For the first time I am aware of, I completed a NYTXW yesterday upon which Rex Parker crashed. Yay me. It’s the silly stuff that can get you. For “amount often added” he (insanely) used “tad” instead of TIP. He confirmed tad by entering “ding” for “Online notification sound,” instead of PING. And he couldn’t see that the A in tad was wrong because it was the first letter of “___ Vellani, portrayer of Ms. Marvel on film and TV,” which made sense to him as Aman, but the correct answer was IMAN.
But am I so small that I take pleasure in the failure of others? Of course. Who wouldn’t?
This is Matt Gaetz’s wife Ginger. Go figure.
Her sister Roxanne has called Gaetz a “creep” and said he once tried to set her up with an older friend of his when she was 19. When the allegations came out about Gaetz’s improper relations with underage girls, she said “I saw the character and type of person he is, and when everything came out about him, I honestly, unfortunately, was not surprised.”
The GOP, of course, is seeking to keep the Ethics Committee Report on Gaetz secret. The victim, who was a seventeen-year-old high-schooler at the time, testified before the committee. House speaker Mike Johnson said that publishing the report would be “terrible.” Yeah, terrible for Gaetz. He said he would “strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that’s not the way we do things in the House.”
In fact, the House Ethics Committee did release a report on Rep. William Boner [OMG, was that really his name?] (D-TN) in 1987 for allegations of corruption after he had already resigned.
Back to the puzzle, at 24D the clue was “Unchanged when multiplied by itself, from the Latin for ‘same’ and ‘power.’” Fuhgedaboutit, amirite? It turns out to be IDEMPOTENT. What!!?? Idempotence is the property of certain operations in math and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application. So, e.g., in math the number one is idempotent (if that’s how you use the term) because anything you multiply by one stays the same. If that’s clear to you, that makes one of us.
How’s this for a high-class clue for PRAGUE? “Where Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘La Clemenza di Tito’ debuted.”
Here’s DG — up to his neck in babes. Vu den?
A quote by Georgia O’Keeffe: “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” Happy Birthday GO’K! Born on 11/15 in Wisconsin in 1887. Had no idea she was a cheesehead. Here she is, young.
This poem by Louis Jenkins from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called “Baloney.”
There’s a young couple in the parking lot, kissing.
Not just kissing, they look as though they might eat
each other up, kissing, nibbling, biting, mouths wide
open, play fighting like young dogs, wrapped around
each other like snakes. I remember that, sort of, that
hunger, that passionate intensity. And I get a kind of
nostalgic craving for it, in the way that I get a craving,
occasionally, for the food of my childhood. Baloney
on white bread, for instance: one slice of white bread
with mustard or Miracle Whip or ketchup-not
ketchup, one has to draw the line somewhere-and
one slice of baloney. It had a nice symmetry to it, the
circle of baloney on the rectangle of bread. Then you
folded the bread and baloney in the middle and took
a bite out of the very center of the folded side. When
you unfolded the sandwich you had a hole, a circle in
the center of the bread and baloney frame, a window,
a porthole from which you could get a new view of
the world.
One hundred years ago today the first volume of Marcel Proust’s great work was published. In Search of Lost Time. He was originally going to call it “In Search of Lost Newsweek,” but it turned up. Here’s a trick question: Can you name the publishing company? Nobody can — Proust had to publish it himself — it was turned down by every publishing house to which he submitted it. One chided him for spending 30 pages on turning over in bed before going to sleep. (not kidding)
I took an adult ed class on it when I was living in Bryn Mawr (1976). The teacher was the head of the French Dept. at Bryn Mawr and it was an incredible course. We just covered part of the first volume. I was determined to finish the entire work once the course ended, but didn’t make it very far without my sherpa. I remember it very much affected my own writing at the time. I started writing in long circuitous sentences. Sheldon Schwartz, a kid in my high school class, was so inspired by our French teacher Oscar Rosenthal (who was wonderful and very funny), that he decided he was going to be a French teacher too. He attended Yeshivah University and majored in French and became a French teacher. I wonder if he read Proust in French and, if so, all seven volumes? Probably, right?
“Actress Rooney of ‘Women Talking’” in yesterday’s NYTXW is an amalgam of two football heritages both in name and genetically. Rooney MARA’s mom’s family (Rooney) founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, and her dad’s family (Mara) founded the NY Giants. Like my beautiful bride Linda, Rooney was born in Bedford NY. She’s 39 now and went to college at NYU. Hubby is Joaquin Phoenix. Her older sister Kate is an actress too, also married to an actor. Both have two kids. Here’s RM. (Nice shot, Philly.)
You like my new tattoo? It means “God wills it” in Yiddish.
Naw, I’m just funnin’ with you. As you must already know, it’s Pete Hegseth’s tattoo. You gotta hand it to Trump — he never lets you down. These appointments are a dream come true for a blog devoted to nonsense. It’s a given that the appointees will all be utterly unqualified for their positions– that’s not even an issue. But Hegseth is both a White Nationalist and a sexual predator. Fantastic! Who better to head the Defense Dept.?
The cleverest clue today was “Phrase on ID tags.” The answer was FAMOUS POTATOES. What? Well, you see – ID is Idaho, and tags are license plates. It says “Famous Potatoes” on Idaho license plates. It hit a nerve for a commenter from Lewiston, ID. The potatoes are produced in the southern part of the state and Lewiston is up north and he resents driving around advertising the product on his plates. Hrrrrrrumph!
The hardest clue, IMO was “Prime Minister of Ireland.” How the f*ck should I know?? — Winston Churchill? Someone named Guinness? — Alec Guinness? Alec Baldwin? James Joyce?? Joyce Kilmer??
Well, it turns out they weren’t looking for the name of the Prime Minister. There is a name for the office of PM and it’s TAOISEACH. It means “chief” or “leader,” and the Irish Constitution of 1937 adopted the term for the office of the Prime Minister.
Another bruiser was “Ballerina who popularized ‘The Nutcracker.’” The answer was TALLCHIEF. Ever hear of Maria Tallchief? According to Wikipedia, she was America’s first major prima ballerina and the first Osage Tribe member to hold the rank. Together with choreographer George Balanchine, she is widely considered to have revolutionized ballet.
My plan was to end tonight with a New Yorker cartoon to lighten the mood. But I sifted through all of the cartoons from the last four issues and could find nothing even remotely funny. Arggggggh.
Maybe tomorrow we’ll spend some time with the Dull Men for some amusement.
Thanks for popping by.
The Wellington Files 