Weathering The Monopolies

Last night, I almost exhausted myself shovelling a walking path to the street. Ames got ten inches yesterday, but the drift in front of the house was well over a foot. I expected the schools to be open. I wanted to prepare for getting the young miss out to the street to catch her bus. She was bustling around the house this morning at 6:50AM. Lucky thing I rolled out of bed to make sure she was bundled up. She couldn’t find her coat.

Eep. The little oaf almost went out in her hoodie.

I loaned her my coat, and while she was struggling with its balky zipper, I thought to check my email. Whew! School called off because of sub-zero wind chill and blowing snow.

So, it was time to kick off Christmas Break with a round of Monopoly:

After ten minutes, I had served three jail terms, and as you see above, the young miss had completed hotel construction on the dark purples.

After an hour, I had scored the dark blue monopoly, and had five houses on the properties. But repeated stays at the Mediterranean Hotel had reduced me to $42 in cash, a house sale on Boardwalk, and every other non-blue property in my portfolio mortgaged.

But I guess the early break was too much for my daughter’s sensibilities. Her high-rolling lifestyle eventually caught up with her. She absorbed three big hits before the end.

It was really a good thing I woke early. The wind is still whipping, and it would have been dangerous for her to be waiting for the school bus underdressed for the weather. I know kids get independent-minded in the teen years. The young miss is really self-motivated to get ready for school on her own and get out the door in time. Last year, she had a slew of tardies and many last-minute rides. This year, maybe only one. I’m glad my parent/danger sense is still active after all these years. Every so often, I get that inner nudge to check things out. Thank God for those nudges.

 

Falsification

Falsification is the principle by which a person tests her or his ideas for possible flaws. In a nutshell, a person considers a plan and then reflects on the possibilities that might derail the effort. Good scientists engage in it. A hypothesis is forwarded, and the researcher considers ways in which a theory can be proved wrong. It strikes me as a rational and orderly approach to the principle “What can go wrong, will go wrong.” Pessimism or pragmatism? Either way, it’s at the core of skilled scientific inquiry.

Something caught my attention in this month’s issue of Chess Life: Andy Soltis’ regular column “Chess To Enjoy.” In it, he looks at the difficult and complex relationship between optimism, worry, and success at the chessboard. In probing the idea of worry, he cites a 2004 study by Michelle Cowley and Ruth Byrne. In this research a group of chessplayers of varying abilities were tested, from average tournament players to the master level, and even a grandmaster. They were given various chess positions and asked to think “out loud” as they analyzed the situation and tried to find the best move.

Top players would find a candidate move, then spend considerable time searching for ways in which the opponent could counter. Players below master level routinely engaged in confirmation bias. When they found a move they loved, they would look for affirmation, then play it. Great chessplayers are thought to be far-thinking in their calculating processes. And the Cowley-Byrne research confirmed this. But more striking to psychologists was the content of the extended calculations. Masters underestimate their candidate move, presume the best of an opponent, and look for flaws in their idea. Amateurs are overconfident, grow attached to their good ideas, and look not so much to the best of what an opponent can deliver to counter their efforts.

Some observations …

In more than a decade online, I have to say that the internet is full of amateurs. People who have good ideas, and who trot them out there with the highest hopes. Often, issues are quickly muddied up, even if they’re citing good authorities. It’s the confirmation bias of chessplayers below the level of master. They don’t test their ideas in the crucible of critical thinking. Things have probably worsened for people who just hang with like-minded allies. Their arguments don’t get poked, probed, and pushed back.

I could use more falsification in my ministry. We’re just starting to revise Communion ministry procedure at the altar in my parish, for a possible implementation after we return to the church and when the pastor comes back from his leave. Lots of things have been suggested, and in one particular suggestion to get the chalices in the hands of the lay Communion ministers more expediently, I take the role of the pessimist. What can go wrong with this procedure? What is the likeliest way for people to mess it up? If it strays too far from old practice, what will I do with the dozen to twenty people our of ninety who never read updates, won’t attend a review session, or who have been doing it for so long they can’t break old habits without great difficulty?

Have I inherited this pessimism from my chessplaying days? Or 25 years of parish ministry? Not as much as would like.

At any rate, it’s a good spur to examine some aspects of my life. What are my presumptions? About parenting, personal finances, hobbies, and even blogging? Is there anything I’m doing that I think is a good idea, but that maybe isn’t? This is one reason I value my wife and our relationship. Being rather different in many personality aspects, we negate the tendency for confirmation bias in one another. We have unity on the essentials: love, respect, faith. We challenge one another on important things: parenting, finances, lifestyle choices. It works better because we’re not the same, because we disagree, and I count my blessings for being a better person and that I don’t have an echo chamber going along with every good notion that pops into my head.

