It can’t be a coincidence. Or can it? Friday’s crazy Wordle word (LORIS) which I had never heard of, also appeared in yesterday’s NYTXW. The clue was “Large-eyed primate.” At first I thought the answer was ME AT MEALTIME. But it was LORIS. It wasn’t the only visitor from the animal world. At 35A, spanning the entire grid was a beautiful AIREDALE TERRIER (“Canine breed named after an English river valley”). Woof woof. Hey fella! (or gal)
It’s a beautiful puzzle, with such a good heart. CORETTA SCOTT King is one of the long downs, and FREEDOM RIDES is another, clued by “Actions that, despite being legal, resulted in hundreds of arrests in 1961.” “Fist bumps” at 39A are DAPS. I think I knew that.
In a lighter vein (apparently, there are light and dark veins? where does varicose fall?), there was a MASCOT RACE at 44A. Here’s how they do them at Gnats games. (C’mon Abe!! Push it!)
The constructor is one of the best, Erik Agard. Phil caught up with him on the beach. Phil was bragging about completing a Monday puzzle with only about a bazillion mistakes. Erik routinely completes a Sunday grid in 5 minutes. Whoosh.
Wait! Do you recognize him? If you do, it may be because he won $66,000 on Jeopardy in four days a while back. Puzzles are how he makes a living. He’s 32 and lives on the outskirts of DC. According to Wikipedia, Erik has been celebrated for helping to increase diversity and inclusion in crosswords: when he was in charge of the puzzles at USA Today, they were primarily constructed by women and people of color, and contained references not considered “standard knowledge.” E.g., the February 19, 2022 crossword puzzle contained the clue [“you’re telling me a cis ___ built this chapel?” for TEEN.
Getting back to his puzzle from yesterday, there are six across answers that span the grid, i.e., are 15 letters long. We already met one (woof!). Another was a quote of Vince Carter’s (NBA Hall of Famer) that went viral when he decided not to retire after 21 years. I GOT ONE MORE IN ME, is the answer at 36A (“Vince Carter quote-turned-meme regarding his return for a 22nd N.B.A. season.”) Carter is considered the greatest dunker of all time. I wonder if “dunk of death” was ever in a puzzle. That’s an historic Vince Carter dunk from the 2000 Olympics. Ouch!
Have you ever seen a color that’s impossible to see? Of course you haven’t. It’s impossible. Okay, WTF am I talking about? At 53A, the clue was “Stygian blue or reddish-green,” and the answer was IMPOSSIBLE COLOR. “Color theory” explains how colors work on the human eye. And some of them posit colors that exist in theory, but cannot be perceived visually. (If I go much further, I will fall into incoherence.) Apparently (pun intended), reddish-green is such a color. The board below contains reddish-green swatches. Can’t see ’em, right?
Wait, what?
I tried reading about stygian colors (another type of impossible colors) but am too stupid to follow even the rudimentary concepts.
To close out our discussion of yesterday’s puzzle on an impressive note, the clue at 57A was “Trans activist who founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.” It’s Dean Spade. Spade who is from Virginia, Jewish, and 48, is a professor at Seattle U School of Law. For the trans community, he has been a legal superhero. Never have his efforts been more needed than they are now.
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is a legal aid organization in NYC that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming. It was formed by Spade in August 2002. The project is named for Sylvia Rivera, a transgender activist and veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, who died the same year it was formed.
Are crossword puzzles silly little diversions? I certainly hope so. But everything touched on above was inspired by Erik’s grid. There are 600-page novels that accomplish far less. And there was the whole rest of the grid we didn’t even mention. Rob Reiner, Geena Davis, Laura Dern, and St. Matthew made appearances.
Wait, St. Who?
You talkin’ to me?
If I say Ketanji, you think of? The Supremes, of course. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been turning heads with her informal language in some of her dissents. Columbia linguistics prof John McWhorter has an op-ed in today’s NYT on her nontraditional writing style. Check out her language decrying the Court’s denying district courts the power to curb unconstitutional action. “The majority sees a power grab — but not by a presumably lawless executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the Constitution. Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are … (wait for it) … the district courts.”
McWhorter explains: What’s striking about Justice Jackson’s turns of phrase [e.g., “wait for it”] is that they employ what we typically regard as oral language — spontaneous, spoken words — in an extremely serious written text. [However,] the expectation that [the Court’s] language be timeless, faceless and Latinate is a matter of custom, not necessity.
“[KBJ] was raised in the 1980s, when America’s writing culture was getting markedly less hidebound. Waving aside the hats and girdles and stuffy dance steps of old, the counterculture had shown America how to let its language hang out, too.”
I hope I live enough to see an opinion of hers contain a “Bada boom.”
Lookin’ good, Babe.
Ran across two signs that gave me pause yesterday (paws?). Here’s the first, in front of a pet food shop.
How does that work? The dog just walks in and goes “woof?” Can we really trust that he’ll clean behind his ears?
And speaking of “walking in,” here’s the second one, from a service station.
The part that gets me is the “walk-ins welcome.”
Walk-in customer: Hi.
Mechanic: Hi.
Customer: I need a tune-up on my 2022 Camry.
Mechanic: OK, but I don’t see it. Wait, did you walk here? It’s not with you?
Customer: Yes.
Mechanic: D’oh! I told Pete to fix that sign!
From today’s puzzle: two items for our Dirty Old Man Dept. First, at 81A the clue was “Bring up the rear?” and the answer was MOON.
Then we had GIRL SCOUT CAMP as the answer for “Brownie Point?” Here are some fashions from Vogue inspired by National GS Day, one of the few religious holidays Phil observes.
I have a friend who is so Irish, he says his blood type is O apostrophe. They’re having problems with their teenage daughter — she’s shoplifting. He told his wife he’d talk to her about it right after his birthday.
Infuriating — yesterday the guy who was supposed to fix our doorbell didn’t show up. I think.
So they asked me if I had a time machine would I go back in time and kill baby Hitler. That’s tough. I’m a dad, so I don’t think I could kill a baby under any circumstances. I could strangle teenage Hitler, though. No problem.
Cats typically accept death with far more dignity and grace than I expect to be able to. This poem is called “Enough” and is by Robin Chapman. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac. I had to read it several times to adapt to its rhythms.
There is always enough.
My old cat of long years, who
stayed all the months of his dying,
though, made sick by food,
he refused to eat, till, long-stroked,
he turned again to accept
another piece of dry catfood
or spoonful of meat, a little water,
another day through which
he purred, small engine
losing heat—I made him nests
of pillow and blanket, a curve of body
where he curled against my legs,
and when the time came, he slipped out
a loose door into the cold world
whose abundance included
the death of his choosing.
See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.
The Wellington Files 