The Wellington Files

Students are excellent beggars. I love this aspect of teaching. Before I share a note I received this week, I must tell you about a class my friend Maxine (a’h) took (at Hunter!) back in our college days. She and her friend Linda needed a science class to meet some requirement so Max found an arithmetic class and said these famous words to Linda: “How hard can it be? Arithmetic — two plus two.” So they signed up and it started off, like, with vectors or something and took off into the stratosphere from there. The only way they passed was by going to the professor’s office and making a big scene crying and begging. He finally said he’d give them D’s if they’d just leave his office. For many years, whenever Max came up with some insane idea, Linda would say “Two plus two – how hard can it be?”

Here’s a note I got a few days ago, verbatim. The student’s keyboard must have a defective period key, because it’s all one long stream of consciousness, or unconsciousness.

Good afternoon professor sorry for the late notice but I was wondering if I will be able to take the exam next Tuesday since we have off on Thursday because I’m not feeling well since Friday and I have a lot of family issues at home at the moment and I know I won’t preform well on the exam and for these unforeseen circumstances I don’t want it affecting my grade my parents are going through a big divorce and I am not feeling well and hope I can be given an extension so once I feel better I can study so I won’t fail the class just wondering if I can be given this opportunity it’s not me making excuses but just alot going on the moment and wish to see if I can take the exam next Tuesday so I can be given time to study to take care of what I need too I’m Abraham I always go to class so I hope you don’t think I’m lying and hope you understand

How could I say no to such a plea? I told him he could take a makeup, and I suggested his parents try a little divorce before going for a big one.

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OK, let’s ease into some puzzle stuff. 43A today was “Evergreen tree with poisonous seeds.” Yikes! The answer was YEW. (Yes, yew and yew and yew.) And I liked this comment someone posted: “I did not know YEW seeds were poisonous, but to be honest I didn’t know YEW trees had seeds, in fact, I don’t think I know what a YEW tree is.” Amen to that. I love the descent into ignorance.

Today’s theme was brilliant. It was about colored rings. It started off with “Red and yellow circles.” The answer was MASTERCARD LOGO. Then it progressed to “Red, yellow, and green circles,” which was TRAFFIC LIGHT.” Then “Red, yellow, green, and blue circles,” which was TWISTER MAT (remember those?). Twister took off in popularity after Eva Gabor played it with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. And, finally, “Red, yellow, green, blue, and black circles,” OLYMPIC RINGS.

There was a fantastic word for the tuchas watch too — VASSAR – it gives you an ASS in both directions(!), thus giving a whole new meaning to the expression “ass backwards.” (There was also ASSORT.)

The clue for VASSAR was “Poet Elizabeth Bishop’s alma mater.”

Here’s a poem she wrote called “I Believe.”

I Believe

that the steamship will support me on the water
& that the aeroplane will conduct me over the mountain,
that perhaps I will not die of cancer or in the poorhouse,
that eventually I shall see things in a “better light,”
that I shall continue to read and continue to write,
that I shall continue to laugh until I cry with a certain few friends,
that love will unexpectedly appear over and over again,
that people will continue to do kind deeds that will astound me.

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41D was “‘Patton’ or ‘Platoon,’” and the answer was WAR DRAMA. Rex said he would prefer “war movie,” and that any movie or show about war had to be a drama, but that was roundly disputed by the commentariat. There are a whole bunch of war comedies: MASH, Hogan’s Heroes, and others.

On Hogan’s Heroes, Robert Clary, the little French guy, died last week. He was Jewish and a holocaust survivor. The actor who played Klink, Werner Klemperer was born to a Jewish family (his dad was the conductor Otto Klemperer), and he had one condition for taking the role – that Klink could never emerge as the hero in an episode. (Not a problem.) And the actor who played Schultz, who famously “knew nothing,” was also Jewish, John Banner, and was (in real life) a sergeant in the U.S. army during WWII. The show ran for 168 episodes over six seasons. Here’s Robert Clary:

Did you know that an OPAL can come from petrified wood? According to 21A it can. Wood opal is a form of petrified wood which has developed an opalescent sheen.

And did you know that the Ural Mountains are a formation made by a collision of the continents Laurasia and Kazakhstania? (59A) Huh? I ain’t heard of those continents. They’re certainly not on the board in Risk.

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Yesterday’s puzzle had a neat theme too. The phrase CUTTING THE CARDS ran straight down near the center of the puzzle and at five points it “cut” through different types of “cards.” E.g., it ran through GIFT OF GAB, and TAKING CREDIT FOR, which caused it to cut a “gift” card and a “credit” card.

Van Morrison made a rare appearance — I don’t ever recall him popping up in the puzzle before. He was in the clue: “Van Morrison song aptly featured in ‘An American Werewolf in London.’” The answer was MOONDANCE, which has nothing to do with werewolves, but I guess the moon makes it apt.

The lovely Anya Taylor-Joy from The Queen’s Gambit visited too, and songstress Trisha Yearwood — Don’t play chess with her, Trish!

The clue for STRUT was “Swagger like Jagger.” Hi Mick! Our friend Richie is a brilliant chef, retired now out in SF. For a while he was catering private parties in the Hamptons, and Mick Jagger was a guest at one. During the event, Richie was refilling some dish on the main table and he noticed Jagger was eating one of his pastries. Jagger took a bite and caught Richie’s eye and gave him a very nice nod of approval. Satisfaction!

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Let’s end with a poem (or two). Ogden NASH was a guest in today’s grid. Commenter Barbara shared his poem “The Lama” with us, and added a verse of her own.

The Lama
by Ogden NASH

The one-l lama,
He’s a priest.
The two-l llama,
He’s a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn’t any
Three-l lllama.

Barbara decided to add a second verse:

The one-l lama, he sat
In meditation on his bamboo mat
The two-l llama, he spat
In agitation at a threatening cat
The three-l lllama, there’s chat
He was last seen in Gujurat.

