Magnusly Carlsening
“I am the Kanye West of Kanye West.” – Leonard Cohen.
We live in the Magnus Carlsen era of chess, and the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era is Magnus Carlsen. That much is clear.
In previous eras, they were not so fortunate. In the Emmanuel Lasker era of chess, they had to settle on someone else to be the Magnus Carlsen of chess, and Magnus Carlsen hadn’t even been invented yet. Emmanuel Lasker wasn’t available either, because he was being the Emmanuel Lasker of the Emmanuel Lasker era of chess, that is, when he wasn’t busy being the Sigmund Freud of the Albert Einstein era of Tippi Hedrun.
Who was the Magnus Carlsen of the Tigran Petrosian era of chess? There is still debate about this. Mikhail Tal was too busy being the Garry Kasparov to the Anatoly Karpov era of Dr Bottvinnik. And, while Boris Spassky was certainly the Boris Spassky of the Boris Spassky era of chess, the Boris Spassky of the Tigran Petrosian era of chess was Vassily Smyslov. Perhaps the Magnus Carlsen of the Tigran Petrosian era was really Magnus Carlsen, but he was still not invented yet, and anyway, what about David Bronstein? Yes, what about David Bronstein?
At any rate, Magnus Carlsen is the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era of chess, and not only that, but Magnus Carlsen is the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era of fantasy football. Is there any time when Magnus Carlsen is not the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era? Yes: Magnus Carlsen is the Alexander Alekhine of jelly wrestling, the Madame Blavatsky of Sexy Banana Competitions, and the Ingmar Bergman of Ingmar Bergman.
Occasionally, a kind of melancholy comes upon Magnus Carlsen, a pensive mood, and he wishes to be the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era no more. At one point, he announced his decision that he would be giving up the role of Magnus Carlsen for the Magnus Carlsen era. There was a fierce competition amongst the aspiring Magnus Carlsens of the Magnus Carlsen era, to see if they could out-Carlsen Carlsen to be the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era. But all their Carlsening failed to be better than the Carlsening of the Magnus Carlsen of the Magnus Carlsen era, and the world body of Magnus Carlsen declared Magnus Carlsen to be the official Magnus of Carlsen.
Some people may now ask, yes, but what about Ding Liren? What about Ian Nepomniachtchi? What about Hikaru Nakamura? What about me? However, it is true that Magnus Carlsen is the Magnus Carlsen of Ding Liren, just as much as Magnus Carlsen is the Magnus Carlsen of you: the science has spoken, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nevertheless, it is probably true (but remains to be experimentally demonstrated) that Ding Liren is the Ding Liren of the Ding Liren era, while Ian Nepomniachtchi is only the Ian Nepomniachtchi of the Ding Liren era of chess. Nothing is clear about Hikaru Nakamura. Possibly Hikaru Nakamura is the Bobby Fischer of you.
Magnus Carlsen is the Magnus Carlsen of this article also. But now we have reached the end, it is time we let Magnus off to Carlsen elsewhere. He has done enough damage already.
