The Wellington Files

  • Think Like a Mountain

    Will Nediger had quite a week. On Monday The New Yorker featured a puzzle of his on their “challenging” day, and, on Friday, the NYT threw us one of his as well. The clue for 34D in the NYer was “Joanna Newsom song title that’s rhymed with the lyric ‘loose legs.’” Well, I’ve never heard of Joanna Newsom, but “loose legs” caught my attention. The answer was GOOSE EGGS, and the lyric is:

    Recently, a bottle of rye, and a friend, and me
    On our five loose legs
    Had a ramble, and spoke
    Of the scrambling of broken hopes, and goose eggs

    My favorite of his clues in that grid was: “Maker of the nail polish Haute to Trot” (ESSIE). Haute to Trot!

    Nediger’s Friday NYT puzzle set the tone for me at 1 across: “Flummoxed,” — AT SEA. And that’s how I felt as I hacked my way through it. It didn’t help that Rex rated it “Easy.” But he (modestly) calls himself “the greatest crossword solver in the universe (when he co-solves with his wife),” and I’m not.

    There was a nice crossing of I CAN’T LOOK (“This is too painful to watch!”) with OH GOD! (“This is a disaster!”) Well, it wasn’t that bad — I eventually completed it successfully.

    How about 16A? — not exactly a gimme for me — “Symbolic hand gesture in Hinduism.” Turned out to be MUDRA. Huh? LMS jokingly noted that it was a gimme for her, since “I had to memorize all symbolic hand gestures in Hinduism back in the fifth grade. Snort.” Another comment was: “The thing that people would make with their fingers, making O’s with thumbs and forefingers as they sit cross-legged and close their eyes, to suggest ‘meditate’ in a game of charades: that would be a MUDRA.”

    The clue for 37A was “Stocks,” and it took me forever to come up with BROTHS, even though I had THS. Here’s something I learned: Stock is made with bones, broth with meat and/or vegetables. The former is fattier from the marrow, the latter thinner with usually a lighter flavor.

    There was a lovely “stack” of three long answers sitting atop one another: BURNER ACCOUNT, CINNAMON TOAST, and ROOKIE MISTAKE. Cinnamon toast made people think of midnight snacks, and one poster shared this comment:

    “Had a roommate after college who always woke up in the middle of the night for a snack. Years later, I spent a night in the guest room at his home. About 3 AM I heard all this conversation in the kitchen and found my friend eating cereal accompanied by his 3 boys, ages 7, 5, and 3.”

    15A referenced “Ecologist Leopold who advocated “thinking like a mountain.” It’s ALDO Leopold. And here’s a quote posted on Rex’s blog by Barbara S:

    “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.…I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.”
    ― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

    I learn so much from puzzles! Thankfully, almost none of it is even remotely useful. The clue for 24D was “Roll with many functions,” and the answer was DUCT TAPE. Many people think duct tape is used to repair ducts and is often wrongly called duck tape. But in fact its original name was duck tape because it’s made from cotton duck fabric. And it should not be used to repair ducts because heat from the duct unsticks the tape’s adhesive.

    How about TOFF? Ever hear that word? I hadn’t. It’s British slang for an “aristocratic type.” It’s said derogatorily of someone exuding an air of superiority. So, an example of how it’s used might be: “F**K you, toff.”

    As the World Series begins, Yogi comes to mind. What a gift he was to us. Some of his teammates were lamenting the decline in attendance one season, and Yogi said: “If folks don’t want to come to the ballpark, you can’t stop ’em.”

    Hard to argue with that.

  • We Will Be Moving Shortly

    Today’s puzzle was very well-constructed but the general cluing was a little blah. The trick was hard to discern and there was no “revealer,” tipping you off to what was going on. It was sink or swim, or, in my case, float around thrashing helplessly for a while. Here’s the deal:

    There were six italicized across clues that turned out to be two-word answers with the second word differing from the first by only one letter. And you had to use both letters for the down answers. So, e.g., for the clue “Eat, quaintly,” the answer was BREAK BREAD, but you had to fill it in in just five squares, using BREA and then K/D. The K and D both fit into the last square (that’s called a rebus). Then a crossing down clue was “Place where everything should have a mate,” and the answer was SOCK DRAWER, with the K and D both being used. (LMS noted there is a second place where everything should have a mate — the place you keep all your Tupperware containers — with those damn disappearing or “extra” lids.)

