Here are the first six lines in the first sonnet by Dylan Thomas from Altarwise by Owl-Light.
Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
Bit out the mandrake with to-morrows scream.
I can’t make any sense of it. I thought abaddon might be a typo (for abandon or a bad one), but it isn’t. (It means Hell or the Devil.) Hangnail? Atlas-eater? Why is “to-morrows” hyphenated?
Anyway, the only reason I dug it up was the puzzle yesterday had the unusual clue “owl-light.” It means DUSK. Nice, right?
While we’re here: A mandrake is a plant of the nightshade family, with white or purple flowers and large yellow berries. It has a forked fleshy root that creepily resembles the human form and was formerly used in magic. Legend has it it shrieks when pulled from the ground (thus, the “scream” above?).
Here are some mandrakes. Yeah, I can see it.
This is the lead item in Met Diary tomorrow. It’s by Esther K. Smith.
After we wove paper hearts at the Met Museum
on that cold, cold Friday night
we took the subway home.
A woman was singing a Beyonce song
and I asked if she was Beyonce
and she said she was.
Another woman was folding red foil paper.
I saw she was making an origami heart.
So I took her one of our woven hearts
and she gave me hers.
In his daily post on the puzzle, Rex Parker sometimes lets spill a left-leaning comment. E.g., if MUSK is an answer, he’ll register some level of disgust. (Owl Chatter readers may recall his loathing of J. K. Rowling for her anti-trans comments, and the discussion it engendered.) I mostly agree with him, though I may not mind a reference in a puzzle as much as he does (it’s just a puzzle). But once in a while it elicits some right-wing blather in response. That occurred two days ago, when “Andrew” let loose in a fairly obnoxious post. Here’s how he started: “Rex never fails to put his extraneous neoliberal politics into any apolitical xword. Along with his squeamish take on people, places or things he finds objectionable.” It got smarmy pretty quickly and left a bad taste.
Rex’s defenders mobilized immediately. Here was a nice response from whatsername:
“Andrew — I always take the time to read your comments because I enjoy hearing your take on the puzzle. But I don’t really like to be lectured about politics from either side of the house. In that vein, I do not wish to debate with you but just feel the need to say a few words in defense of our blog host.
“Rex Parker has his views, you have your views, and I have mine. We come here to express those views, and we have the right to say what we please about the puzzle because it’s a product we pay money for, like writing a review about a book purchased on Amazon. But no one is required to pay for what Rex Parker faithfully produces every single day of the year without fail. Not only that, but he also generously provides this forum – again, free of charge – so that we may all share our common love of crosswords. In doing so, he generally allows a wide range of opinions, even political ones, with very reasonable moderation and rarely a censure. I believe at the very least, we should afford him the same courtesy.
“I don’t know about you but I think of this group as a community of friends. Being able to share my thoughts with them feels like a bonus gift that comes with my subscription. And it seems to me that when someone consistently offers me a free gift every day without expecting anything in return, I can either graciously accept it or politely say no thank you. But it really isn’t my place to critique them on how they package it.”
Someone else said when she sees Andrew has posted she just says UGH.
And then, yesterday, Andrew posted an apology. In this age where it seems like everyone “doubles down,” and no one ever relents or re-thinks, it was lovely. Here it is:
“After reflecting on yesterday’s comments, I want to apologize for making so many of my posts political – and highly contentious at that.
You’re right, this is Rex’ blog. It’s also not an appropriate forum for politics from the peanut gallery (me being front and center).
It’s about crosswords, not cross words! Sorry I sent out the latter.
“Ugh, it’s Andrew” is a phrase I never want to read – or cause – again. Will try to send cyber hugs – not Ughs – going forward.
Again, I’m sorry. Mea culpa.”
It was very well received.
“It’s Siggy’s birthday today!! On this day in 1856 Freud was born, the revolutionary women’s fashion designer. His “slip” is still popular today, both full and half. Here’s one of my tax students modeling a fairly modern one. Thank you, Ms. Peters!”
So this woman is at her shrink and he asks her if anything noteworthy happened since he last saw her. She says “Yes, I had a Freudian slip that you might find interesting. I was having dinner with my mother last night, and at one point, I nodded at the basket of rolls on the table, and what I meant to say was ‘Would you please pass the rolls, Mom,” but what came out was “You ruined my life, you f*cking b*tch.”
Yesterday’s puzzle had the cute pairing of TATTOO and TATOOINE. TATTOO was clued with “Needle work.” TATOOINE is the fictional planet in the Star Wars series, a desolate desert planet. It’s the home planet of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
In August 2019, rapper Kanye West announced that he was designing prefabricated homes inspired by the settlements on Tatooine to serve as low-income housing. His prototypes in Calabasas, CA, were torn down after he was cited for not obtaining the proper permits and receiving complaints about the “gumdrop-shaped” structures.
When Sam graduated from UMich in 2012, Sanjay GUPTA gave the address in The Big House and did a very nice job (he’s a Michigan man: Go Blue!). Sanjay’s in the puzzle today. He told us how his parents met. As soon as his mom arrived in Ann Arbor, her car broke down. (It was a ’63 Nova.) She had very little money and knew no one. She went to a phone booth and looked through a phone book (remember those?) for an “Indian-sounding” last name. She picked one and called. The person she asked for wasn’t home, but the fellow who answered the phone had graduated from U. Mich Engineering and loved cars. Of course, he was happy to help. It was love at first tow.
In the photo, the parents are on the right, and Sanjay’s brother Suneel is in the center. Sanjay’s wife, lawyer Rebecca Olsen, and two of their three daughters are next to him. Suneel has a law degree and ran for Congress from Michigan in 2018, but lost in the Democratic Primary.
In 2007, Sanjay got into a fight with filmmaker Michael Moore over Moore’s film Sicko. Gupta reported on CNN that Moore’s film “fudged facts.” Moore said that Gupta’s report was inaccurate and biased, and posted a detailed response on his website. He accused CNN of bias in favor of the drug industry because most of the sponsors for their medical coverage were drug companies.
Gupta debated Moore on Larry King Live after which CNN apologized for a transcription error in their on-air report, having stated that in the film Moore reported Cuba spends $25 per person for health care when the film actually gave that number as $251. But CNN defended the rest of Gupta’s report responding point-by-point to Moore, contending that the comparison of data from different sources in different years was “cherry picking,” at the cost of statistical accuracy.
Let’s close today with the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. It’s by the current Poet Laureate of the U.S., Ada Limon, and is called “How to Triumph Like a Girl.” Limon is Mexican-American, and the first Latina U.S. Poet Laureate. She grew up in California but earned her MFA at NYU.
I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
Here’s a shot our Phil snared of Ada. He’s a genius at getting the nicest smiles. Good work earlier with my tax student too, Philly – we don’t pay you enough! See you tomorrow, everybody!
The Wellington Files 