From tomorrow’s Met Diary, by Joe Giordano:
Dear Diary:
A buddy from my life drawing class brought me a small jar of fig marmalade made from the bountiful fig tree in his yard. At the end of class I placed the jar in my portfolio and headed to the Museum of Modern Art for back-to-back screenings of the first two Godfather films.
The person checking bags at the entrance asked me what was in the jar.
Figs, I said.
After checking at the desk, he told me that I couldn’t bring the jar inside and that they couldn’t hold it for me.
“It was a gift,” I pleaded. “I can’t throw it away.”
As I stood there trying to figure out what to do, a man behind me in the line spoke up. “You have to find a place to hide it and pick it up later,” he said.
I went outside. Looking across the street, I saw several large planters holding good-sized bushes in front of a hotel entrance. I chose one that was away from any traffic. While pretending to make a call, I placed the jar well out of sight behind the bush.
When the movies were over hours later, I returned to find the jar untouched. I picked it up and headed home.
That story reminded me of the time I stayed in the city after class to attend a lecture at a synagogue in the evening. I treated myself to dinner at Dallas BBQ near Hunter, ordering the pulled-pork burger with cole slaw, a baked potato, and a beer. I only ate half of it and asked the waiter to box up what I didn’t finish, and I placed the box in my backpack.
As I approached the synagogue, I noticed that guards were inspecting bags on the way in. I envisioned the following scene.
Guard: Good evening, Sir. Please open your backpack.
Me: Sure, and good evening to you too.
Guard: What’s in that box?
Me: Half of a pulled-pork burger. It was pretty big and I couldn’t finish it.
Guard: Pork is not kosher, sir.
Me: Yes, I know. My parents kept a kosher home when I was young, but my wife and I don’t. Many Jews don’t keep kosher.
Guard: I am aware of that, but this is a synagogue. Would it have killed you to order the brisket burger?
Me: Sometimes the brisket is a little leathery. I didn’t want to take the chance.
Guard: So you bring pork to a synagogue?
Me: Well, that’s true, but you know what Jews believe about not wasting food. It’s sorta the Eleventh Commandment.
Guard: Of course. Okay, go in, but keep it in your bag, and if anyone asks, I wasn’t the guard who let you in.
Me: Thanks! Will do!
As Owl Chatter readers know, I have a baseball autograph collection that I am proud of, and some baseball cards. My brother, alav hashalom, collected Israeli stamps. He was born in 1937, so he started when Israel first came into existence in 1948, and had some rare and valuable stamps. I don’t collect stamps. But I love how some of them look, or whom they honor, so I buy a sheet or two from time to time just to stick in my desk drawer. A nice one honoring RBG was issued this year, and Yogi. I checked the website yesterday and was very pleased to see this nice stamp design, honoring healthcare professionals, including RNs like my Caitlin.
They also had this neat one for Alex Trebek:
In his comments on the puzzle today, for some reason I can’t divine, commenter Son Volt shared this song (by the band Son Volt!) with us, and it’s so pretty I’m shamelessly stealing it for OC.
At 24A, the clue was “Place for a mind or a ball,” and the answer was GUTTER. It could also have been clued with “Louis Farrakhan adjective for the Jewish religion.” Remember him? LF is still alive at 91, but, thankfully, seems to have stayed out of the news for some time. He has repeatedly claimed he never referred to Judaism as a gutter religion. Yeah, whatever.
Hey Jude (OC math dept) — the puzzle had two serious math clues. First, at 6D, “sin/cos” was TAN, for tangent. All gibberish to me. And, even better, at 41A, the clue was “Like i, say.” I didn’t even realize it was a math clue — that’s how far gone I am. The answer was NONREAL, and it was explained that i is a symbol for an imaginary (i.e., unreal) number representing the square root of -1.
One commenter noted: Somewhat ironically, REAL numbers are no more or less imaginary than any other numbers.
Ouch, my brain is starting to hurt. I’m just going to tiptoe away from this, throw in a sexy math teacher and a separator bar, and move on.
Having a rough day? Maybe you took a ride on the STRUGGLE BUS. That expression was new to me. The clue for it at 10D was “Something the floundering are said to be on.” But you can take it, right? At 14A the clue was “Give me your worst!,” and the answer was I CAN TAKE IT. Sure you can!
