MORNING BRIEFING
A long way from theory of relativity
By Lisa Dillman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007
Our fascination with mascots at sporting events has been nearly a lifelong one, knowing no bounds and largely falling into two categories:
• What were they thinking?
• Is someone taking a delight in scaring young children?
These thoughts surfaced upon spotting a picture of “Chessy,” the mascot of the recently completed European Chess Championships in Dresden, Germany. His blue suit looks like a plastic rain poncho and his “hair” and sizable clown-like nose are supposed to create the image of Albert Einstein.
That noise you just heard was Einstein flipping over in his grave.
Still, the website ChessBase.com took a whimsical view of Chessy, writing, “Especially the children are fascinated by the figure. None of them, as far as we know, has run away screaming.”
Here is the full story.
…more like if Albert Einstein was cross-bred with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Agreed, James!
I think with mascots what matters most are how the mascotter behaves, and details of how the face is drawn. Japanese /anime/ shows a good style for putting faces, even on monsters, that are friendly or neutral or beguiling—as opposed to directly threatening. After all, beguiling play often works better than simple direct threats on the chessboard, so maybe that works too for a mascot! The round nose and eyes make this guy seem fine to me.
In Germany, chess quite literally has shock value! That’s because their word for chess, Schach, is pronounced almost the same—just gargle the final “k” sound a little bit :-).