THERE is a scene in the limited series The Queen's Gambit on Netflix when the main protagonists meet in a university lecture theatre in Ohio in 1967 to play in the American National Chess Competition. Boy/Girl—the asexuallised foreplay & horseplay has been long & jumpy between these two characters up to this scene, including two meetings spanning as many years, both flirting for a position under the other's gaze like the game of chess itself, getting to know one another through small columns in small chess magazines, and on the small competition circuit where whispers nudge & smudge in the hush of competition. The boy & girl are enigmatic to one another, squares & diagonals, even though the width of a chessboard separates them in this small world, this black & white & flat world which hangs on the edge of a move seen coming by the winner three steps before the loser. In chess it was over before it was over. The boy & girl met before: the girl (the up & comer) caught midway up an art deco staircase & ad hoc adolescence, throwing a bird glance at the boy who sits under the brim of a too cool hat & cooler demeanor amidst the adulation of a coterie of boy chess nerds. The boy & girl played each other before too. The boy won. Here, in Ohio, under the warmth of unexpectant beginnings they find themselves in the middle of nowhere & everything. A flat world that couldn't be more round in complexity. Chess is a clique that no one wants to be part of, but the wants of its players are the same as the wants of the popular. The boy tells the girl that in Russia chess is important & played in important places. They end up in the student union playing speed chess for money, drunk. The girl loses. The boy loses. Russia & importance is on the horizon but here, in Ohio, in a second rate university & greasy spoon student union, things are just right♟

*part of a longer text I am working on that digs into community, cliques & the individual in the art scene.