At 54A, the clue was “Very short story?” and the answer was CRAWL SPACE. (Get it?) And at 47A, “Accomplish with precision” was DOTOAT. What? DOT OAT? No, silly — it’s DO TO A T.
Two great sports figures visited the grid: Remember Ed “Too Tall” Jones? Best nickname ever. His clue was “Moniker for 6’9″ N.F.L. star Ed Jones.” And ICHIRO, clued with “Mononymous baseball star who played 28 seasons professionally.” That includes his time in Japan, of course.
I was watching a game idly one day, having just flipped on the TV randomly. There was a runner or two on base and the batter laced a single to right. Well, you know baseball — suddenly, from nothing happening, everything was happening — runners running, fielders racing into position, the pitcher running to back up somewhere. And then, like a missile, the ball came tearing in on a low line straight from right field into the third baseman’s mitt. It was from Ichiro out in right. The man had an unbelievable arm.
Here’s his pretty wife Yumiko:
Speaking of mononyms, Anony Mouse shared this with us today:
One fun fact about Pelé is that his mononym is not a component of his legal name. He was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Per Wikipedia:
“In his autobiography released in 2006, Pelé stated he had no idea what the name means, nor did his old friends, and the word has no meaning in Portuguese.”
BTW, someone who is monogamonymous only sleeps with people who have one name.
The clue at 48D was “Creatures in God’s third plague in Exodus,” and the answer was GNATS. But Commenter BMA tells us that answer is gnot correct! As he or she put it:
Having sat through (and sometimes even enjoyed) dozens of Passover Seders, I know that the third plague was LICE. So many times, I have spilled a drop of wine for “kinim”—the Hebrew word for LICE. There are no GNATS among any of the ten plagues. That basic and so readily verifiable error totally ruined the puzzle for me.
[Yikes — chillax BMA — it’s just a puzzle.]
I posted the following:
In the spirit of Ogden Nash:
Lice
Aren’t nice.
Wow. It just occurred to me that would be a great idea for a postage stamp design: The ten plagues, to be issued around Passover. The math works out perfectly for a 20-stamp sheet. I’m going to suggest it to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee. (Info on how to do it is on the USPS website.)
This poem is called “Greenwich.” It’s by Kirsten Dierking and was in The Writer’s Almanac today.
At the naval museum I look at Nelson’s uniform, the one
he was wearing the day he was killed, and the bullet’s damage
to the blue coat is surprisingly slight.
Just before he died he said thank God I have done my duty.
He must have been a little afraid of not being able to do
the heroic work required of him.
It’s a lovely day in late March, the sun and daffodils are out.
We walk to the observatory, straddle the prime meridian,
try to feel our blood flowing back and forth between hemispheres.
There’s a lot of laughter, young people clowning around,
adults striking silly poses for photographs. And why not?
One day, won’t we all have to be brave?
On this date 35 years ago (1989), the Berlin Wall came down. Six weeks later, on Xmas morning, Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance in Berlin of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with the words “Ode to Joy” changed to “Ode to Freedom.” His orchestra and choir were made up of citizens from East and West Germany, France, the Soviet Union, England, and the U.S. It was the first Christmas in decades that East and West Berliners could cross freely between the sides of the city. East Berliners enjoyed sausages from street vendors in West Berlin.
Stacey Elverstone, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asks:
How many men in here write in capitals and why? Was talking to the ex husband about it as he does, the post man and delivery drivers (I do know they r male lol) our 5 yr is learning to read and gets confused with capitals and cant always work out Dad’s writing 
Never seen women do it, unless u wanna prove me wrong lol
Most of the comments were from men who said they do write in all caps because their handwriting is so bad only caps can be understood.
John Castleford asked: SHOULD IT NOT BE “UPPER CASE”? Capitals are cities. Incidentally, uppercase and lowercase originally referred to the location in the printer’s case said letters were kept.
[Wow. Neat.]
Shaun Gisbey: When I’m working, I cut out capitals from newspapers and magazines and stick them on a card. Sometimes I enclose a finger too. Hope this helps.
Zita Stirbys: I suppose your work is writing threats? Or ransom notes?
Shaun: Damn! I thought I’d covered my tracks better.
Here’s Shaun: Cheers!
I added the following: I write everything upside down. Unless I’m in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s just easier.
More than enough nonsense for today. See you tomorrow, Chatterheads. Thanks for stopping by.
The Wellington Files 