I took no pleasure in seeing my alma mater PENN (law) in the grid yesterday at 50A, clued with “Brown alternative.” Its throwing a transgender athlete under a bus to kowtow to Trump is unforgivable, discussed in an earlier post. Actually, I tried “Yale” first and then even thought of “ecru.” But “Burns, e.g.” at 50D turned out to be POET, so PENN it was.
For the second Saturday in a row, the puzzle put up a good fight. Is Shortz reading the comments in Rex’s blog complaining about the puzzle being dumbed down to increase sales? Hope so.
At 41A the clue was “Two humper.” Answer: BACTRIAN. I know — srsly? It turns out a camel with two humps is a Bactrian camel, from the region Bactria in Asia. (The Arabian camel has only one hump.) Here’s one!
Another toughie was at 54A: “Part of a high-tech security system.” Turned out to be LASER MAZE. You’ve probably seen one in a movie protecting jewels or something in a museum.
Do you know the myth about the tears of Ra, the Egyptian god? Me neither. The clue at 23A was “They arose from Ra’s tears, according to Egyptian mythology.” Answer: BEES. You can see the Egyptian heritage of this bee, in Manchester, England. Manchester is an industrial city and so the “worker bee” has become a symbol associated with it.
At 12D, “Classic rock?” was RUNESTONE. Of course, you’re all familiar with Glen Campbell’s big hit “Runestone Cowboy.”
Have you heard the term CO-SLEEPER? The clue was “Alternative to a crib.” It’s the mini-bed attached to mom’s bed.
As many of you know, that photo is pure fantasy. In real life, the mother gets no sleep. Ever.
Just one more and then we’ll let yesterday’s puzzle go, except for a song. At 48D the clue was “___ Lines (ancient Peruvian geoglyphs),” and the answer was NAZCA. You ever hear of NAZCA lines? I’ve heard of Nascar — completely different. According to Wikipedia, the Nazca lines are a group of over 700 geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They’re pretty amazing — like hieroglyphics but on land.
Commenter Son Volt provides a valuable service to the Commentariat. Almost daily he posts three songs related to things in the puzzle. Sometimes it’s a puzzle for me to figure out the relationship. Today, e.g., he shared this very old S & G tune, below. The minute I heard it I thought I saw the connection: The East River had been clued as “what the UN overlooks.” But that was in a different puzzle I recently completed: not the NYT. So I had to keep looking and the only connection I could find was POET, the answer for “Burns, e.g.,” as noted above. In any case, here’s the young duo.
From today’s Met Diary, this story by Howard Rubin called “Just Enough.”
Dear Diary:
I grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn. My mother shopped at the corner grocery store, which sold lox by the pound.
She would often buy enough for one or two bagels, not unusual in our relatively poor neighborhood. She called it a half of a quarter of a pound.
Many years later, when I was an adult and living in Flatbush, I had the urge for a bagel with lox.
I stopped off at a nearby supermarket, went to the counter where the fish was sold and ordered an eighth of a pound of lox.
The gentleman cutting the lox paused and looked at me.
“Having company?” he asked.
Bette Midler once described “the poor” as those “who summer where they winter.” In a similar vein, my view of the rich is those for whom lox knows no limits.
Yesterday’s baseball action has left the Mets and Tigers in a precarious position. Each needs a win and losses by, respectively, Cincy and Cleveland to make it into the playoffs. The entire season comes down to this. Good luck, men.
Whatever happens today, Pete Alonso, nicknamed the Polar Bear, had a phenomenal year, despite global warming: 38 homers, 126 RBI, and .273 batting average. That .273, BTW, puts him 15th in the NL. Only one player is over .300 — Trea Turner at .305. He’s 2nd in RBI, behind Schwarber (134), and 4th in homers.
Phil caught this nice shot of Pete, greeting the press.
