The Wellington Files

  • Frozen Iguanas

    Credit where due: All it took was the invasion of a sovereign country and the brutal senseless murder of one U.S. citizen to get Epstein off the front pages. Well done, team!

    Here is Renee Nicole Good. May she rest in peace.

    Renee’s Instagram account displays a pride flag emoji and she describes herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” Oddly, she forgot to include domestic terrorist. She has a degree in English from Virginia’s Old Dominion University. She was a Coloradan for most of her life. Her ex-husband described her as a devout Christian who loved to sing, and said she wasn’t an activist. Trump, Vance, Bondi, and their ilk couldn’t stumble over each other fast enough to tar her as a terrorist in defending her murderer.

    Jesse Watters, FOX News asshole, felt it was important for his audience to know that Good had preferred pronouns in her bio and self-identified as a poet, no doubt implying it was okay to kill her. “Pronouns in her bio? A POET?!?!!” comedian Patton Oswalt noted.  “Why didn’t that brave ICE agent empty his full clip?”

    Her murder, and the clear visual evidence of the blatant lies of the administration, are terrible markers of how debased our government has become. America is shrieking in pain.

    May your memory be a blessing Renee.

    In the puzzle yesterday, starting us off at 1A was “______ canto,” with the answer BEL. Commenter Pablo said he had no trouble with it because there is a group with that name in his area. He said they were good singers who were also known as the “Can Beltos.” (Hi Pam! Good one?)

    The theme was GRADE INFLATION, and in each theme answer you had to raise a letter grade by one. E.g., at 63A the clue was “Results of wearing some uncomfortable shoes.” You think the answer will be BLISTERS, but you need to inflate the B to an A, for the answer A-LISTERS.

    The two best non-theme answers were at 47A, where “Tea traders?” was YENTAS. Get it? Tea is gossip. And at 32A, where “Benefactor with a limited number of grants,” was GENIE.

    Do you know the Jewish genie joke? This little old Jewish guy rubs the lamp and a Jewish genie pops out. He says, you just get one wish, so be careful. The guy thinks a bit and then opens his wallet and takes out a little piece of paper. It’s a map of the middle east. He shows it to the genie, explains the situation with Israel and its neighbors and says his wish is for there to be peace in that region.

    The genie explains that that sort of wish falls into the geo-socio-political area. He says most people wish for personal stuff like wealth or fame, and he asks the guy to reconsider. So the guy thinks a bit more, opens his wallet again, and this time he takes out a little photo of a wrinkled old lady and shows it to the genie. “This is my wife Sadie,” he explains. “For 60 years, she’s been the best wife a man could ask for, and I love her dearly. But she’s always been reluctant to engage in oral sex. So my wish is for oral sex with Sadie.”

    The genie thinks for a minute and says: “Let me have another look at that map.”

    The Palm Beach Cardinals of the Florida State League (minor league baseball) will adopt an “alternate identity” for their Saturday home games this season. Alternate uniforms, alternate team logo, etc. They will be the Palm Beach Frozen Iguanas.

    Of course, in Florida, “frozen” doesn’t really mean like ice frozen. Here’s the story.

    Iguanas are all over Florida. One thing they like doing is climbing trees. Who wouldn’t? But they are cold-blooded. And when the temp drops to 45 they go into a (frozen) coma. It happens suddenly so those who are up in trees just plop out (see video, below). It’s not like: Ooh, it’s getting chilly, I better calmly climb down from this tree. It’s thud.

    So, to honor these Floridians, the team will be the “Frozen Iguanas” at their Saturday home games. OC sports consultant Sarah Fillier loves it. “A different kind of frozen from hockey, but still good.”

    How’s this love note sound?

    “Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousy. Let’s go for a long ride Sunday; let’s go to the mountains weekends; let’s read books in front of fires; most of all, let’s really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours.”

    Who wrote it to the woman he eventually married?

    (a) Aaron Rodgers

    (b) Richard Nixon

    (c) Jimmy Fallon

    (d) Mickey Rooney

    Answer down below, after a while.

    At 1D today, “Small bit, in Bogotá” was POCO.

    The love note answer from above is Nixon. Yup. Written to his Pat, of course. It’s the man’s birthday today. Born in 1913, Yorba Linda, CA.

    Here’s Pat. He could have done worse. Not sure she could have.

