Hey, these are two of Frank Zappa’s kids: Moon Unit and Dweezil. It’s from 1988.
Gorgeous! They are opening for us today because the clue at 39D was “Totally tubular pasta.” The answer was RIGATONI — pasta in little tube shapes, but the use of tubular harkens back to when it was slang for awesome. The term was used in the Valley Girl song Moon Unit and Frank released. Fer shure!
Frank came up with the guitar riff and (14-year-old) Moon supplied much of the content, speaking typical “valley girl” or “Valspeak” phrases she heard at “parties, bar mitzvahs, and the Galleria.” It was Zappa’s only top 40 hit in the U.S.
I saw Frank Zappa perform back in the day in the Central Park summer concert series in the Wollman skating rink. He was excellent: a great guitarist.
A few months after the 40th anniversary of Valley Girl, the following animated version was released by the Zappas. It’s great!
Here’s what egs had to say: If you want to receive an undeserved award for your Broadway play, you might try to RIGATONI.
The theme was prognostication: We had a CRYSTAL BALL, a OUIJA BOARD, TAROT CARDS, and I CHING COINS. [So two mentalists run into each other. One says to the other: You’re fine. How am I?]
On the theme, Rex shared this song by The Beths that was new to me. It’s called “Future Me Hates Me.” The Beths are new to me too, except for the song of theirs we shared just a few days ago (with the bungee jumping). They are my new favorite band of the next ten minutes.
We’ve already discussed the rough welcome Caitlin Clark has received in the WNBA, despite her greatness and popularity. This story appeared in The Onion today:
LAS VEGAS—Following another highly physical game for the rookie point guard, Indiana Fever player Caitlin Clark reportedly brushed off the 23 stab wounds she received from her own teammates on the court Tuesday. “The physicality doesn’t bother me one bit—it’s all part of the game,” the pale and visibly woozy WNBA star said at a postgame news conference during which reporters questioned her reaction to the knife-inflicted injuries suffered at the hands of her fellow Fever players and a pool of blood collected on the floor beneath her chair. “Emotions run high, and every once in a while that’s going to boil over into someone being brutally stabbed on the court multiple times. I really don’t take the coordinated effort to assassinate me personally. If anything, violently taking a shiv to my back, chest, and neck during a breakaway shows how much passion these women have for the game, and I’m lucky to play alongside them.
Here’s a nice shot of Caitlin playing some other sport.
A weird clue/answer was at 34D: “Activities that might require 20-sided dice, for short.” Answer: RPGS, for role playing games. A role playing game is like Dungeons & Dragons, which I know nothing about. I don’t usually hesitate to blather on ridiculously on topics I’m ignorant on, but I’ll limit myself today to showing this neat photo of a 20-sided die. I tried to read up on RPGs but my head kept slamming into the keyboard as I nodded off over and over again.
Wow, it’s quite the day for women sports stars. George! — check the fridge! ALYSSA Thompson popped in! Her clue tells us she is a “U.S. soccer star who made her World Cup debut at 18.” Wow! She’s still only 19.
Alyssa is African-American, Filipino, and Peruvian, but speaks fluent Yiddish at home. (No she doesn’t.) She’s from the LA region in California. She also runs track, like, very fast. George — where’s that cold Fresca for our guest? We’ll be keeping an eye on you, Alyssa — knock ’em dead.
See you tomorrow (maybe?).
The Wellington Files 