It’s always great fun to see visual depictions and analysis of activities I’ve studied. Unlike Dance Moms, the drama in the recent documentary Brooklyn Castle isn’t manufactured. It brings an important story, and activity, to a broader audience– in a way not done since the 1993 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. Below is my review [...]
One weekend I went shopping at a mall in downtown Boston—and was transported into another culture. A hotel, connected to the mall, was hosting an Irish dancing competition (or “feis”). My friend turned to me and asked, “Wait, is this a child beauty pageant, or something else?” With the bobbing heads full of Shirley Temple-like [...]
I admit that I am a Scrabble tournament virgin. I’ve only ever seen a Scrabble tournament while watching the documentary Word Wars, and I’ve read about this particular subculture in Stefan Fatsis’ delighful Word Freak. But in many ways the Scrabble tournament world doesn’t seem to differ too much from its intellectual cousins, or “sports [...]
