In the puzzle today, at 46A, for “Old-timey ‘Listen!’” the answer was HARK.
Noah was 500 years old when he built the ark, give or take. I’m no Bible expert, but I’m thinking his hearing might not have been that great.
God: HARK!
Noah: Ark?
God: No, HARK.
Noah: What?
God: HARK. It means listen.
Noah: Okay. I’m harking. What do You want?
God: Ark.
Noah: Hark?
God: No, ark.
Noah: That’s what I asked before and You said no.
God: I was saying HARK before.
Noah: Ark?
God: No, HARK.
Noah: Oh! Okay, so what do You want?
God: Ark.
Noah: HARK?
God: Arrrrgh.
Noah: Ark?
It’s a miracle it ever got built.
At 1A, “‘OK,’ in modern slang” was BET. Remember this great Jim Harbaugh ad?
The other items I “worked” on were SHEENS (“Paint options”), and SPADE (“Part of a black suit”).
SHEENS: Martin and Charlie
Alternate clue for SPADE: With “a,” what to call a spade.
We’re back to our miserable lives from our weekend in the Berkshires. Monday’s movie was Coyote v. Acme. Linda liked it more than I did. It was certainly clever, well-done, and likable. Maybe I was expecting too much.
Took a very nice walk in downtown Pittsfield MA after the movie. A vacant store window had posters with children’s poems in it. These were my favorites.
1.
Dear blue I know you’re
The color of sadness
But you can be other emotions too!
You can be depression.
You can be blueberries!
2.
I TOLD MY MOM THAT
I CLEAN MY ROOM I DON’T
CLEAN MY ROOM
3.
Cheese is a moon
A full moon
(a half moon
Or even the eclipse)
Cheese can be so many things?!
Cheese can be a heart if you
Cut and shape it.
Or maybe a fake pencil.
You can draw cheese with cheese.
4.
I’m made of flowers
The flowers are red
Stopped in Poughkeepsie for lunch on the way back and a stroll over the Hudson on its “walkway.” Beautiful day for it.
On Saturday, for the clue “The sound that concludes ‘The Sound and the Fury,’” the answer was LONG E. Get it? It’s the E sound at the end of the word “fury.” I bring it up only because I loved this comment and response that appeared on Rex’s blog:
Commenter Stillwell: Did anyone else confidently write CADDY as the last sound of “The Sound and the Fury?” As in, what Benjy hears the golfers yelling on the golf course that used to be their farm, at the end?
Burtonkd’s reply: You may be alone on that one.
Phil — we’re not doing photos on this — just let Michelle play.
The following is, verbatim, from historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter from a few days ago. Before continuing, however, take a moment to remind yourself that she is talking about the President of the United States. It’s the same office held by men like George Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower, Obama.
He posted multiple images of himself changing maps or of new maps showing the change of the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” and the state of New Mexico to “New America,” and labeling the Strait of Hormuz as “NEW U.S. Territory.” He showed the colors of the U.S. over the North American continent, and he posted “before” and “after” maps in which Iran was replaced with a silhouette image of his own head, as well as an AI image of a U.S. military plane blowing up Iran’s Kharg Island with the caption: “Bye bye, Kharg,” along with repeated claims that Iran is collapsing. He posted an AI-generated image of himself beating Canadian prime minister Mark Carney at hockey and saying, “GET UP, GOVERNOR,” an insulting reference to Canada as a U.S. state.
He posted AI images of former president Joe Biden wearing a Trump 2024 hat and Robert DeNiro holding up a shirt saying “TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.” He posted an AI image of what seemed to be the luxury liner RMS Titanic, labeled “DUMOCRATIC PARTY,” sinking in flames.
He posted an image of himself trading stocks at his desk in the Oval Office at a screen that reads “BOUGHT: INTEL $20” and another that reads “NOW $95” with the caption: “I do this for our Country, not myself. I’ve made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself, and all I do is get criticized by the Radical Left Dumocrats. Very unfair, but what can you do!
Let’s close with another poem today. It was the poem of the day from Poets.org on Sunday. It’s called “The Valley of Aijalon,” and is by Babette Deutsch. See you tomorrow, folks.
I have forgotten precious things:
Wisdom in books, the words of lovers,
But not the shadow on the waters
Cast by a hidden sea-gulls’ wings.
I have forgotten many a pledge
Given and taken—fear and hunger
That once were knives—but not the pewter
Of olives from a mountain’s edge.
The tired brain gathers and lets go
Faces and cities, wars and weathers,
But keeps one sun as still as Joshua’s
On honey-bright unbroken snow.
The Wellington Files 