    Tom Cruise is flappin his lips about still expecting to work with Ana de Armas and maybe having another chance at romance. But our Phil and George find it laughable and delusional, two of their areas of expertise. “If he bothers you at all, Armas,” they calmly stated, “he will quickly learn how much expensive photographic equipment will fit up his ass.”

    No! Not the cameras, Phil!

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads!

  • Pickles

    We’re starting a new department here at Owl Chatter we’re calling “No Sh*t, Sherlock.”

    The first entrant is this hysterical headline from yesterday’s NYT, which I promise I did not make up. “Conservative Justices’ Rulings Increasingly Favor Rich, Economists Say.”

    The second is the title of economist Eduardo Porter’s blog post: “The U.S. Has Lost Its Credibility.”

    Ya think?

    Monday’s puzzle included the great film TAXI DRIVER. Commenter Pablo noted that he thought De Niro’s iconic “You talkin’ to me?” might have been an ad lib. No one picked up on it, but I replied today:

    My exhaustive research (you know, a minute or two online), reveals that it mostly was ad lib. Scorsese directed him generally to talk to himself in the mirror, and De Niro took it from there.

    BTW, De Niro’s classic line should not be confused with my teenage daughter’s from around the same time: “I’m not talking to you, Dad. You’re an idiot.”

    Pablo responded thanking me. I appreciate the courtesy.

    If you, like me, look at a jar of pickles and see pickles, you should note the passing last month of artist Janet Fish, at the age of 87, at her home in Wells, VT. She studied art at Yale under de Kooning and Pollock, but resisted the pull of abstract art in favor of still lifes. She was drawn to the play of light upon objects, fruits and vegetables on a table near a window at first, and then plastic-wrapped food and bottles of various liquids — Windex, vinegar, salad dressing, jelly, honey, liquor. As Michael Rosenwald put it in Fish’s obit in the Times, she transformed jars of pickles, bottles of vodka and bowls of fruit into vessels of dazzling light and unassuming beauty.

    Her dad was an art historian and her mom a sculptor. She considered no other career. “It was never in my head that I wasn’t going to be an artist,” she said.

    Self-portrait of Fish.

    Janet is survived by her husband, the artist Charles Parness, who paints self-portraits exclusively, and two siblings.

    Here’s Charles. Rest in peace, Janet.

    At 31D today, “Bottom line?” was HEM.

    The missed field goal that cost Baltimore the game and a playoff spot Sunday night (wide right, Tyler Loop) had a domino effect. John Harbaugh, long-time Ravens coach, was fired. Hard to imagine that occurring if the birds had a playoff game to attend to this week. But you never know. There’s some talk he “lost” the locker room and relations with QB Lamar Jackson were queasy. We love John. Among other things, his bro is Jim Harbaugh who led our Wolverines to the national title in 2023. The brothers faced off in Super Bowl 47 when Jim was with SF. John’s Ravens won. We were rooting for John because Jim seemed like a lunatic and John like a mensch. But as soon as Jim took over at UMich we loved him: he was our lunatic.

    We predict John will wind up as head coach of the Jints, with a boatload of money and a long-term deal. He won’t even consider the Jets: Who in his right mind would?

    Here’s John, in happier times.

    See you next time!

  • Wide Right

    The champagne flowed freely in the Jets locker room yesterday! The season of grim torment finally dribbled to an end, AND it ended with an impressive loss by less than 30 points! Buffalo 35, NYJ 8. The Jets actually won the fourth quarter 8-6.

    When Ralph Waldo Emerson submitted his first collection of poems to his publisher, he was sent the galleys to review by the printer. Emerson noticed that his middle name was omitted on the title page. So he noted in the margin: “Where’s Waldo?,” thus launching the popular series of children’s puzzle books.

    Owl Chatter’s rigorous, scientific poll reveals that only 156 Americans support the U.S. takeover of Vuvuzela. Of the remaining population, 522 are opposed, and the rest think it’s in Africa.

    Our intrepid war correspondent George Santos along with brave photo-journalist Phil flew down to Caracas in advance of the operation. At great personal risk, Phil got these shots for us as the operation began.

