My favorite clue yesterday was “Noted series with over 200 Emmys … and an Oscar.” When I worked the answer out to SESAME STREET, I figured it must have earned all those Emmys over the decades, and I was pretty sure there was a Sesame Street movie at one point, but didn’t recall that it won an Oscar. It turns out this is the Oscar:
I’ve been waiting for this day since December, which a good indication of what my life has been like in retirement. Back then, I read (and, of course, shared in this space), what was billed as “the world’s greatest anchovy joke.” In case you don’t remember it and are too lazy to go scrolling back, here it is again:
Three lads go for a meal at a new pizza restaurant, whose pitch is that you can totally personalise your pizza: you just have to choose any three ingredients from a huge list, and voila: made to measure pizza.
So the first guy who is a total carnivore opts for a venison, kangaroo, and biltong pizza. The second guy who is an out-and-out veggie opts for an artichoke heart, salsify, and banana blossom pizza. The third guy, who just loves anchovies, doesn’t want anything outlandish to distract from the anchovial loveliness, so he opts for anchovy, onion, and tomato.
Appetites duly whetted, they sit back to await events. After a bit, three pizzas get delivered, and the first two guys are raving about theirs and how generous all the portions are of their chosen toppings. Meanwhile, the third guy is looking at his pizza and wondering what went wrong. He calls the waiter back. “My two mates are raving about their pizzas, no complaints there. And mine … well, no complaints about tomato and onion, but they were just supposed to be a foil for the anchovies. Where are they all? There seem to be only three of them!”
And the waiter, looking a bit dumbfounded, replies “But sir, most people don’t like anchovies.”
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Well, since then I’ve been waiting for something in the NYTXW to give me an excuse to share it with Rex Parker’s readers via a comment. Finally, at 67D today, the answer was ANCHOVY PASTE. It was part of the theme that listed ten ingredients for Caesar’s salad. Amazingly, the ten were fitted into the grid symmetrically in five pairs. And, in a nod to today’s date (the IDES OF MARCH), the letters IDE were rebused (squooshed) into one square seven times, working both down and across, e.g., DIVIDEND crossed SPIDER. A “double theme” in a way. An amazing feat of construction by Miranda Kany.
(Sorry, last time for that photo (maybe).)
Today’s poem in The Writer’s Almanac is by Katrina Vandenberg, and is called “Consuming Desire.”
I’m not making this up. In Cafe Latte’s wine bar
one of the lovely coeds at the next table
touched John on the arm as if I wasn’t there
and said, Excuse me, sir, but what
is that naughty little dessert?
And I knew from the way he glanced
at the frothy neckline of her blouse,
then immediately cast his eyes on his plate
before giving a fatherly answer,
he would have given up dessert three months
for the chance to feed this one to her.
I was stunned; John was hopeful;
but the girl was hitting on his cake.
Though she told her friend until they left
she did not want any. I wish she wanted
something—my husband, his cake, both at once.
I wish she left insisting
upon the beauty of his hands, his curls,
the sublimeness of strawberries
and angel food. But she was precocious,
and I fear adulthood is the discipline
of being above desire, cultivated
after years of learning what you want
and where and how, after insisting
that you will one day have it. I don’t
ever want to stop noticing a man like the one
at the bar in his loosened tie, reading
the Star Tribune. I don’t want to eat my cake
with a baby spoon to force small bites,
as women’s magazines suggest. And you
don’t want to either, do you? You want a big piece
of this world. You would love to have the whole thing.
We saw the Morristown HS production of Fiddler last night. Our Robin (the artist formerly known as Lianna), was not involved, but she had friends who were. They did a great job. It never fails to move me to tears, though I am, admittedly, pretty pathetic. My favorite song is usually the Sabbath prayer, but this time several others reached me more deeply: the love songs.
PAUL SIMON (full name) crossed yesterday’s grid, clued as writer of “The Boxer.” You ever hear this version? It was new to me.
A bit of a foofaraw arose yesterday regarding Commenter Gary’s note. He described the Times puzzle editors as “our fancy New York charcuterie-forking boxed-wine-slurping art-show-gawking editors.” Said they are “kinda judgy,” and called them “snobarians.”
It moved Commenter C. Kelly to reply: the editors of the New York Times puzzle, whom you so glibly, condescendingly and unfairly caricature and demean in your description of them, . . . based upon unfounded assumptions about them, and incorrect information. . . . If anyone is being “kinda judgy,” it is you. These editors are human beings; not comic book characters there for your amusement.
Ouch!
Gary responded today with: “My post yesterday rankled a couple. It came across kind of mean about the editors of the NYTXW. I even suggested they drink boxed wine. In truth, I imagine our editors are hard-working fair-minded pleasant and smart people with wonderful senses of humor, but it’s far more amusing imagining them as Quasimodos lurking in dingy basements of a rat-infested city lonely and bitter their Ivy league education has them looking up the Wikipedia page for Yoko Ono again and desperately searching for the word ASS in puzzle submissions.”
Our favorite humorist Egs chimed in on the contretemps today: Gary: Don’t apologize or explain your sense of humor. It is a treasure shared with us most every day, and I’m sure I speak for many others.
As Liveprof, I added “Seconded.”
It didn’t end there, but it got tiresome.
The clue at 65A was “Sch. whose team name is a poisonous nut.”
Commenter Coprophagist said: The answer had to be Trump University, but I just couldn’t make it fit.
I ruled out Ohio State because I thought Buckeyes were some kind of animal. But I was wrong — the Buckeye is a nut that is poisonous, so the answer was indeed OSU.
That puzzle also had the clue “Hip places?” and the answer was BELTLINES. Here’s a fact you absolutely must know, courtesy of Ukulele Ike: When Julie Newmar was cast as Catwoman in the BATMAN TV show, she moved the belt from her waist to her hips to make her tuchas look cuter.
Attention to details!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 