Today’s puzzle is a nice take on the phrase FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. In six segments of the large (Sunday) grid, there is a “friend,” i.e., MONICA, PHOEBE, RACHEL, JOEY, ROSS or CHANDLER, crossed by a “benefit,” e.g., VACATION, HEALTH, DENTAL, DAYCARE, WELLNESS, and BONUS. The title of the puzzle is “Central Perk,” the coffee shop from the show, and it’s a pun on “perk,” as a “benefit.”
At 116A, for the clue “Rye, e.g.,” the answer was WHISKEY. It led Son Volt to share this exquisite song by the exquisite Laura Cantrell.
At 50D the clue was “Clown around with food?” and the answer was MCDONALD, a reference to Ronald McDonald. Did you know the original Ronald McDonald was Willard Scott of the Today show? Scott in fact created the clown character at the request of the company, but was replaced after a few years because of his weight. Ouch! McDonalds did not want to be associated with fatness. SRSLY. Pass the fries. Scott passed away at the age of 87 four years ago.
With the theme half-devoted to the show FRIENDS, the Commentariat weighed in with pretty strong feelings, on both sides. Here are some samples:
A show that defined the uniformed privilege of the 90s. A copycat of Living Single and created by Clinton besties – absolutely void of any diversity or originality. It should have been called Wealthy, White, Straight Friends.
Someone who lives in my house enjoys Friends and so we have watched all 236 episodes multiple times and I have never once laughed out loud, except for the “PIVOT!” scene. I suppose privileged white people who drink wine and have struggles is not my genre.
The show often felt to me as if written by a committee with a bead on what was trending for a certain class of white people in the 90s. And also that it adhered to a very traditional comedy formula, consisting of a series of set-ups for one-liners and zingers.
In an effort to defend the fact that this 70-year-old really liked Friends I will say this: Monica managed to get that extremely nice (and spacious) apartment when her grandmother died. Phoebe pretty much didn’t have a pot to piss in, but benefited by her friendship with Monica and was her roommate. Chandler had a very well-paid job that nobody really knew what it was, and Joey was an unemployed/underemployed actor (until he got a break well in) and also didn’t have a pot to piss in, but Chandler gave HIM a break and let him be roommate. Ross was a paleontologist. He had a nice apartment. Likewise, jilting bride Rachel had no job at first and benefited from the Monica apartment. With that said, sitcoms are not everyone’s cuppa, and most aren’t for me, but I truly think it had great writers and good actors that made you believe they were friends.
To me, Friends is based on characters being stupid, mean to each other, live unrealistic lifestyles based on their jobs, and constant sexual innuendo and obsession. Oh, and haircuts.
Only in TV fantasyland does a dorky looking David Schwimmer hook up with the gorgeous Jennifer Aniston.
Egs said he enjoyed the tribute to a bunch of rich cats, reminding us that the puzzle’s constructor was Rich Katz.
CHANDLER’s position in the grid is right in the center, in a vertical oval spanned by the letters of his name. So I posted:
We’re coming up (next month) to the second anniversary of the sad passing of Matthew Perry, the fine actor who played Chandler. Perhaps that central part of the puzzle represents Chandler’s gravesite, which the others are visiting to honor his memory.
Happy to close today with this poem from The Writer’s Almanac by Neal Bowers wryly called “Confederates.”
My father was only two in 1915
when he sat on Walter Denton’s lap
and heard the old man dragging in
his heavy chain of breath, each link
stuttering down the back of his throat.
“Floyd,” he whispered, saying the baby’s name
like a question, “look yere,”
and he placed my father’s hand
on a scar the color of moonlight,
a shrapnel wound from the Yankee boats
that shelled Ft. Donelson.
Then both of them began to cry,
there in the ladderback chair
someone had dragged into elm shade,
away from the stifling house,
until a woman came and saved them
from each other, leaving one
to go into the past and disappear,
the other to follow by way of the future.
See you tomorrow Chatterheads!
The Wellington Files 