Notice anything special about the grid in yesterday’s puzzle?
Step a bit back from it – that’s a dreidel in the center. See it? And since the song says they are made out of clay, all of the letters within the dreidel above are C, L, A, or Y.
Wanna play? Just go to 52D and SPIN it. What are you playing for? That’s at 59D: GELT. Hope you don’t mind if our OWLS watch you play — they are at 54D, aptly clued as “symbols of wisdom.”
If you’re wondering how dreidel is played, each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hei), ש (shin).
Everybody starts with an equal amount of pennies (or whatever you want to use), usually ten or fifteen. Each player kicks in a penny to start and does so again later whenever the pot is reduced to one or zero pennies. The players take turns spinning and see what letter lands face up. If it’s a nun, you do nothing — it’s like you skipped your turn. If it’s a shin, you have to kick in another penny. That’s a f*cking disaster in the world of dreidel. If it’s a gimel, you win the pot!! Hooray! If it’s a hei you win half the pot. When/if you have lost all of your pennies, you’re out. The last one alive wins.
Back to the puzzle, you can see in the upper portion of the grid that the circled squares reflect a spin: Nun is at 9D (NONE); Shin is at 5D (PUT IN); Gimel is at 3D (ALL); and Hei is at 11D (HALF).
This gem of a puzzle, appropriately run during Chanukah, was constructed by Seth Bisen-Hirsh and Jeff Chen. Seth’s parents are very good friends of Chatterheads Nancy and Eric, and Jeff is a giant in Crossworld.
Unable to get into any good schools, Seth had to settle for earning two undergrad degrees at MIT (computer science and music), and his masters in music technology at NYU. In addition to brilliant XW construction, he is busy as an author, performer, composer/lyricist, and producer. Needless to say, Seth is a terrible disappointment to his parents since he is not a doctor.
In addition to the neat dreidel theme, the puzzle had other features worth noting: A neat pervasive “O” presence, with OHARE, OVINE, OH GOD, ONO, and OHO. At 33D for “What you might call a tipsy friend,” the answer was CAB. There’s a nice PSA, no?
And Seth and Jeff invited such a nice group of visitors to their grid: ELLEN DeGeneres, Sandra DEE, Chris NOLAN, Yoko (as noted above), BEA Arthur, and the two lovelies, ALICIA KEYES, and TERI Hatcher. Here are Alicia and Teri, with the latter looking especially sexy.
Last word on the puzzle. Re: OH GOD and PUT IN. Commenter Anony Mous noted: The lord’s name is no joke for observant Jews, who won’t even write the word God (it’s usually rendered G-d in print). I’m not suggesting the puzzle never have “god” as an answer, but in a Jewish-themed puzzle it’s tone deaf at best. Same with PUTIN, whose scapegoating of “ethnic Jews” as an intentional tool of tyranny hearkens back to a troubled history and just feels insulting in a puzzle ostensibly celebrating a Jewish festival. Couple this with the swastika debacle two years ago, where [Will] Shortz doubled down on “it’s just a pinwheel!” and it really sours me on him as both an editor and a person. Most of us manage to avoid casual antisemitism every day without nearly as much effort as the puzzle seems to require on Chanukah.
OMG, Mous — how idiotic can you be? To ascribe what you are ascribing to Will Shortz, Seth, and Jeff is ridiculous. Sometimes a banana is just a banana, and not an anti-Semitic banana.
This poem appeared in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Ron Padgett and is called:
A Small Glass of Orange Juice
on a white tablecloth
with light blue legs below
in a hotel restaurant
in a small town in Poland
in 1936
is being contemplated
by a man
whose homburg
is tilted
at an angle
parallel to that
of the picture
on the wall
behind him,
a mountain scene
with forest below
in which a lone deer
has turned to look at us.
Oopsies.
Heather Pimble of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes: While contemplating the new year I realised my birthday can be written as a palindrome this year – 52211225.
It generated an explosion of confusion.
Ed Sylvester: How is 52211225 a date?
Debbie Matthews: Were you born in 1225??
David Mortimer: Although 52211225 is certainly palindromic I’m not convinced it’s actually your date of birth. I mean I could take any number, today’s date 010125 and make it palindromic by prefixing/suffixing appropriate digits.
52101010125 or 01012521010
And whilst they’re the same backwards or forwards I don’t think either of them could be taken to mean the same as 010125.
Phil Drummond: Is “11th November” a verb now?
Heather, who started it all, finally popped back in with: Sorry I’ve stimulated so many of your minds. I was born in (19)52 on the 21st December and it’s now (20)25.
[I think I see it now, but my brain hurts.]
My beautiful cousin Dayle (twin of Dianne) with hubby Mike, hosted Linda, me, and Welly for brunch today. Their son Dan with his lovely bride Marina and their two gorgeous boys were visiting from Florida. As a bonus, Dianne and hubby Dick were there too. I hadn’t seen Dan since his bar mitzvah. He’s, like, a real person now and absolutely wonderful. Very funny and warm. To say he reminded me a bit of my cousin Steve, alav hashalom, is pretty much about the highest praise I could give anyone, and he did.
I mentioned how we recently attended Harold’s bris via Zoom but that the mohel was there in person. And then I noted that doctor-friend Larry said he could see a future in which circumcisions are performed remotely, via robotics. (In fact, for my prostate surgery, the surgeon was not in the room.) I said it would open up some neat possibilities, like having a mohel in Jerusalem perform a bris in NY. Dan loved the concept, and noted it would allow for all sorts of circumnavigation.
Last, a special shout-out to very generous hosts Pam and Roy for this year’s New Year’s Day party in Wilmington DE. And for stuffing Linda and me with many take-home eats, not a crumb from which went unenjoyed. Yum!
Happy New Year, Chatterheads! Our photographer Phil, who’s unusually prescient for someone who drinks so much, tells us we’re in for quite a ride. See you tomorrow — thanks for popping by.
The Wellington Files 