Happy Birthday (yesterday) to 84-year-old Newark NJ born Paul Simon. I’m claiming him for Jersey, but his family moved to Queens when he was 4 and he is much more associated with Queens. His dad was a professor (Education) at City College, CUNY, and his mom an elementary school teacher. Good blood! He has four children from an assortment of wives, all of whom (the children) are in the music biz. His wife since 1992 is Edie Brickell, also a singer, and she is 25 years his junior. Simon met you-know-whom when they were eleven years old, in sixth grade and were singing together by the age of 13. He graduated with a degree in English from Queens College, CUNY, and went to law school for one year.
She’s taller than him too. To 120, boychik!
Here is today’s Poem of the Day from The Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Mary Oliver and is called “The Poet Goes to Indiana.”
I’ll tell you a half-dozen things
that happened to me
in Indiana
when I went that far west to teach.
You tell me if it was worth it.
I lived in the country
with my dog—
part of the bargain of coming.
And there was a pond
with fish from, I think, China.
I felt them sometimes against my feet.
Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges,
to eat the grass.
I’m not lying.
And I saw coyotes,
two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly
unenclosed fields.
And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped
into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car—
and we both made it home safe.
And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses,
or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house,
and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth,
he, too, would have hooves trimmed
for the Indiana winter,
and apples did it,
and a rope over the neck did it,
so I won something wonderful;
and there was, one morning,
an owl
flying, oh pale angel, into
the hay loft of a barn,
I see it still;
and there was once, oh wonderful,
a new horse in the pasture,
a tall, slim being-a neighbor was keeping her there—
and she put her face against my face,
put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,
against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,
to see who I was,
a long quiet minute-minutes—
then she stamped feet and whisked tail
and danced deliciously into the grass away, and came back.
She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough.
Such a fine time I had teaching in Indiana.
At 6A today, the clue was “Drove like mad,” and I filled in sped but had to change it to TORE. Per Son Volt, another apt VM selection (new to me).
The puzzle was cute today. It took a phrase you’d recognize and reimagined it as the answer to a question from your loved one. The best was: “What do you call a close-fitting hat, doll?” and the answer was BEANIE, BABY. One more: “What are oils and watercolors examples of, dear?” MEDIA, DARLING.
I made one up: “Do either of these dresses make me look fat, Hon?” THE BLUE, ANGEL. (It’s an old movie title.)
Egs added some with a twist:
Crossword themers from the Bickersons:
When’s your birthday, pea brain?
APRIL, FOOL
What are you thinking we’ll do in bed tonight, dodo?
CRASH, DUMMY.
What’s that holiday where everyone eats too much, skag?
THANKSGIVING, TURKEY
I learned a new word. At 23A the clue was “Heavily edit with beauty filters, as a photo, in modern lingo.” Answer: YASSIFY. We asked our old friend Miriam Webster about it. She said: To yassify an image is to digitally edit it using a beauty filter or other AI-powered tools (usually in an over-the-top and unmistakable way). Yassified photos of people often feature exaggerated make-up, hair, and facial features such as eyes and lips. Yassify is also sometimes used more broadly to mean “to improve the appearance of” or “to make more glamorous.”
Rex went on a bit of a jag over “Beanie.”
I was distracted most by the phrasing of the clue on “BEANIE, BABY.” “What do you call a close-fitting hat, doll?” Me: “CLOCHE! It’s a CLOCHE.” I mean, if you’re gonna not know a hat name, it’s far (far) more likely that you would not know CLOCHE. Everyone knows the term “beanie.” Who is asking babe about “beanie?” That’s just sad.
Whatever. Here’s a pretty girl wearing a cloche.
Chris Wilson, who is clearly a very wild man, posted the following for the Dull Men’s Club (UK): Today, for the first time in my life, I deliberately opened a packet of crisps [chips] upside down!! I’m just wondering if anyone else on here took any unnecessary risks today?
Avi Liveson: Not clear from your post if the package was upside down or if you were upside down. Please clarify.
Melvyn Long: I criticized my wife’s driving.
Stu Davies: Thoughts and prayers. . .
Avi Liveson: Written posthumously?
Jane Lutman: I think the whole of Ireland could be at risk from rising sea levels, apart from Cork. [Get it? Cork!]
Fatima de Andrade: No. I’m risk adverse
Avi Liveson: Well, you risked misusing “averse/adverse.”
John Scotland: I treated fence posts and other lengths of timber with a suitable preservative, and left them out in the garden to dry overnight. The risk is that some unauthorised person might enter the the garden, under cover of darkness, and make off with my beautifully treated timbers. Not sure how well I shall sleep tonight, or what I might find in the morning…
Andrew Green: I’m sure no-one will take offence….
Phil tells us he’s concerned about our Ana’s romance with Tom Cruise. So are we. Just don’t trust the guy. Phil says if he hurts her, he (Phil) will kill him (Tom), but that just means Phil will do something drunk and only injure himself.
Relationship experts see a problem with Ana and Tom, and so do former high-ranking Scientologists like Karen de la Carriere, who said: “Tom Cruise’s love affairs are doomed. There is a honeymoon period with a lot of generosity and dazzling moments, and then reality sets in. Scientology is very bait and switch. It starts off OK, especially when you’re the girlfriend of a superstar like Tom Cruise. But then you get to the higher, confidential levels and you find out things like you have 400,000 spirits attached to you and you have to spend the next 30 to 40 years peeling them off.”
Yup. Hate when that happens.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 