Our bishops, alas, do not enjoy this grace. The higher one goes in the church hierarchy, the more one senses that confirmation bias rules the day. Minds and hearts and spirits are like those chess amateurs. They find a good move. They believe in it. They look around them for confirmation. They don’t think of the negative consequences, and they don’t seem to test things morally, intellectually, theologically.

 

Arch Bishops On Board

My readers, most of them anyway, probably don’t know there’s a US Chess League. The name of the St Louis entry? The Arch Bishops, of course.

Wonder if they ever thought of getting former ordinaries Rigali and Burke to throw out the first pawn or something.

 

The Bad: Influences or Choices?

One of my staff colleagues speaks of the demonic, of possession, of exorcism. You’d have to go to him for the details, because I don’t presently care to get them. Very early in spiritual direction, almost three decades ago, I asked my director about it. Don’t go there, he advised in so many words. I got the impression that just chatting up the topic provided too many inroads. Focus on the light. Pray. Don’t get caught up in the peripherals, however fascinating they might seem.

I dated a nursing student in college who drew up my astrological chart. I know your birthday, she said, but if we knew the exact minute of your birth, I could do a really accurate chart. “12:59pm,” I said. Do you need my latitude and longitude, too? And we were off to the races of the occult, as one might say.

It was pretty harmless, but one thing she said struck me and has stuck with me for a long time. You have a virtuous exterior life, she commented. But you are attracted to the sullied, the polluted, and the dirty. My conservative friends would say that’s obvious: I dabble in professional progressivism.

My wife urges I avoid any semblance of gambling. She disliked when I won third prize in my first live backgammon tournament when we lived in Kansas City. I gave her the winnings, but she said she would prefer I not “gamble.” I respect her wishes. I play online for fun and occasional glory. No money. I know my wife doesn’t distinguish between the fine lines of buying into a tournament with cash prizes. I don’t play to win so much as I play to compete. Winning is one logical result of superior play. Another is inflicting as much difficulty on a superior opponent before the inevitable concession. When I play on the net, I do get to play many superior opponents. I play in three leagues, and 2012 has not gotten off to a stellar start. Ten wins, twenty-two losses, and not a lot of difficulty for even those opponents who are a close match.

But getting back to my colleague’s expertise, I sit unconvinced of the importance of the demonic. Does that make me more susceptible to evil? I might counter that blaming another entity for what’s wrong is rather convenient, and gets us off the hook. People are responsible for their own conduct. I think conduct produces consequences. It’s less karma than good parenting. I can make a choice to goof off, but eventually my unpreparedness will mean a bigger repair bill at the house, more of a crush for time when a project is finally due, or more making amends if I’ve let a friendship slide.

Does that mean unexplained bad things never happen? Not at all. I’m just not convinced that bad things are terribly important in the long run. Just this morning, I rolled a very fortunate double 3 (2.78% chance) that enabled me to get my two pieces off the bar, and capture in turn my opponent’s. Instead of losing the game and trailing in the match 3-0, the score was tied 1-1. Alas, it was a momentary bob above water. The match went 11-2 in my opponent’s favor.

I can rail against bad luck, but to what point? My software analysis confirmed my opponent out-lucked me 18 moves to 9. But I still made errors in the match. I can’t control the dice, but I can learn from my errors and strive to be a better player with what the dice give me to play.

I used to like chess best of all games. No luck whatsoever. Sheer skill. But in my middle age, I find myself more drawn to backgammon. Enough luck to give a weaker player much more hope than a weaker player of chess. And that bites the other way, too. I can get stung by an up-and-coming player, too. But I’m never quite the master of my fate, the way I was in chess.

In backgammon, one can convince oneself the wins are due to skill and the losses blamed on luck. Self-deception is a huge temptation, but ultimately, players indulging in that mindset will only handicap themselves and their future prospects. Consequences. Not luck. Not mean little red imps tipping the dice to send the unlucky, the unloved, on tilt.

As for the choice in the title, is evil an influence or a choice, I’m inclined to stick with the latter. We choose to be bad. The random universe gives us opportunities aplenty to treat as obstacles or as helping hands. I certainly don’t want to be the sort of Christian who pats myself on the back for the good and blames somebody else for my bad. And I’m good with taking good advice to avoid some areas on general principle. Places like Vegas. Things like winnings. Am I good on that?

 

On Being a Chicago Catholic

I just watched an old friend compete on Jeopardy today. My wife called and said I had to get to a tv. So I barged in on the students  who live in the peer minister suite. To give you a bit of background, she was in one of my choirs in a parish in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. She’s one of the smartest, funniest, and most loyal friends I know. Twice this afternoon I jumped out of my the students’ chair.

