The puzzle today had a clue “Half of an evening outfit, informally,” with answer PJ TOPS. The pajama tops I will never forget were worn by the beautiful Barbara Feldon, who played Agent 99, opposite Don Adams (Agent 86) in the wonderful old comedy Get Smart. For some reason, she had to stay over at Max’s apartment one night and he told her she could have the bedroom and that there were pajamas in the dresser. A short while later, she came out wearing only pajama tops, with her lovely legs in full display. She said she could only find pajama tops in the dresser, and he said “Sorry about that. I hope it’s not a problem,” and she said, “It’s fine. I’ll manage.”

A few minutes later, she said, “Max, it’s time to call the chief with the secret code,” and he said, “Okay, I’ll go get it from my safe.” She said, “I didn’t know you had a safe. What do you keep in it?” And he answered: “Only two things: the secret code, and the pajama bottoms.”

The big debate today among the puzzle folk focused on the propriety of 33A. The clue was very clever: “Pile of texts?” But the answer (POOP EMOJI) was pretty controversial in the Rex gang. Quite a few folks thought it was disgusting to have poop splashed all across the grid. There is supposedly a “breakfast rule” that says the puzzle should not contain anything that might be disconcerting to a person doing the puzzle while relaxing over breakfast. Some gave it a pass on the grounds that the clue was so clever. Didn’t bother me. I also tried not to take personally the answer at 13D — YOU’RE A JERK. Ouch! Where did that come from?

I learned today that TUBAS (at 32A) means, literally, trumpets. Huh? So why didn’t they just call them trumpets? Trumpets was already taken? I’m confused.

Noah (the one from the Bible) made it into the grid today, cutely clued as “Organizer of a couples getaway?” There was a good New Yorker cartoon on the ark theme recently. The scene is the ark, and with an innocent look on his face, a lion is telling Noah “We need two more gazelles.”

---

Life imitating art at the Chatham homestead. Linda and I were on the phone with our son Sam yesterday and Linda was telling him about a terrible experience she had in the woods behind our house while she was doing some yardwork. She was suddenly attacked by a swarm of bees! Within seconds, she was bitten around ten times. Yikes! Of course, once the attack began, she fled from the area. But, as she explained to Sam, the problem was, in her haste to get away, her glasses fell off back near the bees. She would have to return to get them.

“Oh my God,” I said. “It’s Bruce Willis’s wristwatch from Pulp Fiction!”

In the great scene, Christopher Walken explained to Willis as a little boy that the watch was passed down from his great grandfather to his grandfather and then to his father who was wearing it when his plane was shot down in Viet Nam. He knew the Viet Cong would take it from him, so for five years in the POW camp, he kept it hidden up his tuchas. When he died he passed it on to Christopher Walken who kept it up his tuchas for two years until he was released and sent home. And then he gave the watch to Willis as a little boy. Years later, Willis got in trouble, and fled from his apartment one step ahead of the mob. He told his girlfriend to be sure to take the watch but she forgot. So he was going to have to go back at great personal risk to retrieve the watch.

Exactly like Linda’s glasses, no?

Here’s Walken’s scene: https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=christopher+walken+pulp+fiction&type=E211US1494G0#id=2&vid=47a0ce8b462ec4805e8a213b33ea14c3&action=click

---