Hope you were all able to stay safe yesterday, Chatterheads. It was the date on which Abe Lincoln was shot AND the Titanic hit the iceberg. Yikes. Forty-seven years apart.
So — was Cracklin’ Rosie a sex worker? The song says she’s a “store-bought woman.” . . . asking for a friend.
It came up in connection with yesterday’s puzzle. The theme was WHAT’S CRACKING?” And the three theme answers started with things that get cracked: EGGPLANT DIP; CODE OF CONDUCT; and KNUCKLEHEAD, i.e., eggs, codes, and knuckles all get “cracked.”
The commentariat was quick to come up with additional crack-related fare. From Lewis: nuts, safes, ice, riddles, jokes, books, and smiles. I added Liberty Bells, doors, butts, and corn (Jimmy cracked it). Maybe not doors? You crack open a door, was what I had in mind.
But getting back to Cracklin’ Rosie, Sam and I attended a Lansing Lugnuts game (minor league baseball) maybe ten years ago. It was Neil Diamond Impersonator Night. OMG, what could be better, amirite? I thought he’d perform on the field to thousands of adoring fans in the stands after the game, but no. They set him up on the sidewalk outside the stadium where maybe twenty idiots like us hung around to hear him. Needless to say, he was fantastic. Introduced each song with a little history and he had a decent enough voice.
Now this, below, is not the guy we saw. It’s another Neil Diamond impersonator. Seriously. Have no idea how many of them are out there. Is there an army of Neil Diamond impersonators training somewhere? Should we worry? (Confession: We love this song.)
Suppose doing what you were doing suddenly paid you gazillions of dollars. What would you change in your life and what would you keep? The NYT sports section yesterday looked at MLB ballplayers who they said are penny pinchers.
Tanner Scott pitches for the Dodgers and is making $16 million this year. “We are definitely still on my wife’s family’s Netflix,” he said. Steven Kwan of Cleveland (making $4.17 mil) explained: “You stay rich by being cheap.”
Matt Strahm of the Phillies: I’m not going to just buy new clothes because I want to. I need to need clothes to buy clothes.
Derek Law of the Gnats: My wife is like, “You need to get some new shirts,” and I’m like, “Eh, I’m good.”
Ryan Mountcastle (Balt): I never need new clothes.
Seth Lugo (KC): I hate paying for shipping.
Jesse Chavez (Braves): And a processing fee. Processing? Where did that come from?
Matt Vierling (Tigers): I still drive my car from college. It’s a 2012 Ford Escape. It broke down on the highway on me. I was driving an even older car before. It was used when I got it; it had 65,000 miles on it. Now it’s got like 172,000 and we are still rolling. I am going to try to ride it out for another year. I got everybody in my family saying “It’s not safe, you should get another car.” And I’m just like: “Not yet. I will ride it until it dies.”
Getting back to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the U.S. sent to prison in El Salvador by mistake. The Supremes ordered that his return be “facilitated,” but the admin is brazenly failing to implement the order. Turns out Garcia is a union man — the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers. So the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, Sean McGarvey, said the following to a room full of his fellow union workers: “We need to make our voices heard. We’re not red, we’re not blue. We’re the building trades, the backbone of America. You want to build a $5 billion data center? Want more six-figure careers with health care, retirement, and no college debt? You don’t call Elon Musk, you call us!… And yeah, that means all of us. All of us. Including our brother apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now! Bring him home!”
McGarvey received a standing ovation. Good to see it.
I love portmanteaus. That’s not a type of wine. It’s when you combine two words to form a new word that makes sense. So smoke and fog yields smog. The best-known one might be brunch (breakfast + lunch). Portmanteau means suitcase, i.e., one with words packed into it. Did you know that electrocute is one (electricity + execute)?
I like making them up. Lianna and I came up with this one: What do you call it when it’s raining french fries? Answer: Precipitatoes.
There was one in today’s puzzle. At 30D the clue was “Container for keys, wallet, razor, etc., in a modern portmanteau,” and the answer was MURSE. It’s from male and purse, of course. Rex hated it. He was also upset that the grid contained TEC as a term for detective, which he maintains is never used. Here’s his rant:
I think MURSE was the thing that nearly made me slam my computer shut. First of all, no. And second of all, stop. And finally, third of all, no. No One Says This. People say “TEC” way more than they say “MURSE,” that’s how much they say “MURSE” (they don’t). This is one of those portmanteaus that the puzzle keeps trying to convince you is a thing, only it’s not. If it is (it’s not), it’s only a thing “jocularly.” No one is going to utter that term without smirking. And LOL “razor”? Dudes just carrying their razor around in their MURSEs for some reason? “Modern portmanteau” on what planet? This is not the modern world.
Might work better for a male nurse, it seems to me. Stay away from this guy, though.
I liked the theme of today’s puzzle because I like the expression it centered on: CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR. The four theme answers all had the letters: C, I, G, A, and R anagrammed but never spelling CIGAR. They were TRAGICOMIC, CHERRYGARCIA, MAGICREALISM, and CRAIGSLIST.
The clue for magic realism was “Genre for Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’” Have you read it? Its opening sentence is admired for its brilliance:
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Sh*t! Who lit that cigar? This song by Leslie Stevens and the Badgers is called “Roomful of Smoke.”
Dave Kelly of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) faced the following conundrum:
“Well that’s my day ruined. Put too much milk in my first brew. I can’t throw it away either – Irish catholic upbringing: something about guilt/waste. I should probably just go back to bed.”
Stephen Murray offered this suggestion: Drink that one quickly, make another one strong and black, drink that one quickly then jump around the kitchen to mix them both inside you into two decent brews.
As expected, UCONN star Paige “Buckets” Bueckers was selected first by Dallas in the WNBA draft last night. Here’s how she dressed for the occasion.
Good luck in the pros, PB!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 