The first was when she drew a “4-N” answer about a church feast that falls on March 25th. If she misses this question, I told my friends, I’d see to her excommunication personally.

Final Jeopardy was “Sports in the Movies,” and the answer dealt with the address the Blues Brothers gave in the movie. I laughed my head off on that one. You live in Chicago and you know what’s on North Addison Avenue. And if you don’t know, you’re a darned Yankee fan.

What a blessed existence, to win at Jeopardy.

I have three students to train as lectors during air time tomorrow. Alas.

 

Her Opinion

Scrabble with hot chocolate tonight. Look over on the left there. Near the end of the game, the young miss tacked “OPINION” on the end of QUILT for a personal-best 72-points on one play. Her total for the game: 353. Way, way better than her previous record of 262.

Dad hung on with 405 for the victory. The difference was my seven-letter play earlier in the game: SLICKER. Take away that 50-point bonus and it would have been a close shave for me.

 

Scrabbling About

“Want to play a game this evening?” I asked the young miss.

“How about Scrabble?”

Scrabble, I thought. Not Uno? Where did she get Scrabble?

Brit has an impressive vocabulary and she knows how to use it. And spell. She also has really good anagram ability. When she was younger, she would ask me to give her scrambled four and five-letter words in the car, and she would figure them out in her head. (These days, she listens to cd’s with headphones–no more car games, alas.)

The first game wasn’t pretty. But she hung close in game two. She found HERE in the lower right corner for a triple word score, stringing the e’s at the end of other words for a total of 49 points. Losing 275-259 was more than honorable for her.

Then after I opened with WIMP in game three, she bingoed. Her first ever:

And the little turkey was ahead 60-22. What the heck was going on here? It wasn’t until she gave me an opening with PROBE that I avenged that opening play of hers. Boom! 76 points:

I think the fatigue was setting in. Later on, she opened up a triple word square for me and another 7-letter play, INDUCTED. 89 points just about ended the game, but she finished with her second straight personal best–262.

It was only two years ago she insisted on playing Scrabble when her grandma came to visit us in Kansas City. I don’t think my ultra-competitive mother appreciated playing with a young child in a three-way game. Both my parents liked card and board games of all sorts and I loved the competition myself when they would play with us kids. It wasn’t until college that I started beating my mother consistently at this game. Even though I became a chess expert, I could never beat my father consistently at checkers.

There’s no real treat in out-scrabbling one’s offspring in games like this. Unless she starts memorizing words and competing in tournaments, I’m going to win every game until I start losing my mental faculties. That’s why I like Uno or Monopoly–enough of a luck factor for the young miss to compete nicely. But I confess being pleasantly surprised with some of her play tonight. Three games was a bit much for her mental stamina, but I don’t think I was putting a pair of 260′s on my mother twice in a night when I was her age.

 

Let The Games Begin

My first bridge night in about a month. I played a good bit in college, then began to play again when I lived in Iowa. It has a rep for being an old person’s game. It’s probably deserved. It also has a rep for attracting, or at least giving rise to titanic fits of temper. That’s undeserved. Bridge players are competitive like any sort of competitor. But we have a zero tolerance policy in effect. When I returned to play duplicate bridge in 1998, I found everyone’s manners were light years ahead of what they were in 1980. Not to mention better than the poker players on ESPN or my college chess club. Now if you fuss, you get penalized. And if you fuss too much, you’re out.

Bridge is a good game in that not everything is in one’s control. I don’t mean the luck of the draw, though. In your serious bridge club, the hands are “duplicated” for each set of four sitting at a table, so every pair is compared in score with all the other pairs playing the same cards. So if I make one extra trick for an extra thirty points that none of my other nine competitors did, my partner and I score eight out of eight on that hand.

The out of control part is one’s partner, of course. Partner is an unknown quantity, and when I play with a new one, it can be guesswork to assess if she or he knows what’s going on. They probably feel the same about me. Good bridge takes good communication and understanding. Plus it is a good sleuthing exercise to assess what the opponents have or don’t have.

Anyway, it’s a good game. Anita prefers me playing bridge over backgammon or poker. (You should’ve heard the scene when I came home with backgammon winnings my second–and so far last trip–to the backgammon club.) Maybe it’s those women in golden bikinis serving drinks on Bravo’s Celebrity Poker. She knows we don’t have those in bridge.

Then I get to figure out how to help our youth minister engineer the video presentation from NCYC at Mass this weekend. That’s tomorrow, of course.

Enjoy your Friday night, folks.

