Like a full force gale
I was lifted up again
I was lifted up again by the Lord
No matter where I roam
I will find my way back home
I will always return to the Lord
In the gentle evening breeze
By the whispering shady trees
I will find my sanctuary in the Lord
I was headed for a fall
Then I saw the writing on the wall
Like a full force gale
I was lifted up again
I was lifted up again by the Lord
Those lyrics, some of you may recall, are from Van Morrison’s gorgeous song Full Force Gale. Sometimes the little door the puzzle opens for you is a song. Today at 52D “Big blow” was GALE. It moved commenter Son Volt to share the song with us. Take a listen.
The puzzle announced itself as a bear right from the get-go. 1A was “Tackle item hung from floaters.” What the hell? I figured tackle had to do with fishing and not football, but that pretty much exhausted my relevant knowledge. But that’s why God created crossing clues and I was able to bumble my way to GILLNET eventually. It’s a fishing method that very effectively uses netting to catch fish by their gills. The poor little fishies really don’t stand a chance. It’s illegal in many places because too many items in addition to the target are captured.
Phil swears this is an actual photo he took with expensive underwater photographic equipment but I have my doubts.
There were two clue/answers that were a little off-putting, by staid NYT standards. At 8A, the clue was “Can” for CRAPPER, and at 41D the clue was “Hanky, slangily” for NOSE RAG.
At 17A “Los Alamos or Oak Ridge” was LABSITE. It opened a memory for one commenter.
“I spent a year in my 20s writing for the newspaper in Los Alamos. It’s a very weird, very beautiful town. Smartest people in the world in the middle of nowhere. I made $5.35 an hour and had a healthcare policy and no spell check on the “computer system” we used. I lived in Santa Fe and drove my 1971 VW bug up the hill every day. I spent a lot of time fixing it on the side of the road. No cell phones back then so you had to keep a toolbox in the back seat. Somebody stole my taillights off it once.”
Ever hear of a CORN PIT? Wait — corn doesn’t have pits. It has cobs. And ears — what? How about you, Iowa Pam — heard of a corn pit? It’s like a sandbox but with corn. The clue was “Play area at a harvest festival.”
Vincent van Gogh was born on this date in 1853 in Zundert, Holland. (BTW, New York’s Holland Tunnel has nothing to do with the country Holland. It was the name of the engineer who designed the tunnel.)
Van Gogh was a prolific letter writer. He wrote thousands to his brother Theo alone.
“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.”
Happy birthday Vinnie!
Sexy Chess Babe Dead at 90.
Lisa Lane, whom you probably never heard of, was the first chess player ever to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. If you believe chess champs are like musicians — they need to start playing in utero to achieve greatness, Lisa proved otherwise. She only started playing in college, and within two years was the U.S. Women’s Champ. But she was miffed at getting more attention for her looks (see below) than for her playing, and rightfully upset at how much less women got paid than men: ten times less in one case. So she left chess behind while still fairly young.
She was friends with Bobby Fisher and played chess with him. He was generally dismissive of women players, calling them all fish (a term for a bad player). He did concede that Lisa was “the best of the American fish.” Here are two shots of her, out of water.
Good night everybody. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 