If you are old enough, did you like Ike? I was only six when he defeated Adlai. What a descent from Ike down to You-Know-Whom for the GOP. Anyway, I mention Ike to illustrate a new word millions of people learned from Carolyn Davies Lynch, the constructor of today’s NYTXW. The clue was “Hypocorism for Harold,” and the answer was HAL. So we learned that hypocorism is one fancy-ass word for “pet name.”
Ike is one of the few non-sports figures whose autograph I have in my collection. I read in some collector’s newsletter that DDE was signing autographs for folks who wrote to him at his farm in Pennsylvania to which he retired. So I wrote a nice note to him and he sent a nice hand-signed reply. Here he is with wife Mamie.
I have Nixon, too, which I got in person!! I was at a Yankee game and waited outside the players’ exit for autographs after the game. I noticed that a circle had formed on the sidewalk around someone who was signing, so I wormed my way in, put my Yankee program and a pen in front of him and got the signature. It was Nixon! It was after his time as Governor of CA and before he became Prez. He was with a law firm in NY and happened to go to the Yankee game that day. My brush with history.
Another new word from today’s puzzle was “syzygy.” The clue was “Half of a Jungian syzygy,” and the answer was ANIMA. Syzygy, I learned, is mostly used in astronomy to describe the relationship of three or more astronomical bodies in a gravitational system, e.g., the Earth, Sun, and Moon during an eclipse.
Of course, that clue today, above, has nothing to do with astronomy, so I didn’t know what the hell was going on. But Deb Amien looked it up for us and wrote this in today’s NYT Wordplay column: A syzygy is a pair of opposites that are connected in some way, such as yin and yang. In Jungian psychology, the ANIMA and the animus are syzygies. Put simply, the ANIMA is the unconscious feminine side of a man, and the animus is the unconscious masculine side of a woman.
Uh, okay.
And “Rooibos,” if you must know, from 23A, is a RED TEA from South Africa. Lots of weird sh*t in the grid today.
At 17D, “Ladle cradle” was SPOONREST, which generated this vituperative comment from Les S. More:
“I have cooked almost all of my life. At age twelve I was the chief cook for a family of seven. Both my parents worked full time, my mother often taking on 2 jobs. We kids had to chip in and I chose to cook. At university my soon-to-be-wife and I would host dinners for fellow students with menus supplied by Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines. I’ve taught my kids to cook.They are all better than me and one of them is a professional chef. None of them, nor I, would ever be caught dead with a SPOONREST on the counter beside our stoves. You’ve got to put that spoon somewhere, why not just place it on the counter. If your counter is so fragile that it can’t take that kind of horrendous abuse, place a cutting board there and plop your gunky utensils on it. Have a cloth handy to wipe up as you go. SPOONRESTs are the doilies of the kitchen. Get rid of them.”
SRSLY? I replied: “Saddened by this blatant display of antispoonrestarianism. Can’t we all just get along?”
Here’s a syzygy of spoonrests.
The very first clue today, at 1A, was “Toy that’s often quadrilateral with symmetry across its diagonal.” (4 letters.) Got it? KITE. So the next time someone tells you to go fly a quadrilateral with symmetry across its diagonal, you should feel miffed.
Our group, and Linda and I personally, suffered a very big loss this week with the sudden passing of Dan Reynolds. I met Dan in the Fall of 1971 when we were assigned rooms on the same floor in the law dorm at Penn. So Dan was a friend for close to 54 years. He was the most decent of men, always a steady hand on the wheel. He was very sharp, but never a show-off. He loved a good (or bad) joke, and we cherish the memory of him laughing. When Linda and I ran into a very dark period, Dan and Mary were a constant, vital support until the darkness finally lifted.
Dan and I were roommates for a year after law school. We had a great apartment in Upper Montclair NJ. Dan was clerking for a judge and I was in the tax program at NYU Law. When, years later, I taught law classes in the accounting program at Hunter College, Dan was a guest lecturer in my class once a semester on the topic of Torts. He was paid with a burger and beer after class. We both had fond/horrifying memories of studying Torts at Penn Law with a very acerbic professor, Filvaroff. I sometimes introduced Dan to the class by noting that we had been roommates and that “he was the best roommate I ever had — including my wife.” Dan got a kick out of teaching the class, and I urged any students who were “foolish enough to be considering a career in law,” to take advantage of talking to Dan, who was a “real lawyer,” as opposed to a professor. Dan last taught the class last Fall, my final semester at Hunter before retiring.
Needless to say, as great a friend as Dan was, the best thing about him, by far, was Mary (and their boys). We guys all staggered our way through law school towards our eventual mates, and Dan got really lucky when he hooked up with a certain dark-haired Minnesotan. (We all, somehow, miraculously, got lucky.) Those of us who were draft age in the Vietnam era recall the night of the draft lottery when our birthdays were randomly assigned numbers that would determine our chances of being drafted. Up to 120, you were a goner. Over 240, you were safe. Between 120 and 240, you would test the power of prayer. We were sitting around one night, reminiscing about our numbers. Mine was 121, but I flunked my physical. When we got to Dan, he said his number was (something like) 350, and a hush fell over the room. Then he said, “If I never get lucky again in my life, that’s okay.” But he did get lucky again, when he met Mary.
Now we wish you the strength to ride out the storm, Mary. And rest in peace Dan. Your friendship was deeply appreciated and very much enjoyed.
Thanks for dropping in. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 