    In addition to that craftiness, some good clues/answers were: “Item of feline furniture” for CAT CONDO, and “Tiny pedestals of a sort” for TEES (think golf). It was also cute that BRAYS (“Complains, donkey-style”) was crossed by the ASS from TD PASS (“Reason for an end zone celebration”), giving us yet another tuchas in the puzzle — a regular feature in the NYTXW these days, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “behind the times.”

    Was there a mild political note in the puzzle? “Confident assertion” right in the center of the grid gave us the Obama-esque YES I CAN, and “DC address?” gave us SOTU (for State Of The Union (address)). One Rex commenter noted “When Trump gave the SOTU, all I could think was STFU.”

    I was waiting for a train on the subway platform years ago when an announcement came out of the loudspeakers. But it was just blasts of static — you couldn’t make out a single word. Then it was repeated in Spanish. It was still just static, but you could tell it was Spanish static. And what I loved about the scene was, there were tons of people on the platform, and not one person tried to find out what was said. Not one person said “What was that?” or “Could you understand that?” And that was because everyone knows that in the entire history of the subway system every announcement ever made was a complete lie. “We will be moving shortly.” “There is a train directly behind this one.” Or my favorite: “We are sorry for the inconvenience.” You ever see those guys who drive the trains? They have death in their eyes and are counting the minutes to retirement. I asked one once: “Does this train stop at 18th Street?,” and he just stared at me blankly and said “Please kill me.” You think they care about our inconvenience? You think he’s worrying — “Oh, no, Professor Liveson may be late for his class because of this delay — what will his students do?”

    Even when the news is bad, it’s a lie. I was on a train once, going up to Hunter, and I was in great shape. I had a seat, a book to read, and a snack and a drink, if needed. Perfect comfort. The train stops at a station, the doors open, the doors close, and then the doors open again. And I’m thinking — NO! We did that already — we are supposed to move forward now, not open the doors again.” And then the announcement came: “Ladies and gentlemen, due to [insert any lie] all uptown service on the East Side of Manhattan has been suspended indefinitely. If you need to get uptown, cross over to the other side of the platform, take the downtown train to Grand Central Station, take the shuttle to Times Square, and take the 1, 2, or 3 train to 72nd street where a shuttle bus will be waiting to take you to the East Side.”

    And I’m thinking, right — I’m going to take seven trains in the wrong direction to get to a shuttle bus that there is no chance in hell exists. I’m staying right where I am unless someone in a uniform with a gun tells me to get out. Sure enough, after a minute or two, the doors closed and we proceeded on our way like the announcement was never made.

    How about the “sick passenger” announcements? Ever get one of those? I’m on a #6 train around 23rd Street and we stop dead for a few minutes and then it comes: “Ladies and Gentlemen. Due to a sick passenger at East 149th Street, all service on the East Side of Manhattan has been suspended indefinitely.” What!? East 149th Street is, like, Canada!! Some idiot has a tummy ache five miles away and the greatest city in the world is brought to a complete standstill?? I’m guessing they have to wait for medical help to arrive. They can land a man on the moon within one inch of where they plan to land, but it’s beyond human capacity to coordinate getting help to this guy at some point up the line so the trains can still move?? Or is this one of those football-type injuries where his neck may be broken so any movement is dangerous? Has Lawrence Taylor sacked someone on the #6 train at East 149th Street? Not likely.

    The terrorists have been trying to attack the subways for decades and haven’t succeeded. But one guy with the flu paralyzes the entire system. They shouldn’t be checking our bags for explosives – they should be taking our blood pressure. “I’m sorry, sir, you’re at 140 over 90. We can’t let you on that train – you could paralyze the entire city.”

    Enough. There is a train directly behind this one. We will be moving shortly.

  • Promiscuous Spices

    Discussing the Mahatma with a four-year old is like taking Gandhi from a baby. I heard that line many years ago from Larry Josephson, radio personality on NPR. I had to look up how to spell Gandhi. It has a wandering H in my mind. I placed it right after the G at first. It can almost go anywhere in the middle. My granddaughter Lianna shares her birthday with Gandhi (and Groucho Marx!). October 2.

