Let’s open with this item by Monique Morgan from today’s Met Diary in the Times.
Dear Diary:
I live near Union Square, and I walk my dog around the Con Edison loading dock in the mornings before work.
At some point, I became friendly with the manager at the plant. If I saw him, I would greet him with a hug, and we would talk for a minute or two.
When I saw him one Friday, we were both so happy that it was Friday that we just started to dance.
It became a habit. Every Friday, around 7:30 a.m., we would dance. Sometimes, he would “do” the music and sometimes I would. Sometimes it would be a short ditty, and sometimes we would get an audience. (He was a much better dancer than me.)
A few years ago, I was walking down the street, and a woman pointed at me.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s you!”
I didn’t know her from Adam, and I’m pretty good with faces. Nonetheless, I said hello.
It turned out that she lived across Third Avenue and had happened to see the Friday dance one morning.
After that, she said, every Friday around 7:30 a.m., she would wait with her cat at her window for the Friday Dance to begin.
I don’t usually make it all the way through the Modern Love column in the Sunday Times Styles section. But today it held me. It’s by Rebecca Collins Jordan. College sweethearts stayed together through grad school and into a happy marriage. They were heteros, although both were bi. [I’m hanging on to the jargon for dear life.] But then the male of the duo gender fluidified into womanhood. The writer of the story started getting buttonholed into “talks” about her situation, with the assumption that it was a disaster. But it wasn’t. Quite the converse. Here’s how it ends (she had been traveling solo):
Questions from strangers, family and friends echoed in my mind on my sleepless overnight flights. I watched a Jane Austen adaptation on the seat-back screen and wept again for the end of simplicity in my love life.
Then I walked through the door to my house and saw Kaci again. All the questions and grief of others fell off me as we embraced. She had cleaned the house and made me tea. We traded smiles and giggles and watched the weekend fade into dusk. This was love — the kind you know in your gut.
I have learned more in these last few years about the joy of love’s unpredictability than about self-shrinking or the bitterness of commitment. I have learned of love’s boundlessness and creativity. I have felt the glee of meeting an even more authentic version of the person I fell in love with. I have learned how not to aspire to be the girl next door and simply to live into myself, how to walk away from places where I am unvalued, how to be blunt, how to welcome my own joy.
This is the kind of love most of us dream of. I would like to keep it, if you don’t mind — and even if you do.
Today’s NYT XW by David Kwong, a professional magician among other pursuits, was absolutely brilliant. Even Rex Parker the curmudgeon gushed (by his standards) and called it “maybe” his favorite Sunday of the year. It’s called “Art Heist.” I’ll try to do it justice.
In ten answers the name of an artist is “stolen,” i.e., removed from the answer. And all that’s left is the letter used for the crossing answer. I know — what? Stick with me, here’s an example. At 71A, the clue was “Common scale range,” so the answer would be FROM ONE TO TEN. But “Monet” is in there – see it? FROM ONE TO TEN. So you remove (steal) Monet, and in its place leave only the letter R from the crossing word (ASHORE). That happens ten times: ten artists are “stolen.” Degas is taken out of BODEGAS. Miro is taken out of STEAM IRON. The two most brilliant are O’keeffe taken out of SMOKE EFFECTS, and Sargent out of BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.
But that’s just the beginning. The ten artists who have been “stolen” appear as solo answers elsewhere in the grid. And (icing on the cake): the ten letters left behind from the crosses spell out (in order) “I WAS FRAMED.”
Seriously. OMG.
That, dear readers, is some goddamn serious-ass wordplay. Bravo David Kwong.
You’ll never guess who popped by for a visit today. At 50A “Role for Jay Silverheels” was, of course, TONTO. George!! — Get our guest some “firewater” — maybe a cold Fiddlehead Ale? Take a load off, Buddy — looks like you’ve been riding a long time: NJ Transit?
“Tonto” means fool in Italian and Spanish. So when the Lone Ranger was translated into Spanish they changed Tonto to Toro. The Italians just said F*ckit and let it ride.
Sh*t!! — Thanks Kwong — I’m going to be singing Silverheels to myself all day now to the tune of Silver Bells. Arrrrrrrgh! Make it stop!!
Sheesh. You’d think if anyone should be sensitive to stuff like this it would be the Director of a University’s multicultural activities. We’re talking about Rachel Dawson at, what?, UMich??!! Aw, man, say it ain’t so, Raich. So the story is Dawson was approached at a conference by two profs from other schools who had heard a Jewish student had issues at Umich. They asked her if the student should go to the DEI office for assistance. And, as comic Mike Birbiglia would put it — what Dawson should have said was . . . . nothing. Instead she said, No, Jewish students are all rich and don’t need help from the administration. Ouch. After an independent investigation was conducted, Dawson was fired. She’s suing on First Amendment grounds. UMich’s defense is, essentially, she was fired for being an idiot.
Owl Chatter is not taking sides in the matter. We’re just going to wait and see how the idiot’s case turns out.
Back to the puzzle, for the artist DALI, Kwong used MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. See him in there? MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. If you find the children’s version a bit tedious, as I do, this one by Stevie Ray Vaughn may be more to your liking.
Turn it up.
I’m trying out a new approach for Wordle. [BTW, my brilliant daughter scored a rare 2 yesterday: ADIEU DROOL. (Took me 5.)] Anyway, my old approach was to start almost always with OCEAN, OPERA or IDEAL, trying to ferret out the vowels. And I tried to score a 3 or at worst a 4, and was miffed with a 5 or, gasp, 6. New approach – I’m just going to use random/fun five-letter words and keep track of either getting it (in 6 or less), or not getting it. Let’s see how that goes.
Remember reading Salinger’s stories several hundred years ago? Crossworld is keeping ESME alive. She popped in again today. Here’s actress Esme Cullen. Lookin’ good, Doll. Fresca? George — a cold one for Esme, please, and see if there are any chips in that cabinet above the stove.
We went to an excellent performance of Handel’s Messiah today, resurrecting (pun intended) a tradition we had let slide in recent years. On the way out, I said to Linda — “So does he die, or what?”
The bass voice stole the show, IMO. He was Edwin Jahmal Davis, from Utica MS, a graduate of Jackson State U and the Manhattan School of Music. Bravo!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 