that everyone I met playing go had a trust fund, I would probably not love it so much, coming from a dirty farm town and an undersized stucco house. At a point in time, go was ‘highbrow’ but I think we should honor the fact that it used to be ‘highbrow’ and now we, as a society, have fixed that problem.”

“I am probably in a very small minority on this topic, but I found the ‘High Brow – Low Brow’ matrix (Go Spotting: A “Highbrow” Game in 1949  9/6/2014 EJ) extremely offensive,” writes Gordon Castanza. “As with almost all pseudo sociology that passes as junk science, this crap is another example. Go, if anything is classless, colorblind, and non-age-specific. Besides, the entire matrix applies to any number of people at any given time. Glenmorangie Taghta can be enjoyed by anyone (of legal drinking age); it also knows no class, income level, working condition, color of one’s skin, or country of origin. I know you’re trying to show go in the most positive light possible, and I’ve enjoyed the ‘Go Spotting’ feature in the past. However, to have some C-grade sociologist put go, or any other human endeavor, into a hierarchical range is just plain stupid and intellectually dishonest.”