It was a bang-up puzzle today. Did you know that “Bang” is old-fashioned slang for an exclamation point? Me neither. According to Wikipedia:
“In the 1950s, secretarial dictation and typesetting manuals in America referred to the mark as “bang,” perhaps from comic books – where the ! appeared in dialogue bubbles to represent a gun being fired – although the nickname probably emerged from letterpress printing. “
So in the puzzle, at several places the across answer ended in an exclamation point which became the word “bang” (shmooshed into one square: a “rebus”) for the down answer. E.g., at 21A the answer was CHIPS AHOY!, and at 9D the ! becomes the end square for SHE[BANG].
I had forgotten how sexy Ricky Martin is.
The best one was at 61A: “Slogan in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.” The answer was JEB! This clip is hysterical.
The down answer for Jeb’s exclamation point was “Rocks out to heavy metal, say” and the answer was HEAD[BANG]S.
ONE TWO THREE FOUR! Turn it up!
Alright, Nance — we’ll let you close out this segment.
ANNE Hathaway was in the puzzle (“Oscar winning Hathaway”), and someone noted she was right next to BARD (“Teller of tales”). Since Anne Hathaway was also the name of Shakespeare’s wife, that’s a nice little touch.
Here’s a shot of Anne Phil took on their vacation together a while back.
Another potential combo featured ALOUETTE, clued by “Classic children’s song about a lark.” Did you know the song was about plucking the feathers from a lark? In the puzzle, it crossed Willa Cather’s book: O PIONEERS!, which was a theme answer because of the (!) bang at the end. And someone noted Cather also wrote a book called “Song of the Lark.” Whoa — it’s freaking me out.
Remember when Trump was just starting out his political career? Before we knew nothing he did or said could hurt him, I thought he was finished when he dissed John McCain. And, for sure, the Access Hollywood tape. But the first time I thought he did himself in was when he so crassly made fun of a disabled reporter. Remember that? He impersonated the deformities. We all saw it, but months later I heard Trump simply deny that he ever did it. “C’mon,” he said. “You know I could never do something like that.”
Anyway, that all came back to me when I read about a book that’s coming out by his nephew, Fred C. Trump III, who is 61. Here’s how the Times tells it:
Fred Trump’s son was born with a rare medical condition that led to developmental and intellectual disabilities. After Trump was elected, Fred Trump wanted to use his connection to the White House for good. With the help of others, he was able to convene a group of advocates for a meeting with his uncle. The president “seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members,” he writes.
After the meeting, his uncle pulled him aside and said, “maybe those kinds of people should just die,” given “the shape they’re in, all the expenses.”
The remark wasn’t a one-off, according to Fred Trump. A couple of years later, when he called his uncle for help because the medical fund that paid for his son’s care was running out of money, Fred Trump claims his uncle said: “I don’t know. He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Donald say that,” he writes. “It wasn’t far off from what he’d said that day in the Oval Office after our meeting with the advocates. Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son.”
Brian Drury of the Dull Men’s Club has called for help from the membership. Here’s his post:
My neighbour has installed a ‘thing’ to the outside of his building and I wondered what it might be so have googled it with no success so far. Yes, I could and would simply ask him as we are good friends but I very rarely see him and thought it would be easy to determine what It is myself. Having failed so far I thought maybe I know a bunch of people who always rise to this sort of challenge so here it is.
There have been 668 comments so far. [How could anyone not love this club??] Terry Horrocks says: “It’s a plastic box with a wire sticking out of it. Hope this helps.” A discussion then ensued as to whether the wire was running out of it or into it and about the color of the box: white, antique white, ivory, or grey. Remy Downer wants to know if we can really call it a “box,” since it has a rounded bottom.
Richard Boaler said: “It’s a nosy neighbour deterrent. He’s obviously not switched it on yet.”
A consensus was emerging that it’s a thermostat of some sort, but James Thomas said it was a toilet. And Ed Baldwin was fairly certain it’s a starling repellant.
I could continue, but, . . . seriously.
Let’s close with a few more nudie suits.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 