    In the puzzle yesterday, the answer BRUTUS appeared twice, as explained below. In discussing that, Rex wondered parenthetically whether the plural might be “Bruti.” And Commenter Colin had this to say about that:

    As a wannabe Latin scholar, I looked up Brutus (and brutus) in my Cassell’s Latin dictionary. Yes, the plural would be Bruti / bruti; “brutus” appears to be a second declension masculine noun. Many folks think that any Latin word ending in -us in the singular would end in -i in the plural, and that is often correct but that’s only for second declension nouns. Some nouns ending in -us are actually fourth declension, in which case the nominative plural would end in -ūs (note long ū, pronounced like a long u or “oo”). Ductus (as in patent ductus arteriosus) in the plural would be ductūs (and ductus arteriosus would be ductūs arteriosi). Manus (“hand”; the MIT motto is “Mens et manus” or “Mind and hand”) is another example of a fourth declension noun, and so the plural of manus is manūs.

    I commented: Thanks for clearing that up!

    The puzzle was all about double crossing, in a neat way. It had five figures who were betrayed by somebody (double crossed), and the name of the bad guy “crossed” him twice in the puzzle. Get it? “Double” crossed. For example, OTHELLO, at 119A, was crossed twice by IAGO: once at 105D as the parrot from Aladdin, and again at 107D, with the clue: “Driven by envy toward his comrades, he fabricated events that led to their downfall.” Similarly, CAESAR was crossed twice by BRUTUS; JESUS by JUDAS, MUFASA by SCAR, and, less famously, OSIRIS by SET.

    Here’s some early Clapton with John Mayall, alav hashalom, followed by Van, who was lost, double-crossed!

    John Mayall.

    Last night’s Ravens-Steelers game was do or die. The winner would advance to the playoffs: money, fame, loose women, rich desserts. And the loser would go home shattered, vilified, and ruined. It was a bruising heavyweight fight with the two great behemoths trading blows until the final seconds ticked down. The Steelers pulled ahead with a TD, but their kicker, Chris Boswell, missed the extra point. So they were only up 26-24 as Baltimore drove up the field with the game clock bleeding out. They set their kicker Tyler Loop up well. His 44-yard field goal with the clock hitting zero would give the game to the Ravens. Instead, . . . well, take a look.

    I thought of my old Brandeis friend Lance, alav hasahlom, when I heard the church organ play in that video. I would get to my office at Hunter Monday mornings in the fall, after a typical Jets loss, and there’d be a phone message waiting for me. It was Lance somberly intoning the Kaddish . . . Yisgadal v’yiskadash, shmei rabah. . .

    Services will be held for the Ravens’ hopes and dreams at Temple Beth Hatikvah at 10 am tomorrow, and the entire city of Baltimore will be sitting shivah for the remainder of the week wherever fans can be found.

    What an assortment of guests we had in the puzzle today! KEANU Reeves, MR T, AARON Burr (sorry Hank, you’re on the bench today), Mark Twain, General LEE (maybe next time Spike), Fanny BRICE, Yoko ONO, Crazy Horse, ROSA Parks, IGOR Stravinsky, ERIC Carmen or Clapton (your choice), EWAN McGregor, Bob De Niro (in the clue for TAXI DRIVER), and EMILY Dickinson.

    Remember how gorgeous Cybill was with De Niro? She was at her most drool-inducing during that period. Did you know that during the shooting of Taxi Driver De Niro asked her out and she said no? From then on, he refused to speak to her except in character. She later said she regretted saying no.

    Cybill’s from Memphis and is 76 now. She has three children, including Clementine Ford, an actress, 46, who seems to have received a good helping of her mom’s good looks.

    Let’s end with another tune, if it’s okay with you. What? You talkin’ to me?

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Talking Turkey and Bad Apples

    It’s New Year’s Day, as I write this, but it probably won’t be published for a day or two. Happy New Year!

    Did you see the 1997 film Bean with Rowan Atkinson? It had some very funny moments. Bean is a security guard in an art museum and when left alone with Whistler’s Mother, he accidentally sneezes on the painting, then stains it with an ink-soaked handkerchief while wiping away his sneeze droplets. He then attempts to clean it with lacquer thinner, causing the figure’s face to dissolve and prompting him to replace it with a cartoon face.

    Was it based at all on the story of Cecilia Gimenez who died on Monday at the age of 94 in Borja, her hometown in Northern Spain? A prized fresco of Christ by Elias Garcia Martinez called Ecce Homo in a local church had started to flake. Cecilia attempted to restore it but it came closer to Bean’s work than that of the original artist. Take a look:

    Ouch!

