American Go E-Journal » Go Art

Go makes an appearance in Allegra Goodman ’s 2006 novel Intuition, reports Debbie  Siemon. “After the author introduces a couple of secondary characters as ‘geniuses,’ they show up at a picnic (at Walden Pond, no less),” says Siemon. The reference, on page 164, reads “Next to the drinks cooler, Jacob and Aaron sat playing Go on towels in the sand.”  The novel is “an intricate mystery and a rich human drama set in the high-stakes atmosphere of a prestigious research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
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A scene featuring 3-dimensional go was spotted in Andromeda, the Canadian-American science fiction television series based on unused material by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry,  which ran from 2000 to 2005. “In the Double Helix  episode there’s a scene where the captain is playing (starting at 5:27), not tri-level chess like Spock and Kirk, but rather tri-level go and they even refer to it as ‘go,’” reports Fr. Mark Lichtenstein of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Camp Hill, PA. “The game (portrayed) doesn’t look like a real game though. Not that tri-level go is a normal variant like 9×9 or 13×13.” There’s a last glimpse of the game in the first seconds of this clip as well.

E-Journal reader Michael Albert spotted go in Fist of Fury (aka  The Chinese Connection), the 1972 Hong Kong martial arts film starring Bruce Lee in his second major film. “When a scene came up with a go board in it, I was a little skeptical at first,” says Albert, “but then after reviewing the scene a couple times — and watching to go board get thrown at someone’s face —  I realized that I was seeing the real deal. A previous scene shows to people placing stones on the board. I can’t tell you if they were playing a real game or just placing random stones on the board.”