| The famous Dutch Magazine New
in Chess recently suffered such a desperate lack of material that they
asked ChessBase columnist Mig to fill out
their last page questionnaire. With NIC's kind permission we reproduce
it below, adding some links and several answers they didn't have room to
print. (Or maybe they just thought better of it.) |
|
Name:
Mig Greengard
Date of birth: June 9, 1969
Place of birth: Northern
California, USA
Place of residence: New York City
Current Elo: I am not a number!
Current position in world rankings: Reclining
What is your favorite color? The hue of my beloved's cheek when the
morning sunlight glances off her sleeping face. No, wait, purple.
What is your favorite kind of food? Anything lethally
spicy. Food should cause your scalp to sweat.
Which is your favorite drink? A free one. Or a White
Russian (Kahlua, vodka, cream) ordered in Moscow, where they'd never heard
of it and, after much confusion, made something with whipped cream.
Who is your favorite writer? Fiction: Salman
Rushdie. Non-fiction: Gore
Vidal. (Hon. mention HL
Mencken)
What
was the best or most interesting book you ever read? Rushdie's 'Midnight's
Children.'
What is your all-time favorite movie? 'It
Happened One Night.' Movies have gone downhill since 1960.
Who
is your favorite actor? Cary
Grant. Accept no imitations.
And your favorite actress? Uma
Thurman. At least I hear she acts.
What music do you prefer to listen to? Modern rock, hard rock, tango
orchestra. Really.
What is your favorite music record? That changes weekly. Currently
it's "White
Blood Cells" by the White
Stripes. And they're called CDs now.
Do
you have a favorite painter or artist? Chardin.
Which is the best chess game you ever saw? (Assuming this means seen in person.) Shirov-Polgar, Buenos
Aires, 1994 was very entertaining for spectators. Kasparov-Kramnik, Moscow,
2001, Game 2 was a tremendous seven-hour battle.
Is there a chess book that had a profound influence on you? Nothing
about my chess is profound, and most of my early books were complete crap. My
first was a Reinfeld-Horowitz potboiler ("How to Think Ahead in Chess"),
supposedly for beginners, that recommended always playing the Colle Stonewall
with white and the Dragon Sicilian with black. My dark-squared bishops have
been schizophrenic ever since.
What
is the best chess game you ever played? "The Immolation Immortal." Greengard-Rivero,
Buenos Aires, 1995. (Right) I sacrificed queen and rook
for a mating attack and five moves later he gave back queen and rook to escape
into a lost endgame.
What was your best result ever? In 1989, when I got to third base with
Allison Fritts on our first date.
Who is your favorite chess player of all time? David Bronstein.
What is it that you appreciate most in a person? Wit.
Who would you have liked to be if you hadn't been yourself? Oscar
Wilde, but without the buggery and the prison.
What is your best character trait? A sincere desire to make people
happy, whether they like it or not.
What is your worst character trait? Vindictiveness. There's nothing
in my dictionary between "forge" and "forgo."
Do you have a dream? The usual stuff. Fame, fortune, Uma Thurman.
What
is your greatest fear? To one day discover I'm not as marvelous as my mother
says I am.
Do you believe in the future of chess? Yes, but I've learned to keep
my resume up to date.
Has chess made you happy? Definitely. However, I do sometimes wonder
what I might have otherwise done with the tens of thousands of hours I've spent
on chess. Then I go play
some blitz.
As originally appeared in New
In Chess magazine 2002/4 in modified form