    Vandalism was suspected at first: The delicate misery on the face of Christ en route to the crucifixion was replaced by a misshapen head. Cecilia said the priest knew about her efforts and none of her acts were hidden. Nevertheless images of the botched job spread online and she was mortified. She couldn’t stop weeping and couldn’t eat. She was portrayed as a crazy old lady who desecrated a masterpiece.

    Then something happened. People started visiting Borja to see the “famous” artwork. Lots of people. And they brought tourist money with them. Lots of tourist money. Restaurant business boomed. Visits to a nearby museum of medieval art saw its annual attendance jump from 7,000 to 70,000. And get this — local vineyards fought over the rights to put Cecilia’s Christ on their wine labels. Competitions were held in which young artists tried their own hands at the work. She became a beloved local hero.

    Rest in peace, Cecilia Gimenez. You meant well, you had a good heart, and it all worked out for the best.

    In the puzzle yesterday at 43A, “Spray in the kitchen” was PAM. Glad the veteran constructors Adam Wagner and Rafael Musa didn’t go with “AG Bondi” as the clue. Blecch. Have I mentioned before that she turned sixty last November? No shit. What’s your secret, girl?

    At 2D, for “Default outcomes, perhaps,” the answer was REPOS. Get it? If you are in default on your car payments the REPO man will come for it.

    We heard of a poor girl who was possessed by satanic demons. In desperation, her parents sought the services of an exorcist. His fee was $25,000, but he agreed to accept payments over an extended period. Thankfully, the exorcism was successful and the girl resumed a normal life. But the parents suffered some financial difficulties and couldn’t continue paying the exorcist. What can I tell you? There’s no happy ending. The poor girl was re-possessed.

    I tried to share that joke with Rex’s Commentariat but it was rejected! Is it anti-Catholic?

    5D in the puzzle today: “Symbols of love on some bridges,” was PADLOCKS. You ever see this? A couple would write their initials and the date on the lock and fasten it to a bridge. The problem is, if it gets to be excessive, it’s adding weight to the bridge. In some jurisdictions, the authorities make periodic sweeps to cut them down. (Boo.)

    And since we’re in France all of a sudden:

    Oddly, the clue at 45D was “Where French fries are ‘frog sticks.’” It seems to be endorsing reference to the French as frogs, or am I missing something? That’s a derogatory term, so I was surprised to see it in the NYT.

    17A was sweet. The clue was “Save me!” Answer: LAST DANCE.

    At 13D, for the clue: “Words on an incriminating email, perhaps,” the answer was DELETE THIS. Here’s Rex on it: if you are ending your “incriminating emails” with DELETE THIS, allow me to suggest that you are not very good at crime and should maybe consider going straight. At this point in our surveillance society, I just assume that every single word I type into a computer leaves a trace that someone somewhere can find if they really want to. Deleting means I don’t see it, but … it’s probably stored somewhere; some autosave or archiving feature will get you in the end.

    Do you know this one? At 19A, for “Really went for” the answer was LIKE LIKED. It’s an expression used to distinguish between enjoying someone’s company and being interested in someone romantically.

    On Seinfeld, Elaine is in art class sitting next to a woman who has dated George, and wants to find out her level of interest: “Do you like him, or like-like him?” “Like-like.” And she adds: “Looks aren’t that important to me.” (The whole thing is acted out just as if they were in high school, even to the point where Elaine is ordered to spit out her gum by the art teacher.) Later, Elaine happily reports to George that she really likes him, but unfortunately included what she said about looks, and George gets upset, “I’d rather she hate me and think I was good-looking!”

    Right off the bat at 1A, “Spoilers that ruin a whole lot.” That’s a good clue but it’s also a pretty good distance from it to the answer: BAD APPLES.

    Very happy to note that our Sirens have quietly put together a sweet three-game winning streak. All wins by one goal. It’s early, but they’re tied for second place. We’ll see them face off against a tough Montreal squad in two weeks. And our Sarah is back. She notched an assist in the last win. Yay!