 

A Game End to a Vacation

As surface temperatures soar to near 100 in KC, Brittany and I have foregone any earthbound activity the past few days in favor of an old favorite, Solarquest.

Proving adept in other capitalist endeavors earlier this summer, Life and Monopoly, I thought it was time to introduce the Little Moneybags to a game truly out of this world.

My friend Christopher from Illinois introduced me to Solarquest years ago. We had one running battle that lasted several weeks and went to twenty-four hours of playing time. When I left Illinois, he and his parents got me my own game. I’ve probably only played four or five games on it.

In her first game, Brittany has already lasted eight hours (over the past three days). She currently has control over the Saturn and Mars systems. I have all the space docks. The other properties are split evenly enough that we’re in that “eternal” game mode now: we each have enough cash so that bankruptcy is not a looming prospect.

On break this afternoon, we visited the Cassini web site, so she could see actual photos of her Saturn real estate. Cassini scientists, by the way, have summarized their top ten discoveries of the past year in orbit. It’s a useful summary.

Back to earth on Saturday. I have a wedding liturgy outline for 6:30 that has somehow gotten lost. The bride says she dropped it off at the parish office last week, but the pastor hadn’t seen it as of Thursday when I saw him at a staff member’s birthday lunch.

School begins, amazingly enough, in about three and a half weeks. I have some summer projects to complete by then. Mainly, I’ve put my neck on the line to lead a more comprehensive planning program for school liturgy planning. The parish music committee has also charged me and our organist to give them a handful of selections of possible Mass settings to decide upon.

Meanwhile, I go to sleep dreaming of how I can wrest Titan from Brittany’s clutches …

 

Games

Anagram some of these loony phrases into titles of liturgical music:

gains due
sin, a mud pain
Tuba Lied Joe
rat team bats
toe partners
a gap inclines us

Number three does not refer to the pope.

 

Tempo

I learned an early lesson as a musician: timing is critical. This is true when playing in an ensemble or singing in a choir. It is also true when learning and performing music.

Tempo is critical in other areas, serious bridge, for example. When I play duplicate bridge, I have to be aware of the tempo of my bidding and play, lest I give my partner a hint of unauthorized information she or he would not be entitled to were we playing fairly. Example: if I take a long time to make a play, my partner might presume that I had a tough choice and alter his or her strategy accordingly. It is a violation of ethics to intentionally communicate to one’s partner one is having difficulty in this way. And when my partner disrupts playing tempo, I’m obliged to bend over backwards to ignore the delay and play as normally as I would had the play or call been routine in tempo. On a more informal game-playing level, players who take a long time to make bids, or place bets, or think too long, disrupt the tempo of a game to the detriment of others’ pleasure. (Don’t take so long to consider buying Illinois Avenue; just fork over the dern $240!)

My tradition-advocating church music colleagues wring their hands over the lack of hold plainsong has in American parishes. I suspect the number one musical reason is tempo. I remember an otherwise excellent musician setting a tempo for “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” No wonder her choir turned up their noses at it. It was mournfully slow (quarter=64 or 68). My preference is about 112-120, so you can see the difference of opinion we had about the hymn. If Catholics are exposed to chant thinking it is meant to be performed slowly, their teachers and music directors have poisoned the waters.

Tempo is critical for all kinds of hymnody. Musicians must be able to understand the music they play and accurately play the tempo the composer has set. Even then, judgment is required. I think some music sings and plays better at slightly faster tempos than composers have written or recorded. Some of them seem to think so, too; when I go to concerts, inevitably, the tempo is faster on most songs than what I’ve heard on recordings or recall from the scores. Playing too fast is a danger, too: it is easy to speed the life out of a song just because you know it very well.

If you are trying to incorporate chant into your parish repertoire, be advised the music is more demanding than it seems at first glance. It might seem to be simple enough: a single line of melody, but there is a zen-like quality that will unfold the experience as you properly engage the text and music.

 

Saints or Not

Thanks, Liam, for playing. Maybe 25 was too many. I’ll tone the numbers down next time.

Amanda, derived from the Latin “love” or “beloved” has “cousins” with the same meaning, but the name was invented about 300 years ago.

Bobo was taken as a confirmation name about seven years ago in Iowa. The DRE was fuming when she heard it echo in the school gym, but what can you do?

Jennifer is a form of Genevieve, patron of Paris

Miranda is just a moon of Uranus

Derek: not a saint unless you figure it as a form of Eric; they have the same meaning.

Munchin is patron of a parish in my diocese

Trojan, Britwin, Jordan, and Hunger: all saints.

Moloc, whether the Curt Jester would believe it or not, was a saint.

