Linda’s breakfast. I started by sauteeing sliced onions in olive oil and setting them aside. I threw two slices of Trader Joe’s organic multi-grain into the toaster. I fried up two eggs, over hard, with a little salt and pepper. I placed a thin slice of Irish cheddar over each egg and covered the pan to induce melting. I buttered the toast lightly. To assemble the plate, I started with the toast on the bottom, and placed the eggs/cheese atop the toast. The onions went on last. Bon appetite, my wonderful wife!
With kitten heels and a door opening onto Joey Heatherton, yesterday’s puzzle fell squarely in our Dirty Old Man Dept. The theme was baby animals and the five theme answers were the aforementioned KITTEN HEEL, CHICK FLICK, PUPPY LOVE, CALF MUSCLE, and my favorite, JOEY FATONE. In case you’re weak on kangaroos, a joey is a baby kangaroo.
Joey Fatone, a Brooklyn boy, was a member of the boy band NSYNC. He’s 48 now, and looks like this. Still, he’s famous enough to grace the squares of the NYTXW. My man!
Rex said he would have preferred Joey Ramone, and I chimed in with the following post:
“Gentlemen of a certain age will droolingly recall the exquisite dancer/actress JOEY Heatherton, who is 80 now and, I bet, still a knockout. She was married to NFL receiver Lance Rentzel but they divorced when she could no longer stand his referring to her as his greatest catch. No, actually they divorced after he got into trouble for indecent exposure to a ten-year-old girl. The Dallas Cowboys parted ways with Lance as well, trading him to the Rams and picking up a different receiver named Lance — Lance Alworth (not to be confused with the famed dermatologist Lance Boyle.)”
Here’s JH. I can’t find a picture that really does her justice. When the pathetic pimply faced boys of my generation were just starting to notice stuff like that, she took our breath away.
In case you’ve forgotten what kitten heels are, they are stillettos, with the “ettos” cut off. Here’s Taylor sporting a pair that, to my eye, fall somewhere in between kitten and still. Hey Tay — if that’s how you dress when you’re out and would prefer not getting noticed, it’s not working.
I mentioned Rebecca Goldstein on Sunday as one of the constructors of Sunday’s brilliant crossword puzzle. I couldn’t find a photo of her at the time, mostly because I was searching for Rachel Goldstein. Duh. But here she is.
Rebecca went to Barnard and has a doctorate in pharmacology, but who cares about that? She’s only been constructing puzzles since 2020 but has already “hit for the cycle,” i.e., has had a puzzle published by the Times on every day of the week. Hers is one of about a dozen names that elicit a “yay” when you see that the puzzle you are about to stagger through is by one of them.
Well, Chatterheads, to no surprise, RFK Jr., the dangerous lunatic in charge of the nation’s health, did not follow Owl Chatter’s advice in naming replacements for the vaccine advisory board, not even the very well-respected Dr. Pepper, who received his medical degree from the University of Minnesoda, you may recall.
Instead, he packed it with the likes of Dr. Robert Malone, who, according to the NYT, stated at a conference on Covid in 2022: “The most recent data demonstrates that you are more likely to be infected or have disease or even death if you’ve been vaccinated, compared to the unvaccinated people.”
In fact, as the Times noted: The claim contradicts volumes of studies that have found that Covid vaccines saved millions of lives worldwide.
Well, yeah, there’s that.
Another appointee is a biostatistician, Dr. Martin Kuldorff, who has testified as an expert in lawsuits against vaccines. Here’s how the Times describes his recent activities:
“Dr. Kulldorff concluded in an expert report that Merck had failed to urgently investigate reports of POTS, or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, after a safety signal emerged in a clinical trial.
“In March, a U.S. District Court judge in North Carolina dismissed the case, concluding: ‘Simply put, no scientist could reasonably conclude there is a causal association between POTS’ and [the vaccine], based on the evidence presented in court.”
So, I ask you, readers. Whom are you going to believe? — those idiots or Nurse Cleavage here?
(Here’s the shot Phil sent in for the story. Very helpful, Philly.)
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Tom Chandler.
So Much Depends On
the blonde woman who drops a potato
in the supermarket parking lot where it rolls
beneath the 89 Dodge Ram with rust patches
near the left rear fender from contact with
too much road salt during the winter of 91
which was actually one of the mildest on record
though the driver tends to remember it
as the season he was fired from his job
at the aluminum window factory where
he had worked for nearly sixteen years
without promotion as he shifts into reverse
and backs over the potato which squishes
as softly as a dream’s last breath and leaves
slick asphalt for the lot boy to slip on
as he pushes a train of shopping carts
and sprains his lumbar vertebrae just
days before he is scheduled to leave
for basic training to become the cool
killing machine he’s always craved
but will now have to settle for someday
making assistant produce manager
and marrying a girl he almost loves just
as the blonde woman finds herself
one potato short with dinner guests
ringing the doorbell.
