Saturday, July 4, 2009

What Johnny Cash can teach us about bridge

One of the new crazes in my life is repetitive watchings of this video recorded live at San Quentin prison by Johnny Cash. This is not some performer looking for a cheap publicity stunt in a prison, this is a performance by a true artist showing how powerful and moving an art form can be. The song.


I had the brainstorm then of working the song into a blog post. If Chris Depasquale, when challenged by a bet, could work in a sexual angle into a chess column , then working this song into a bridge context shouldn't be that hard.

I thought of how empathetic Cash seems to be with the prisoners; he appears to believe every word he is singing; he has transferred himself heart and soul into an inmate's being. I thought of extending that somehow to the empathy our partners and teammates at bridge sometimes deserve but which, in our own ego-games, we deny them.

Nah, a bit of a connection but too much of a stretch.

The other way of fitting the song was how Cash appears to be in Heat One. I doubt if he ever performed this song with the same intensity and belief in any other setting, for the rest of his life. At such a moment, when he pushed the boundaries of performance and of expression, he symbolizes the beauty of man.

The bridge connection hmmm...

Damn it, I think I'll go back to watching the video again.

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