    Casey O’Brien is one of girls who’s been killin’ it for us. Radiant.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Don’t Try To Mail A Letter In Denmark

    Well, as the year seeps out, we notice the NYT reporting on another federal judge upbraiding the government for improperly pursuing poor Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, DOJ’s favorite punching bag. Apparently, he’s being charged now with cheating on his SATs, peeing in the pool when he was 12, and making way too many errors chanting his Bar Mitzvah portion. Lock him up!! (To quote OC friend Michael’s son Gabe, who looked up from the Torah during his reading and said to us all: “This is hard!”)

    Owl Chatter is helping raise funds for Kilmar’s defense by selling “I Was Wrongfully Deported to a Hellhole of a Prison in El Salvador and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” t-shirts. The price is $20, or $25 if you mention Owl Chatter. Or you can buy this one from the estate of the beheaded woman.

    Kudos to Illinois for their gutsy win over Tennessee last night in their bowl game in Nashville. A good win for the Big Ten over the SEC. Tenny had home ice advantage and was favored by a couple. Illini QB Luke Altmyer looked cool in leading his men down the field with 2 minutes remaining, using up the clock wisely, setting up the game winning field goal. Tenny had just taken the lead for the first time late in the second half, by one point. But Altmyer calmly went about his business. Excellent game.

    Luke is very private about his personal life. Either that, or he doesn’t have one. So Phil was unable to come up with anything on a girlfriend for us. His mom’s pretty hot, though. And Dad’s probably an alcoholic. Couldn’t put his drink down for two f*cking seconds.

    In the puzzle today at 6D, “Wander aimlessly” was ROVE. (I tried roam first.) Who’s Planxty? Actually, it’s “what’s Planxty?” They were a very popular Irish folk music band, one of whose members was Christy Moore, whom we featured before on Owl Chatter. They were formed in 1972, broke up a few times, and last re-uned in 2005. According to our friend Miriam, “planxty” means “an Irish melody for the harp written in triplets and slower than the jig.”

    Steve Bowe of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted the following, with the photo:

    “Maybe it’s my innate dullness coming to the fore but I’m struggling to imagine any possibilities other than the obvious.”

    Denmark is ushering in a bleak future by closing down its national postal service because nobody writes letter anymore. Yikes! They will only deliver packages now. A private company will take over for folks who are still archaic enough for letter-writing. So these gorgeous red mailboxes were removed from the nation’s streets. When 1,000 were offered online recently they sold out in three hours for about $300 each. I’d buy one for sure.

    Postal news in the U.S. — Muhammad Ali stamps should be available in a few weeks. It’s about time, no? They’ll be unveiled in Louisville, his birthplace.

    As you can see, it notes he was a boxer, activist, and humanitarian. But he said he didn’t want to be remembered for that. He wanted to be remembered for how pretty he was. I quoted him on that when I said a few words at our friend Susan’s memorial service in Vermont. Everyone was, rightfully, speaking about what an extraordinary woman she was, a devoted friend, a wonderful artist. But I spoke about how pretty she was, to quote Ali. And I noted that the last time I saw her, about a month before her passing, she was so ravaged by disease it took me aback at first. But I felt a click in my brain, and I realized she was still as beautiful as ever — it was just a different kind of beauty. Miss you, S.

    Today’s puzzle was a New Year’s Eve party complete with party hats and balloons. The hats and balloons festooned a whole bunch of the black squares. And the theme answers were a SQUARE, BOX, CELL, and BLOCK combined with a type of get-together: SQUARE DANCE, BOX SOCIAL, CELL RECEPTION, and BLOCK PARTY. Here’s how pretty it looked:

    BTW, ALI was in it at 2D, clued with “Sports star who said ‘It’s not bragging if you can back it up.’” (Dizzy Dean also said that, a commenter noted.)

    Yesterday’s puzzle included the phrase “and [blank] bed,” for the answer SO TO. Commenter Germanicus wrote: “And so to bed” is the most famous catchphrase in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. I replied: Are there other less famous ones? Perhaps “Time to get up.” “Rise and shine!” or “Ready for lunch?”

    Big sports day for us. Michigan’s holding its own so far against Texas. And our Sirens scored a big win over Vancouver on the ice in Newark. Our Sarah Fillier was out, though, and is day-to-day, from this vicious shot (see below) she took last game. TBH, Sarah started it with a pretty good hit just as this video begins. But the retaliation by Seattle’s Tejralova (to Sarah’s head!) was way out of line, and she was rightfully ejected and charged with a major misconduct penalty. It’s a tough business and these girls don’t screw around.