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Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Graded papers today in lieu of blogging. Only have one item to share, appropriate for the holiday.

Jill Lepore in the New Yorker (11/28) had a nice piece on wild turkeys. Apparently, they are out in full force in New England. Bostoners — any sightings?

Here are her words:

“Wild turkeys have returned to New England. They’re strutting on city sidewalks, nesting under park benches, roosting in back yards — whole flocks flapping, waggling their drooping, bubblegum-pink snoods at passing traffic, as if they owned the place. You meet them at cafes and bus stops alike, the brindled hens clucking and cackling, calling their hatchlings, their jakes and their jennies, the big blue-headed toms gurgling and gobble-gobbling. They look like pilgrims, grave and gray-black, drab-daubed, their tail feathers edged in white, Puritan divines in ruffled cuffs.

“In Massachusetts, you can hunt wild turkeys (since 1991, the state’s official game bird), but only with a permit, only during turkey-hunting season, and only so long as you don’t use bait, dogs, or electronic turkey callers. You are, to be fair, permitted to whistle. ‘Sit and call the birds to you,’ the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife advises. Yet beware: ‘Do not wear red, white, blue, or black,’ or the gobblers, the full-grown males, might attack. Ben Franklin offered the same caution: if a turkey ran into a British redcoat, woe to the soldier. This, my fellow Americans, may be how we won the war.”

The Jets debacle yesterday was so complete it was art. They gained only two net yards the entire second half. I’m going to type that again: They gained only two net yards the entire second half. They had more punts (10) than completed passes (9). Even so, the score was tied 3-3 with under a minute to go. It appeared to be heading for overtime. The Jets just had to punt the ball away (punt #10) and watch the last few seconds tick off. But the punt was returned by New England’s Marcus Jones for a touchdown with five seconds left and the Jets lost 10-3. It was the only punt returned for a touchdown by any team all year so far, in roughly 150 games. The Boston Globe posed (and answered) this question: Why didn’t the Jets just punt the ball out of bounds instead of to Jones? And the answer was because they are the Jets.

After the game, hapless Jets quarterback Zach Wilson was asked if he felt the offense let the defense down, since the defense performed very well, holding New England to just three offensive points the entire game. Wilson said “No.” I remember taking Caity to the doctor when she was one or two years old and, as a developmental marker, the doc asked if Caity understood what “No” means. (We said she did. Well, she knew how to use it, just not how to accept it.) Apparently, Zach Wilson doesn’t know what “No” means.

My friend Lance, who passed away a long time ago (alav hashalom), went to a few Jets games with me and understood the torment of the Jets fan. Every Monday during the season when I got to my office at Hunter there would be a message on my office phone. It was Lance somberly intoning the Kaddish.

Yisgadal, ve-yiskadosh, . . . .

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Special thanks to Judy, the third Brandeis alum to chime in on the Buckley story. AND, she threw her support behind Anonymous in the great math battle from yesterday’s post. Judy is a retired math teacher, who clearly hasn’t lost a step. She taught at Akiba Hebrew Academy in Merion Station, PA (renamed the Barrack Hebrew Academy), where Pennsylvania Governor-elect Josh Shapiro went. Josh was not a student of Judy’s, but Josh’s brother was a student of Judy’s and Hank’s son Aaron, who also taught at Akiba. (Hi Hank!)

Here’s a joke about brothers:

So this guy dies and the Rabbi asks if anyone would like to say a few words on his behalf. Well, it turns out he was a real schmuck and no one has a good word to say about him. The Rabbi is upset and says: “What’s wrong with this community? A fellow Jew passes on to the next world and not one of you can come up with a kind word to send with him on his journey?” Finally, an old, wrinkled man in the back row raises his hand and stands up and slowly makes his way to the front. He looks out at the crowd and leans over the pulpit and says: “His brother was worse.”

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Speaking of school, my tax class did not do well on the midterm, to put it mildly. Not as bad as the Jets, but along those lines. Only one perfect paper out of 35, which is not a good sign. One student got a 21 (out of 100). Ouch! In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have written the exam in Yiddish, but these are all city kids – that shouldn’t be a problem. It was an open book/notes exam and I put all the questions in problem sets we worked on together in class. So, I ask you, what more can I do? As Yogi said: If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, you can’t stop ’em.

The first semester I taught I had a student who scored a 3 (out of 100) on an exam, and it was just luck that he got the 3. He tried to convince me to give him a passing grade. He pointed out that he answered all of the questions. I said, “But your answers made no sense in the context of the questions — you would have to improve considerably just to get the answers wrong.”

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The puzzle today was a paean to Soccer’s World Cup. One long answer spanned all 15 squares with OLE OLE OLE OLE OLE, and another with GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL. And 17A: “South African horn that produces only one note” was VUVUZELA, that droning sound you hear if you watch a match. The vuvuzela has been the subject of controversy when used by spectators at matches. Its high volume can lead to permanent hearing loss for unprotected ears after close-range exposure, with a sound level of 120 dB(A) (the threshold of pain) at one metre (3.3 ft) from the device opening. (Is it a coincidence that in the puzzle VUVUZELA is across from HUSH UP?) When this was brought to the attention of the Commissioner, he said “What?”

A Rex commenter noted that a concerto has been written for vuvuzela and orchestra (by a composer named John-Luke Mark Matthews, and that’s the gospel truth). Last, another commenter confessed: “I can never remember if it’s VUVUZELA or ZUZUVELA or VENEZUELA or ZUZU’S PETALS.” Huh?

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Comedian Kevin NEALON dropped by the puzzle today. I was surprised to learn he’s only 4 years younger than me. He has been a vegan since 1989, and is active in the animal rights movement, supporting PETA, the Amanda Foundation, Farm Sanctuary, the Washington Wildlife Alliance, The Ark Trust’s Genesis Awards, and Meat Out. He is distantly related to Daniel Webster.