    Groucho was interviewing a woman contestant on You Bet Your Life who told him she had 17 children. Groucho asked her: “How do you explain that?,” and she said, “Well, Groucho, I really love my husband.” And Groucho said, “I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.”

    Linda and I went to see a Groucho impersonator, Frank Ferrante, in Morristown, and he recounted that tale. To my mind, it is absolutely perfect humor.

    Today’s puzzle started off with ROOMBA, “Autonomous household helper since 2002,” and sort of continued the vacuum cleaner theme with the next clue “I feel your pain!,” the answer to which was THAT SUCKS.

    There was a great clue for ALE: “Quaff of gruit and wort, in days of yore.” And if you had too much, you might become SALLOW (“unhealthy looking.”) Been there, for sure.

    One New Year’s Eve in the 1970’s, I had too much pizza and beer with Sylvia, our law secretary, and her Vietnam-vet boyfriend Jerry, in an outstanding pizza place in Rochester NY (Bay and Goodman). I excused myself and went to the men’s room. I sat down in a stall and waited patiently to die. Although the pizza there was great, the place itself was pretty dumpy and there was no door to my stall. But I was way past the point of caring about appearances. After too much time passed, Sylvia told Jerry to go check on me — to make sure I was okay. So he came in and was looking at me, trying to determine if I was okay. (I only learned this later.) A gentleman standing by the sink, who didn’t know that Jerry knew me, saw him looking at me and said “That guy is gone.”

    I guess I was pretty SALLOW. But I lived.

    MOO was nicely clued with “Sound emitted by methane emitters.” (Get it? A cow’s flatulence is comprised of methane, and a cow says MOO.) There goes the old NYT “breakfast test.” (The puzzle is not supposed to bring to mind images that would be unpleasant to a casual reader over breakfast.)

    Remember the famous bar scene in Star Wars? It took place on MOS EISLEY, clued as “‘Wretched hive of scum and villainy,’ per Obiwan Kenobi.” Impossible to get that one, except via the crossing words. But for only $399.00 you can get a LEGO Mos Eisley, Star Wars fans! Take a look here: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/mos-eisley-cantina-75290

    And I liked this one: the clue was “Flat . . . or inflate?” and the answer was PAD. (Get it?)

    So how did you two meet?

    We live in the same building. I have an apartment in front, and she has a flat behind.

    According to The Writer’s Almanac, on this day in 1900, Henry James started a correspondence with Edith Wharton whose work he admired. They became life-long friends. Wharton’s work was more popular than James’s. When he learned that she bought a car with her earnings from one book, he joked that he hoped to be able to afford a wheelbarrow from the sales of his next work. (Alright — not as funny as Groucho, but who is?) He appreciated her friendship, and once wrote to her, “Your letters come into my damp desert here even as the odour of promiscuous spices …might be wafted to some compromised oasis from a caravan of the Arabian nights.”

    Yeah.

    What he said.

    I’ll just let myself out now — no need to get up.

  • See Spot Run

    The clue for 15 across today was “Holder of keys, phone and IDs,” and the answer was PURSE. Here’s what our favorite member of Rex’s commentariat (LMS) posted today:

    PURSE – holder of keys, phone, IDs, wadded-up Walmart receipts, uncapped ChapStick, four dirty pennies, errant stick of gum, hearing aid batteries, pair of scratched-up clip-on sunglasses, one AAA battery, Mom’s grocery list from two weeks ago, four pieces of that soft-center strawberry hard candy for Jamarion that I keep forgetting to slip him (while teasing him again that he likes old-lady candy), nail glue, floss, worn-out emery board, sandwich toothpick with the Cuban flag. . . damn.

    Sometimes something in a puzzle opens up a little door and if you look inside there’s really neat stuff in there. The clue for 3 down today was “Line from ‘Dick and Jane’ readers,” and the answer was SEE SPOT RUN. This is the first time that answer has appeared in a NYT puzzle. More interesting, though (if you can imagine anything more interesting than that), was the notion that this line is an example of something called “The Mandela Effect.”

    The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which a large segment of the public for some reason holds on to some idea that is not true. Wikipedia refers to it as a widespread instance of “false memory.” Apparently, for some reason a large segment of the public is/was under the impression that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980’s. Many “created” memories of news reports of his death, etc. Since this was the first instance of this occurring, it’s called The Mandela Effect.

