Random Photo Moment #1️⃣1️⃣ - Checkmate

Here's how this works: I "spin" the wheel on my camera roll, so to speak. And blindly select a random picture when it stops.

I never quite understood the point or the need for a game like chess as a child. It seemed strictly archaic. War mongering, oppressive. All the pieces all up in everyone else's business. No cooperation or negotiation. The only form of communication being the systematic capture and removal of the other guy's soldiers.

No one bothered explaining to me that this was still essentially the way the human race operates in the world. No one told me to be prepared. I was led to believe it was about strategy and critical thinking...not actual survival.

For me, it was all about the curves and the lines of the exquisitely sculpted marble pieces in the handcrafted chess set my grandparents brought back from Mexico. I was mesmerized by the weight and the coolness of the stone, the milky tendrils of contrasting colors that swirled throughout each one. I used to dress the knights in doll clothes and trace the tops of the bishops with my tongue. I was a weird kid.

These are adult sized chess pieces, which reside in a seldom used room at the top of the historic, Art Deco Culver City Hotel. This isn't macro. That bishop is several feet tall. You can't see it in this shot but the floor of the room is black and white checkered. It's very Wonderland-esque in there.

I think the next time I visit, I'll bring along a party dress for the horse.