The article is marvelous - uncommonly literate and wistful. The video is also a must for anyone interested in Fischer. I'd never seen him, or Cavett that I remember, and the interaction between the two is riveting. There's an atmosphere of tension that Cavett manages expertly. He senses right away when a particular direction is getting stuck and gracefully diverts attention to something else. He acts as a buffer between Fischer and the audience when the audience gets nervous and starts to laugh. And he senses when the connection between the two of them is robust enough to tolerate raising some pretty charged material, such as Fischer's accusations of cheating and walking out of matches. This is a dialogue between two masters of very different arts.

Yeah, I was totally dumbstruck by how well this article is written. It's one of those rare NYT gems.

It's nice to read something that puts Fischer in a somewhat positive light, considering how much negative press there was around his death.

Ditto. It's a real shame that Dick Cavett no longer has a show. Charlie Rose is the best imitation.

“I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.”

That video really highlights the change he went through. I can completely understand how saddened Dick must have been to watch the young genius he admired fall so far.

So tragic.

Fischer has a classic dumb jock, grunting-style laugh. huh huh huh. First rate chess player, but second rate anti-semite, really. C'mon--at least the latter would have had some real effect on the world. Kind of sad to watch a supergenius throw away his (almost) 200 point IQ on a trivial game and a political faux pas. It's the separation between one degree of mental illness and another, I guess.

Legend has it that Dick Cavett is full of "wonderful stories about other famous people that include him in some way"

Look, you're going to be having dinner with Groucho tonight if you don't beat it!