Impressive back-to-back road wins by the Blue Jays have tied up their series with Seattle. If the Jays can take the pennant, it’s the first time a team has come back from an 0-2 start at home since 2.5 years before Vlad Guerrero Jr., Toronto’s brilliant first baseman, was born (1996). Max Scherzer climbed out of the grave to pitch one more doozy for the Jays tonight. We’re gonna keep an eye on them.
The Golden Glove finalists have been announced — the awards for the best fielders in each league at each position. We’re certainly pulling for Max Fried among the AL pitchers. And Jacob Young of the Gnats is up for the GG at center field in the NL. It’s going to be tough for Young to cop the award with the brilliant Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubbies vying for it as well, but hope springs eternal. (I’ll bet the farm that whoever wrote that isn’t Jewish. Yup, Alexander Pope.] BTW, at Gnats games, when Young comes up to bat, his walk-up song is Dylan’s “Forever Young.”
David Sedaris popped by the puzzle yesterday. The first time, as far as I know. His clue was “Humorist who describes his stint working as a Macy’s Christmas elf in ‘Santaland Diaries.’” It probably doesn’t mean anything that he wasn’t far in the grid from WHAT A TOOL! If you have no idea who the hell he is, or only know him from his writing, take a look. (It rewards repeated viewing.)
At 24A, the clue was “Lively kind of saw for cutting intricate shapes?” and the answer was JIGGITY JIG. What?? Well, we know about “jig” saws, but “jiggity?” Rex made it his word of the day. It means “jerky, unsteady.” You are probably familiar with:
To market, to market to buy a fat pig,
home again, home again jiggety jig…
Most solvers were not happy with it. This was my note: “Jiggety jig seems a bit higgledy-piggledy, but all in good fun. Cromulent enough for me.” (Cromulent is a word coined on The Simpsons and means “acceptable.”)
Guess who co-constructed the puzzle? Were you a fan of Parks and Recreation? Remember Ron? Nick Offerman. Very funny guy. Here he is with Mrs. Nick (actress Megan Mullally). Nick was contacted by Christina Iverson of the NYT puzzle staff and was thrilled to take on the task.
I learned what ALT TEXT is from the puzzle (I think). The clue was “Description of an online image.” Suppose you want to send someone a photo but their device can’t receive it as a visible photo. If you send it in the form of a whole bunch of text, that’s ALT TEXT. (That’s a bad clue for it in the puzzle, IMO.)
For example, here’s some text: https://images.alphacoders.com/875/875365.jpg
If you enter it into your search bar, this photo of some random woman will appear. So the text is an alternative form of the photo.
Today’s puzzle was unusual in that the longest answers had nothing to do with the theme. The revealer at 61A was “How whiskey might be served … with a hint to the answers to the seven starred clues,” and the answer was NEAT. If you drink drinks (and not just beer like me), you know that NEAT means “no ice.” In the case of the puzzle, it meant that in seven answers the letters ICE were removed. Impressively, what was left in each case was a word or phrase (that was unclued), not just random letters. So, e,g, at 5A, for the clue “Treat with kindness,” the answer was BE N[ICE] TO, but all you wrote into the grid was BENTO (like a bento box in a Japanese restaurant). That happened in seven spots. Another example: at 24A, for the clue “Expensive” the answer was PR[ICE]Y, and all you filled in was PRY, since you left the ICE out. Neat, right? If you’re leaving the ice out, you don’t really even need a glass.
Do you know what it means to be “red pilled?” In comes from the film The Matrix. At 25D, the clue was “What allows Neo to disconnect from the Matrix,” and the answer was RED PILL. And here’s Rex on it:
“‘Individuals who identify as ‘red pilled’ often espouse conspiracy theories, antisemitism, white supremacy, homophobia, and misogyny.’ (Wikipedia) You see, these chuds believe they’re enlightened (i.e. disconnected from the oppressive and conformist ‘matrix’ of … I don’t know, human decency, I guess), so they identify with Neo, which is a wild and flagrant misreading of the movie’s politics (a movie made by two trans women), though no one ever accused these folks of being particularly literate.”
[BTW, “chud” is new to me too. It roughly means “jerk” and is most often used by someone on the left to describe someone on the right, politically.]
GOP was in the grid too, at 37D, clued with “Something Lincoln once led, for short.” Putting it all together Commenter Natasha (and others) interpreted the puzzle to have an “abolish ICE” subtext.
OMG, The Onion was on fire today. Three items of vital interest to Owl Chatter readers.
Biologists Announce There’s Absolutely Nothing We Can Learn From Clams
WOODS HOLE, MA— “Our studies have found that while some of their shells look pretty cool, clams really don’t have anything to teach us,” said the Oceanographic Institute’s chief scientist, Francis Dawkins. “We certainly can’t teach them anything. It’s not like you can train them to run through a maze the way you would with mice. We’ve tried, and they pretty much just lie there. From what I’ve observed, they have a lot more in common with rocks than they do with us. They’re technically alive, I guess, if you want to call that living. They open and close sometimes, but, I mean, so does a wallet. If you’ve used a wallet, you know more or less all there is to know about clams.”
Grown Man Licking Ice Cream Cone Placed On Sex Offender Registry
And from the Sports Desk:
Dad Shushes Family While Focused On Jumbotron Hat Shuffle
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 
