Because of some problems in transmission, there were several errors in yesterday’s account of a symposium held by the Women’s Civic Forum of Rye on the role played by slovenliness in cases of domestic violence. The moderator of the symposium, Laura Murtaugh, is not “a divorced mother of eight.” Mrs. Murtaugh, the president of the board of directors of the Women’s Civic Forum, is married to Ralph W. Murtaugh, Jr., an attorney who practices in Manhattan. The phrase “he was raised with the hogs and he lived like a hog” was read by Mrs. Murtaugh from the trial testimony of an Ohio woman whose defense against a charge of assault was based on her husband’s alleged slovenliness. It did not refer to Mrs. Murtaugh’s own husband. Mr. Murtaugh was raised in New York.
That paragraph is from a humorous article called “Corrections,” reprised in the current New Yorker. It’s by Calvin Trillin, one of my favorite people in the world, out of, like, everybody, ever. It originally appeared in the Feb. 5, 1990 issue. Trillin is still among us, at 88, kinehora.
Here’s another “correction” from that article:
In Sunday’s edition, the account of a wedding that took place the previous day at St. John’s Church in Rye was incorrect in a number of respects. Jane Murtaugh was misidentified in two mentions. She was neither the mother of the bride nor the father of the bride. She was the bride. It was she who was wearing a white silk gown trimmed in tulle. The minister was wearing conventional ministerial robes. Miss Murtaugh should not have been identified on second mention as Mrs. Perkins, since she will retain her name and since Mr. Perkins was not in fact the groom. The number of bridesmaids was incorrectly reported. There were eight bridesmaids, not thirty-eight. Their dresses were blue, not glued. The bridegroom’s name is not Franklin Marshall. His name is Emory Barnswell, and he graduated from Franklin and Marshall College. Mr. Barnswell never attended Emory University, which in any case does not offer a degree in furniture stripping.
I can’t get over this. At 26D in the puzzle today, the clue was “Pained cries” and the answer was OYS. So Jared, who is apparently a moron, comments:
Who on Earth says “OY” when they’re in pain? The only proper usage of “OY” is to get someone’s attention (mainly in the UK or Australia), and in “oy vey.”
What?
Anony Mouse replied on behalf of many of us with: “What do you think OY VEY means?”
Some of you may recall I spent a little time honoring the passing of Joe Dipinto, a much-loved member of the commentariat on Rex’s blog. Today, a link was provided to us for his obituary. Here is some of it, with that sweet photo again:
A high honors student, Joe received at graduation an unprecedented four scholarships to different high schools, the only student to do so, and (along with his brother) enrolled at Regis High School, a Jesuit school in Manhattan that provides a four-year tuition-free education for all students who are admitted. While at Regis Joe sang in the glee club and wrote for the school paper, and was active in dramatics, notably appearing as Sancho Panza in the musical “Man of La Mancha” to rave reviews in his senior year. The summer after his graduation he composed the score for a musical version of “The Little Prince,” co-written, directed and performed by classmates and friends from Regis and other schools.
Joe then attended New York University, graduating with a B.A. in music. While there he continued his interest in acting as well, appearing in campus productions including “The Comedy of Errors.” He also wrote all the band arrangements for the senior year musical production “Anything Goes.”
After graduation, he worked a variety of jobs. He was manager of the jazz record department at Sam Goody Records at Rockefeller Center, which enabled him to begin to amass his large collection of jazz LP’s. Next, he was hired as a solfeggist at ASCAP (American Society for Composers and Publishers), a job which required him to transcribe melodies he heard on radio or TV broadcasts so they could be identified and proper royalties could be paid to the composers. From there he moved into the area of music licensing and publishing. At one point, through his expertise, he single-handedly saved some early Beatles songs which had not been properly copyrighted from falling into public domain in the US. When his company packed up their NY offices to move to California, Joe opted not to relocate for his job and retired, staying in his hometown.
It should be obvious from reading this that Joe was very smart. He was also very sweet, kind, friendly, conscientious, funny, witty and likable – in other words, a truly great person you would want to hang out with. He will be remembered very fondly by the many friends he made. He is survived by myself, his twin brother John, who could not have asked for a better brother. We shared an enviable amount of wonderful times together through the years, and I will love him and miss him always.
