John Jaques are a famous firm of games makers in London. They are best known for manufacturing the famous Staunton pattern chess sets. I’ve posted before about old chess sets, here
This is a page of adverts from a small book, The ABC of Chess, published by Jaques and given away with their sets. The book is mysteriously signed by A Lady…and also includes notes about the moral virtues of chess by Benjamin Franklin. I guess that this copy, from the 11th edition, dates from about 1880.
The book describes the rules of chess and has a few problems to help players develop their thinking.
I love the link between games and the railway from more than 100 years ago. Nowadays, we play on our smartphones.
It’s based on an idea of urban america from the (railway) machine age. A bit like combining a painting by Charles Sheeler with one by Edward Hopper. (I’ve posted about both those artists and railway painting subjects before).
Rod is interested in the wear-and-tear of the great American city…and is adept at the details of weathering etc. Co-incidentally, one of Rod’s first hit songs was, Dirty Old Town…
The lay-out is based in LA, and has taken 23 years to build, so far.
There are quite a few music business model railway fans – Neil Young and Pete Waterman amongst others.
The American city is usually conceptualised as “a shining city on a hill” and has, from the first modern settlements onwards, aspired to utopian status. Sadly, the history of America is suggestive of the corruptions associated with monopoly capitalism, scale and gangsterism. Utopia, recast as Gotham. Rod Stewart understands that nothing is as grand as ruins…
Here is a short post about the disruptions of machine acceleration in relation to American culture.
