Book signings
The following pictures were sent to us by Mig Greengard, the writer and journalist
who runs the web site Chess Ninja and
has collaborated with Garry Kasparov on his latest book "How
Life Imitates Chess". The pictures are from an October 2007 tour and
a book signing on December 18th, all in New York City.
Garry Kasparov signing books at Borders on Wall St. and Broadway, NYC, on
Tuesday
Kasparov signed 300 books in this session. For the first time people
were asking him to write things like "To Freedom!" in the books.
Photographers turn up at every signing to get shots for news reports
The line during the Barnes & Noble signing in Manhattan spilled out
on the street and down the block
Jennifer Shahade is the two-time US Women's Champion who now edits Chess
Life Online.
That's her father Mike with the shades on his head.
Maria Bartiromo is the famous "Money Honey" of CNBC financial
shows. She and her husband are friends of the Kasparovs.
A young chess and Kasparov fan who will not forget this day
That's Lubomir Kavalek, who served for a while as Nigel Short's second against
Kasparov in 1993. Lubosh has been the chess columnist of the Washington Post
since 1986.
Look who got a signed copy: famed GM and trainer Lev Alburt
Wait a minute. Wait a minute!! Is it you, Misha? Back from the dead?
No, just an American look-alike of the great Mikhail Tal.
IM Dmitry Schneider and Iryna Zenyuk at the B&N signing in October
Annik Lafarge, Kasparov's US editor at Bloomsbury USA
Al Jazeera ("The Island") is a television network headquartered in
Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite
TV channel with the same name, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network
with several outlets, including the Internet and specialty TV channels in multiple
languages, and in several regions of the world. It was started in 1996 and gained
notoriety when it broadcast statements by al-Qaeda leaders following the September
11 2001 attacks. Today the station does not balk from criticising the leaders of Arab
nations, and in fact one country actually shut electricity down in the capital
to prevent its people from watching a critical report. Over the years Al Jazeera
has become remarkably fair and balanced, at least in its English language
channel Al
Jazeera International, of which the biweekly programme People and Power
is a part.
Last Sunday we caught a 23-minute report on Garry Kasparov's activities in
the past month, including very graphic pictures of his
arrest during a political rally in Moscow. You can watch the Al Jazeera
report (in two segments) here:
One remark: Boris Makarenko, a political scientist, says (around 3 minutes
into the second part) that the Other Russia coalition can never win votes "because
they have radical leftists, radical nationalists and liberals. Kasparov is a
genius in chess; he has a brain which works like the Deep Blue computer. Politics
require a different type of brain. They require an ability to manoeuvre, to
compromise, to strike deals not only with friends but also with adversaries,
to build coalitions. None of these skills have ever been noticed in the personality
of Mr Kasparov..." Is it us or isn't the analyst blatently contradicting
himself in one short segment? The leader of Other Russia, Kasparov, would appear
to be displaying exactly the qualitites the analyst says he doesn't have in
the second part. We are confused.