On February 22, 2006, Nealon contributed an opinion article to NYT about having his phone tapped and his police records searched by a Hollywood private investigator who was later convicted of illegal wiretapping. It was also revealed in a court case that investigators working for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus may have targeted Nealon for wiretapping in connection with his work for PETA.

No animals were harmed in the construction of today’s puzzle.

Department of Corrections. The “William F. Buckley/Nugatory” tidbit from several days ago elicited responses from several Brandeis-grad friends who remember the event well, in fact, better than me. We all agree that the second word was nugatory, but I have been corrected as to the first: it was not deciduous (in its secondary meaning of ephemeral). It was exiguous. That makes a lot more sense, because exiguous means, well, nugatory (very small in size or amount). I made the correction via an update to the post. Many thanks to Don and Alan! William F. — you can stop spinning in your grave.

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Let’s revisit CETE from yesterday, a collection of badgers. LMS took it upon herself to list the group names for all the critters that appeared in the puzzle. These included a raft of otters; a bind of sockeye (salmon); a colony, cauldron, camp, or cloud of bats; and a mischief of rats(!). [I have since learned that a group of woodpeckers is called a descent of woodpeckers. Here’s a lonely one.]

Another commenter added: “There is a wonderful book, amazingly still in print, by the late and sorely missed James Lipton. It is called “An Exaltation of Larks: The Venereal Game.” It tells about the school of knowledge called Venery, in which an educated young man in medieval times was required to know the group names of every known animal. Lipton lists over 500 discrete terms in use during those times. Cete of badgers, pride of lions, murder of crows, exaltation of larks, parliament of owls, and so on. There is also a section of delightfully witty terms Lipton creates for such modern groups as lawyers and psychiatrists.”

Parliament of owls!! I just ordered a copy on eBay for under $6. Can’t wait. If I get obsessed with it, will I have contracted a venereal disease? (As William F. no doubt could have told you, “venery” is defined in this usage as the art of hunting, and/or as the animals that are hunted.)

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There was a math clue last Weds that was “Sin is to the y-axis as [blank] is to the x-axis.” And the answer was COS. It triggered the following comments which I enjoyed while not understanding a word:

First, Anonymous posted: As someone who professionally uses and teaches geometry, I have no clue what the “sin:y-axis :: cos:x-axis” is supposed to mean. Does the clue refer to the conversion from polar to cartesian coordinates for a vector? That is such a narrow definition that it’s incomprehensible. I get that, in crosswords, “any” valid definition is allowed, but in math, you have to specify appropriate conditions. It is just as common for the sin to be the X-axis value and cos to be the Y-axis value that this clue just leaves me thinking in circles.

TTrimble replied: This refers to the definition of trigonometric functions as “circular functions”: we define cos(t) as the x-coordinate of the point on the unit circle (centered at the origin) that is obtained by starting from the point (1, 0) and then traversing the circle through an arc of length t, proceeding in the counterclockwise direction. We correspondingly define sin(t) as the y-coordinate of that point. Hence cos(t) is a measurement along the x-axis, and sin(t) is a measurement along the y-axis. This is a completely standard definition, and it is the preferred standard in mathematics courses everywhere, or at least in courses that aim toward a calculus-based study of the trigonometric functions. Using that standard, I think the clue is fine.

Anonymous came back with: Fair enough, this is a common standard, but the clue still doesn’t fit: cos(t) is the x coordinate value, not the x-axis. So sin:y :: ______ 😡 or sin:y-value :: cos:x-value would be appropriate, but equating the axis to the value projected onto that axis would not.

That’s where it ended. [Judy — you following this?]

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Yesterday’s puzzle contained the clue “Question asked without reservation?” and the answer was IS THIS SEAT TAKEN? It led to a mini-rant on “seat saving” in an LMS comment: “I don’t have the balls to be That Person who shows up early at an event to drape coats, sweaters, etc. over the backs of like 12 seats to save them for friends who’re getting there later. This just doesn’t seem fair. And when I see others do it, I get really nervous and upset that some kind of fight’s gonna ensue. I mean, c’mon. It’s your kid’s graduation and you get there at a reasonable time only to find all the good seats covered in apparel, saved for aunts and cousins who chose not to arrive at a reasonable time. Even though I have no dog in that fight, I hate the spectacle, dread the (justified) confrontations.”

My commute to/from NYC includes an NJ Transit train ride between Chatham NJ and Penn Station NY. I almost always get a seat, but the coup is to get a pair of seats all to yourself. Some people stack the deck in their favor by either sitting in the outside seat or placing a bag or something on one of the seats. I was boarding a train in NY once and it was going to be especially crowded. I think the earlier train was canceled. By the time I entered the car, there was at least one person in each of the double seats. I had to decide whom to bother (by plunking my tuchas down next to him or her). The first woman I looked at had “doubled up” on preserving her two-seater: that is, she both sat on the outside and loaded up the inside seat with bags. No way I was going to breach those defenses. But there was a nice-seeming middle-aged African-American gentleman sitting right behind her, and when I said “Excuse me,” he happily rose to allow me to claim the seat next to him. I settled in comfortably and we both watched the extraordinary entertainment that soon took place right in front of us.

First, one guy came by and asked the woman “Is that seat taken?” and she said, “Yes, I’m saving it for my husband.” A moment later it happened again, and she said, “My husband will be here soon, I’m saving it for him.” The car was filling up now so it became pretty rapid-fire: “Can I sit there?” “No, I’m saving it for my husband. No, — . . . husband. No, — . . . saving it.” It was like a hockey goalie flicking away shot after shot, maybe seven or eight times in pretty rapid succession. Finally this happened:

“Can I sit there?”
“No, I’m saving the seat for my husband.”
“You can’t do that – there’s no saving seats here.”
“He texted me. He’s on his way.”
“Nuh-uh, you can’t save seats. I left my husband in the other car — you can’t save seats.”
Then another woman who was standing nearby chimed in — “She’s right, you can’t save seats here.”
“But he’ll be here any second, I’m not giving up this seat.”
“If he’s not here now, that seat is open. I’m claiming that seat.”