    We’ll end today, and this difficult year for America, by wishing the Kennedy family peace, upon the passing of JFK’s beautiful granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline’s daughter. She was only 35. Our Phil was pretty close to Tatiana, of course, and thought this first shot showed her personality. And the second, her beauty. Rest in peace.

    Happy New Year Chatterheads! See you in 2026!

  • Rags of Wind

    This poem is called “Proposals.” It was in The Writer’s Almanac today and is by Cecilia Woloch, a Pittsburgh girl, 69, who lives in LA now. She’s part Roma, and an alum of Transylvania U in Lexington Kentucky. How’s that for creepy? (The college part, not the Roma part.) It’s a real college: Kentucky’s oldest university. It’s the alma mater of two U.S. vice presidents, two U.S. Supreme Court justices, 50 U.S. senators, 101 U.S. representatives, 36 U.S. governors, and 34 U.S. ambassadors, making it a large producer of 19th-century U.S. statesmen. Its sports teams are “the Bats.” Just kidding. Should be the Bats, but they are the Pioneers. Bore-ring.

    Here’s what Cecilia looks like. You may want to know after reading her poem.

    Mistaking me for someone else, he asked me to marry him. This has
    happened more than once. The first time, I was eighteen and the boy had
    a diamond ring in a box. It was the Fourth of July, it was dark, he said, Happy
    Independence Day    . Of course, the ring was too large and slipped right off
    my finger into the grass. (It belonged to someone else: the woman he
    married, eventually.) And when I was twenty-one, that redhead, sloe-eyed
    and slinking out of his grief, said he’d imagined I’d be his wife. But he was
    mistaken. It wasn’t me. Then a drunk who drove too fast, who threw the
    proposal over his shoulder like some glittering, tattered scarf. I staggered
    out of his car, saying, No thanks, No thanks, No thanks. And the man over
    eggs one morning, in the midst of an argument, saying he planned to wait
    for spring to ask for my hand, then he never asked. (So of course, I married
    that one for a while; spent years convincing him I was not his cup of coffee,
    not his girl.) And in Prague, on a bridge called the Karlův Most, a stranger,
    a refugee, who mistook the way I stared at the river for thinking of suicide.
    Who mistook my American passport for his ticket out of there. And
    others-the man whose children grabbed the food off my plate, called me
    her; the man in Chartres Cathedral humming the wedding march into my
    ear. And tonight, at dinner with friends, happy, discussing their wedding
    plans, a man I’ve known for a couple of hours turning to ask me to marry
    him. I don’t know who they think I am. Do I look like a bride in these rags
    of wind? Do I look like the angel of home and hearth with this strange green
    fire in my hands?

    If you think you had mean or strict parents (I don’t – quite the converse), consider Rudyard Kipling, who was born on this date in 1865. He was British, born to British parents in India, where his dad had a teaching assignment as an artist. To protect him from a pandemic, they sent him back to England where he was in the care of a mean couple who once made him go to school with a sign on his back that said LIAR. Ouch! The closest I came was when a group of us took to slapping KICK ME signs on each other’s backs. Good times.

    As I’ve noted before, the commenter Son Volt regularly includes links to songs that are connected in some way to clues/answers in the day’s puzzle. Today, grimly, in connection with WENT PFFT, he linked Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy.”

    In connection with SQUALL, he shared this Guy Clark song. (Click.)

    At 2D, the clue was “And _______ bed.” Answer: SO TO. I knew it, but didn’t know it comes from Samuel Pepys’ diary. Also learned that Pepys is pronounced Peeps. (Not kidding.) Pepys was second cousin to Edward Montagu, the first Earl of Sandwich, who played a large role in his life. Edward was not the Sandwich after whom the sandwich is named. That was John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich.

    This may be how it happened: Lord Sandwich was a very conversant gambler, the story goes, and he did not take the time to have a meal during his long hours playing at the card table. Consequently, he would ask his servants to bring him slices of meat between two slices of bread, a habit known among his gambling friends. Other people, according to this account, began to order “the same as Sandwich!,” and thus the “sandwich” was born.

    The Carnegie Deli on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan closed about ten years ago. If you ordered a corned beef sandwich there, it was a bit pricey, but here’s what you got (he wrote, wiping away tears).

