We made it to Pittsburgh today, and are ensconced in our luxurious suite at The Maverick, by Kasa. Very chic. Almost as nice as our place last night in State College, PA:
And I am happy to report that if any of you fellas were worried about a decline in the young, leggy, blond population, you can put your fears to rest. They are all at Penn State and are in fine fettle. The population on campus is about 97% young blond women in very summery shorts, and whatever the other 3% is I didn’t notice. Our Phil got to know this young lady a bit and asked her to marry him, according to the police report.
I was wearing a Yankees cap and noticed that a young man walking towards me was wearing a Yankees shirt. As we neared each other, I caught his eye and gave him a slight nod of recognition and acknowledgement. In return, he gave me a small but clear thumbs up. Good stuff.
Staying in the Dirty Old Man Dept for a bit, one of my favorite constructors, Wyna Liu, has a puzzle in the New Yorker this week and, of course, it’s great. I think it may have broken new ground in daringness. The NYT, in general, has let its hair down of late, e.g., allowing “ASS” into the puzzle on what seems like almost a daily basis. And Wyna is on the NYT staff. Anyway, her New Yorker puzzle had the following clue at 58A: “Pair in a sex shop.” That already has you heading places, amirite? And the answer was: EDIBLE UNDERWEAR. What are our puzzles coming to? Stephen Miller’s going to have to get involved at some point. All hell is breaking loose.
The commentariat was also amused to note that today’s constructor, Neville Fogarty, managed to sneak ONLY FANS into the grid, clued innocently with “Online subscription service since 2016.” You know about this? Apparently, it’s a popular and lucrative site for pornographers. They produce content and subscribers pay them directly to view it, with the site taking 20%. The actress Bella Thorne set a record, generating $2 million in a week, on the promise of nude pix. However, some customers complained because she was wearing lingerie in them and she had to offer refunds. Here’s Bella now.
Speaking of Stephen Miller, the following is from our “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Dept. It’s a verbatim segment of Trump’s speech to the military commanders yesterday, as per the historian Heather Cox Richardson:
“We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every day, the guy is falling downstairs. We can’t have it. I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs for, like, a month, stairs, like these stairs, I’m very—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall, because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy. We don’t want that. You walk nice and easy. You’re not having—you don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don’t—don’t pop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a President, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen it. Da-da, da-da, da-da, bop, bop, bop. He’d go down the stairs. Wouldn’t hold on. I said, It’s great. I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it. But eventually, bad things are going to happen, and it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell.”
God bless America.
Today’s Poem-A-Day from poets.org is by Hua Xi and is called “A Bookshelf.” It didn’t reach me, so I am not including it. But it ended with the following poignant lines:
Change
is scenic and sudden.
One year, I came home
and all the leaves fell off my father.
After that,
he was winter.
So it’s on to a decisive Game 3 for the Tigers, Guardians, Yanks, and Sox. Cubs and Padres too, but that’s of lesser interest to us. The Yankee starter will be the impressive rookie, Cam Schlittler. Ironically, Shittler is from Walpole, MA, and his New England ties go even deeper — for college, Hitler went to Northeastern. Hope he’s got his good stuff tomorrow. The air will be electric.
Thanks for popping in!
The Wellington Files 