I’m welcoming a new poet into Owl Chatter today, by way of The Writer’s Almanac. It’s Joyce Sutphen, and she wrote this one, Silo Solo, in 2010.
My father climbs into the silo.
He has come, rung by rung,
up the wooden trail that scales
that tall belly of cement.
It’s winter, twenty below zero,
He can hear the wind overhead.
The silage beneath his boots
is so frozen it has no smell.
My father takes up a pick-ax
and chops away a layer of silage.
He works neatly, counter-clockwise
under a yellow light,
then lifts the chunks with a pitchfork
and throws them down the chute.
They break as they fall
and rattle far below.
His breath comes out in clouds,
his fingers begin to ache, but
he skims off another layer
where the frost is forming
and begins to sing, “You are my
sunshine, my only sunshine.”
Sutphen is from Minnesota and is 73. She was the poet laureate of Minnesota from 2011 to 2021, following Robert Bly. She has a PhD in Renaissance Drama from UMinny.
Happy Birthday to Edith Wharton nee Jones, born in 1862 in New York City. The Joneses were wealthy New York society folks, and the expression “to keep up with the Joneses” refers to them! (Not kidding.)
In the puzzle today, 44A “Sky-blue” was AZURE. Commenter Wanderlust took issue with it, saying that’s the color of the sea, and cerulean is sky blue. But Merriam-Webster defines both azure and cerulean as sky blue. I think the color for the sea may be “sea blue,” or “deep sea blue,” which is darker than sky blue. The sea can contain colors other than blue, e.g., green. Homer refers to the “wine-dark sea.” (Not Homer Simpson — the other Homer.)
At 36A, “Challenge for a translator, maybe” was IDIOM. It made LMS think of some words that other languages have that English doesn’t:
Sobremesa (Spanish) – The time spent at a table after eating. The food is gone, but everyone is still sitting around chatting. (When I worked at Quinn’s Mill in Atlanta and some patrons were sobremesa-ing at closing time, we’d turn up the AC to make it really cold.)
Kummerspeck (German) – Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, “grief bacon.”
Shemomedjamo (Georgian) – When you’re really full, but your meal is just so delicious, you can’t stop eating it? This word means, “I accidentally ate the whole thing.” This is pretty much me with any order of homemade potato chips and some ranch dressing. I’m powerless to stop.
Tartle (Scottish) – That panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can’t quite remember.
The weekday grid is usually 15×15, but today it is 15×16 to accommodate 7D: “Response from someone who merely glanced at an online post, maybe” which is TOO LONG; DIDN’T READ, often shortened to the initialism TL;DR.
It inspired this typical self-deprecating wonderful note from LMS:
I kind of winced at TOO LONG; DIDN’T READ. If I consider the continuum of my comments over the years here I would have hoped to grow less long-winded. My first tentative contributions were really short because I was so afraid that people would wonder if I’m stupid. Now I write treatises that remove all doubt.
Another comment suggested an alternate clue for TL;DR — “Student’s excuse for flunking pop-quiz about ‘Crime and Punishment.’”
A few days ago I discussed a puzzle answer: PROOFS, but I forgot to share a New Yorker cartoon on it that I like. It’s a lawyer talking to the press, outside the courthouse. And he’s saying: “The proof was in the pudding. Unfortunately, the judge ruled the pudding inadmissible.”
The clue at 42A was “Me too!” and the answer was SO DO I. It’s one of those annoying clues because it can just as easily be “so am I,” or “ditto,” so you have to wait before committing. Today, however, it led Son Volt to share this extraordinary song with us. If you give it the few minutes it asks of you — it will lighten your day, I promise.
Ginny Redington Dawes died back on New Year’s Eve. She was 77. She was a songwriter best known for her jingles, e.g., for the “Coke is it” campaign, and tunes for Kit Kat bars and Tide detergent. She married Thomas Dawes, who was also a jingles writer! — he did “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz” for Alka Seltzer, and “7Up, the Uncola.” He died back in ’07.
She also wrote some pop songs that did well, and started out as a singer herself. When she performed in 1975 in an Upper East Side restaurant, a review in the NYT called her a “startling performer” who sang “in a deep, strong, beautifully controlled voice that is filled with vivid colors, as she moves from low, sexy passages to an open, lusty shout.” Ginny was a Brooklyn girl, born and raised.
Last, let’s hear it for Joe Burrow, quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. They just upset the Bills in the snow in Buffalo and are headed to KC now to play the Chiefs. If they win, they’ll be in the Super Bowl for the second year in a row. (They lost to the Rams in the SB last year.)
I’m mentioning Joe here in Owl Chatter because he gave the perfect answer to a question that was asked of him after the game last Sunday. In the modern era of football, because of the salary cap, free agency, etc., it’s very hard for a team that achieves excellence to maintain it for more than just a few years — their “window of opportunity,” so to speak.
That’s what the question for Joe was about. It was something like — “Is there a sense of urgency to win this year? How long is the window open?” He didn’t hesitate with his answer: “The window’s my whole career; the window is always open.” You tell ’em Joe!
Thanks for stopping by, everybody.
The Wellington Files 