With that, the seated woman finally caved in. “OK,” she said, “you can have the seat.” And she took the bags off of it and stood to allow the other woman to sit down. Hrummmph!

Early on, I wondered if in fact she might have made up the husband just to keep that seat for herself. Did she really want that double seat so badly? But I didn’t think she’d go that far. And I was right about that because the final act was about to take place. The husband showed up.

“You didn’t save me a seat!!”
“I tried to — I couldn’t.”
“You said you’d save me a seat!”
“I know — I tried to.
“I gave up a seat in the back to come here!”
“I know, but I couldn’t save it.”
“I rushed thru the crowd — you said you had a seat saved!”
“I know, but I couldn’t hold it.”

And he stormed off in a huff. I must say, when he showed up and said “You didn’t save me a seat!” both the Black guy next to me and I barely held off bursting into laughter. Priceless. That was the best ride home.

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I quit Netflix a few months ago when the price went up to $16.99 a month and I realized I wasn’t watching anything they offered. Since then, I have been inundated with emails begging me to return at a reduced rate. Just now I got one offering it for just $6.99. I’ll have to think about that. It’s nice to feel loved.

Today’s puzzle was called Fan Club and the theme is about phrases that can be read to mean “favoring.” And the clues are mostly made-up words ending in “philes.” So, e.g., for the phrase LIKE CLOCKWORK, the clue was “Chronomechanophiles. . . ” Those are people who “like” (enjoy) clockwork. Get it? It was a decent enough puzzle to work through, but doesn’t offer much blog fodder.

12A was “Squeeze, as a mop,” with the answer WRING, and one fellow wondered if someone who was excellent at that would be Lord of the Wrings. (Ouch.)

And 79D was well-clued: “Announcement of a split decision?” Answer: DEAR JOHN.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two actresses who visited the grid today: REESE Witherspoon and GENA Rowlands. Welcome ladies! Please help yourselves to some ESTEE Lauder products at 19D before you go, and grab a six-pack of PBR, right over there at 33A.

Burp!

Have you heard of Jibbitz shoe charms? I hadn’t until I completed Erik Agard’s puzzle in the New Yorker this week. They are little charms you stick onto your crocs.

You can get zillions of them. God Bless America!

Friday’s NYTXW was by a very popular constructor, Robyn Weintraub, and it was chock full of neat stuff. I learned that a humorous term for raccoon is TRASH PANDA, because those rings around their eyes are sort of like a panda’s and they root through trash. There’s a minor league ballclub in Madison, Alabama called the Rocket City Trash Pandas.

The answer for “Superior dwellings, say,” was LAKE HOUSES (think Lake Superior), and “A glengarry is one, in the shape of a boat,” was a stellar clue for HAT. Here’s what they look like:

“What a raised index finger might represent,” was the clue for ONE. But LMS said: “’What a raised finger might represent’ – your inability to answer the question because you’ve just stuffed your mouth with a massive forkload of meatloaf and won’t be able to speak for, like, thirty seconds.”

The clue for RENE was: “La Rana _______ (Kermit’s name in the Latin American version of Sesame Street).” Seriously? Here’s what he looks like in Spanish:

The clue for ROSA was “‘The Horse Fair’ artist, Bonheur.” You’ve probably seen the enormous painting. It’s 8′ x 16.5′ in size and has been on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1887. The Met calls it one of its best known works of art.

Bonheur painted The Horse Fair from a series of sketches she made at the Paris horse market. She attended the market twice weekly for a year and a half. She sought a “permission de travestissement” from the Paris police to dress as a man, to avoid drawing attention to herself. (In 1800, the police issued an “anti-revolutionary” order forbidding women to dress in men’s clothing without permission. (The order remained in effect for 213 years in Paris!) The cafe named for Bonheur in Paris has her permit on display.)

Today’s puzzle has four answers that span the grid (15-letters long). The best (IMO) was “Isn’t able to control the outcome of one’s actions,” with the answer: CREATES A MONSTER. Here’s a scary one!

Additional small points:

Khaki (per LMS) — “What my daughter’s friend in Boston starts his car with.”

CETE: a group of badgers

Sigmatism: to speak with a LISP.

“Shade of brown paint,” was OTTER. Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s a riddle for you: What’s blue and smells like red paint?

ANS: Blue paint.

“Early role for Britney Spears” was MOUSEKETEER. Britney! — wha hoppin?

Last (on the puzzles), “Actress Tyler” was LIV. Liv was born in Mount Sinai Hospital in NY in 1977, so she’s 45. Her mom is Bebe Buell, model, singer, and former Playboy Playmate (Miss November, 1974) and her biological dad is Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith. But she was Liv Rundgren at birth. Bebe had a brief fling with Tyler, but was living with musician Todd Rundgren, who is Liv’s legal and adoptive dad, and acted as a father figure to her.

Liv’s partner is David Gardner, a British sports and entertainment manager. They have two children: a son, Sailor Gene (7), and a daughter, Lula Rose (6).

From wikipedia:

“Tyler is an active supporter of UNICEF. She was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.S. in 2003. In November 2004, she hosted the lighting of the UNICEF Snowflake in NYC. She was also a spokesperson for the 2004 Givenchy Mother’s Day promotion in support of UNICEF’s Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus campaign.

