Yesterday’s puzzle suggested CHEERIOS (11D) as an alternative to bread crumbs for gluten avoiders. But here’s a caveat from an anonymous post:
“There is one substantive mistake in the clues that is a health hazard for people with Celiac disease. Cheerios aren’t safe for those with the disease because the oats they use aren’t certified gluten-free and are in fact often contaminated with wheat or other gluten containing grains. Canada made General Mills remove the GF label because of the frequency of contamination. GM would say that sufficient certified oats aren’t available for their needs. Fair enough, but then don’t claim that the product is GF. Further, the label complies with US FDA rules, but our rules are dangerously wrong.”
Yikes! Rachel! Jenny! Put down those Cheerios and run!!
Our favorite Congressman, George Santos, has been appointed to the House Science Committee. Rep. Bill Foster, a dem from Illinois, is also on that committee. Foster is an award-winning physicist who holds a PhD from Harvard. Here is his “welcome aboard” tweet:
“As the only recipient of the Wilson Prize for High-Energy Particle Accelerator Physics serving in Congress, it can get lonely. Not anymore!… I’m thrilled to be joined on the Science Committee by my Republican colleague Dr. George Santos, winner of not only the Nobel Prize, but also the Fields Medal—the top prize in Mathematics—for his groundbreaking work with imaginary numbers.”
Let’s get to some beautiful writing right away. At 55A, today’s puzzle includes Jhumpa LAHIRI — author of the Pulitzer-winning “Interpreter of Maladies.” And Rex commenter Barbara S. was kind enough to share this sample of Lahiri’s writing:
“Eventually I took a square of white chocolate out of the box, and unwrapped it, and then I did something I had never done before. I put the chocolate in my mouth, letting it soften until the last possible moment, and then as I chewed it slowly, I prayed that Mr. Pirzada’s family was safe and sound. I had never prayed for anything before, had never been taught or told to, but I decided, given the circumstances, that it was something I should do. That night when I went to the bathroom I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well. I wet the brush and rearranged the tube of paste to prevent my parents from asking any questions, and fell asleep with sugar on my tongue.” (Interpreter of Maladies)
Here’s Ms. Lahiri. She’s 57, of Indian descent, born in London.
There was much grumbling today about 93 down: “State of uneasiness, informally.” The answer was FANTODS. The only reason it rang a bell for me is it was a Merriam-Webster “word of the day” within the last year or so. Saying “the fantods” is an arcane way of saying “the creeps.” It was used by Mark Twain in Huck Finn. DrBB, a former lit professor, commented on Rex’s professed ignorance of the word. (Rex is a lit prof too.) Here’s what he said:
I find some of Rex’s literary blind spots baffling. Of course we all have them, and certainly this one isn’t going to be a gimme for everyone, but still The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is way up on the list of “Things You’re Supposed to Know,” stuff you’re gonna end up teaching even if it’s outside your specialty, and the word is SO richly redolent of time and place that for me it just plunked right into that place in my brain that retains this sort of thing forever the first time I encountered it, and revisiting it made me realize why.
Turns out it’s not really trivial. It occurs at the climax of the description of a key moment in the narrative, when Huck first encounters Jim at the outset of their journey of escape, and in context that single word does a huge amount of work in creating the time and place and character of Huck himself. I’m certain Twain, who was supremely finicky about craft and usage, selected it precisely for that fact. It stands as such a fine example of Twain’s economy and artistry that I’m just going to have to share the whole dang scene here on behalf of anyone who didn’t appreciate this bit of fill as much as I did:
“So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn’t no luck somehow; I couldn’t seem to find the place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fantods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson’s Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says: ‘Hello, Jim!’ and skipped out.”
DrBB continued: TBH I didn’t care for this particular puzzle all that much over all, but one of the chief pleasures of doing these things is when some seemingly opaque clue opens up a window like this. Hurray for FANTODS says I.
Here’s Twain:
The bread bakers among you may know the expression to “proof” yeast, but it was new to me. (The clue at 6A was “Activates, as yeast,” and the answer was PROOFS.) Proofing yeast tests its vitality—you’re proving it’s vigorous enough to make dough rise. To proof yeast, you dissolve the yeast in warm water with sugar and wait until it’s creamy-looking with many small bubbles, which indicate the yeast cells are doing their thing. The only yeast that requires proofing is yeast you suspect is old.
For 103D, the clue was “Interlocking bricks,” and the answer was LEGOS. The LEGO company wants us to say “Lego blocks” (or Lego bricks) as the plural — not legos. But here’s what TTrimble says: “You’re in your bare feet and you step on a LEGO [or LEGO brick, IF YOU WISH]. In the moment of pain, do you command the youngsters to pick up their LEGOS, or do you go all prescriptivist and call them LEGO bricks, because that is what corporate headquarters says is correct? Be honest now.”
So nice to see ISLA Fisher at 42A in the puzzle today — in her own right. She was mentioned in Owl Chatter recently as the wife of Sacha Baron Cohen when he was in the grid. Fisher considers herself Australian, having been raised there since she was six. Her parents are Scottish and she was born in Muscat, Oman, where her dad was working as a banker for the United Nations. BTW, I was a little surprised to learn that, to avoid charges of favoritism, the U. N. conducts all of its finances using Monopoly money.
Fisher’s breakthrough came with the movie Wedding Crashers, with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. One reviewer called her an “unexpected, scene-stealing joy.” She used a body double for a sex scene. She converted to Judaism before marrying Cohen, and, you may recall, they have three cute kids. Here’s a nice shot of her.
Since we had the discussion of gnus recently, I was wondering what you call a collection of gnus. From “An Exaltation of Larks” it turns out there’s nothing official, but an “implausibility of gnus” has been suggested. Similarly, an “aarmory of aardvarks.”
Here are a few others I like: a pew of church mice, a rumination of cows, a malocclusion of beavers, a stand of flamingo, a dropping of pigeons.
Enough. Good night.
The Wellington Files 