Well, I’m not much of a swimmer, so I’m pretty impressed. Last week, Caroline Kennedy, who is 65, kinahora, (and the U.S. ambassador to Australia), along with her son Jack Schlossberg and Owl Chatter photographer Phil, swam a portion of the route her dad the Prez swam in his heroic rescue of his PT boat crew back in WWII. The President’s swim was 3.5 miles; Caroline, Jack, and Phil covered about a third of it. It took them 30 minutes and it was between two tiny palm-fringed islets in the Solomon Islands.
Phil was a little winded, but managed to get these nice shots for us. Good work, Buddy — you can go dry off now.
Good-looking kid. Almost as handsome as the Finkelman boys. (Hi Roy and Pam!)
At 14D today the clue was “Cloyingly sentimental” and the answer was GOOPY. Not a direct hit, it seems to me, but probably “close enough for crosswords,” as the saying goes. This is what LMS said: If I knew GOOPY could mean “schmaltzy,” I’ve forgotten. For me, GOOPY means gooey. But it feels like they’re slightly different. Picture a big old ice cream sundae: Gooey describes it sitting there; Goopy describes it as a big glob drops off the spoon onto your shirt. Like, goopy connotes some kind of movement going on. I’m overthinking this. (By the way, “schmaltz strengths” has 15 consonants and 2 vowels. I’ll wait while you write this down.)
At 22D, the clue was “Things tube tops lack” and the answer was STRAPS. LMS again: “I kinda hesitated with the thought that a tube top lacks STRAPS, but I get it. I hate seeing women wearing strapless stuff and constantly tugging and re-adjusting everything lest their HOOTERS. . . ahem. If you’re gonna go the strapless route, make it so that you Wear it, wear it. Use some tape or something so that you don’t have to be constantly messing with it; it kills the effect. Follow me for more fashion advice.”
Note from the Dirty Old Man Dept: LMS, above, was referring to the fact that the answer right after the tube top STRAPS was HOOTERS, but right above that was OWLS, so get your minds out of the gutter everyone! Here are six members of the parliament.
On Ron DeSantis’s attempts to shirk responsibility for the Florida lesson plan that laundered the horror of slavery, Kareem Abdul Jabbar wrote: “DeSantis was trying to wrap himself in the Cloak of Invisibility but instead slipped on the Hoodie of Absurdity.”
It’s hard not to careen down the rabbit hole of Trump’s indictments, but you don’t need Owl Chatter on that topic. Once in a while though, something so wonderful jumps off the page and smacks you on the nose and you just can’t let it go by. It’s too delicious. As reported in The Hill, here is a quote by Alina Habba, one of Trump’s lawyers in the classified papers case:
“If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you, that is something that could have been done, but he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.”
If you are wondering whether a person who could say that looks like an Earthling — here she is. Apparently the people on her planet have only one ear. Otherwise, quite humanoid.
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Laura McKee and is called “Exotic Treats.“
Especially on long drives through the country,
you like to tell that story about your old girlfriend
whose parrot was killed one afternoon
by a raccoon who stole in through the pet door.
It was horrible, you say. Feathers everywhere.
Are you laughing? Stop laughing.
She really loved that bird.
The clue at 17A today is “Rickety piano, in old music biz slang” and the answer is TIN PAN, as in “tin pan alley.” But the story behind it is new to me (as shared by commenter Mack). Back in the late 19th/early 20th century, in an effort to capitalize on popular music demand, a bunch of songwriters and publishers set up shop in a particular area of New York . These folks would continuously be churning out songs to sell. It got to the point that if you walked down a particular street in the city [West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Aves], you could hear a multitude of pianos plinking away through the windows. These were salesmen, not concert pianists, so they often used rickety old dime-store pianos. Someone remarked that walking down the street sounded like rain falling on a bunch of tin pans, and it earned the nickname “Tin Pan Alley.” A plaque on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it.
Lucky Peterson is going to send us off tonight with his version of “Tin Pan Alley.” Watch out for that busted guitar string Lucky!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 