    Comments today suggested that SEE SPOT RUN is an example of the Mandela Effect because it is widely believed it appeared repeatedly in those readers, but it never actually did. (One commenter said it did appear but only in an early edition and never again.) BTW, in the early versions, Spot was a cat.

    Another Mandela Effect example is people are sure Darth Vader said “Luke, I am your father,” but he never said that. Even James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, remembers the line that way. But what was really said was “No, I am your father.”

    A discussion of team mascots arose since a Toledo Mud Hen made an appearance at 9 down. The Mudhens are the minor league baseball team in Toledo OH. I’ve been out to see them play twice, in my minor league fandom days. It was great. LMS said she felt bad for the Mudhens because they don’t seem very fierce or intimidating. But then she remembered the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs and felt a little better. My son Sam (Hi Sam!) who spent some time in Traverse City MI tells me the team up there changed its name from the Beach Bums to the Pit Spitters, which is quite apt since that region is the cherry-growing center of the country.

    We attended a Beach Bums game when visiting Sam 8 or 9 summers ago. The Bums pulled off a triple play, I recall. And it was (granddaughter) Lianna’s first (and only) baseball game. She spent the first part playing in a playground they set up for kids, and the second part sleeping. I made her stop and watch one batter on our way out. The reason we left a few innings early is someone in our group questioned whether the ice cream place we were planning on visiting after the game would still be open. We called them and then panic-raced to the car and sped back to town, barely making it. Whew.

    In response to LMS’s note about the Banana Slugs, someone else posted:

    “My favorite football team name that must make its opponents positively wet themselves with fear is a high school here in Washington DC – the Cardozo Clerks. The sign always makes me laugh. They may not win much, but they take care of that post-game paperwork like you wouldn’t believe.”

    It led me to post:

    “I was all set to point out that the Cardozo Clerks must be law clerks, as opposed to secretarial-type clerks, since Benjamin Cardozo was a lawyer and Supreme Court Justice. But the school is named after a different Cardozo: Francis Lewis Cardozo, clergyman, politician, and educator. While their team name is the Clerks, the logo features an owl. The school is now the Cardozo Education Campus and it combines two former high schools: Central HS, and Cardozo Senior HS. J. Edgar Hoover graduated from Central. Marvin Gaye and Maury Wills graduated from Cardozo Senior.”

    Now there’s an unlikely trio — Marvin Gaye, Maury Wills, and J. Edgar.

    Rest in peace, gentlemen.

  • Mitch

    It was a long two days, up in Lexington MA for my brother-in-law’s funeral. His daughters spoke beautifully. Tamar introduced herself as the older one. Deborah went next and, very funny, introduced herself as the taller one. You don’t have to look any further than those two to sum up Mitch’s life as full and meaningful. That they loved him so deeply is pretty much the whole ballgame, as far as I’m concerned.

    When Mitch turned 70 (22 years ago), my sister Bonnie threw a party for him and asked us each to write a poem. Mine was a limerick. I still remember it.

    A young man in science well-versed
    Won our Bonnie’s heart from the first.
    She married the guy
    Then two children came by
    All in all, she could have done worse.

    We’ll return to our usual nonsense with the next post. It was a tough, rainy drive home. Time to get some sleep.

  • Puppy Dog Eyes

    In today’s puzzle, 1 across was ADDIS ABABA, clued as “World capital whose name means ‘new flower,’” and it’s an appropriate opening because the puzzle was a garden of delights. Terrific, sometimes funny, associations. And I learned things. IDAHO is slightly larger than all of New England combined. Really? I would have never guessed. And Santa’s POSTAL CODE in Canada is HOH OHO! How neat is that?

    Simple words were enriched by clever cluing: MALL (“Place for some outlets”); and PLEA (“It might be enhanced by puppy dog eyes”). LOSERS was nicely clued by “Duo who have to give up their foosball table spot.”

