“He couldn’t program his new VCR.
It just sat there next to the TV, with
blinking LCD displays. His solution: ‘I’ll wait until Nana Bird grows up. She’ll figure it out.’ Nana Bird was his pet name for his daughter Christiana,” age four at the time.
“There was the novelty watch he received from his father. Because it was a gift, Larry couldn’t bring himself to dispose of it, but he also couldn’t figure out how to disable the crowing rooster. His solution was to wrap it in a dish towel and place it in the back of a kitchen drawer. The muffled but still- audible crowing was somewhat distracting during dinners.
“After [volunteering his time to help with Chess Life], he asked, ‘May I? For old times sake?’ He then fell back on the orange couch in the library area and shook his arms and legs straight up in the air. This was his ‘dead cockroach’ act—one he performed after meeting every Chess Life deadline—to the delight of his staff.”
—Former Chess Life Editor Glenn Petersen on Parr’s lifelong mechanical ineptitude and self-deprecating humor
said, “Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders,” then we chess people are more like the Bour- bons. We forget nothing. Can anyone imagine Bobby Fischer ever putting the following position on the mnemonic backburner?”
Or, opining about whether chess was an art, we can see Larry’s writing tongue firmly in his cheek:
Is Chess Art? In one of the half-dozen or so truthful entries in the 31-volume Great Soviet Encyclopedia, chess is defined as “an art in the form of a game.” Which amounts, rather less than more, to Savielly Tartakower’s epigram, “Chess is the art of battle for the victorious battle of art.” Which amounts, rather more than less, to Larry Evans’ description of the grandmaster’s art as trying to paint the Mona Lisa while the opponent grabs at the brush. If art is considered strictly in the dictionary sense of cre- ating things that display form, beauty and unusual perception, then chess is certainly an art.
Or, on his chess teacher, the subject of his first book:
At the heart of Viktors Pupols’ chess mastery is a mystery— his style. Grown men who annotate his games often sound like a dog howling for its dead owner.
Parr wrote hundreds of articles on chess. Some of his online
writing can be delightfully revisited in the archives at
www.the
malaysian.com.my. He wrote seven books, four on chess, and several biographies, including one of his final employer, Dato Tan Chin Nam. In 1996 Parr received the Chess Journalists of America’s (CJA’s) “Best Book Award” with The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories, the memoirs of GM Arnold Denker. With more than 20 CJA awards of various types, it’s likely Parr col- lected more of these annual tributes than anyone else. Cerebral, erudite and armed with a ready wit, Parr was by pro-
fession a dedicated journalist and at heart a proud and devoted family man who was happiest talking about his wife Samboon, his daughter Christiana, and his son Ian—who were all with him at the end. Those who knew Larry beyond the bivalent battles
uschess.org
on political chess forums, where his skewering verbal ripostes were legendary, found a warm-hearted companion who staunchly admired the British character and Asian women, and clung to traditional values. Even in the last months of his life, Parr was as busy as the bustling street markets in his beloved KL. Besides the tribute to Larry Evans and the pressure of every- day work, he campaigned for Anatoly Karpov to become FIDE president and worked on an adventure novel. One can only imag- ine the linguistic turns and plot twists—and perhaps an atmospheric Malaysian noir reminiscent of Anthony Burgess’ The Long Day Wanes, the favorite novel Larry once gave me for the plane ride back from Kuala Lumpur to New York. A lifelong devotee of the people and culture of the East, and
of most things British, including Kipling, Parr loved to recite a rousing version of the entire “On the Road to Mandalay.” Larry would be keen on the idea, I think, of my closing with an appropriate excerpt:
“For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be— By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay, With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’-fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!
Rest in peace, Larry Parr. And rest assured that you’ll be missed in all of your favorite places in the world.
.
Books by Larry Parr: The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories; Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters: Fundamentals of the Game, Volumes 1 and 2; Pupols: American Master; Tan Chin Nam: Never Say I Assume.
Chess Life — July 2011 47
PHOTO COURTESY OF PARR FAMILY
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