The champagne flowed freely in the Jets locker room yesterday! The season of grim torment finally dribbled to an end, AND it ended with an impressive loss by less than 30 points! Buffalo 35, NYJ 8. The Jets actually won the fourth quarter 8-6.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson submitted his first collection of poems to his publisher, he was sent the galleys to review by the printer. Emerson noticed that his middle name was omitted on the title page. So he noted in the margin: “Where’s Waldo?,” thus launching the popular series of children’s puzzle books.
Owl Chatter’s rigorous, scientific poll reveals that only 156 Americans support the U.S. takeover of Vuvuzela. Of the remaining population, 522 are opposed, and the rest think it’s in Africa.
Our intrepid war correspondent George Santos along with brave photo-journalist Phil flew down to Caracas in advance of the operation. At great personal risk, Phil got these shots for us as the operation began.
In the puzzle yesterday, the answer BRUTUS appeared twice, as explained below. In discussing that, Rex wondered parenthetically whether the plural might be “Bruti.” And Commenter Colin had this to say about that:
As a wannabe Latin scholar, I looked up Brutus (and brutus) in my Cassell’s Latin dictionary. Yes, the plural would be Bruti / bruti; “brutus” appears to be a second declension masculine noun. Many folks think that any Latin word ending in -us in the singular would end in -i in the plural, and that is often correct but that’s only for second declension nouns. Some nouns ending in -us are actually fourth declension, in which case the nominative plural would end in -ūs (note long ū, pronounced like a long u or “oo”). Ductus (as in patent ductus arteriosus) in the plural would be ductūs (and ductus arteriosus would be ductūs arteriosi). Manus (“hand”; the MIT motto is “Mens et manus” or “Mind and hand”) is another example of a fourth declension noun, and so the plural of manus is manūs.
I commented: Thanks for clearing that up!
The puzzle was all about double crossing, in a neat way. It had five figures who were betrayed by somebody (double crossed), and the name of the bad guy “crossed” him twice in the puzzle. Get it? “Double” crossed. For example, OTHELLO, at 119A, was crossed twice by IAGO: once at 105D as the parrot from Aladdin, and again at 107D, with the clue: “Driven by envy toward his comrades, he fabricated events that led to their downfall.” Similarly, CAESAR was crossed twice by BRUTUS; JESUS by JUDAS, MUFASA by SCAR, and, less famously, OSIRIS by SET.
Here’s some early Clapton with John Mayall, alav hashalom, followed by Van, who was lost, double-crossed!
John Mayall.
Last night’s Ravens-Steelers game was do or die. The winner would advance to the playoffs: money, fame, loose women, rich desserts. And the loser would go home shattered, vilified, and ruined. It was a bruising heavyweight fight with the two great behemoths trading blows until the final seconds ticked down. The Steelers pulled ahead with a TD, but their kicker, Chris Boswell, missed the extra point. So they were only up 26-24 as Baltimore drove up the field with the game clock bleeding out. They set their kicker Tyler Loop up well. His 44-yard field goal with the clock hitting zero would give the game to the Ravens. Instead, . . . well, take a look.
I thought of my old Brandeis friend Lance, alav hasahlom, when I heard the church organ play in that video. I would get to my office at Hunter Monday mornings in the fall, after a typical Jets loss, and there’d be a phone message waiting for me. It was Lance somberly intoning the Kaddish . . . Yisgadal v’yiskadash, shmei rabah. . .
Services will be held for the Ravens’ hopes and dreams at Temple Beth Hatikvah at 10 am tomorrow, and the entire city of Baltimore will be sitting shivah for the remainder of the week wherever fans can be found.
What an assortment of guests we had in the puzzle today! KEANU Reeves, MR T, AARON Burr (sorry Hank, you’re on the bench today), Mark Twain, General LEE (maybe next time Spike), Fanny BRICE, Yoko ONO, Crazy Horse, ROSA Parks, IGOR Stravinsky, ERIC Carmen or Clapton (your choice), EWAN McGregor, Bob De Niro (in the clue for TAXI DRIVER), and EMILY Dickinson.
Remember how gorgeous Cybill was with De Niro? She was at her most drool-inducing during that period. Did you know that during the shooting of Taxi Driver De Niro asked her out and she said no? From then on, he refused to speak to her except in character. She later said she regretted saying no.
Cybill’s from Memphis and is 76 now. She has three children, including Clementine Ford, an actress, 46, who seems to have received a good helping of her mom’s good looks.
Let’s end with another tune, if it’s okay with you. What? You talkin’ to me?
See you tomorrow, Chatterheads. Thanks for stopping by.
The Wellington Files 