    There is a gentleman named Lewis who comments daily on the Rex Parker blog, always finding the positives in a puzzle. Sometimes he writes about why he loves puzzles. Here’s what he posted today:

    “I look at the answers in the grid, and there are only a few out of my knowledge, so the huge resistance I encountered was in the cluing. Vague cluing, misdirect cluing, upper-level wordplay cluing. The kind of cluing I want on a Saturday – riddle cluing, where each square filled in from a cross is like a new hint. Riddle cluing, where I have to keep finding new angles of approach, and where the cracking of the riddle is cause for great inner celebration and a deep nod of respect for the clue’s author.”

    “Therein for me, lies one of the major joys of crossword. When I was a kid, my sister and I played with words, making silly words that sounded funny, making elementary wordplay jokes. These are some of my happiest memories. But now, as an adult, with an adult brain, I want the same thing at a far deeper level.”

    There were cute “stories” in the grid, e.g., PAIRED, IS THAT A YES?, NEARLYWEDS, ALTAR, and IT’S ALL OVER. (“Nearlyweds” was new to me and nice. The clue was “They are about to say ‘I do.’”)

    And this drug bust: ACID, TAB, DOSE, ALL-TIME HIGH, and, alas, DEA.

    WAGERS at 47A sat right next to LOSERS at 50A. A punny clue was “Knight shift, e.g.” for CHESS MOVE. (Get it? — a play on “night shift.”)

    The clue “Intimates” led to the answer HINTS AT, so it was a verb: to intimate. But a commenter confessed that when he first had – – N T – – – , he thought the answer might be PANTIES. How quickly the mind races to the bedroom.

    Last, to finish on a classy note, for you art folks (Hi Carol and Bob), the clue “Mobile relatives” yielded STABILES. These are big art installations akin to Calder’s mobiles, except that they are stationary. You can see a neat one here: https://calder.org/works/monumental-sculpture/jerusalem-stabile-ii-1976/

    I’ll just slip out quietly now before anyone mentions the Yankees. (Oy.)

  • Little Spoon

    As you may have heard, Liz Truss resigned as Prime Minister of England after just 44 days in office. Things had become so precarious for her that the Daily Star tabloid set up a live feed featuring a head of iceberg lettuce next to a portrait of Truss, asking, “Which wet lettuce will last longer?”

    When she resigned, the lettuce celebrated its victory with disco lights. “After an unbeleafable campaign I am thrilled to have been crowned victorious in these chard times,” it said on a voice-over (channeling our punster friend Carl). “However we must romaine cautious. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

    A thousand apologies to AMY POEHLER, whom I completely forgot to mention in my post yesterday despite her prominence in the puzzle at 3 down — with her full name no less, clued uninspiringly as “Comedian with the 2014 humor book ‘Yes Please.’”

    Who doesn’t love Amy? Here are some quotes: On shopping, “We need a little less Forever 21 and a little more Suddenly 42.” On relationships, “What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring really loudly at me.”

    Sorry for the omission Amy. I must also confess I thought of Amy Schumer first, once I had AMY. (Same number of letters with the same ER ending.)

    The New Yorker has wonderful Xword puzzles on weekdays by a great group of constructors. One a week appears in print and they are all available online. They go in opposite day order from the NYT. In the Times, Monday is easy and it builds up to bonecrushingly difficult Saturdays. (Many observers feel the Saturdays of today are a notch easier than those of yesteryear. Cynics opine that it’s an attempt to increase the number of paying subscribers.) The New Yorker goes from highly challenging on Monday, down to beginner-friendly on Thursday. And Friday is a theme (or trick) puzzle.

    I mention this because I just finished a terrific Monday New Yorker puzzle by Natan Last. It was a real bear. Even the clue for OREO — one of the most common puzzle answers — was tricky. It was “Golden_______.” It turns out there’s a Golden Oreo — it’s vanilla instead of chocolate.

    My favorite clue/answer was: “One being held from behind.” (11 letters) I had no idea, but the crossing answers led me to LITTLE SPOON. Huh? Was this some sort of silverware rule I wasn’t aware of? — you hold the little spoon differently from normal-sized spoons? But how do you hold a spoon “from behind?” Well, get this: It comes from “spooning,” like by a couple. As you may know, spooning is “a form of cuddling where two people lay on their sides with one person’s back against the other’s chest” (or, in my case, stomach). So, back to the puzzle answer — when spooning, the person in front (i.e., the one being “held from behind”), is called the “little spoon.”

