— J. Chr. de Vries Beglückt darf nun dich, o Heimath, ich schauen.— Richard Wagner, Tannhäuser, Akt III Introduction Right now the media are overflowing with information, misinformation, opinions, insults hurled back and forth — because of the war between Hamas and Israel. Gaza has been practically wiped off the map, the Israeli hostages still haven’t all been returned, and the Palestinian population is being starved. Whether this has anything to do with what follows...

J. Chr. de Vries For my uncle 'Here is the Giant' Leo I was who I will be. 
— Amenhotep III, regarding the deity of the people with the shuffling feet. Fact: I met Reid Zieger once, in person, to be precise; that was on February 17, 1999. Exactly 273 months later, I received a message from Taunis Haas, in which he recounted a peculiar story involving the same Zieger. The reason for this story pertains to the imminent conclusion of the game of chess, something we had known the...

— J. Chr. de Vries Mortals call him fluttering love, but the immortals call him the winged one, because the growth of wings was a necessity for him.— Plato, Phaedrus [quote from Homer] On a very hot late summer afternoon in 1991, I was sitting in the intercity train from Amsterdam to The Hague. The train was quiet, and I was in an empty smoking compartment. The train departed from Haarlem station, which I thought was the perfect moment to light up a cigar. The compartment door s...