“Since 2004, she has donated to the Women’s Cancer Research Fund to support innovative research, education, and outreach directed at the development of more effective approaches to the early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of all women’s cancers. In October 2007, Tyler, with her mother Bebe Buell and her grandmother Dorothea Johnson, helped launch the Emergen-C Pink energy drink, in an event in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.”

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Kudos to our beloved Max Fried, Atlanta’s Jewish ace, who came in second in the NL Cy Young Award voting this year. Last year he won the clinching game of the World Series for the Braves, cooling Houston’s hot bats for six brilliant innings. Max’s nickname is Maximus and his middle name is Dorian. He won the Gold Glove (fielding award) for NL pitchers three years running, and he won the NL Silver Slugger award (best hitter at his position) in 2021, the last year it will be awarded since pitchers no longer bat in the NL.

Max is single. He has dated Rose Lavelle, brilliant soccer player on the US team that won the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Lavelle scored three goals in the tournament and was named 6th best player in the world in 2019.

Max credits ex-Bosox outfielder Reggie Smith (Hi Don!) with teaching him how to throw a curve ball and for many of his baseball skills. Fried attended Reggie’s baseball academy starting at age seven. Smith made it a priority to have Fried throw his curve in a way that puts minimal stress on his arm. They are still close. Here’s what Smith said recently:

“I’m very proud of Max. We stayed in contact during the season. If I see something or he has something he wants to bounce off me we talk. He also checks on me to see how I’m doing. That’s how good a heart and passionate he is. He checks on me to make sure I’m doing OK.”

It’s not just Reggie, Max, we’re all very proud of you.

The Jets are uncharacteristically decent this year. When I can’t get back to sleep I often resort to all-night sports-talk radio to bore me back to unconsciousness, and one of the hosts, Sal Licata, can be funny. He was recognizing the hesitancy of Jet fans to be hopeful, after decades of awfulness. He compared it to when you were dating, and it was one bad date after another, on and on and on, and then one girl seems a little okay, and you start wondering about her a bit, but you’ve had such a bad history, you’re afraid to hope for too much. He paused for about ten seconds, and then he screamed at us — LET THE LOVE IN!! OPEN YOUR HEARTS, JET FANS!! IT’S REAL — SHE’S THE ONE!

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Today’s Merriam-Webster Word of the Day is “nugatory,” which means “of little or no consequence.” And it brought me back over 50 years. William F. Buckley visited Brandeis and there was a good turnout for the event. You may recall he was famed for having (and using) an extraordinary vocabulary, and he didn’t hesitate to throw some big words at us during his presentation. In the Q&A that followed, most of the questions were on the politics of the day, but one student got a big laugh for asking him what “exiguous” means (a word he had used). Buckley smiled appreciatively. When the laughter ebbed, he leaned over and said into the mic: “nugatory.”

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Today’s puzzle was fun, and right up the alley of us introverts. The theme was “LEAVE ME OUT OF IT,” and there were a whole bunch of starred clues the answers to which only made sense if you removed the letters ME. For example, my favorite was 37A. The clue was “Grammy-winning Jones.” And the answer was MENORAH. Take away the ME and you get NORAH (Jones). (The word with the ME (menorah) was unclued.)

Similarly, at 10D, the clue was “Courier and Papyrus, for two.” These are fonts, so the answer was foMEnts, which is “fonts” once you remove the ME. To top it off, the last across clue/answer was “Award that sounds like two letters,” and it was EMMY, which, of course, is a phonetic ME.

The clue at 49A was “Shade” and the answer was TINT, which prompted this comment. (I think I discussed this once before, but I know I’ve already forgotten it.)

“A ‘tint’ results when you mix a pure color with white, a ‘shade’ when you mix with black, and a ‘tone’ when you mix with grey (equal amounts white and black). The NYTXW uses these terms interchangeably to the chagrin of the artistically nit-picky among us.”

Do you know FOMO? It’s “fear of missing out,” or, as the clue reads: “Anxiety about not being included.” It’s the other side of the coin from “leave me out of it,” one commenter noticed.

Here’s what LMS had to say on FOMO:

“On Monday I had to leave school unexpectedly because of a toothache that was staggering in its intensity. (Turns out I need a root canal.) Anyhoo… when I miss school, I don’t have FOMO but rather FOBFOFTITIAABF. Fear Of Being Found Out For The Imposter That I Am And Being Fired. Like my emergency sub plans are crappy or my bulletin board isn’t spiffy enough or the standards for all three classes that we’re required to have posted every day are not up to date.

“So Monday afternoon I get a call from one of the security guys who leaves the message ‘Call me please.’  Don’t do this to a worrier! What I actually heard was James Earl Jones’s voice telling me, You are about to be fired. Turns out it was just that one of my famous apples had a rotten spot, and ants were showing up. He just wanted me to know to bring more apples. Could you not have included this in your message??“

SERRA de Estrela made an appearance: the highest mountain range in Portugal.

A legend associated with the mountain is mentioned in Chapter 41 of Moby-Dick:“… the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface)…”

Though the region has a very small local Jewish population, it has emerged as a center for kosher food with local producers launching kosher versions of their olive oil and wine, and with cheesemakers obtaining kosher certification for some products. And the Estrela Mountain Dog takes its name from this region. Hi Puppy!

Mount VESUVIUS popped in too, clued as the mountain that inspired the song “Funiculi, Funicula.”

Enough with the mountains already. I’m exhausted. Where’s the trail back down?

Kudos to Buck Showalter, NY Mets manager, who was named NL Manager of the Year yesterday — the first Met manager to win the award in their 60-year history.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia means “fear of long words.” It’s a real thing that can lead to learning disorders and all the other stuff that any phobia can cause. It contains the root “sesquipedalian,” which means “long word.”

I’m going to start keeping a bag in my head for things that make life worth living. I’ll put that word in (along with Zoey’s face).