On this day in 1901 the first college board exams were given. One of my colleagues at Hunter had a cartoon by Mark Twohy outside his door with an astonished man standing before St. Peter outside the pearly gates, and he’s saying: You’re kidding — you count SATs?
For those of you who prepped with the Stanley H. Kaplan program, or who signed your kids up for it, I am old enough to have had Stanley himself teach the classes, in a messy little office on Quentin Road in Brooklyn, with maybe eight or so of us in the class. He was damn good. Took him for one of the NY State regents exams too but I forget which. Some science.
Today’s puzzle was by Tarun Krishnamurthy. He’s a teenager. It’s not the first time a teen has broken through into the NYTXW but it is the first time he tells us so in the puzzle itself. The last across clue was “Typical high school student … like this puzzle’s constructor!” (Answer: TEEN)
It generated a bit of back-and-forth. Rex, never one to beat about the bush, started it by noting:
“Stop fetishizing TEENs! There have been literally dozens of TEEN constructors by now. Actually, I don’t know the exact number, but it’s a lot. This isn’t even a debut!! This constructor had a puzzle out last summer! And good for them! Big accomplishment. But if you’re a pro, you’re a pro. Don’t expect medals or applause ’cause you’re a TEEN. There’s something cringey about adults fawning over precocious kids. I would’ve hated having that clue in my puzzle if I’d been the TEEN constructor (luckily, I was a disappointing underachiever as a TEEN and so never had this problem). This clue (with its “look-at-me” revealer-type structure (ellipsis, exclamation point!) is an editorial choice; it detracts from the puzzle’s manifest worthiness.”
Anony Mouse was the first to chime in:
Ya know…the problem you describe with praising a teen for their accomplishments is the same problem I have when a woman does something that only a misogynist thinks she can’t. Or when someone with dark skin does something that only a racist thinks they can’t.
“First woman in space”
Did you not think women could be astronauts?
“First Black person to fly an airplane”
Did you not think Black people could fly airplanes?
Did you not think teens could build crosswords?
And then doghairstew posted:
I’m gonna disagree. The first woman in space was, objectively speaking, the first woman to do that. It doesn’t imply that we thought women were incapable of such achievement. But they certainly weren’t given the opportunity, until finally they were, which was pretty exciting at the time and seems worthy of mention. As does mention of achievements by Black folks in fields they were previously barred from. I also enjoyed learning that the puzzle was constructed by a teen.
Anony Mouse 2: I thought the teen reference was fine, that’s what teenagers do and what they are, young and having fun.
Anony Mouse 3: Maybe, and I say this as the parent of a teen, the clue about being a teen constructor is meant to encourage teens. Many are feeling very dejected right now about the state of the country and world in which they are coming of age and it is nice for my daughter to see that other teens are doing things like constructing professional puzzles. And yes I do show her things like that to make her feel capable. Just one take on that clue that everyone is so annoyed about. I love it.
Anony Mouse 4: Just wanted to defend a teen being excited and proud that they got their second puzzle published in the New York Times. They’ll have plenty of time to no longer be precocious.
All of that aside, after his comment, Rex posted a video of a song by Ethel Cain called “American Teenager.” I watched it twice and then posted: Rex! Please give us dirty old men some warning the next time you post a video like American Teenager. I had to send my wife running for my heart pills! (Not complaining.)
Speaking of heart pills, Gnats closer Kyle Finnegan, cardiologist’s delight, was up to his old tricks again last night, surrendering two dingers and blowing the game for DC to the historically lowly Rockies. The Gnats losing streak is at nine. Ouch!
Management is desperately calling up a raft of prospects to stem the bleeding. Brady House looked good, despite an 0 for 3 night. He’s a much-needed slugging third baseman. Sorry to see Tena demoted, at least for now. We liked the kid. Here’s Brady.
James Carville, simplifying things: You’ve got a 28-year-old mother who walks all the way from Guatemala to the U.S. border with her 4-year-old daughter with the hope of working for a better life here — that’s the sort of person we should want in America.
Ten years from now that girl might be constructing crossword puzzles that get into the goddam NY Times.
OK, baseball fans. There’s a runner on first, no outs. The batter hits an obvious double play ball to the second baseman who flips it to short for one out. But the shortstop throws wild to first so they fail to get the second out. As most of you know, the shortstop will not be charged with an error because they got one out on the play and you cannot “assume” a double play. Tonight I learned though, from the Gnat announcers, that that rule only applies to the fielder throwing the ball — not the fielder catching it. In that last example, say, if the shortstop’s throw to first were perfect and the first baseman just dropped it, he could be charged with an error.
That was news to me, and I’ve never seen it happen, but it’s just the sort of crackling baseball intel we try to pass along here in Owl Chatter. You know, that and the cheerleader videos.
Let’s close tonight with this double play. No errors involved, just a little NY baseball history. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 