Both teams I was pulling for last night won: Iowa over LSU, and UConn over USC. The problem for me now is they face each other in the semi-finals. I’ve decided to root for Caitlin Clark’s Iowa over Paige Bueckers’s UConn. Bueckers is pronounced “Beckers,” and that’s what’s behind my decision. They are both brilliant players, but that “U” in Bueckers is annoying. Whoever wins, the task will be to upset the hated South Carolinians in the Finals. Here’s Paige, hair up and hair down.
Staying on the court a bit longer, Ryan Turell is the first orthodox Jew to be a pro basketball player. He’s with the Motor City Cruise, our Detroit Pistons minor league team. He played his college ball at Yeshiva U. Vu den?
Ryan says if he makes it to the NBA he will play on the Sabbath, but will walk to games and practices. However, a crack of thunder was heard as he said this and he muttered “Okay, okay” towards the ceiling.
“Enough with the three-point shots,” saith the Lord.
In the puzzle today, two clues/answers inspired egsforbreakfast. At 43A, “Ominous words on a flunked test,” was SEE ME. And at 41A, “Atlantic or Pacific fish” was COD. Here’s egs:
Ominous words by Tommy after a flunked test: SEEME, FEELME, TOUCHME…..
Fish Monger: I recently sent some friends some Atlantic fish and some Pacific fish.
Customer: Didn’t that cost you a lot?
Fish Monger: Nah, I sent them COD.
The theme centered on 41A. The clue was “Stop right there!” and the answer was HOLD IT! And then there were four theme answers with things you can “hold.” My fave was MAYO CLINIC. (Hold the mayo!). There were also DOORBUSTER, LINE OF CREDIT, and FLOOR ROUTINE.
I posted the following on Rex’s blog:
“On other things you can hold, remember Santino on setting up the restaurant bathroom in the Godfather where Michael was to find the gun to kill the cop and Sollazo? James Caan says — Put our best man on the job. I don’t want my brother coming out of there with just his d*ck in his hand. (Something like that.) Maybe DICK TRACY could have been a theme answer.”
I’ll let you know if I get any comments. As usual, it may be best if I don’t.
Rex made an interesting observation on pop culture. It was triggered by a great clue at 57A: “‘God Only Knows,’ vis-à-vis ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice.’” These are two Beach Boy songs and the answer was SIDE B. Here’s Rex:
“Popular songs used to be in the air. You couldn’t avoid hearing them. I was never a Beach Boys *fan* and I was born after their heyday, but I know so many of their songs just because I was breathing air in the ’70s and ’80s and every decade thereafter, when those songs were on the radio, in movies, ads, etc. Whereas I have never heard a Wilco song in the wild. Pop culture continues to get increasingly ensiloed, so that if you’re not actively into something, you can’t even see it. There’s no real public square, no shared space in which to encounter it. Too many outlets, too many choices, too many places to hide from each other and nurse our identities and fandoms. Algorithms have funneled everyone into valleys, so things that are massively popular in one valley aren’t even discernible in another. This is why pop culture answers of all times can feel (increasingly) exclusionary.”
It makes puzzle constructing harder in terms of pop culture references. It’s easier to shut out large swaths of the public.
Owl-chatter hats off to Ronel Blanco, pitcher for the Houston ‘Stros. He’s 30 years old, from the DR, and before yesterday had pitched less than 60 innings in the majors, not particularly impressively. But God (see above) smiled on him yesterday to the tune of a complete game no-hitter against Toronto. He faced only 29 batters (walked two), threw 105 pitches, and the game took only 2:01, despite Houston’s scoring ten runs.
Here are some cool facts about it. (1) It was only Blanco’s 8th MLB start. (2) It came one week after his wife gave birth to their daughter. (3) The date (April 1st) is the earliest ever for an MLB no hitter. (4) He walked the leadoff batter, George Springer, and then retired every batter he faced until there were two outs in the ninth. He then walked Springer again (!) before getting the last batter to ground out. (5) It was only the 4th time in MLB history that a team’s first win of the season was a no-hitter. (The ‘Stros were 0-4 going into the game.)
Bravo Ronel!
Wait — does he have an extra hand coming out of his stomach?
Tired tonight. Gonna crash. Thanks for popping in. George! — get the lights when you’re done with that movie!
The Wellington Files 