China says it will lend pandas to the U.S. again. Hooray! The only ones currently here are in Atlanta and they were slated to return later this year. New ones will be coming to San Diego. Negotiations are also underway for their potential return to DC. There are less than 1,900 pandas in the world. They were close to extinction in the 1990s. They mostly live in the mountains of southwest China, drawn by the low rents and plentiful free parking. They eat bamboo and need between 26 and 84 pounds a day — literally, a shitload of bamboo.
The absence of pandas in the U.S. has opened the door for a thriving panda-impersonator industry. It remains to be seen how their return will affect that market. Some of the impersonators look so much like the real ones it’s eerie.
You know how when you’re watching a ballgame and a call goes against your team but it’s being reviewed so you’re drowning in hope and the official comes back and invariably says the call was upheld? It’s about as deflating as a Tom Brady football, amirite? It doesn’t help that the announcement is always dry and robotic – “Upon further review, the call on the field is upheld.”
Well, get this — in last night’s Blues/Islanders ice hockey game in NY, a goal scored by the Islanders was disallowed and the call was being reviewed. And when referee Garrett Rank had to relay the bad news to the home crowd he said: “You’re not going to like this: the call on the ice stands.” You’re not going to like this! Love it.
While we’re on the topic, here’s a fascinating story from The Onion that appeared in 2013:
Scientists Believe Hockey Players May Communicate By Banging Sticks Against Boards
PALO ALTO, CA—Shedding light on how hockey players convey information without an advanced verbal language, a study published this week by Stanford biologists found that players communicate by banging their sticks against wooden boards surrounding the rink. “We found that hockey players use stick-banging to indicate anything from disagreement with a referee to encouragement of their teammates,” said lead researcher Dr. Margaret Cundiff. She explained that players typically strike the boards a single time with force when they want to display anger, or use multiple softer taps in order to display approval. “Sometimes, an entire bench full of players will begin banging the boards in unison—either signaling that a goal has occurred, or that the players want a goal to occur. This actually lets hockey players ‘speak’ to each other, if you will, in surprisingly complex ways far beyond what was previously believed possible.” The study also concluded that hockey fans’ common behavior of pounding their hands against the glass while emitting a series of guttural grunts serves no discernible purpose.
This poem is called “Wifery” and is by Suzanne Matson. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.
After the gentle click of the latch behind him
the house readjusts to a new order,
its details trembling on a string of lists:
walk to the market, walk to the cleaners, start stew.
She is testing a life as readymade for her
as love, how the shape of someone’s
shoulders suddenly come to mean this much;
this far and no farther. With utter
certainty she crushes the iced slush underfoot
in a morning as wide-open and delicate as
the mouth of a teacup: she must have
twelve small white onions, she must have
bleeding cubes of stewing beef, and cream
of tartar for biscuits. The summer night they met
she said, I can’t cook, I don’t cook.
Now in winter the blade makes neat work
of her lie, quartering potatoes
glistening in their nudity, filling the simmering
pot to its fragrant hissing lip.
In the puzzle at 15D today, we had a visit from the venerable Lesley STAHL: “Longtime TV news colleague of Pelley, Cooper and Whitaker.”
‘Sup, Girl? So glad you stopped by. Please forgive the mess — Diet Pepsi? Georgie — see what’s in the fridge for our guest!
Lesley was born in Lynn, MA, and just turned 82. She’s Jewish. She majored in History at Wheaton College. Her first marriage: not so hot. But she was married to Aaron Latham (also a journalist) from 1977 until death did them part in 2022. They had a daughter Taylor who has two kids, about whom Lesley wrote a book on grandparenting.
The puzzle got a little sexy today with TANKINI, ARE YOU DECENT? and ASSES all side-by-side with SLUMBER PARTY nearby. The clue for ASSES was “tuchuses” and the clue for SLUMBER PARTY was “Occasion when one might choose truth.” Do they still play “truth or dare” at those things? Hard to imagine. A TANKINI is a portmanteau, combining tank-top with bikini. It’s less revealing than the latter, grumbles our Dirty Old Man Dept. Let’s see if I can get one of my tax students to help us out.
Here we go. Thanks, Yvette!
Ghostoflectricity shared this note with us: “Gilda, are you decent?” is a classic line of dialogue from one of the best film noirs, “Gilda,” from 1946, directed by Charles Vidor (no relation to the legendary film director King Vidor) and starring Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth, and George Macready. MacReady is Mundson, a shady businessman with organized crime ties, who hires drifter/gambler “Johnny” (Ford) as his new right-hand man. Mundson proudly introduces Johnny to his new wife Gilda (Hayworth). He knocks on the door of Gilda’s boudoir as Gilda is dressing, saying that classic line. Gilda stands up, beautiful in her dressing gown, tossing her head and her lovely hair, and smiling suggestively as she answers. It turns out that (naturally, this being a noir), Gilda and Johnny have a history long preceding her becoming Mundson’s wife. The film also has Hayworth as Gilda doing a knock-’em-dead rendition, singing and dancing, of “Put the Blame on Mame.” Got 2 minutes?
The Pistons hit the ground running after the All-Star break, falling behind 72-43 by halftime to the Pacers and losing 129-115. They are 8-47 now on the season. Oy. Next up is the 31-25 Orlando Magic tomorrow and then it’s on to NY to face the Knicks Monday night. I should be able to watch part of that on local TV. Can’t wait!
Good night, everybody. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 