Boy, can Frank Bruni write. I was reading his newsletter to find candidates from his For The Love Of Sentences feature for OC, but his own opening words caught me:
When an American president makes an especially weighty decision, there’s some small comfort in knowing that seasoned, steady aides were in the mix, complementing the commander in chief’s instincts with their expertise.
President Trump dropped 15-ton bombs on uranium enrichment sites in Iran with Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary.
I, for one, am not comforted.
By some reports, Hegseth wasn’t consulted all that much — which, I suppose, is its own perverse solace. Trump apparently learned his lesson when Hegseth decided that a Signal group chat was the proper venue for an emoji-laden pep rally about imminent military strikes against the Houthis; clue Hegseth in on the Iran plan, and he might wind up divulging it in the form of charades on “Fox & Friends.”
[“Perverse solace!”]
And there were a couple of items from FTLOS I liked.
In The Times, Sam Anderson on NBA star Nikola Jokic: “He dominates games with a weird combination of force and delicacy. He’s like a car accident that can play the flute.”
Also in The Times, Jeannette Catsoulis reviewed an ultraviolent new movie: “A luxe orgy of mass murder, ‘Ballerina’ dances from one bloody melee to another, its back-of-a-matchbook plot driven solely by arterial motives.”
BTW, that’s the new movie co-starring our beautiful Ana de Armas. Audiences gave it a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Way to go, girl! Phil got a hold of this sneak preview for us. You like Elton John?
This poem by William Stafford from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called “Old Blue.”
Some day I’ll crank up that Corvette, let it
mumble those marvelous oil-swimming gears
and speak its authority. I’ll rock its big wheels
till they roll free onto the drive. Nobody can
stop us then: loaded with everything, we’ll pick up
momentum for the hill north of town. Mona,
you didn’t value me and it’s too late now.
Steve, remember your refusal to go along on
those deals when you all opposed me?—you had
your chance. Goodbye, you squealers and grubbies;
goodbye, old house that begins to leak, neighbors
gone stodgy, days that lean casually grunting
and snoring together. For anyone who ever needs
the person they slighted, this is my address: “Gone.”
Clarence!
Never gets old. You know, there’s a whole bunch of books and CDs by and about The Big Man, Clarence Clemons, alav hashalom. Amazon could run a Clarence sale.
I shared this joke on OC before but I have to repeat it because there has been a development. Here’s the joke:
Max says to Sid, “Here’s a riddle: What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?”
Sid says, “I give up.”
“A herring.”
“But a herring isn’t green.”
“You could paint it green.”
“It doesn’t hang on the wall.”
“Well, you could hang it on a wall if you wanted to.”
“It doesn’t whistle.”
(Max, exasperated.) “Alright, so it doesn’t whistle.”
The issue arose from today’s puzzle as to whether pickles would be canned. At 15A the clue was “Can it?” and the answer was DILL PICKLE. Well, as you can imagine, it created an uproar with most comments noting that pickles would be “jarred,” not canned. My sentiment was “Well, pickles could be canned,” which led me to sharing the joke. And it received the following reply:
“Actually, ‘What’s green and hangs on a wall’ (Co zielony i wisi na siano) is a famous joke they would tell in Polish bars to root out informers and spies. The answer was some kind of fish, herring, pike, carp, Everyone would laugh uproariously and anybody who didn’t would be thrown out. During the communist days and probably going back centuries before that.”
I did some digging to look into it but so far have come up empty headed, I mean handed. My source for the joke was a pretty serious (scholarly) book on Jewish humor, but no mention was made of this part of the story. Oh, forgive my rudeness — care for some herring?
Julia Togneri and hubby Billy are proud members of the Dull Men’s Club (UK). Julia shared this photo of Billy as they headed off for their vacation.
Mark Griffiths commented knowingly: Dullness is not something you can just put down.
Can two baserunners score at the exact same time? Well, the runner in back cannot get ahead of the runner in front. But at the same time should be okay. Anyway, they can certainly score 0.31 seconds apart as two Phils did against the Metsies Friday night. It’s balletic, no? Note how the ump gives two quick safe calls. As he should.
I haven’t seen so much scoring so quickly since Marc Citron was single. Alav Hashalom. (Brandeis, Class of ’70)
See you tomorrow Chatterheads. Stay cool.
The Wellington Files 