Oy that was a lot of football to watch yesterday. It comes down to a Philly-KC Superb Owl matchup. Owl Chatter’s crack photographer Phil managed to snare these intimate moments between Tay and Trav for us before he (Phil) was “helped” out of the stadium by an armed security force. [Hang in there, buddy. George is heading out with bail money and a couple of Diet Cokes.]
If you receive the paper edition of the NYT on Sundays you may have been as pleasantly surprised as we were while flipping through the Style section yesterday. Right there smack in the center, covering most of both center pages, is our style and culture consultant, the exquisite Ana de Armas, hawking some cheesy Louis Vuitton baubles. Next time give us a heads up, Armas — I nearly spilled my coffee.
We take NY delis for granted. You appreciate them more when you are away from the city. When I lived in Rochester NY there was a deli there called New York Deli, implying it mimicked NYC delis. The one time I stopped in I was the only customer so I didn’t think I’d have much of a wait. I ordered a sandwich at the counter and watched it being assembled. The man took some bread, then walked over to where the meat was, then walked back to put the meat near the bread, then walked over to where the dressing was, brought it back, then went off somewhere for the cheese. It was taking forever. NY deli my ass!! In the city, somehow everything is within reach and his hands move faster than Willie Randolph’s turning a double play. I’d be chewing on it before I finished getting my order out. I shudder to think what would happen up in that Rochester place if there were ever a line.
Here’s a story by Tommy Weir from yesterday’s Met Diary.
Dear Diary:
It was lunchtime in Midtown, and the deli counter line snaked its way along a refrigerated unit filled with cheeses, salamis and tomatoes.
It was all new to me, a recent arrival from Ireland. Finally, it was my turn to order.
“Yeah?” the counterman said.
“Do you have whole wheat?” I asked.
The counterman furrowed his brow and nodded.
“Do you have Cheddar?”
“Yes.”
“Do you … ”
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Turning around, I saw a short, older man wearing a pork pie hat and a bow tie and peering at me though his glasses.
“Stop asking questions,” he said. “Tell him what you want.”
“Out on the Flats,” by Leonard Nathan.
Out on the flats, a heron still
as a hieroglyph carved
on the soft gray face of morning.
You asked, when I seemed far away,
what it meant but were gone
when I turned to you with an answer.
Nothing mysterious—hunger,
a taste for salt tides,
distance, and a gift of flight.
Never mind that heron. In the puzzle today, the clue at 26D was “Bird named for its beak’s shape,” and the answer was SHOEBILL. I can see it.
Egs asks: “Did you know that the world’s largest known SHOEBILL belonged to Imelda Marcos?” Ha!
At 62A, “Stance for a yoga beginner” was TREE POSE. Wanna nit pick?
Here’s Rex on it — “This clue is bad in at least two ways. First of all, TREE POSE is a stance for ‘anyone’ practicing yoga. Just like corpse pose, down dog, etc. It’s just a pose. The fact that a beginner ‘might’ do it does not mean it’s ‘for’ a beginner specifically. Which brings me to my next objection, which is that TREE POSE is not that easy for many people. People fall out of that pose in class all the time. You gotta balance on one leg with the sole of your other foot pressed up against the inner thigh of your standing leg. Basically I think the word ‘beginner’ is screwing up this clue.”
Ooops, that’s not it. Wait a minute.
There you go.
REESE Witherspoon dropped by. I can never remember whether it’s REESE or REECE.
Her full name is Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon. She’s 48, from New Orleans, currently unmarried, and has three kids. Her mom was a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt, and her dad was an otolaryngologist (some kind of doctor). Had she been born a boy, she would have been named Otto. (That’s not true.)
Get this — she claims descent from Scottish-born John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but this has not been verified by genealogists.
She majored in English at Stanford but went into acting before she could graduate. For a star of her stature, she is surprisingly unphotogenic. Ana and I reviewed buckets of shots Phil sent in before choosing this nice one.
The clue for BRIE was “Soft French cheese.” The following are from our bad cheese joke department:
If you add soft French cheese to your sandwiches, have they been abrieviated? If so, should you edam?
Want anything else on them, Max? Pepper, Jack.
How are you guys on “textspeak?” I’m hanging on by my fingertips. I have some basics like IMO, IMHO, BRB, TTYL, TLDR, and SRSLY (in my opinion, in my humble opinion, be right back, talk to you later, too long didn’t read, and seriously). Plus about a half dozen I can’t think of right now. Oooh, BTW of course (by the way), and FWIW (for what it’s worth). There are literally hundreds.
A new one for me, from the puzzle, was clued with “Tsk, tsk, in textspeak.” It turned out to be SMH, for shaking my head.
“New Mexico art locale” was the clue for TAOS (where I visited once with Caity, so that helped). But commenter jberg was not pleased: “New Mexcico art locale” is right up there with “Period of time.” Are there places in New Mexico that do not have any art?
Commenter Gary came back with:
I am sitting in the waiting room of a car service center in Albuquerque with Family Feud playing on one enormous TV screen, and unless you count the “Is It Time for a New Battery?” sign emblazoned with a well lit 84-Month Nissan battery, this is an art-free New Mexico location. Oh wait, there’s a picture of a car behind the counter. It’s lovely. Screw Taos and their turquoise dogs. It’s mostly a Circle-K on Highway 68 anyway. That should’ve been the clue. Destination for gas station chimichangas.
Hope that’s enough nonsense for you. (I know, I know — it’s never enough.) I gotta go watch the Sirens skating against Ottawa tonight. C’mon, Sarah!!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 