    Well, once those spooners were in place, the whole grid exploded with sexuality — or not. There was a mixed message sort of deal going on. 28A was HEAT (“2013 NBA champions), but 29A was NEIN (Hamburger’s refusal). 38A was SEX APPEAL (“Pulchritude”), 3D was THE BIG EASY (“Crescent City, by another name”), 35A was LAY EYES ON (“Spot”), 41A was TOPE (“Hit the bottle”), 30A was RIESLINGS (“High acidity white wines”), and 47A was PREGNANTLY (“In a meaningful way”)(Yikes!). So it seemed like we were getting somewhere, no? But then 27A was BETTER NOT (“I think we should avoid that . . .”), 24A was GIRL POWER (“slogan by the punk band Bikini Kill”), and, finally, 46A was I TRIED (“[Shrug]”).

    Whew, looked good there for a minute.

    Today’s NYT puzzle was very much enjoyed by the Rex gang and Rex himself. (BTW, if you’re not already clued in, Rex is a reference to the “Rex Parker does the NYT puzzle blog” with the many comments it inspires.)

    The clue “It’s shortest at the Equator” turned out to be DAWN. And here’s a nice comment: “I learned the meaning of DAWN. I thought it was the same as ‘sunrise.’ But ‘sunrise’ is a moment and DAWN must be a period of time if it is shortest at the equator. DAWN begins when light first appears on the horizon and ends at sunrise.”

    There were a bunch of fresh and lively answers today. HANG ON A SECOND and WAIT RIGHT HERE were stacked almost right on top of each other. For the clue “The other one!,” the answer was NO NOT THAT! For “Buzzes while buzzed,” the answer was DRUNK DIALS.

    Did you know there is a color called BOTTLE GREEN? There is. (“Dark hue named after a type of glassware.”) It’s the green of green bottles (duh) (think 7-Up or beer), and it’s the green of those highway signs and street name signs you see when driving. I know what you’re thinking — how does it differ from the green that is the background color on the flag of Bangladesh? Well, it doesn’t — it’s the same f**king green! (It’s also known as Bangladesh green.)

    “Uncapped?” yielded BAREHEADED, something I couldn’t be in High School. At the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn we had to wear yarmulkes to school. If Rabbi Doctor Lieberman found you without one he’d yell at you that you were nude, as far as he was concerned. Only the boys had to wear them. Still, I doubt he’d be yelling that today.

    Did someone say 7-Up? My great Uncle Izzy was a chemist in the early 1900’s but his true passion was inventing. He came up with a formula for a soft drink and poured all of his savings into producing it. He called it 4-Up, and it was a complete bust — he was ruined. But he wasn’t discouraged. He went back to the proverbial drawing board, tinkered with the formula, mortgaged his home, and produced a new beverage which he called 5-Up this time. It failed and he was wiped out again. Undaunted, he revised the formula one more time, borrowed money from everyone he knew, and produced a new beverage which he called 6-Up. This time when it failed it broke his spirit. He died several years later, depressed and destitute, never realizing how close he had come.

    My brother-in-law Mitch passed away this week, and it’s a big loss for my family. He was just shy of 92. He was a very devoted husband of my wonderful sister Bonnie, who passed away over a year ago just shy of 80. Mitch was a physicist with IBM until he retired. He stayed extremely busy in retirement learning languages, writing, and taking and teaching courses at Harvard’s Extension School. On one visit years ago he told me he was putting together a course with a musician friend on the relationship between music and physics. I remembered that when we next visited on Thanksgiving, and I asked him how the course went. He said they had twelve students and he was pleased with how it went. Then he added, “But I must tell you, Avi, I was astounded at the level of ignorance that’s out there.” “How so?,” I asked. “Well, there was a woman there who actually did not know what a logarithm is. Can you imagine?” I was sitting there, stuffing turkey into my face, and had absolutely no idea what a logarithm is. So I said, “I don’t know, Mitch. Isn’t it possible not to know that and still not be a total idiot?” And he said, “Oh, please. It’s like never having heard of Shakespeare.” Well, I’ve heard of Shakespeare. I went one for two.

    That became the standard of intelligence in our home. I’d meet one of Caity’s boyfriends, Linda would ask me how he seemed, and I’d say “Let me put it this way – I don’t think he knows what a logarithm is.”

    Rest in peace, dear Mitch.

