Sarah's Blog

C A Ï SSA'S     BATTLEFIELD         C hess at its purest is a totally abstract game that requires nothing but one's mind.       While the accoutrements of the game are unnecessary, the pieces and the board give the game its identity.  The chess pieces are the most spotlighted feature of the game, taking center stage. Hovering in the background, often unnoticed but intrinsic to visual completeness sits the supporting player, the board.      Today we have boards of every conceivable material, solid, folding, rolled-up, large, tiny, portable, stationary, conventional or electronic.  It's hard to imagine a time when chess boards, or game boards in general, were rare and unlike any even among today's variety.      Chess as we know it is a relatively recent development, if you consider five centuries recent.  But the modern game that developed in the 15th century was similar to the game that had come to be 5 centuries previous to that.  In the latter part of the first

  John Sebastian was born in 1944.   This fact is relevant because, along with fellow Lovin' Spoonful bandmember, Zally Yanovsky who was born later that same year, John is the youngest person in this story.   In the pivotal year 1964 John was 20, just out of his teens.  His father, also John, was a highly respected classical harmonica player. Little John became a blues harmonica player but also had developed proficiency on the guitar and autoharp.  John grew up surrounded by privilege and famous musicians (and not just classical ones) ever  since he was a musical proverbial knee-high . Burl Ives was a frequent visitor who brought Woody Guthrie by to crash in the Sebastian apartment, which, by the way, located at 29 Washington Square W, right in Greenwich Village.  . . . on the top floor. John grew more interested in Sonny Terry and Mississippi John Hurt than in that other John Sebastian: Bach.   His family wasn't poor, struggling or dysfunctional, but they were diverse, arti