Quadragesimus and Jessica: saints.

Liam’s first miss: Oscar is a grouch, not a saint, according to Catholic Online.

Faith, Hope, and Charity are all women saints

Erin no saint, but I would’ve thought otherwise.

Wendy may be a form of Gwen, but that would make Derek a saint, too. Like Miranda and Amanda, Wendy is an invention.

Blane was a saint, Dominic’s immediate successor in the order, if memory serves.

Babar and Celeste: proud pachyderms, but not saints except in the opposite gender forms.

Imogene a form of Veronica? Wow. Otherwise, not a saint.

Hywyn a saint.

Fourteen Holy Helpers: there’s a parish in the Buffalo diocese dedicated to them.

Sidney true as a saint in his own right

Melanie is no saint.

Zenna was a great author of speculative fiction, but not a Catholic saint.

 

Saintly Litany

In researching saints’ names earlier this month, I ran across some web sites (thoroughly “orthodox” so far as I can tell) that assisted me greatly in assuring a sound Litany of the Saints for the Easter Vigil.

Here’s a contest for you: without peeking, see if you can accurately diagnose the following litany of saints. How much “heterodoxy” can you find therein?. My friend Fr Shawn went five for five the other day before saying, “No more, no more; I don’t want to spoil my perfect record.” If you have any stories about any of these saints, post them with your answers.

Answers in a day or two. Blessed’s count, Old Testament people don’t.

1. St Amanda: true or not?
2. St Bobo: true or not?
3. St Jennifer: true or not?
4. St Miranda: true or not?
5. St Derek: true or not?
6. St Munchin: true or not?
7. St Trojan: true or not?
8. St Britwin: true or not?
9. St Jordan: true or not?
10. St Hunger: true or not?
11. St Moloc: true or not?
12. St Quadragesimus: true or not?
13. St Jessica: true or not?
14. St Oscar: true or not?
15. Sts Faith, Hope, and Charity: true or not?
16. St Erin: true or not?
17. St Wendy: true or not?
18. St Blane: true or not?
19. St Babar and St Celeste: true or not?
20. St Imogene: true or not?
21. St Hywyn: true or not?
22. Fourteen Holy Helpers: true or not?
23. St Sidney: true or not?
24. St Melanie: true or not?
25. St Zenna: true or not?

 

Let’s cast a movie

Twenty years ago, my classmate and friend Tom and I spent many summer days working the periodicals archives of St Bernard’s Institute (now St Bernards School of Theology and Ministry) integrating them into the stacks of the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, where they were merging libraries. One of our frequent topics that year was casting films. We had a pretty good 80′s cast for The Lord of the Rings that Peter Jackson could have used. Gratis.

Anyway, I was thinking back to those fond days, and now that Jackson has indeed made the movie we yearned for while eating our sandwiches in the library tower, I thought about another round of Let’s Cast.

So here goes, commenters: choose a book or a story to be made as a film (or an old movie to remake) and cast it. Go as deep as you want, or just mention the principal actors. Your only parameter is that this movie is for 2006 release, so no dead actors and directors, please.

 

Don’t you love good days?

I was having a bad time of it last week, especially toward the weekend. We landed three funerals at the parish. Extra meetings all week. A good friend from California was in town. Except for some walking, I had no time … rather, I took no time for my regular yoga, pilates, or just simple stretching, and my back was complaining by the weekend. By the time last night hit, I was irritable or worse.

Then the sun rose this morning. And for some reason, it seemed like a really great day. I prayed in bed before my wife woke up. I worked this morning, then took the afternoon off (making up for last week’s extra time). The family went out to lunch. Brittany and I hit the public library while my wife did her doctor’s appointment, then we reunited to pick up some anti-spy software and admired (not admired … gawked, really) at the hdtv’s selling for as much (or more) than we paid for our car. We had a good laugh at the refrigerator with a tv in the door (where you would expect to see a water and ice dispenser). I asked the guy at the check-out if anyone had come out with a bed with a fold-out hdtv at its foot.

Chiropractor, then yoga, and my back actually felt good for a change. I had a tough backgammon match in round 6 of the German Open tonight, but I finally pulled it out against a very sound player from Mexico. On to the quarterfinals, sometime in September.

Later this week, Brit starts school, and we go to parents’ night. On the parish front: staff meeting, inspect a grand piano being offered as a gift, hosting seventy-some kids at the Young Person’s Music Retreat (lame name, but hey …), and hopefully getting some piano practice in. Sunday is my baptismal anniversary, so I’ve got a nice festival/spiritual event to look forward to. Be sure to have a good day or two if you can cram one in. Highly recommended.