Well, as the year seeps out, we notice the NYT reporting on another federal judge upbraiding the government for improperly pursuing poor Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, DOJ’s favorite punching bag. Apparently, he’s being charged now with cheating on his SATs, peeing in the pool when he was 12, and making way too many errors chanting his Bar Mitzvah portion. Lock him up!! (To quote OC friend Michael’s son Gabe, who looked up from the Torah during his reading and said to us all: “This is hard!”)
Owl Chatter is helping raise funds for Kilmar’s defense by selling “I Was Wrongfully Deported to a Hellhole of a Prison in El Salvador and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” t-shirts. The price is $20, or $25 if you mention Owl Chatter. Or you can buy this one from the estate of the beheaded woman.
Kudos to Illinois for their gutsy win over Tennessee last night in their bowl game in Nashville. A good win for the Big Ten over the SEC. Tenny had home ice advantage and was favored by a couple. Illini QB Luke Altmyer looked cool in leading his men down the field with 2 minutes remaining, using up the clock wisely, setting up the game winning field goal. Tenny had just taken the lead for the first time late in the second half, by one point. But Altmyer calmly went about his business. Excellent game.
Luke is very private about his personal life. Either that, or he doesn’t have one. So Phil was unable to come up with anything on a girlfriend for us. His mom’s pretty hot, though. And Dad’s probably an alcoholic. Couldn’t put his drink down for two f*cking seconds.
In the puzzle today at 6D, “Wander aimlessly” was ROVE. (I tried roam first.) Who’s Planxty? Actually, it’s “what’s Planxty?” They were a very popular Irish folk music band, one of whose members was Christy Moore, whom we featured before on Owl Chatter. They were formed in 1972, broke up a few times, and last re-uned in 2005. According to our friend Miriam, “planxty” means “an Irish melody for the harp written in triplets and slower than the jig.”
Steve Bowe of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted the following, with the photo:
“Maybe it’s my innate dullness coming to the fore but I’m struggling to imagine any possibilities other than the obvious.”
Denmark is ushering in a bleak future by closing down its national postal service because nobody writes letter anymore. Yikes! They will only deliver packages now. A private company will take over for folks who are still archaic enough for letter-writing. So these gorgeous red mailboxes were removed from the nation’s streets. When 1,000 were offered online recently they sold out in three hours for about $300 each. I’d buy one for sure.
Postal news in the U.S. — Muhammad Ali stamps should be available in a few weeks. It’s about time, no? They’ll be unveiled in Louisville, his birthplace.
As you can see, it notes he was a boxer, activist, and humanitarian. But he said he didn’t want to be remembered for that. He wanted to be remembered for how pretty he was. I quoted him on that when I said a few words at our friend Susan’s memorial service in Vermont. Everyone was, rightfully, speaking about what an extraordinary woman she was, a devoted friend, a wonderful artist. But I spoke about how pretty she was, to quote Ali. And I noted that the last time I saw her, about a month before her passing, she was so ravaged by disease it took me aback at first. But I felt a click in my brain, and I realized she was still as beautiful as ever — it was just a different kind of beauty. Miss you, S.
Today’s puzzle was a New Year’s Eve party complete with party hats and balloons. The hats and balloons festooned a whole bunch of the black squares. And the theme answers were a SQUARE, BOX, CELL, and BLOCK combined with a type of get-together: SQUARE DANCE, BOX SOCIAL, CELL RECEPTION, and BLOCK PARTY. Here’s how pretty it looked:
BTW, ALI was in it at 2D, clued with “Sports star who said ‘It’s not bragging if you can back it up.’” (Dizzy Dean also said that, a commenter noted.)
Yesterday’s puzzle included the phrase “and [blank] bed,” for the answer SO TO. Commenter Germanicus wrote: “And so to bed” is the most famous catchphrase in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. I replied: Are there other less famous ones? Perhaps “Time to get up.” “Rise and shine!” or “Ready for lunch?”
Big sports day for us. Michigan’s holding its own so far against Texas. And our Sirens scored a big win over Vancouver on the ice in Newark. Our Sarah Fillier was out, though, and is day-to-day, from this vicious shot (see below) she took last game. TBH, Sarah started it with a pretty good hit just as this video begins. But the retaliation by Seattle’s Tejralova (to Sarah’s head!) was way out of line, and she was rightfully ejected and charged with a major misconduct penalty. It’s a tough business and these girls don’t screw around.
We’ll end today, and this difficult year for America, by wishing the Kennedy family peace, upon the passing of JFK’s beautiful granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline’s daughter. She was only 35. Our Phil was pretty close to Tatiana, of course, and thought this first shot showed her personality. And the second, her beauty. Rest in peace.
Happy New Year Chatterheads! See you in 2026!
The Wellington Files 