Seen on a T-shirt: I said I’ll fix it. There’s no need to remind me every six months.
In this week’s Tuesday New Yorker puzzle by Aimee Lucido there were some great clues/answers but I was puzzled by 10D: “Compelled to go.” Ans: HALED. It turns out hale as a verb means “to drag or draw forcibly,” as in “he haled the man out of the audience.” When you need a cab, you “hail” one — that’s different.
My favorite in that grid was “Matriarch of a certain toy family,” and the answer, of course, was MRS POTATO HEAD! I was surprised to see that potato and head are separate words in the name. Here they are IRL. Love the outfit, Mrs. PH!
One of my favorite cartoons during the pandemic had two potato people talking. You know, they were potatoes but with feet, hands, faces, etc. And one says to the other: “You don’t have to wear a mask, Meredith — You’re a potato.”
Another good clue was “It may be used for island dressing.” Ans: HAWAIIAN SHIRT. Phil flew down to Oahu with one of my tax students to give this shot authenticity. Get her back in time for the test tomorrow, Philly!
When the Holocaust came up in Sarah Silverman’s special, she corrected herself to call it the “alleged” Holocaust. She said she was surprised to learn something new about Hitler from Wikipedia recently — that for several years he molested his niece. “Now he’s really canceled, right?” She said she shouldn’t have been surprised. He was probably like, “Look, I just murdered millions of people. Do you expect me not to molest my niece?”
She was waiting for a friend near a Catholic school not long ago, and the kids started streaming out. The girls were all wearing those “porn skirts.” She said the only place she sees them anymore is in porn. She was surprised the school didn’t move on from them. It’s like those people who say the swastika was originally a Hindu symbol for “good luck.” Yeah, but not anymore.
Don’t mess with these two.
Phil — you okay?
In the puzzle today, the clue at 9D was “Musicians that play with mallets,” and the answer was VIBISTS. Tough one. One commenter asked, shouldn’t it be “Musicians who play . . . ?” Yeah, shouldn’t it?
The clue at 47A was “Egyptian temple site,” and the answer was KARNAK. Never mind the temple. Here’s what I posted on Rex’s blog:
Carnac the Magnificent was a regular Johnny Carson bit that could be clever and showed off his good comic relationship with Ed McMahon. Carnac was a swami who could divine the answers to questions before seeing the questions.
Some of my favorites of that ilk were:
ANS: Washington Irving
QUES: Who was our first President, Max?
ANS: 9-W
QUES: Do you spell you name with a “V,” Herr Wagner? (Wagner was pronounced Vagner.)
ANS: Super Bowl
QUES: What would you call a toilet that can see through walls.
Several folks added their favorite Carnac lines including East Coaster who contributed:
ANS: SIS-BOOM-BAH
QUES: What sound is made when a sheep explodes?
I added the following post in response:
According to an interview McMahon gave years later, the SIS-BOOM-BAH answer was his and Carson’s favorite. Carson tipped McMahon off that an unusually good one was in the deck that day and McMahon could tell from Carson’s expression when it was the next one. When it hit them, neither could control himself for over a minute, maybe two. They were paralyzed with laughter. It was the question that got the largest number of letters from fans, and was the only time Carson ever tipped McMahon off about anything that was coming on the show.
Shield your eyes if you’re squeamish.
Speaking of exploding sheep, we went to see the Australian Haydn Ensemble last night in a nice small auditorium in the Morris Museum. They had performed earlier in Carnegie Hall. They were terrific. They perform on period instruments, i.e., instruments from when Haydn et al were walking the planet. For example, the Mozart Symphony they performed (his 29th) he composed when he was eighteen. And the violin the first violinist was playing on was only four years old at that time. Imagine — it hadn’t even been bar-mitzvahed. The flute was wooden, and the bassoon was made of maple wood. One of the violinists was playing a violin that spent several decades in Morristown NJ (where we were) before finding its way to Australia, she was tickled to tell us. There were eighteen members in the ensemble that played for us, thirteen of whom were women. Here’s a nice shot of six of them.
If you can spare eight minutes, here’s a different incarnation of the ensemble playing Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D Major. We’ll let them send us off tonight, and, you know, class up the joint a little. Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 