That word came up today in relation to the puzzle, which is all about unusual words that don’t mean what you might think they mean. In five places the clue has a crossed-out part (the meaning you might think the answer has), and then the true meaning. For example, for ARCTOPHILE, the crossed-out part is “Devotee of polar regions.” It certainly seems to mean that from “arcto.” But in fact it means “Lover of teddy bears.” Amazing, no? “Arctos” is Greek for bear.

It seems ridiculous to have a special word for a lover of teddy bears, doesn’t it? Now, strigiformesphilia, on the other hand, the love of owls, is a very important word.

Another good one from the puzzle is PANTOPHOBIA, which means “Fear of everything,” from “pan.” It doesn’t mean “Fear of trousers,” the crossed-out clue. (Ha!)

And MANDUCATES means “Chews” (like masticates); it doesn’t mean “Elaborates condescendingly to a female,” sort of along the lines of “mansplaining.”

This theme led the redoubtable LMS to come up with some other words that don’t mean what you might think they mean: A proctologist does not study “analogy.” Someone who opens bars and taverns is not in “puberty.” And the bajillion kids whose tears and screams ruin the annual picture on Santa’s lap do not suffer from “claustrophobia.”

My favorite clue/answer today was at 32D: “Nail polish brand with the shade ‘I’m Not Really a Waitress.” (Answer OPI.) Here’s what it looks like:

Is that the best ever name for a nail polish color? I think it would make a better lipstick. LMS says: “If you squint, almost any entry in the grid is a contender for lipstick shade these days: UNWISE, OK GO, SPA DAY, START, IT’S ON ME, GOD YES, ICY HOT, ACID TRIP, GUAC.”

I’m not sure that last one works for me. The rest are “full speed ahead,” especially GOD YES. (BTW, the clue for GOD YES was “resounding agreement.”)

Another good clue/answer was right up there at 1 down: “Para alpine sport equipment.” “Para” as in Para Olympics — for athletes with a disability. The answer was SIT SKI, the ski equivalent of a wheelchair.

The puzzle was pretty short on names. There was Timothee Chalamet and Diane Rehm, the first of which I barely knew and the second (journalist/podcaster) not at all. Here’s the handsome Chalamet with his enviable mop of hair:

Rehm is a former public radio talk show host. She got into a bit of a pickle over an interview she conducted with Bernie Sanders. Here’s the discussion in wikipedia:

“On June 10, 2015, Rehm interviewed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and stated that Sanders had dual citizenship with Israel; this was not true. Sanders denied that he holds dual citizenship, but Rehm repeated her assertion as a fact. Sophia Tesfaye of Salon pointed out that Rehm apparently fell for an anti-Semitic canard and did not successfully fact-check her information. In The Times of Israel, Gedalyah Reback stated that the interview was controversial because Rehm seemed to have accused a Jewish U.S. presidential candidate of maintaining secret Israeli citizenship.

“Rehm apologized in a statement released later that day. ‘On today’s show I made a mistake. Rather than asking Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders whether he had dual U.S./Israeli citizenship, as I had read in a comment on Facebook, I stated it as fact. I want to apologize as well to all our listeners for having made an erroneous statement. I am sorry for the mistake. However, I am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.’

Jewish Journalist Josh Marshall called her apology ‘a total crock.’ Jewish Law professor David Bernstein found it strange that both Rehm and her producer fell for what he felt was an obvious anti-Semitic hoax. He speculated that frequently-heard strange accusations about Jewish supporters of Israel may have played a role. Elizabeth Jepsen, NPR’s ombudsman, took issue with both Rehm’s interview and apology: ‘Far from putting anything to rest, Rehm has now taken a falsehood from the fringes of the Internet and moved it into the mainstream conversation.’”

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When Sanders was running for president in 2016, I heard an interviewer ask him if he felt capable of handling “the emergency phone call at 3 am.” Sanders replied: “I am usually up at that hour to go to the bathroom.”

Let’s end today with a special shout-out to friends Lizzie, Robert, and Susan, long-time citizens of Bernie-land. Hi guys!

Yesterday, 35 down was SOS, you know, the “send help” signal.  It prompted this comment:  “Not only is it a palindrome [reads the same backwards and forwards] it’s also an ambigram — being readable upside down as well as right side up. Handy when seeking help from that lone airplane flying over the deserted island.”

And this funny response:  “Your suggestion about SOS being handy because it reads the same upside down has a ring of plausibility to it. Before SOS was adopted, search pilots would often come back to base saying things like, ‘No sign of the lost boy. The only unusual thing I saw was a stick formation in the snow that spelled bLEH.’”

Raise your hand if you read yesterday’s post but were too lazy to click on the link to the Bangor video.  Seriously?  It’s three f**king minutes long.  Guaranteed to bring a smile.  Go back there and click!!  What the hell else are you going to do with your time?

Today’s puzzle was special for me — it contained both of my granddaughters, albeit misspelled.  LIANA at 44A was short an N, and ZOE at 62A was shy a Y.  Hi Girls!

The theme was cute:  OLD MACDONALD plus EIEIO, set the tone, and then it had three animals in long answers:  DON’T HAVE A COW; SHEEPSHEAD; and WHITEHORSE, with the appropriate animal sounds right underneath them:  MUU MUU, BABA, and NAE NAE.  Very nicely done!

Sheepshead was a little weird.  It was clued with “Game fish whose face resembles that of a herd animal.”  Here’s what they look like:  Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn is named after them.

Singer Gibson or Harry was the clue for DEBBIE.  The former was a teenage heart-throb of mine.  Can you blame me?

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The comedian Gallagher passed away this week.  He was 76.  You may recall him as the long-haired, mustachioed fellow in a cap or beret, who gleefully smashed watermelons on stage with a sledgehammer.  He called it the Sledge-O-Matic as a takeoff on the food-processing Veg-O-Matic.  As he explained, “If you want it to be in little pieces, why not just hit it with a hammer?”  

