Yesterday’s puzzle answer OAST (Outbuilding that’s sometimes converted into a dwelling), inspired a few poets. A new one was just posted that earns the Owl-Chatter funny-poem hat today:
Kevorkian’s just-opened Oast
Is not for patrons milquetoast.
If thrombosed or sclerosed,
diagnosed tuberculosed,
they’ll be necrosed as a ghost by the host.
I commented that I liked that one the moast. (Please see yesterday’s Owl Chatter for another oast limerick and a nice photo of an oast.)
Today’s puzzle had a lot of neat phrases and expressions. For “Line at the door of a bar,” the answer was LET ME SEE SOME ID. It was nicely crossed by BESOT (“inebriate”). It evoked the following note from our favorite commenter, LMS:
“OK – I have one LET’S SEE SOME ID story. When I was a cocktail waitress, I hated when people whose age looked iffy came in. If they ordered, say, Dewars on the rocks, I let it go. But order a strawberry daiquiri, buddy, and I have to see some ID. One early evening these two guys came in, and one looked iffy, so I approached bracing myself for the ID confrontation. Happily, the youngish one just ordered an OJ and then asked about the piano that was sitting there and could anyone play it. I shrugged and mumbled something about our having rented it for New Year’s Eve. I was at the bar getting their order when all hell broke loose – even the cooks came out of the kitchen to gape. I’ve never seen anyone assault a piano like that. Talk about your instant mood lifter. His name is Jason D. Williams, and we became friends. So I’m a bit of a big deal.”
Here’s Williams at the keyboard with a band. Watch it through til the end with the volume turned up. I guarantee it will knock your socks off — from inside your shoes. I’m just glad I didn’t lose any toes.
That reminds me of a Sam story. I was visiting him in Annie Arbor when he was an undergrad at UMich, and we had some plans for the day so I was picking him up in the morning. He told me not to ring the doorbell because his roomies would still be asleep. I was to call him when I got there and he’d come out. So I found a spot a few houses down, gave him a call, and he said he’d be out in a few minutes.
Glancing around, I noticed a single black sock sitting in the street by the side of the curb. It seemed odd because it was winter so what one usually found in the street was a single glove, or a knit cap. Socks are generally securely encased by shoes — how would a single sock get out? How drunk must this kid have been? — “Hold on a minute fellas, I have to tie my shoe. Oops it came off. And there goes my sock! Hold on guys. Where did it land? Oh, never mind,” and he goes staggering off down the street with one sockless foot. Was that what happened? Or was he just so drunk that he suddenly had to take one sock off and heave it into the street? In any event, I felt very lucky not to be the parent of that poor sot.
After a few more minutes, I saw the door to Sam’s house open and out popped Sam. He saw where I was parked, waved hello, and locked the door behind him. As he was walking to the car, he noticed the sock in the street. He bent over and picked it up. “I’ve been looking for this,” he said as he got into the car.
What?! That’s yours? You better have a good story on how it got there!
He did. It had fallen out of the pillowcase he was using as a laundry bag on his way back from the laundromat. We had a wonderful day, as we always did in that wonderful little city. Go Blue!
“Sanctuary for many couples,” was a nice clue for ARK. As was “Unconditional condition,” for TRUE LOVE. They prompted commenter Lewis to recall a terrific clue by this constructor (Kate Hawkins) in an earlier puzzle of hers: The answer was HOLE PUNCH, and the clue was “Inefficient confetti-making tool.” Ha!
Here’s a word for you that only exists in Crossworld, and, in fact, only in Rex Parker’s small corner of it. So Owl Chatter readers will be among the very few people in the world who know it. It was coined a while back by a Rex commenter. She noticed that it sometimes weirdly happens that you enter a wrong answer in one part of the puzzle and then find it to be the correct answer elsewhere in the grid. It happened to Rex today. The clue at 1A was “Smart,” and Rex wrongly filled in ACHE. (It turned out to be CHIC.) But ACHE was the correct answer at 32A for “Long.” When that happens, it’s called a “malapop.”
You’re going to need to know what a contrail is for the poem by Kooser I’ve reproduced below from Winter Morning Walks. A contrail is a trail of condensed water from an aircraft or rocket at high altitude, seen as a white streak against the sky.
Here’s the poem.
Walking in darkness, in awe,
beneath a billion indifferent stars
at quarter to six in the morning,
the moon already down
and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning
at the edge of the west,
my shoes too loud in the gravel
that, faintly lit, looks to be little more
than a contrail of vapor,
so thin, so insubstantial it could,
on a whim, let me drop through it
and out of the day,
but I have taught myself
to place one foot ahead of the other
in noisy confidence
as if each morning might be trusted,
as if the sounds I make might buoy me up.
Thanks for stopping in. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 