Ludwig Wittgenstein [Blue Book (p. 65)]: "I want to play chess, and a man gives the white king a paper crown, leaving the use of the pieces unaltered, but telling me that the crown has a meaning to him in the game, which he can't express by rules. I say: 'as long as it doesn't alter the use the piece, it hasn't what I call a meaning'.'"
Here is a picture of Marcel Duchamp in front of a chessboard. But why has he set the board up backwards? Everyone knows that the white square is supposed to go in the lower right.
Here is another picture of Duchamp playing chess. Instead of making art. What did you do all summer?
Johan Huizinga: "The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play....We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play...it arises in and as play, and never leaves it."
What did you do all summer?
/mc