He played more than 100 concert dates a year for more than 30 years, obliterating more than 15,000 melons. He traveled with 15 footlockers of props, among them a “handgun” that fired plastic hands.

As a student at U. of South Florida (English major), he orchestrated a protest against cafeteria food. He parked a trailer with a dozen pigs by the cafeteria’s entrance and urged students to feed the pigs their leftover food. When officials told him that the food must be washed before being fed to the pigs, he said his point was made.

In ’03, when Gov. Gray Davis of CA was recalled, Gallagher was among the 135 people who sought to replace him.  His platform included a demand that that the state send big helicopters to lift vehicles from accident sites.  He finished 16th.

I have long believed in the curative powers of bad jokes, but I never thought I’d find the science to back it up.  Get this —  In 1987, UPI reported that researchers at Loma Linda University  studying laughter, took blood samples from 10 medical students while they watched Gallagher perform. Not only did they laugh uproariously; their white blood cells increased. The comedian, the scientists said, appeared to have boosted the subjects’ immune systems.

The NYT obit finished with this:  He couldn’t help himself. On a sightseeing visit to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2003, he found a piece of watermelon in a fruit salad. He promptly smashed it on the head of a floor broker.

Rest in peace, Gallagher.  Thanks for the laughs.

As you know, I’m quite an expert on romance.  What’s my secret?  Well, for one thing, I read the Modern Love column in the Sunday NYT whenever I remember that I like it.  Last Sunday there was a story by a guy who was either kicked out by his wife or left his wife six times over their 32 years of marriage.  So you might not think he’s all that brilliant a source on the topic.  Here’s some of what he says:

“I have always thought of Deb wherever I am.  Whomever I am with.  Whenever I experience something good.  I want her to experience the same thing.  I can’t stand to watch a movie without her.  I’ll walk out after half an hour if I can’t turn to her in the dark and whisper, ‘Isn’t this great?’ I can’t ride my motorcycle into the Rocky Mountains.  I can’t enter a diner with worn pine floorboards and an antique, curve-glass pie case with slices of banana cream inside.  I can’t take a flight without wishing she were occupying the seat beside me.

“I think we have the wrong idea about marriage.  It’s not like running a business, where there are recordable credits and debits.  It’s more like learning, after a thousand hangovers, to stop drinking so much.  Or learning, after often being false, to be true just once, in the hope that you can continue to be true.  Or learning, after habitually hating yourself, to love yourself just once, in the hope that you can continue to love yourself.  And then learning, through loving yourself, to love someone else.

“I moved back in with Deb.  Soon enough now, I’ll be alone on the edge of sleep.  Just as I am alone on the edge of all things.  It’s how I am.  It may be how we all are.  And still in love.”  

Thank God for the nitpickers. The clue for OWLS today was: “Birds that can twist their heads almost 360 degrees,” and one fellow was aghast. He said owls can only twist their heads 270 degrees, which is 3/4 of 360, and he doesn’t think 3/4 is enough for “almost.” (Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a hoot. Or a whoo (whoom?).)

The answer at 69A was TLDR, an internet-speak initialism that stands for Too Long Didn’t Read. It was oddly clued with “Here’s a brief summary.”

Some nice combos include sound effects THUD and WHAP, along with TIME BOMBS and EXPLODES. Puzzles can be dangerous.

The musical guest in today’s puzzle is Joan JETT, of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Their biggest hit was “I Love Rock and Roll,” which was No. 1 on Billboard for seven weeks in 1982, and is Billboard’s #56 song of all time. She and the band were inducted into the R&R HOF in 2015. Joan got her first guitar when she was 13 and started taking lessons but quit because her instructor kept trying to teach her folk songs (the noive!). On 10/29/2014 Jett sang the National Anthem in NY at a Knicks-Bulls game. The Bulls won 104-80. She’s 64 now, kinehora, and performed in concert as recently as Sept. 2021. This shot is from 2010, when she was 52. Looks good!

For obvious reasons, the Oreo is the favorite cookie of Crossworld: The snack equivalent of Bobby ORR or Mel OTT. Vermont friend Susan (Hi S!), took me to task, albeit gently, for snubbing thin oreos the other day. She says she likes them and shared a neat video in which a young lady and a guy compete on the creation of a “Franken Oreo,” which combines 18 different Oreo flavors (!). The woman is detaching the cookie portion of each from the creme. She is then blending all the creme into a “franken creme,” combining (somehow) the cookie parts into franken cookies, and then rebuilding the parts into her Franken Oreo. The guy is just smashing them all together and mixing them into ice cream. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6vpI-2yao

I had no idea there are so many Oreo flavors. A food site, Delish, ranks 30 Oreo flavors. These include unusual ones such as Red Velvet, Gingerbread, Carrot Cake, and Apple Cider Donut. The winner, in their eyes, is the Double Stuf Oreo, which actually has less creme in it than the Mega Oreo or the Most Stuf Oreo. Their explanation of their choice is: “There is nothing better in this goddamn world.” Works for me. The runner up was Lemon Oreo.

My favorite use of that term was in Woody Allen’s Love and Death. The guy he is with points to someone and says: “There’s Berchikov, he’s the village idiot.” And Woody Allen says: “Yeah? And what are you — runner up?”

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BANGOR Maine appeared in Sunday’s puzzle. From Rex comments I learned that Bangorians are very sensitive about the pronunciation of their city. It’s pronounced Ban-gore, not Banger. They produced a very funny musical public service video on the matter. https://youtu.be/K_q9hAAIS-c

Wisdom from Carl: “Someone just honked to get me out of my parking spot faster. So now I have to sit here until both of us are dead.”

