Today’s puzzle was called “Rebrandings” and it took names of well-known companies and re-worked them with comic effect. For example, a company that now sells tiny tongs is LITTLE SEIZERS. (Get it? From Little Caesars.) It was a Sunday-sized grid 21 x 21, so the constructors were able to fit in ten of them. A company that switched to sell bagels and donuts was HOLE FOODS. A company that does genealogy for the U.S.’s rich and famous is AMERICAN HEIR LINES. Candy for diplomats? EMBASSY SWEETS. The most controversial, in terms of it “working,” was a company that produces a “Beauty and the Beast”-themed podcast. That was TALK O’ BELLE.
But my favorite by far was one proposed by egsforbreakfast, who came up with a company that now markets butt-enhancement products: FILLUPMOREASS.
egs! Too funny!
My favorite non-theme clue/answer was at 9D where the clue was “Drops like flies?,” and the answer was UNZIPS.
This poem from the Poetry Foundation today, is called “The Monster in the Lake.” It’s by Martin Espada (pronounced Martine) and it rewards repeated readings.
A city boy, I always wanted to go fishing. The DiFilippo brothers brought me
to a secret lake where we cast our lines into the dark, the barbed lures
spinning. I snagged a monster in the lake. I fought the monster and my reel
jammed. One of the DiFilippo brothers said: That’s not a fish. We waded
into the water and dragged a rusty box spring onshore, festooned with
the lures of failed fishermen. We plucked them off the coils and dragged it
back. Whenever we went fishing, we would have more treasures to collect.
Late that night, I felt the monster swimming beneath my feet. I walked
down to the basement and saw my father hunched over a table in his white
T-shirt and boxers. He flinched as if I’d caught him whispering on the phone
to a woman who was not my mother. What are you doing? I asked. I saw
the pages of a Spanish dictionary and a legal pad where he had copied down
the meaning of the words in longhand. I’m learning Spanish, he confessed.
My father the rabble-rouser with the bullhorn, my father the Puerto Rican
who spoke for other Puerto Ricans in the papers, my father who left his island
at age eleven and kissed the runway when he flew home at age thirty-eight,
my father who had the Spanish slapped from his mouth like a dangling
cigarette by teachers and coaches in the city where I grew up, could feel
his Puerto Rican tongue shriveling, coated with gravel, drained of words.
I left him in the basement, riddled with the hooks no one else could see.
*********
Espada’s many books of poetry have been highly acclaimed. He is Brooklyn-born, and teaches English at UMass Amherst. He also has a law degree from Northeastern and has spent his life working for social justice, having been raised that way by his dad.
There’s an excellent article in the NYT Opinion section today by Jennifer Finney Boylan on trans rights. She is a professor of English at Barnard.
It starts and ends on personal notes.
Here’s how it starts.
We were at the sinks in the ladies room, the stranger and I, washing our hands, when a trans woman came out of a stall, looked in the mirror and sighed. After she left, the stranger turned to me and said: “Can you believe that? A man, in here!” She shook her head disapprovingly.
This was 20 years ago, but I’ve never forgotten that stranger’s disdain. It has stayed with me, because the moment called for me to respond to her with courage. What I delivered instead was cowardice.
“I don’t think she’s doing anybody any harm,” I said, quietly, and then rushed out.
What I didn’t say was, “I’m trans, too.” I didn’t tell her that I knew firsthand what it was like, in the early stages of transition, to face the constant threat of judgment, and cruelty, even violence. Or, that I knew all too well how much difference a touch of kindness could make during that very hard time.
Boylan goes on to explain that the GOP is finding that marginalizing and demonizing abortion no longer favors them after Dobbs. They’ve determined that demonizing the 0.6 percent of the population that is trans is their hate-ridden ticket to electoral success. They exaggerate minor issues such as bathroom and team sports concerns, and portray “detransitioning” and “transition regret” as commonplace, but they are very rare (around 1%).
She writes:
All these stories leave out the happy and successful trans folks I’ve met over the course of my life — doctors, airplane pilots, a small-town manager, a fire captain, even an astrophysicist — whose primary desire has always been to simply get on with their lives, and to spend their days in peace.
So many brave trans people are living out and proud, and so many have faced dire societal consequences for doing so. It can be scary to be out in this political/social environment. But perhaps more of us need to find the courage to do the thing I failed to do in that bathroom long ago, and turn to a stranger and say something stronger than, “I don’t think she’s doing anybody any harm.”
What I should have said was: “That was a human being. That was a person deserving kindness, and protection, and love. That was a person like me.”
This week’s “Tiny Love Story” is by Kathryn Talalay.
A man with a charming accent was fixing my uncharming TV. “Where are you from?” I asked. “Haiti.” “Oh! I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your country!” He paused and then said, “I’ve never met one of you, but we learned about you in high school.” An almost invisible footnote to history: Throughout the 1930s, Haiti issued passports to Jews escaping the Nazis. My father was among the recipients. To my surprise, this charming man began to cry. “Can I hug you?” I asked shyly. He nodded. I felt as if a whole country were embracing me.
There’s a nice image to end on. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 