  • Three bags full

    In baseball news, it looks like there may be no stopping Houston this year. With LA, ATL, and the Mets conking out early, and the Yankees struggling with holes in their lineup and bullpen issues, who can effectively take them on? Yuck. Surprise me, Baseball Gods!

    Thursday is cute trick day for the puzzle, and today’s was a good one! The theme was BLACK SHEEP, and in three places a black square had to be replaced by LAMB, RAM, and EWE, respectively– with those letters worked into both the across and down answers. So, e.g., an across clue was “Ethical gray area,” and the answer was MORA [LAMB] IGUITY across, with the LAMB placed in a black square so it was a “black sheep.” The same LAMB figured in the down clue “Italian auto with a bull in its logo,” — [LAMB] ORGHINI. The other pairs were ASH[RAM] and EXT[RAM]AYO (for “Sandwich order specification”), and, my favorite pair: HAV[EWE]MET (for “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”) and CHEES[EWE]DGE (for “Slice of brie, e.g.”).

    The term “black sheep” gets its negative connotation from the fact that the wool of a black sheep is worth less because it will not dye. White fleece is caused by a common dominant gene that cuts off color production. The gene for black fleece is recessive so black sheep are rare. In 18th and 19th century England, the black fleece was considered a mark of the devil. The devil denies having anything to do with it. The idiom exists in many languages, but in Russian and Persian the concept is embodied in a white crow. In psychology, the Black Sheep Effect describes the fact that people show a negative bias towards individuals who are not members of their own group. For example, my Uncle Morris used to divide all drivers into two distinct groups. One group was comprised of completely wild idiotic maniacs, and the other group was just him.

    The Black Swan is something completely different. A black swan is a single very surpising event of great magnitude that alters your beliefs, and which you retroactively use to adjust your beliefs. Here’s a nice passage from Wikipedia: The importance of the metaphor lies in its analogy to the fragility of any system of thought. A set of conclusions is potentially undone once any of its fundamental postulates is disproved. In this case, the observation of a single black swan would be the undoing of the logic of any system of thought, as well as any reasoning that followed from that underlying logic.

    When the metaphor was first developed, it was believed there was no such thing as a black swan. But they do exist.

    A nice word in the grid today was SORORAL, clued simply as “Sisterly.” It’s the female equivalent of fraternal. One commenter noted that he had a friend who had twin daughters. When asked if the twins were “fraternal,” he would answer “No, they’re sororal.”

    There were two wonderful visitors to the puzzle today — Mark TWAIN and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), along with the lovely Eva Mendez, and musical guests ETTA James and Rita ORA — both very popular in Crossworld for obvious reasons. Here’s a Mark Twain quote: The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

    I bet you didn’t know that Etta James’s real name was Jamesetta. Jamesetta Hawkins. She was born on Jan. 25, 1938 to Dorothy Hawkins, who was 14 at the time. (Yikes!) It was never established who her dad was, but James herself speculated that it might have been Rudolf Wanderone, aka Minnesota Fats — well-known professional pool player. In any event, she is #22 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s Greatest Singers Of All Time list, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. She died ten years ago when she was 73.

    Now I need to brace myself for the Friday and Saturday puzzles. So long.

  • Wednesday

    Today’s puzzle has a “Tom Swifty” theme. Hope you like those.

    “What do you mean there are no PlayStations left in stock?,” asked Tom INCONSOLABLY. (Get it? From out of consoles.)

    “I’m worried I may have anemia,” said time UNIRONICALLY.

    This may be the cleverest, and at 15 letters it ran all the way across the grid. “You guys are supposed to be “Wise Men” and these are the gifts you bring a newborn?,” asked Tom, FRANKLY INCENSED. (From frankincense.)

    Other decent ones not from the puzzle include:

    “I’ve dropped my toothpaste,” said Tom crestfallen.

    “What this team needs is someone who can hit 60 home runs a season,” said Tom ruthlessly.

    And how about this variant? — (give it a little time) — “I’m bailing out,” Tom explained.

    “Pastry dough used in crullers and beignets” turned out to be CHOUX, a new word for me, but my friend Joe said he knew it from The Great British Baking Show. It paired nicely across the grid with CHEW TOY, clued as “Target of a canine’s canines, maybe.”

