American Go E-Journal » Go Spotting

“The movie Sanjuro has a couple of scenes with a nice go board in view,” reports Daniel R. Grayson. Sanjuro is a 1962 black-and-white Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. It is a sequel to Kurosawa’s 1961 Yojimbo (Wikipedia)

A more-or-less random selection of go-related stuff that somehow we just never got around to publishing this year, but that we don’t want to forget, file or delete. Thanks to everyone who sent us tips and suggestions this year and we promise to do better in 2021!

The wild and crazy folks at Shut Up & Sit Down tackle go. Thanks to Peter Freedman for the link.

Understanding Chinese Culture via the Board Game Go
Ze-Li Dou tackles ancient Chinese civilization, Confucianism and Daoism through the lens of go, “examining how philosophical attitudes are reflected in Go by literary means, which will also illustrate the interconnectedness of literature, philosophy, history, and art in China.” Or, put another way, “Go is like a little stone found on the bank of our grand metaphoric river; a close inspection of its polish and patina may throw light on the nature and history of the river itself.” Thanks to Roy Laird for passing this along.

Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke – Breakdown
EJ reader Geoff Pippin found this piece by a small Australian classical ensemble called “Nonsemble” on YouTube, about the famous 1953 game between Go Seigen and Fujisawa Kuranosuke. “The best part is that it is really an excellent piece!” says Pippin.
From the Nonsemble website: “A 30 minute work for chamber septet, using the moves of 1953 championship game of Go as stimulus for harmonic, rhythmic and melodic material. It’s an experiment in extracting musical ideas from abstract patterns and sequences, and allowing these ideas to develop intuitively into a large-scale work.”

Why Do People Love Games?
The Game Maker for The New York Times (Yes! There is a Game Maker) explains. “Although Go’s origin is unclear, many scholars speculate that it was created to teach tactics and strategy. When we enter the magic circle, we give ourselves permission to explore, to fail, to lose. When we stop playing Go, we carry that experience with us.” Thanks (again) to Roy Laird for the link.

Bart Lipofsky reports that on a recent episode of Jeopardy, aired on October 16, 2020, featured Go about two minutes into the segment. “‘Category: 2 letter words – The name of the game seen here,’ with a nice view of a stone being placed on the board,” says Lipofsky.

Dave Weimer reports that in Adrian McKinty’s novel, Rain Dogs, the protagonist – a Northern Ireland detective investigating a murder – goes to Finland to interview the prime suspect. When he arrives, he finds the suspect playing Go. In a later chapter entitled “Kami no Itte” the suspect cleverly eludes trial.

Weimer further reports that on page 162 of The Vegetarian, by Han Kang (translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith. London: Hogarth, 2016. Winner of the Man Booker International Prize and one of NYT 10 Best Books of 2016), there is the following passage: “There’d been a time when she could spend hours like this weighting up all the variables that might have contributed to determining Yeong-hye’s fate. Of course it was entirely in vain, this act of mentally picking up and counting the paduk stones that had been laid out on the board of her sister’s life.”

Andrew Okun reports that Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s book This is How You Lose the Time War and its inclusion of Go features in a new tor.com article called All Is Fair in Love & Go: Strategy Gaming in This is How You Lose the Time War. In the article, author Em Nordling states that “Go, in the context of Time War, is time travel. It isn’t just the 19×19 coordinate options that lend the game its complexity (though the 3^361×0.012 = 2.1×10^170 potential moves don’t hurt), but the positionality, the contingency. With the meaning of each move changing over time, its narrative is not linear. Where most strategy games unfold with the grace of a plotted story, Go moves map like a messy history, where meaning is made only in hindsight, where brilliance can turn obsolete and banality groundbreaking.” The book was first featured in Go Spotting by Adam Anaya in June of this year.

Tyler Keithley, president of the Southwest Missouri Go Club, reports that the second episode of The History of Home Narrated by Nick Offerman includes a mention of Go at 48:27 in a transition between explaining the historical importance of board games and the modern pastime of playing video games, and is again mentioned by Twitch streamer Sonja Reid (OMGITSFIREFOXX) around 50 minutes and 30 seconds into the episode.

Ted Terpstra reports that in Sara Paretsky’s 2009 collection, Windy City Blues, there is a 13-page story called “The Takamoku Joseki” beginning on page 246, in which her female private detective, V.I. Warshawski, solves a murder mystery at a Go gathering of Japanese, Korean, and American Go players at an apartment in Chicago.

Larry Russ reports that in this documentary about the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma Af Klint, from about 1:15 to 1:30 at the beginning of the documentary there is a Go board with bowls in the room where the speaker is being filmed. The documentary can be rented to view online here.

Adam Anaya reports that “Go is referenced many times in this creatively entertaining novella. ‘She decides she would describe it using terms from Go: You place each stone expecting it may do many things. A strike is also a block is also a different strike.'” This Is How You Lose the Time War was written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, and was one of NPR’s Best Books of 2019.