Below Joe’s obit, there was room for friends to post comments. The following was posted by Nancy — another venerable member of the commentariat.
“I’m sorry to say that I got to know Joe only virtually — through a crossword puzzle blog that we’ve both been contributors to for quite a long time. But the personalities of the various people in the commentariat tend to shine through over the years, and no one’s shone through more than Joe’s.
“His posts were SO funny. I came to very much look forward to them. His humor could be playful or sardonic or irreverent , but it was always exceptionally good-natured and it always contained the element of surprise. He brought a flair all his own to the blog.
“Joe and I originally bonded over a deliberately silly group writing project entitled ‘The Green Paint Mystery.’ The title, I’m pretty sure, was Joe’s. (For all of you non-crossword-puzzle-types, ‘green paint’ is an inside joke in the puzzle world. It’s where two words are plopped together by the puzzle creator that don’t really belong together. So that while ‘green tea’ is an actual phrase and ‘wet paint’ is an actual phrase, ‘green paint’ isn’t, and thus doesn’t make for an appropriate crossword answer.)
It was Joe’s idea to call our opus — penned in alternating passages by various self-selected members of the blog — ‘The Green Paint Mystery.’ But the funniest thing Joe did was something I never noticed until several years later. I had gone one day — I don’t remember why — to take a look at Joe’s blog profile — the place where people introduce themselves and like to list their favorite books, films, music, etc. Under ‘Favorite Books,’ Joe, with a perfectly straight face, had written the title of only one book. It was ‘The Green Paint Mystery.’
“I will greatly miss Joe’s humor and his irrepressible good nature.”
This poem is called “One Woman.” It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac and is by Ron Carlson.
Oh, the old love song again and again
devotion and desire without end,
a woman half dressed somewhere and
being admired, or dressed and being admired.
These men go off alone into their rooms
and write it down: she was this and she was that.
Every man says she’s the woman above all,
on a pedestal, though no one says pedestal,
that would be crazy,
and there’s a thousand of these poems,
and by that I mean a million declarations
of this singular love of this one of a kind woman,
so rare, an absolute phenomenon which
many times rivals the moon or the oceans,
or the wind in the trees or night or any of the
furniture of night or day.
You see what I mean:
big unknowable things.
What are we to make of it? This:
it’s true. Each man is telling the truth.
Each woman puts all the other women second.
It’s the way. The strap of her gown off her shoulder,
and the paradox prevails. These poems are
all true. Each woman stands alone
in the doorway or on the pedestal
in the perfect light.
Welly and I agree! Linda — and Wilma — that one’s for you.
On this date 125 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock was born. Remember The Birds, with Tippi Hedren? It was Hedren’s first role. She was a model when Hitchcock saw her and signed her for the role because she was gorgeous.
Get this: An HBO/BBC TV film, The Girl (2012), depicted Hedren’s experiences on the set of The Birds. She said that Hitchcock was obsessed with her and sexually harassed her. He isolated her from the rest of the crew, had her followed, whispered obscenities to her, had her handwriting analyzed and had a ramp built from his private office directly into her trailer. Diane Baker, her co-star in Marnie, said: “Nothing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was.”
While filming the attack scene in the attic — which took a week to film — she was placed in a caged room while two men wearing elbow-length protective gloves threw live birds at her. Toward the end of the week, to stop the birds from flying away from her too soon, one leg of each bird was attached by nylon thread to elastic bands sewn inside her clothes. She broke down after a bird cut her lower eyelid, and filming was halted on doctor’s orders.
Sheesh.
At 39D today, the “furry swimmer” was an OTTER. Some commenters shared neat otter facts. They are monogamous and because they sleep on their backs, an otter couple holds hands while they sleep to keep from floating away from each other. Awwwww. Also, they use rocks on their tummies as tools to crack shellfish, and save them for later use. Yup — once you get hold of that perfect rock, you don’t want to lose it.
I’m going to give commenter Andrew the last word today. It’s his birthday (70) and he couldn’t sleep. He said he gets birthday insomnia “even though my family is dead and the only presents I’ll get are things I forgot I ordered on Amazon.”
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 