Magnus Carlsen, Dress Codes, and More

Many of us have a split personality. I don’t mean that the men in white coats should come. I mean that, on one side, we are conservative, or traditionalist, and on the other, we are rebellious: “Don’t tread on me.” I wrote about this in an essay a year ago. Its title: “Dress Codes and Their Discontents.” Its subtitle: “On coats, ties, and other garments.”

I quoted William F. Buckley Jr., who in 1967 said the following to Time magazine: “I feel I qualify spiritually and philosophically as a conservative, but temperamentally I am not of the breed.” He sure wasn’t. He was as good at self-assessments as at other assessments.

Why am I bringing up this old (and very interesting) subject? Because of this news story: “Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen quits a tournament in a dispute over jeans.” Yup, he wanted to wear jeans, and the rules said no — so he said, “Sayonara” (or its equivalent in Norwegian).

I understand the young man. (He is 34, but young to me.) I also understand the rulemakers and the rules-enforcers. And on it will go, forever. A sensible “split,” in my book.

Update: “Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code . . .” That’s how the latest report begins. Sure. Carlsen is the World No. 1. And if (a comparative) Joe Schmo had wanted to wear jeans? Very human . . .

• Like lots of other American writers, I have written about race, a lot. Last September, I wrote a biggish essay in which I said pretty much everything I have to say on the subject — or enough. “Wrestling with Race,” that one was called. Its subtitle: “Thoughts personal, political, and social on America’s ongoing dilemma.”

You may not think race should be important — I may not think race should be important — but it is to a great many, for good reasons and bad. Mainly bad, I think, but regardless: It is so (and forever will be, presumably).

In addition to being a senior editor here at National Review, I am the music critic of The New Criterion. (I have written for both magazines since the previous century. Or, as a twenty-something colleague of mine likes to say, when jiving with me: “the previous millennium.”) When a young Chinese star gives a recital, there are lots of Chinese boys and girls in the audience (or Chinese-American boys and girls). When a young South Korean star gives a recital — and so on.

Before getting to a recent event, I would like to quote from my essay last September:

When I was in high school, I had a friend who was a pianist. A black girl (which is relevant). One day, I asked her, “Who’s your favorite pianist?” She said André Watts. “Why?” I asked. Sheepishly, she said, “Because he’s black.” Then she kind of giggled. “Oh, Emily!” I said. “What does that have to do with anything? How can race be a criterion in music? On top of that, his mother is Hungarian! That’s the whole reason he’s in music in the first place!”

I was correct. I was also an ass. In my defense, I was 16. I have learned more about the world in the years since, I hope. I will never give up on my ideals. But maybe I am more . . . I don’t know. I think of the phrase “sadder but wiser.”

Earlier this month, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the British cellist, played a recital at Carnegie Hall. At the piano was his older sister, Isata. They are both in their twenties. Their parents have roots in Antigua and Sierra Leone, as I understand it. I could care less (an idiom I’ll defend to the death). But let me note: I have never seen so many black boys and girls at a concert — a concert such as a cello recital.

One family came in late: mom and two daughters. One of the girls, in a pink dress and bow, pointed to the stage and said, excitedly, “That’s Sheku!”

Yes, it was. And he meant something to her. And there’s nothing you or I or King Tut or the Queen of Sheba could do about it, even if we wanted to.

• “Forget Beijing — the House China committee is up against Trump and Elon Musk.” That is a headline from Politico. (Story here.) “House China committee” is shorthand for the “United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.” It was chaired by Mike Gallagher, a Reaganite Republican from Wisconsin. He quit Congress last April, before his fourth term was up. He stayed just long enough to vote for aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. He was an ex-congressman at 39.

Can’t say I blame him. He is a fish out of water, in today’s politics. He and his family had received threats. Still — kind of a blow, his departure.

Donald Trump is roaring back into government, this time with Musk at his side (his biggest donor) ($250 million in the recent campaign). Trump is gung-ho for TikTok. Musk is heavily invested in China. This makes things awkward for Republicans in general.

Musk, you recall, opened a Tesla showroom in Xinjiang, which is to say, Uyghur country. He did this just as Beijing’s genocide of the Uyghurs got underway.

Do GOP “China hawks” care? Do they care about the close relations between Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary and the CCP? This question deserves an article unto itself.

Our political environment is increasingly topsy-turvy. I’m not sure “left” and “right” make sense anymore. “Liberal” and “illiberal” do.

• Let me recommend an article from VSquare, the Central European news outlet — about the ruinous effect of TikTok in that region. The article I mention is here. Interests of extremist parties and the Kremlin align, as in many regions.

• When a Cuban political prisoner is tortured to death, it is not news — I mean, it ought to be news. But it is dog-bites-man. Cuban-regime-tortures-political-prisoner-to-death. That is routine news, and has been for decades. Still, know a name: that of Manuel de Jesús Guillén. He was 29. He was arrested during protests throughout Cuba in July 2021. For three and a half years he had been tortured, periodically, and, finally, it was too much.

(For an article about the case, go here.)

The Castros’ regime has been in power since January 1, 1959. It has now been 66 years. Will 2025 be the last? How about 2026?

• I would like to recommend an article by Sam Dolnick, the deputy managing editor of the New York Times: “Jerry West Was the N.B.A.’s Tortured Genius.” I had no idea that West suffered so. This is an exquisitely written and affecting article.

• Benjamin Mullin has written the Times’ obituary of Richard Parsons, “Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants.” I would like to paste one passage:

When he landed a job on Governor Rockefeller’s staff, it was a full-circle moment for the Parsons clan: Decades earlier, his grandfather had worked as the head groundskeeper at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Mr. Parsons would go on to serve as the chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s board of trustees.

I don’t like “the chair,” for “the chairman,” but let it slide . . .

• Sticking with language: Earlier in this column, I was defiant about “could care less.” It is a classic American idiom. And the thing about idioms is: They are idiomatic. They are not supposed to make grammatical sense, necessarily. They are — you know: idioms.

This comes up in Wicked, the new movie, which I saw last week. Galinda says, “I could care less,” and Elphaba “corrects” her: “I could not care less.” I almost thrust a middle finger to the screen.

• About “forbid” and “prohibit,” I am quite strict — strict in a lost cause, however. It’s “forbid to” and “prohibit from.” Yet Americans have been “from”-ing everything: “Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots.” (Article here.) Cripe.

• Did you see this headline? “Injured Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts . . .” (Jalen is the only Hurts I know of. There were two famous actors named “Hurt”: John and William.)

• An attractive house, sitting on the North Fork of Long Island: