I am so thankful that I blundered my way into Crossworld years ago and am able to hang on by my fingertips enough to appreciate the extraordinary craftsmanship of many of the puzzles. I advise newcomers (newbs or noobs (it’s a battle)) to start with the NYT on Monday and/or the New Yorker on Thursday, and work up to the NYT on Thursday. Those are the most fun — there’s always some trick to it, often brilliant wordplay.
E.g., today’s is by Sam Donaldson. He good! The “revealer” was at 40A: “Dating axiom,” and the answer was OPPOSITES ATTRACT. Then, at four places in the puzzle, this happened: At 18A the clue was “Highway crossing,” so you’d think OVERPASS. And right next to it, at 19A, the clue was “Fail,” so you’d think GO UNDER. But if you look at them it’s: OVERPASS GO UNDER. The opposites — OVER and UNDER are “attracted” to each other. So the answers you need to fill in on the grid are PASSOVER UNDERGO. Get it? Over and under come together. That happens three more times. Where the answers should be IN ORDER and LAYS OUT, the “out” and the “in” are attracted to each other so they become ORDER IN and OUTLAYS. Where the answers should be OFF HAND and LEAVE ON, the “off” and the “on” are attracted to each other so they become HAND OFF and ON LEAVE. (I’ll spare you the last one — you get the idea (I hope).)
And, get this — I completely missed it when I completed the puzzle. I noticed the answers were reversing themselves (overpass to pass over) but didn’t see how the opposites were attracted to each other until I read Rex’s blog. (Duh.) That happens now and then.
After over 400 posts on Owl Chatter, I am no longer amazed at the amount of delicious nonsense that is available in our lives on a daily basis. Yesterday, a heated (and protracted) debate arose over the well-known song “Lola” by the Kinks. The issue was whether they are singing LA-LA-LA-LA-LOLA, or LO-LO-LO-LO-LOLA. The clue was “Refrain in a 1970 hit by the Kinks” and the puzzle wanted you to put in LA-LA-LA-LA-LOLA. Rex started things off by saying: “yeah, OK, is it LA- LA- LA- LA- or L- L- L- L- or LO- LO- LO- LO- …? The original Kinks’ version sounds kinda LO-ish. I’ve always heard LA- or a kind of flat LUH. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it. But I’m fine with the LAs.”
The Commentariat tore into it like a starving vegetarian lion with a pile of fresh tempeh. DPF got the ball rolling at 6:05 am: It’s definitely “Lo-Lo-Lo.” At 6:29 am, Adam concurred: ”I also had LoLoLoLoLOLA, which is correct. Maybe you could get away with LuLuLuLuLOLA, but it is most certainly not LALALALALOLA. L O L A Lola. LOLOLOLOLOLA.” Barely six minutes later, Anony-mouse added: Yes, my dog is Lola and I sing this a lot and it’s Lo lo lo lo Lola.
Commenter Andy got a little technical: ”Another hand up for LO, not LA, though I suppose any vowel will do for a schwa.” At that point Alice sort of cheated by actually looking for some authority: ”I have been wrong since 1970. I had LoLoLo…. Read the constructor’s comments, he says the official Kinks Sheet music and lyric sheet has LALALA. He [the constructor] originally had LoLoLo in there and had to change it.”
Twangser chimed in: ”I am a huge Kinks fan and also have been singing it as lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola for 40 years. But I just pulled out my original LP and it does say la-la-la-Lola, which is super weird.”
[Note: It was only 8 am and already my cup was overflowing with this exquisite nonsense. O, glorious day!]
mmorgan was all over the place with it: ”I am sure the final chorus alternates a bit between LA LA LA and LO LO LO. and sometimes even LA LA LA LO LOLA and other variations.”
Mack kicked in this good point: ”Worth pointing out that ‘official’ lyrics often bear little resemblance to what is actually sung on a recording. While the constructor was probably right to go with ‘LA’ based on how the clue is written, it could have easily been clued as ‘Refrain sung by the Kinks…’ and ‘LO’ would have worked fine.” [Hmmmm, so much for “authority.”]
Another anony-mouse added a personal note: ”Makes sense to me that it is lo-lo-lo-Lola. BTW, my mother’s name was Lola. She disliked that song.”
Yet another anony-mouse wrote: Mandela effect: we all remember it as LO. [Mandela effect: Briefly, a situation in which a large mass of people believes that an event occurred when it did not. It’s named as it is because, oddly, many people wrongly believed Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s.]
Here’s Dr. R’s take: ”Even the lyrics sites have a difference of opinion on LA vs LO. If you listen to the song they sing LALALALALOLA a few times and LOLOLOLOLOLA a few times. Also there are different recordings with different interpretations including LUHLUHLUHLUHLOLA. I figure the dress is both blue and white. LOL LOL LOL LOL.”
[I knew we’d get to LOL eventually.]
The next note on the matter was by Daniel Mauer — the puzzle’s constructor. How nice that he was reading Rex and chimed in! That does happen from time to time. He wrote: ”As for LA/Lo: I could be convinced either way, it seems Ray Davies sings it both ways in various recordings, but it’s the NYT, so probably best to go with the ‘Official’ version [i.e., LA}.”
Well, by this time Mike in Bed Stuy had heard enough and exploded:
“Whatever anyone hears, or thinks they hear, Ray Davies wrote “la” not “lo,” and that’s all there is to it. That being said, there’s actually a lot more to it, musically and, in particular for me, semantically. I will limit myself to a couple of points. First off, someone in another comment said the repeated vowel sound is a shwa, so it doesn’t matter how you spell it. I disagree. I would argue that in the other three themers in this puzzle, which include the phonemic refrains (in music called *non-lexical vocables*) “ch,” “g” and “p” yes, the sound is a schwa. But not in “Lola.” Neither, however, is it the first syllable of Lola’s name, as most commenters here seem to assume. It is, rather, “la” as in “tra la la” and “la la la.” The phrase so indelibly penned by Ray Davies was “La la la Lola,” almost as if “la la la” were an epithet. If it sounds like I am overthinking this, that’s because I AM! I suspect Ray Davies did not think about schwas or non-lexical vocables or epithets when he jotted down that lyric. He just thought “La la la Lola” sounded really great and was totally appropriate to the vibe he was creating for this trailblazing song about gender-nonconformity.”
Whew. Now my brain hurts. Still, we must go on!
A last word from Nial:
Found an interview from 2020 where Ray Davies talks about writing the song, to wit, “Next, he searched for an irresistible chorus hook, then road-tested it at home. ‘I had a 1-year-old child at the time,’ Davies said. ‘She was crawling around singing ‘la la, la la Lola.’ I thought, ‘If she can join in and sing, Kinks fans can do it.’”
Nancy (like many of you, I presume) had had enough and wrote:
“Like everyone else, I have a limited amount of time on this earth, and I refuse to fritter it away on utttttter nnnnonnnnssssenssse. SPLAT!!!!!!” [Puzzle hurled at wall.]
OK, Nance — we hear ya. Let’s put it to bed.
The scene, or incident, that took place at the lesbian bar Cubbyhole in NYC recently wasn’t all that remarkable by itself — it wasn’t even a bar fight by any stretch, but the splash it made on Tiktok brought a big question to light. Who is welcome there?
It happened on January 21. Lexi Stout, a woman who is not gay, and who had visited male gay bars often in the past, made her first visit to a lesbian bar. She was invited by a lesbian friend. All was well until another friend of hers – a straight male – popped in briefly to say hi.
As she recounted it (in a video she posted), a woman at the bar soon approached her straight guy friend to ask him what he was doing there, “basically saying that my friend didn’t belong there.”
Stout went on to complain that the bar patron seemed weary of straight men’s presence in the space, despite “the amount of very obviously flamboyantly gay men that were in that bar that were not being approached and yelled at.”
“She was not having it. She did not want him in that bar at all, and I get it,” Stout continued. “But, like, there’s no rules against that… But I was just curious. Are straight males not allowed to go to a lesbian bar?”
[Let me back up a moment and note that there are only 30 lesbian bars in the U.S., only three in all of NY State, and Cubbyhole is only 200 square feet in size.]
“The response from the lesbian community was sharp. Are straight males allowed in?, one said — “No, they are not. And straight women who prioritize a man’s comfort over lesbian safety are also not welcome at the lesbian bar. I hope this helps!”
Another comment said: “Politics of straight people being in queer spaces at all aside, you can’t see why it would be a problem in a space as small as Cubbyhole for you two to be occupying what is otherwise space for queer women?”
Yet another likened being invited to a queer space as a straight person to attending a wedding as a plus-one, adding “Baby, you need to realize these places were not made for you. When you come to a gay space, you are a guest, and you need to behave accordingly.”
Feelings were summed up well by this woman’s post: “You cannot say that you are an ally to a marginalized group of people and then, when someone who represents the oppressor shows up in a space that is solely dedicated as a safe space for that marginalized community, act confused when people within that marginalized community show aggression or hostility and maybe even a little bit of suspicion towards that person that represents the oppressor,”
Alright, but wait a minute. We haven’t heard yet from the woman who confronted the guy. Well, two weeks after the big hoopla started exploding on social media she came forward, identifying herself as Katie. She was there to celebrate a friend’s birthday and first encountered Stout’s straight male friend while waiting in line for the bathroom.
After tapping the man on the shoulder to let him know that he was standing in the way of the bathroom, Katie noted that he seemed “a little bit grumpy” and that she asked him, “Okay, dude. Are you even here with anyone? What are you doing at this bar?”
After the queer friend who had invited Stout to Cubbyhole confirmed that he was with their group, Katie says the man came back up to her and asked, “Well, if I wasn’t here with someone, would that be a problem?”
When Katie replied that it would be a problem, she said that Stout and some other girls at the bar with her “all [jumped] at me, like, ‘What? Why would you say that? That’s so messed up.’”
“I want literally nothing to do with straight people, which is why I’m in Cubbyhole in the first place,” Katie continued, pointing out the uniquely queer space that bars like Cubbyhole provide to her and the rest of the community. “I have seen a lot of straight guys come into this bar and cause problems. It’s a known thing… There are straight dudes that come into these bars specifically ’cause they’re trying to pick up girls. So I wasn’t trying to instigate anything. I was just trying to safety check.”
Stout was rattled by the meanness she encountered, fairly or unfairly. Her last word was “I have learned my lesson, and I will never be returning to a lesbian bar ever again, for good reason. It’s plain and simple: It’s not a space for me.”
Hrrrrumphhhh!, she added.
Hrrrrumphhhh!, Katie replied.
Phil! — any more pics??
Thanks, Buddy.
Pistons Win! The 6-43 Detroiters took on the 29-20 Sacramento Kings last night out in California — and gave them a good shellacking — 133-120. A terrific road win. The Pistons outscored the Kings 36-21 in the decisive 4th quarter — the mark of an excellent team, or, in this case, not. Up next, the 15-35 Portland Trail Blazers, in Portland, tonight. Go ‘Stons!
Below are three verdant sentences written by OC friend Massachusetts Jenny about her garden:
To lure sweat bees, I plant meadowsweet. [Let’s take a look!]
Meadowsweet:
And here comes a sweat bee!
To coax long-tongued bumblebees, I plant lupines and bee balm.
Lupines:
Bee balm:
I fill my yard with milkweed vetch, rough-stemmed goldenrod, and hairy beardtongue.”
Milkweed vetch:
Rough-stemmed goldenrod:
Hairy beardtongue:
Thanks Jenny! Such beautiful sentences. And we can’t wait to see all the bees!
I’ve been noodling around with that songstress (Leslie) Feist I learned about the other day. Her clue referenced her song “1-2-3-4.” It’s joyous.
To no surprise, Sesame Street snapped it up. I like this version even more. One two three four, monsters walking ‘cross the floor . . . chickens just back from the shore. . .
I had to bring the Honda in to Marvin’s today. It was having trouble starting. (Who isn’t?) I said: ”We’re having trouble with the Odyssey; the Iliad’s been fine.” That’s mechanic humor. He came right back with a few cracks about Euripides. Low-hanging fruit.
Anyway, he called me back after a few hours and said: ”You needed a new battery. No charge.” I said, “Yeah, I’m not surprised. What do I owe you?” He said “No charge.” I said, “Yeah, you just said that.” He said, “No — I mean it’s covered by the warranty — there’s no charge.” Oh, okay. Great! I bought some excellent Magic Hat #9 not-quite-pale ale with my winnings.
Burp! See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by!
The Wellington Files 