Fans of UMich will be keeping an eye on the LA Chargers of the NFL this year to see how coach Jim Harbaugh fares on his return to pro ball after leading the ‘Rines to the NCAA title last season. He was bursting with pride yesterday in this statement:
“You get in those situations, and it’s a test of wills. I was proud of each of the guys who were there. That’s a win. You feel good about yourself. You were challenged. It was a test of will, and you pull it down, or pull it in.”
Competitive sports has its ups and downs, except for two hours yesterday. What Coach Harbaugh was talking about were the eleven men and two women who were trapped in an elevator for two hours. In Dallas. Without air conditioning. Harbaugh praised QB Justin Herbert for staying cool and taking a leadership role during the crisis.
They were finally rescued by Dallas Fire-Rescue, one by one, pulled out through a ceiling panel, drenched in sweat. One of the women trapped with the eleven young athletic men, pictured below, was quick to assure her family that she was fine.
If you’re in Iceland, don’t waste your time shopping for cucumbers. According to a story in the NYT today, the whole country is out of cucumbers. It’s the fault of Logan Moffitt, a TikTok “influencer” known as “Cucumber Guy.” He posts videos on preparing cucumber salads and they’ve gone viral with devastating effect in Iceland, where the entire nation’s population is around 380,000. Since the country is relatively isolated (the name Iceland has nothing to do with “ice.” It’s from “island.”), it’s expensive to import foods when there are shortages. Nevertheless, an emergency cucumber shipment was rushed in from the Netherlands which helped a little. They’re a hardy breed, the Icelanders: they’ll live. Here in Jersey, I just picked up six adorable little ones (a pound) for just $2. God bless America.
Today’s puzzle featured an “echo” theme. Clues repeated themselves and the answers were wacky puns. The best was “Pooh-pooh?” as the clue for THIS BEARS REPEATING. Get it? And “11?” was the clue for ONE AFTER ANOTHER.
For a non-theme clue at 14A: “City with a cowboy hat-wearing replica of the Eiffel Tower,” the answer was PARIS, TEXAS. In 1993, a 65-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower was erected southeast of the city square. In 1998, when Paris, Tennessee put up their 60-foot version, the Texas folks responded by putting a giant red cowboy hat on top of theirs. Hrrrrrrumph!
Paris, TX, however, is marked by some horrific history. This is from Wikipedia:
In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, several lynchings were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds as public spectacles, with crowds of white spectators cheering as the African-American victims were tortured and murdered. A Black teenager named Henry Smith was lynched in 1893. His murder was the first lynching in US history that was captured in photographs sold as postcards and other trinkets commemorating the killing. Journalist Ida B. Wells said of the incident “Never in the history of civilization has any Christian people stooped to such shocking brutality and indescribable barbarism as that which characterized the people of Paris, Texas.”
Well, I can certainly see why the GOP would want to keep that stuff out of the history books. Way too gruesome.
I’ve had a chance to review Puzzle #4 from yesterday’s tournament. All of the puzzles, with solutions, were sent to us. #4 was the one that flummoxed me. It’s by Hoang-Kim Vu, and it’s pure genius, IMO.
I’m going to try to explain its brilliance as best I can. (Bare with me, as one nudist said to the other.) First the central across answers made it so the middle column reading down turned out to be FUN HOUSE MIRROR. Next all of the down clues on the left side of the mirror had to be read by reducing a double letter to a single letter, e.g., common saloon job had to be read as common salon job (because the answer was HIGHLIGHTS). Then, on the right side of the mirror, you had to do the opposite — a single letter in the clue had to be doubled. So Go on the road had to be read as Goo on the road (because the answer was TAR). As a final touch of elegance/genius, it was the same letter that was altered up or down, in terms of the grid’s symmetry. So if an “ee” was reduced to “e” on the left side of the mirror, it was an “e” that was added at the symmetrical position on the right side. (Wow)
It took me forever (in crossword puzzle time) to see what we had to do to the clues, and I ran out of clock before I could get through it with that knowledge.
I know several OC readers are noobies as far as crosswords go. Puzzle #1 from the tourney was for you. Here it is, give it a try.
Did you know the Ohio State flag is five-sided? Learned that from the puzzle today at 56D. I think that may be dull enough for me to share with the Dull Men’s Club (UK). It’ll be my first post. (I’ve commented there before but have never posted.)
Here’s a song about the Ohio River.
So I posted my first post with for the Dull Men and was quickly asked by Des O’Brien if there was any significance to the 17 stars on the flag (see above). It turns out (as I replied) that 13 are for the original 13 colonies, and four were added because Ohio was the 17th state to join the Union. I’m an expert on the Ohio flag now and don’t even know what NJ’s looks like.
Oy. Enough nonsense for today. Thanks for popping by.
The Wellington Files 