    I had no idea why “Flat, for short” turned out to be TWOD. Twod? Then I realized it’s 2-D (Two dimensional.)

    Here are some words I learned today from my Merriam-Webster “Word of the Day” email.

    Groak — to stare at people who are eating in the hope that they will share food. (Dogs are good at this.)

    Snotter — to breathe noisily. It’s a broad term that encompasses snoring, sniffling, etc.

    Sialoquent — to spray saliva while speaking. (We’ve all been there, on the receiving end — AMIRITE?)

    Cacchinate — to laugh too loudly

    Screeve — to write for the purpose of begging, usually for money.

    Hard to imagine why these are not more commonly in use. BTW, AMIRITE is now a term in common use. I’ve seen it as a puzzle answer. It’s short for “Am I right?” (Duh)

    See you later!

  • Quicksand

    The young constructors often take it upon themselves to bring us old codgers up to date on internet slang. But the one that appeared in Monday’s puzzle seems ridiculous. The answer was IT ME, and it’s slang for “it’s me.” It’s used, e.g., when you see a meme that you really relate to. So you point it out and say to your friend “it me.” Seriously? (I do like the expanded use of “seriously” — I’ll give them that.)

    But for me the sparkle in the grid on Monday was the Say Hey Kid — Willie Mays — placed right there where the batter’s box would be if the grid were a ballfield. In George Will’s book on baseball, Men At Work, he writes at length about Willie. If Mays were facing a young pitcher late in a game with the outcome already pretty much determined he’d on purpose let the pitcher strike him out. It planted in the pitcher’s mind the idea that Mays couldn’t hit that pitch. Years later they might face each other in a situation in which the game was on the line. Mays would know that the pitcher remembered getting him out with that pitch and would try it again. He waited for it, and this time drive it over the fence.

    Monday’s puzzle was good-humored. The theme was introduced by the clue: “You have my full attention,” and the answer was I’M ALL EARS. Then it had four long answers which were characters known for their ears — Mickey Mouse, Mister Spock, Alfred E. Neuman, and Bugs Bunny.

    The question was raised whether it was impolite to call attention to someone’s unusual body part, in this case, their ears. Was it, you know, like fat shaming? But then it was noted that all four here are fictional characters so it’s okay.

    So, you know, Mickey Mouse and Minnie were getting divorced and partway through the trial the judge called Mickey over to the bench and said, “Mickey, I’ve been listening to all the evidence and I don’t see how you’re establishing that Minnie is mentally unbalanced.” And Mickey said, “I’m not claiming she’s mentally unbalanced — I said she’s fucking Goofy.”

    Some posters on the Rex Parker blog like to use the answers in the grid to tell their own silly stories. They are usually pretty weak (IMHO), but I liked this use (or misuse) of three answers: UTILE, RELAY, AND LAYMEN. What do you do after the shower plumbing is in place? UTILE. What if it doesn’t look good? RELAY. Who could do that? LAYMEN.

    Tuesday’s puzzle brought us back some old-time comics. Mort Sahl was in it — remember him? And, indirectly, the answer HIPPY DIPPY had to remind us of early George Carlin — his weatherman.

    Sahl only died a year ago — October 2021, at age 94. He was the first entertainer ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. Here’s a small Sahl nugget: After sitting through three hours of a screening of director Otto Preminger’s 3.5-hour film Exodus (1960), Sahl turned to Preminger and said, “Otto, let my people go.”

    In response to the answer SAND, Rex poster LMS shared: “When I was a kid, I thought that quicksand was gonna be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.” Yup.

    A big hoo-ha arose over the spelling of GINGKO in the puzzle. It was viewed as an out and out error on the part of the NYT editors, since the correct spelling is Ginkgo. But some sources (e.g., wikipedia) allow both spellings. Some folks noted that if a word is misspelled often enough and long enough, the error may become acceptable as a variant.

    David Sedaris tells a story about a French dish that Americans typically mispronounce when ordering it in restaurants. He lived in France long enough to know the correct pronunciation, and ordered it correctly. The waiter, in confirming the order asked, “So you want [xxx]?” using the common American mispronunciation. Sedaris realized that his correct French was being “corrected” by the waiter to the incorrect pronunciation.

    That’s about all the nonsense I can handle right now. See you next time.