    Here are the first three lines of a poem that did not make it past the Owl Chatter guard puppies.

    ice in the grass of want:

    queen of leaf-

    rot, I’ve let go—

    Let’s finish today with the story that was selected by readers as the best Met Diary entry of 2025. It’s by Richie Powers and is called “Unacceptable.”

    Dear Diary:

    I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.

    When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.

    The man behind the counter looked up at me.

    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads! Thanks for stopping in.

  • Merry Christmas, Snowflakes

    Yesterday’s big (Sunday) puzzle had a Broadway theme. It was called Off Broadway Musicals. The clues were musicals, and the answers played off their literal meanings. So for “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” the answer was NEPOTISM. “The Wiz” was EINSTEIN. “The Producers” was PROLETARIAT. And “Mean Girls” was AVERAGE JANES, the counterpart to average Joes, with mean meaning average.

    The grid contained the following answers: PLATH (as in Sylvia), PROSTRATE, AROSE, NASTY, CUSPS, and LISPS. So here’s what I came up with:

    Sylvia’s parents always felt her agreeable brother Warren was the PLATH of least resistance.

    Police Sergeant: Was the body PROSTRATE when you arrived?
    Witness: No. Quite the converse. It was antistrate.
    Sergeant: Okay. Then I’ll amend my officer’s report to have his PROSTRATE taken out.

    Don’t invite Shakespeare and Stein to dinner together.
    Will: AROSE (9D) by any other name . . .
    Gertrude: Nonsense! AROSE is AROSE is AROSE.

    It theems a little NATHTY (71D) for the conthtructor to place CUTHPS (52D) so close to LITHPS (63D).

    Here’s Sylvia.

    Our Phil spent his time off for Christmas hanging with Tay and Travis at the Chiefs game in KC last week. It was a little sad because KC lost, is out of the playoffs, and it might have been Trav’s last home game (if he retires). Phil says it’s not just an act, Kelce is truly undecided on whether to call it quits.

    Yikes. She looks so tiny next to him in that shot. Should we worry? It’s not as pronounced below. I’m not going to worry.

    Eugene Niemand of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asks a reasonable question:

    Can someone please explain why this board was not placed 1/2 mile back or forward to avoid all the 1/2 miles on the distances?

    Paul Clark: Because it was easier than moving the towns nearer the junction.

    [What?]

    Jane Knuth: And why all the parentheses?

    Andrew Jackson: The parentheses mean the town is not located directly on the road you are on.

    Kenneth Harwood: This is the only sign of its kind that I know of.

    Eugene: Really? To be honest it’s first one I’ve seen since creating this post but surely there must be more.

    Kenneth: I was a Lorry driver, drove all over the UK and I have never seen another with 1/2 miles.

    John Heaton: Oddly, there is nowhere on the A347 within 34.5 miles of the sign, as is indicated for Winchester.

    Eugene: I know. I did a measurement from where this sign is and in a straight line it overshoots everywhere by about 2-4 miles except Ringwood. 

    Gord Lynch:  I don’t suppose the roads are straight lines though.

    Debbie Vogel: The sign was placed near an intersection.

    Eugene: Does anyone know where they measure to, like a council building, library, courthouse, etc.?

    Andrew Harper: Normally to the main post office in the town.

    Eugene: This is getting more interesting.

    Avi Liveson: Not really.

    The PWHL (Pro Women’s Hockey League) was mentioned approvingly in a call to the afternoon sports talk show on WFAN in NY today. The caller noted that the PWHL has a draft system that does not reward losses (or “tanking”). It’s a big problem (IMO) for the NFL.

    Take a look at the Jets. (Sorry. Just for a second.) They stink beyond all reasonable standards of stinkdom. So they need a good draft in April. And draft picks are assigned in the order of how bad your record is. So there’s an incentive for the Jets (and the other weaker teams) to lose games in order to score a more favorable draft position. It’s called “tanking” and goes against everything competitive sports stands for.

    Well, the PWHL came up with a solution. Once it’s mathematically impossible for a team to make the playoffs, its draft position is higher the better it does for the rest of the season. Brilliant.

    Look at these beautiful and remarkable women. They make me proud to be a sports fan.

