I don’t watch SNL anymore so “SNL alum Bryant” had to be ANDY for me once I had A-DY. Some of you know it’s AIDY. Since it crossed with “Nintendo Switch predecessor,” a WOE for me (what on earth?), it led to my second downfall in two days on the NYTXW. Ouch. Coupled with a six in Wordle, a failure in Connections, and a dreadful Spelling Bee performance, it’s been a rough puzzle weekend for the home team. If it’s because my brain is addled with Taylor Swift, it’s the price that had to be paid.
Have you ever refused anyone a fig? Rex opined that no one says “I don’t give a fig,” which was part of a puzzle answer. But I posted:
FWIW, regarding fig donations, I do sometimes say “I don’t give a fig.” Apparently, it used to mean “I don’t give a f”ck.”
According to the Free Dictionary, “fig” has denoted something worthless since about 1400. Moreover, in Mediterranean countries the sign of the fig is an obscene gesture, made by clenching one’s fist and pushing the thumb between the first and middle fingers. According to John Ciardi, the thumb represents the [male], the fingers the [female], and the gesture means “F*ck you.” Dante so used it in the Inferno section of The Divine Comedy. Centuries later, however, the phrase’s obscene provenance began to be largely ignored, and the cliché survives.
Regarding the answers OBSCENE, NUDE, and ECRU, egsforbreakfast (one of our favorite Rex posters in LMS’s absence), noted:
My favorite part of Grey’s Anatomy is when there’s a scene about obstetrics. A good OBSCENE actor is a pleasure to watch. [He also noted that NUDE is rubbing right up against OBSCENE in the puzzle.]
What did Julius Caesar say when Brutus showed up in unbleached linen?
“ECRU, Brute?”
Excellent clue/answer at 64D: “Shares one’s bunk?” — LIES. (Get it?)
At 24D, “Something a Brazilian is unlikely to wax” was a great clue for SKI. I didn’t get it at first. On the surface, you may think it’s just noting that there are no ski areas in Brazil. How laughably shallow that would be! But, no, — it’s a reference to a “Brazilian wax,” a technique that removes hair from one’s “sensitive” areas. It goes further than a bikini wax, said Tom droolingly.
We sprung for our intrepid Owl Chatter photographer Phil to take a six-month training course in Brazilian waxing ($1,580), down in Rio, and this is a photo he sent back from one of the sessions. Looks serious. (But let’s hold it right there, buddy — don’t go any further with the camera. Puh-leeze.)
OLGA Kurylenko popped by again. She’s sort of a Russian Ana de Armas. She could use a better scarf though for those Russian winters. What is that thing? Phil — is there something in the trunk you can give her? Root around a little.
I was flummoxed by 82A. The clue was “Object with one hole or two, depending on whom you ask.” I got the answer from the crosses: TUBE. But its meaning eluded me. So I asked the Rex gang if anyone could enlighten me. Beezer responded with: “I think it is whether you consider a tube to consist of ONE long hole, or whether there is a hole on each end. Makes my head hurt.” Okay, I guess. Seems a little lame to me. I might clue it with “rigatoni.”
Rather than sharing a perfectly fine poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac, I’m going to call on our old friend and Owl Chatter poet laureate Ted Kooser for one of his today, from Winter Morning Walks. It’s about an owl!
In his drab gray overcoat,
unbuttoned and flying out behind,
a stocky, bullet-headed owl
with dirty claws and thick wrists
slowly flaps home
from working the night shift.
He is so tired he has forgotten
his lunchbox, his pay stub.
He will not be able to sleep
in his empty apartment
what with the neighboring blackbirds
flying into his face,
but will stay awake all morning,
round-shouldered and glassy-eyed,
composing a poem about
paradise, perfectly woven
of mouse bones and moist pieces of fur.
Devoted Owl Chatter readers will recall that we made note of the passing of the great pianist (and person) André Watts from a piano falling on his head recently. As a follow-up, there is this small piece from today’s Met Diary by Mark Shechtman:
I was dining with a friend at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side in the early 1990s.
As we sat at a table toward the front near the bar, the pianist André Watts, dressed casually but elegantly, came in and approached the hostess, who was talking with another customer.
I was a longtime admirer and recognized him immediately. While he waited, he turned his gaze in our direction.
I smiled and mimed playing a piano keyboard.
He responded by raising his eyebrows, jutting his chin in my direction and copying my pantomime, as if to ask whether I, too, was a pianist.
I shook my head and mimed playing classical guitar. He nodded in approval.
Then, as the hostess escorted him to his table, he waved in our direction and our brief encounter was over.
This MD piece by Linda Zaworski caught my attention too:
I was 18 in 1966. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I was making my first trip to New York City to visit a friend who was studying at N.Y.U. She had told me to take a cab to her dorm from La Guardia Airport.
The cabdriver and I made the usual small talk, and he asked whether my friend and I had plans for Thanksgiving dinner.
I told him I didn’t know but was sure she had planned something. He said immediately that if she hadn’t, he and his wife would be glad to host us.
We had reached Washington Square by that point, but he wouldn’t let me leave without taking his phone number.
As it turned out, my friend and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving at the Long Island home of her relatives. But I have never forgotten that driver and the warm welcome to New York he gave me.
Since we’re stealing shamelessly from the NYT today, let’s “jam in” today’s tiny love story too. It’s by Ennis Smith.
When my father-in-law died this summer, I inherited an unopen jar of the orange marmalade he loved. It’s not my favorite. But I’ve been slathering it on toast to honor the man who raised my husband and embraced our relationship when his son came out to him 20 years ago. His marmalade reminds me that some tastes are acquired, that preference often feels indivisible from acceptance. The acrid pulp requires a tolerance my own father would not have had for his queer Black son. I make room for the marmalade’s bittersweet complexity the way my father-in-law made room for me.
Oops! Yikes!
From the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up division of Owl Chatter —
Michigan State University has issued an apology following an image of Hitler appearing on the scoreboard before Saturday night’s football game against UMich.
Before the game began, the image appeared on the jumbotron as part of a trivia question about Hitler’s place of birth. [The choices were (a) Germany (b) Poland (c) Austria (d) Parsippany, NJ.]
Michigan State issued a statement, without mentioning the image of Hitler directly, saying the school used a third party for the trivia content and will no longer be using that company.
“We are deeply sorry for the content that was displayed, as this is not representative of our institutional values,” Michigan State associate athletic director Matt Larson said in a statement, after carefully checking on what their institutional values are. “MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures for all videoboard content in the future.”
MSU will also be changing its slogan, above, to “We Sometimes Drop the Ball.”
The NJ Symphony today featured a brilliant young cellist Sterling Elliott playing Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Keep an ear out for this young Black star. Growing up, he played in a “family quartet” at home with his parents and brother and they stayed away from classical selections and played blues, bluegrass, jazz, gospel, etc. (He received his classical training at Julliard.) A standing ovation (oy, it was hard to get up), led to an encore, which sounded like a Scottish fiddler’s piece on the cello and was terrific. Too bad it’s not on Youtube, or I’d share it.
Elgar’s Enigma Variations closed out the afternoon and I was surprised I wasn’t familiar with it, since it’s pretty well-known. Each variation is based on a friend of Elgar’s and captures his or her qualities. Here’s the central one, “Nimrod,” which was the nickname of his friend August Johannes Jaeger. Some young folks from Boston are trying their hands at it, below. Give it some time: it builds. I’m going to slip out quietly while they’re playing. I’ve already heard it today in Jersey. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 