Hi everybody! Ready to start dipping your toesies into a whole big bucket of nonsense today? That’s from a good clue/answer in today’s puzzle: At 41A the clue was “Temperature gauges, sometimes,” and the answer was TOES.
But the most wonderful item in the grid today was a pretty famous work/concept of Rene Magritte’s that was new to me. The clue/answer at 9D only begins it. The clue was “English translation of a paradoxical line in a Magritte painting,” and the answer was THIS IS NOT A PIPE.
What happened was in 1929 Magritte painted a painting called “The Treachery of Images” which was a painting of a pipe. And under it he wrote “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” which means, of course, this is not a pipe.
When he caught sh*t for it, as the French say, he explained that in fact it is not a pipe — it’s a painting of a pipe. In his words:
The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I’d have been lying!
This cartoon does a nice job with it:
Magritte’s pipe, I mean painting of a pipe, is in the LA County Museum of Art.
Who says pipes are for men only?
Andy Spragg of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) ran into trouble with instructions he was following when cooking a steak. Here’s his post:
“add the steak when the oil is nearly smoking”
How is one supposed to ascertain when the oil is /nearly/ smoking?
Here are some dull responses:
Geoff Jenkins: Offer it a cigarette?
John David Salt: It’s essentially the same as the tactical advice I received in the Territorial Army to take cover just before the incoming fire would produce a casualty.
Andy: Pull over just before the puncture occurs?
Bridget Butler chimed in: yes, that’s why I answer calls just before the phone rings.
Tom Young: Two identical pans, two identical gas rings, start sacrificial pan, then start second one 45 seconds later. When sacrificial pan smokes, leap into action. (Record pans, gas settings and time for future occasions and thus reduce sacrificial burden. Simples.)
Karen Bearns-Donnelly: There’s a haze off it, just before it smokes
Andy: So it’s the air that “shimmers,” not the surface of the oil?
Karen: Yeah, it looks like wobbly air. It’s a term coined by Mozart when he cooked his steaks.
Wayne Mudwander: Yes, if you stand 3km away, you will see what appears to be a lake, similar to what you see on the horizon when driving on a country road on a hot day. This test is best performed with the aid of an assistant with a mobile phone.
Rose Kocher: We BBQ ours.
Sharon Hayton: the oil?
Andy: one would think it would be bloody hard to tell when BBQd oil was nearly smoking …
Rose: what oil?
Andy: the oil I was asking about.
Well, as soon as the puzzle hit today, our Dirty Old Man Dept was all abuzz with a rare double supermodel alert. It was at 23D where the clue was “Supermodels Upton and Moss.” KATES, of course. Hi ladies! What a treat! Let Georgie know what you’re drinking, as soon as he comes down. You like diet soda? Clear that crap off the sofa and catch us up.
Upton, I see you were born in Michigan — terrific! How’s Justin and your little girl? She’s six now, right? Folks, Kate Upton’s been married to ace pitcher Justin Verlander since 2017. They got married in Tuscany two days after he won the World Series with Houston.
Verlander just signed a one-year deal with the SF Giants. Better keep your day job, Kate — he’s only making $15 million. That won’t even cover you through June, amirite?
And what are you up to Ms. Moss? Hey, guess what — we have the same birthday! No sh*t! You were born exactly 24 years after me. How great is that! George — there’s a twenty in the kitchen drawer with the whisks and spatulas and stuff — run down to Shoprite and get us some cake!! What do you like Kate?
So Kate Moss is 51 now and she has a daughter Lila who is also a model at age 22, and already very successful.
And how’s the Count? Kate’s partner since 2016 has been British photographer Count Nikolai von Bismarck of the German aristocratic family. Does he know Phil?
In November 2014, Moss designed a Paddington Bear statue, one of fifty created by various celebrities before the release of the film Paddington, with the statues auctioned to raise funds for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Here’s Kate’s.
David Brooks has really hit stride since you-know-who took office. His article in The Times today was on Trump’s return to the 1800s. Here’s his first paragraph.
“After a four-year hiatus, we are once again compelled to go spelunking into the deeper caverns of Donald Trump’s brain. We climb under his ego, which interestingly makes up 87 percent of his neural tissue; we burrow beneath the nucleus accumbens, the region of the brain responsible for cheating at golf; and then, deep down at the core of the limbic system, we find something strange — my 11th grade history textbook. . . . Trump has gone all 19th century on us.”
After making sure Hesgeth’s confirmation was secure, Susan Collins pretended to be principled by voting against it. Does anyone seriously think she would have opposed him if her vote were decisive? Puh-leeeze. You might think the nation’s defense in the face of real threats would be one area for which the GOP mustered some backbone. Not even close. Right, Joni?
Here’s Pete sporting the tattoo popular with the Proud Boys.
In the puzzle today, the clue at 40D was “Seafarer’s device,” and the answer was SEXTANT, as in: I haven’t seen Pete since we’ve set up camp. Oh, he’s over in the sextant. (Almost!) It did remind me of this though:
I called up a law office once and said, I’m looking for Arnie Sexauer: does he work there? The receptionist asked me to repeat the name. I said Arnold Sexauer. She apologized and said the connection must be poor, she’s having trouble hearing me, could I repeat it one more time. I said, sure, Arnie Sexauer. I still can’t hear you, she said. So I pretty much screamed into the phone — Sexauer, Sexauer — do you have a Sexauer there? And she said, Are you kidding me — we don’t even get a coffee break.
Are you familiar with the Old Man of the Mountain? It was a geological formation. It was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in Franconia, New Hampshire, that appeared to be the jagged profile of a human face when viewed from the north. It was of cultural significance to several Indian tribes and became a state symbol for New Hampshire, appearing on its quarter and a stamp. Sadly, it collapsed on May 3, 2003.
Anyway, I was reminded of it by a clue in yesterday’s puzzle. The clue was “Geologic formation from glacial melting,” and the answer was ICE CAVE. And that clue reminded me [I’m getting there — stay with me] of the folksinger Tom Rush, whom I love and saw perform a bunch of times, but only in the last dozen or so years, not during the folk revival of mid-to-late last century, which was his heyday. If you’ve seen him perforn you know that, in addition to his music, he’s very funny and a great storyteller. And, getting to the point of this story, he’s from New Hampshire. And so, when discussing how old he has gotten, he was able to say: You know you’re old when you’ve outlived geologic formations.
This is his version of J. Mitchell’s Urge for Going. It’ll send us off tonight.
I had a girl in summertime with summer-colored skin
And not another man in town my darling’s heart could win
But when the leaves fell trembling down
And bully winds did rub their faces in the snow
She got the urge for going
And I had to let her go.
Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 