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New Yorker cartoonist George Booth died. He was 96. The magazine said goodbye in its 11/14 issue with a “Postscript” written by Emma Allen, the current cartoon editor. She writes: “In the days after 9/11, when a return to normal life felt unimaginably hard, Booth supplied the sole “cartoon” in the issue following the attacks: a drawing of Mrs. Ritterhouse [the cartoon avatar of Booth’s mother], her fiddle on the floor, her eyes closed in prayer, a cat nearby covering its face with its paws.”

On the recommedation of a friend, I started reading a Holocaust survivor’s memoir, Parallel Lines, by Peter Lantos. He said he generally stays away from that darkness, but found this book hard to put down. I got hooked on the first page. Lantos says this about the town in Hungary where he was born (Mako): “Searching the internet for ‘Mako’ yields a surprising result: 108,204 hits spread over 10,821 pages. But before one can get carried away with chauvinistic pride over the extraordinary popularity of one’s hometown, the truth soon hits: the name is not the sole property of a small town in Hungary. Other contestants vying for attention are the short-finned shark, Mako (Isurus Oxyrinchus); full and semi-rigid inflatable boats and rubber ducks bearing the trade name Mako, produced in Cape Town, South Africa; and Compair Mako, a manufacturer of breathing equipment in Texas.”

Rubber ducks! I’m in.

The Saturday puzzle was lambasted by the gang as too easy. I don’t know about that — it gave me enough of a ride.

Some of the cluing was clever. How about: “”It resurfaces after 20 minutes?” Since a period in a hockey game is 20 minutes long, the answer was ZAMBONI — the big lumbering machine that “resurfaces” the ice. One commenter imagined a slow highway chase scene led by a Zamboni with all the cars behind it slipping off the side of the road.

“One growing up in a cave?” was STALAGMITE. A discussion arose on how best to remember the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite. My favorite is that the G in stalaGmite says it grows up from the Ground, while the C is stalaCtite says it grows down from the Ceiling. If the two meet they form a “column.” If it’s by Maureen Dowd it’s an Op-Ed column.

“November 13, e.g.,” was the clue for IDES. Did you think it’s the 15th, because March 15 (we all know) is the famous “Ides of March?” Well, the “ides” fall on the 15th only in March, May, July, and October. For all other months, the ides fall on the 13th. Also, if you are wondering whether it’s correct to say “the ides fall,” or “the ides falls,” they are both right. (Whew.)

Did you know there is an OREO THIN? “Certain cookie spinoff.” They are billed as “crispy,” but I don’t really see the need for them. They look like there’s no cream inside, but there is a small amount.

In the grid they show up near DIPPIN’ DOTS: “Ice Cream of the Future.” I’ve only seen them at ballgames and I’ve never tried them.

Speaking of snacks, did you know that most of the Snickers bars in the U.S. are produced in WACO TEXAS? That’s what 20A posits. It’s also where Dr. Pepper comes from. BTW, what medical school did Dr. Pepper go to? Musta been U. of Minnesoda, no?

God, this is a boring post. I’m writing it and even I’m bored. Time to zhuzh things up a bit. How about 25A?: “Grammy winning actress Carrere” is TIA. Yikes! Fellas — don’t google her swimsuit pix — you’ll have a stroke!

“Hernandez of Team USA gymnastics” is LAURIE.

And “Hollywood’s Ryan” is, of course, MEG, famous for the funniest ever scene in the movies in When Harry Met Sally. The older woman at the end of that scene was Rob Reiner’s mother. Here’s Meg before whatever happened happened.

One of the jobs of a constructor is to come up with a fresh clue for a word that has appeared a zillion times before. This clue was good: “Peter or Paul, but not Mary,” for TSAR. When you’re talking about a guy from the old days in Russia it’s “tsar.” When you’re using it in a current meaning (Energy Czar, Drug Czar), it’s “czar.” At least that’s the convention in Crossworld.

“Rabbi, is there a proper blessing for the Tsar?”

“Yes. May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar — far away from us!”

The big Sunday puzzle announced itself with a bad pun — Sweet! The clue for 1 across was “Sell, as bicycles?,” and the answer was PEDDLE. Ouch. But everyone’s favorite was at 13A: “What might prompt a run for congress?” The answer was LIBIDO, with “congress” given it’s sexual meaning. (It was wrongly capitalized (IMO) in the print version.)

The theme was pretty clever with BUMPER CROPS and FRANKENFOOD as dual “revealers.” At six locations in the grid, across and down answers contained letters that formed two foods when they “bumped” into each other and took a turn. So, e.g., when MEETs intersected BELONg, MELON and BEET were formed.

The puzzle was a “pangram,” i.e., the grid contained all 26 letters of the alphabet. The Q came from AQUANET, that horrible sticky hair spray that someone noted is still sold at CVS. The clue says it first appeared in the 1950’s. The Z came from ZANIEST, and the J came from the 1993 song: HEY MR DJ, by Zhane, pronounced jah-nay. And the X came from AXE HEAD, clued as “It might be stuck on the chopping block.”

The only tuchas sighting was in ASTRO, clued as “Prefix with biology.” But the Rex commenter who had been keeping up the tuchas watch (He said he’s putting an end to it), said: “If I were still doing the daily ASS-derivative tally, REARUP presents some interesting possibilities.”

I am predicting the Jets will not lose today — you can count on it!

It reminds me of the time Jet coach Bruce Coslet “guaranteed” a Jet win on the upcoming Sunday. When, of course, they lost, he was hit over the head with his guarantee by the press. And he replied: “What do expect me to say: We’re gonna lose?”

D-Day in D-town. Special shout-outs to Barb, Bob, Dan, David, Ellen, Jeff, Justine, Mary, Nancy, and Sandee for schlepping down or up to Doylestown, PA, for a nice mini-reunion yesterday. Linda and I had a good time!

(FYI: Spellcheck insisted on the “c” and the second “p” in schlepping.)