We attended the Kacey Musgraves concert Monday night at the Prudential Center in Newark with, what?, 15,000 screaming fans, and came away loving her. It takes a certain gift to make a space that crazy feel intimate. Her voice is beautiful, she’s very pretty, and her love for her fans seems sincere. She cites John Prine as her most significant influence.
If you watch Saturday Night Live, as I do not, you may have seen her perform. She’s been on several times. On Oct 2, 2021, she became the first musical act ever to perform nude on SNL. Yikes! Really?
How great is her voice? Well, she won a national yodeling contest when she was only 13!
We grabbed the free tix thinking, how bad could she be if she can fill that size arena? Good move.
Owl Chatter readers may recall we spent some time on the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which completed its first season last May with six teams. Minny beat Boston for the championship. It was a little odd for a league not to have names or logos for the teams. They said they wanted to give the fans a say in the selection. They came up with the following to start using in Season 2: Boston Fleet; Minnesota Frost; Montreal Victoire; New York Sirens; Ottawa Charge, and Toronto Sceptres.
And here are the logos:
We’ll have to try to get to a Sirens game next season. Last year they played some games on Long Island, in the same stadium the Islanders use, and some in Bridgeport CT. If they play Minny, we’ll get to see pretty Claire Thompson, a defensewoman. Don’t let the smile fool you — she’ll knock out your teeth without the slightest hesitation.
Did you watch the debate? Our favorite part by far was learning that in Springfield OH Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. Will these depraved hoodlums stop at nothing to destroy our way of life?
After the debate, the world’s most famous childless cat lady, Taylor Swift, in a post accompanied by a photo of her with her cat Benjamin Buttons, endorsed KH. Shortly after that photo was taken, Benjamin Buttons was eaten by a Haitian immigrant. D’oh! Serves you right, Swift.
I loved yesterday’s puzzle. The clue for 21A was “Straightforward and unadorned, as literary prose,” and the answer was HEMINGWAYESQUE. The other two theme answers were EXECUTIVE BOARD and JFK PLAZA. Then, the clue for the “revealer” was “Group whose members are represented completely (with no repeats)” in those long answers: CONSONANTS. So what’s going on? If you take the vowels away from those three long answers, you are left with all 21 consonants in the alphabet, with each appearing only once. I know: Wow. Brilliant wordplay, IMO.
And with a nod to yesterday’s debate, KAMALA appeared smack in the middle of the grid at 35A.
Hey, DIANE Sawyer was in today’s puzzle. Hi DS! Lookin’ good, girl. She’s 78! Born in Kentucky and made her way to Wellesley College. Did you know she was married to Mike Nichols?
Son Volt shared this wrenching Husker Du song called DIANE about a rape/murder victim the songwriter Grant Hart knew. It’s controversial because it’s taken from the killer’s perspective. [BTW, Husker Du was a Minnesota band and Bob Mould of the band was tickled to learn VP candidate Tim Walz is a fan.]
When I read today’s poem in The Writer’s Almanac, I liked it. It seemed like poems by Owl Chatter’s poet laureate, Ted Kooser. Then I glanced up to see who wrote it. It’s by Ted Kooser, duh. It’s called “A Monday In May.”
It rained all weekend,
but today the peaked roofs
are as dusty and warm
as the backs of old donkeys
tied in the sun.
So much alike are our houses,
our lives. Under every eave—
leaf, cobweb, and feather;
and for each front yard
one sentimental maple,
who after a shower has passed,
weeps into her shadow
for hours.
In July of 1944, Sgt. Edward Kranepool, Jr., of the U.S. Army, lost his life in battle in Saint-Lô, France, during World War II. Four months later, his son, Ed Kranepool, III, was born in the Bronx. At age three, he was swinging a toy bat. Then he played ball in local playgrounds and sandlots. By the time he entered James Monroe High School, he stood 6-foot-3. Monroe was the same school Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg attended. Kranepool broke Greenberg’s single-season home run record there.
Around the time of his graduation in 1962, the Mets were about halfway through their dreadful (40-120) first season. Kranepool attended a tryout, popped nine shots into the stands, and signed on for an $80,000 bonus. He was a Met until he retired in 1979, and still holds the record for most games played as a Met: 1,853. He hit a home run in the 1969 World Series in which the Mets upset Baltimore in five games. He was an all-star in 1965.
In 2017, with both kidneys failing, he auctioned his 1969 Mets world championship ring for $62,475 to defray medical expenses. [Jeez Louise Mets — you couldn’t shell out?] After undergoing transplant surgery nearly two years later, he learned his donor was a Mets fan. A few months after the surgery, he helped the Mets celebrate the 50th anniversary of their World Series victory.
“Steady Eddie” died on Sunday at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 79. He is survived by countless thousands of Mets fans; his wife, Monica; his daughter, Jamie; his sons, Keith and Darren; and seven grandchildren, die-hard Mets fans, I would bet, one and all.
Rest in peace, Eddie.
Things got a little testy in Crossworld today. The clue at 35D was # # # and the answer was SHARPS. Commenter Chris started it. “Here to be an insufferable pedant and say that these # # # are not sharps, these ♯ ♯ ♯ are sharps. There’s unicode for them and everything!” Anony Mouse chipped in: Um actually they’re called octothorps.
But it was Gary who blew things up with:
“Yes Chris. You are being an insufferable pedant. It’s a crossword puzzle and this # is a clue, not a definition. What button on your keyboard do you push to create a sharp in every musical notation software? The # are sharps … and flats are b. You can make the leap to accepting this unwashed-masses approach to music by having a cocktail. And more importantly, nobody on Earth cares except other college-trained musicians and most of them are working in other industries because knowing this stuff doesn’t pay the bills. This is one of my hot button issues… music is an art form and it thrives when people aren’t trying to force it into a box.”
Hrummmmmmph! [I’m still trying to digest the octothorps.]
This should help — Here are some headlines from The Onion’s political coverage:
Trump Avoids Hard Questions By Pretending He’s Shot In The Ear Again
Trump Tries To Rattle Harris By Turning Eyelids Inside Out
Harris Struggling To Button Pantsuit After Month of Hanging Out With Tim Walz
Oy. Enough nonsense. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 