    At the opposite end of the brilliance spectrum, we have Chris Garten, a moron of the highest order. On Christmas Day, Garten, a Republican Indiana state senator, posted images of himself punching, kicking, and body-slamming Santa Claus in front of the state capitol. His explanation was that he was reacting to the “fact” that “the North Pole is trying to bring more bureaucratic overreach & unfunded mandates down the chimney disguised as ‘Christmas cheer.’” “We The People run Indiana, not the bureaucrats,” he wrote. “Take it back to the North Pole big guy.”

    Garten called outrage over the posts “fake” and “a stark reminder of how overly sensitive society has become.”

    [Wait. If it was fake how could it be a reminder of anything? It didn’t happen. Gotta pick one CG. It’s an either/or.]

    He later blasted the “intolerance, swearing, and outrage” over the images and said: “Some of you clowns are just insufferable…. Merry Christmas, snowflakes!”

    Ho-Ho-Ouch!

    Frank Bruni ended the year with a collection of the best “For the love of sentences” sentences. I didn’t remember this one:

    In The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), Kamran Abassi composed a eulogy for honest, factual information. “We live in a world of lies, damned lies, and A.I. hallucinations,” he wrote. “A lie, they say, travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. Today, a lie travels so fast that the truth might as well stay in bed.”

    Our trip to Michigan was terrific. New grandbaby Harold Barney is a knockout. Big brown eyes and gorgeous pouty lips. How a slob like me could have anything genetic to do with that punim is one of the great mysteries. Great eats, as always, including kasha this time.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by.

  • Real Hardcover Books

    Welcome to Owl Chatter Post #950, not to be confused with the VFW Post of that number. Congratulations on wasting hours and hours of your life with this nonsense! What the hell is wrong with you!!

    From The Onion:

    Wooden Spoon Only Thing In Man’s Life Not Giving Him Cancer

    Also From The Onion:

    Religious Cousin Ruins Family’s Christmas

    MONTOURSVILLE, PA–The arrival of devout Christian cousin Barb Krueger has “for all practical purposes ruined” the Langan family’s chances of having an enjoyable holiday season, sources reported Monday.

    “Christmas Day is something our whole family greatly looks forward to, drinking egg nog, opening presents, sitting around the family room in our pajamas and robes, and sipping hot cocoa throughout the day,” said Marv Langan, 51. “Well, you can forget about that this year, with Barb hovering over us with her Bible.”

    “Jesus is the reason for the season,” Krueger said.

    Holiday-cheer-killing activities foisted upon the family include daily “devotionals” involving candle-lighting and scripture readings, formal prayers before all meals, and longwinded harangues explaining why Jesus wants the Langans to reject such “blasphemously secular” holiday TV specials as Frosty The Snowman and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.

    “I hope she never comes back here again,” said one of the Langan girls. “I hope she gets run over by a bus and goes to Heaven. That way, she could spend the holidays with her best friend Jesus.”

    At 35D in the puzzle today, “Historical region of southwestern France,” was AQUITAINE.

    With a play on Accutane, I posted the following on Rex’s site: AQUITAINE is a popular acne remedy. The Times really blew it on that one.

    Anony Mouse wrote: Never heard of it. Whereas Eleanor of AQUITAINE is famous. The Times didn’t blow it at all.

    And tht replied: Anonymous, I take it you’re new around here. It’s a safe bet he was kidding.

    [Yup.]

    Thursday’s puzzle had a laughing theme. It inserted Jingle Bell lyrics, leading up to “LAUGHING all the way,” and inserted laughs into long answers, e.g., BROUHAHA. David Byrne must have approved.

    Broadcasting today from Bloomfield Hills MI. The drive out was fine despite predictions of dire ice storms. And here’s a holiday treat for us with a special accent, courtesy of the Roches.

    Yesterday was the birthday of David Sedaris, 69, born in Johnson City NY. He is one of the great humorists of our age. He also wrote this:

    “Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, still warm from being read.”

    Let’s close on that. See you next time!

  • Mr. Noodle

    In the puzzle today, the answer at 27D was ILL ADVISED (“Unwise”). It reminded me of this:

    Driving through the backroads of heavily treed Oregon years ago, we passed many side roads with the sign “Truckers Not Advised.” After several hours of seeing them, Linda and I had this brief conversation:

    Me: What does that even mean?
    Linda: It’s telling truckers not to use that side road.
    Me: It’s advising them to avoid the road?
    Linda: Yes.
    Me: So the truckers are advised.
    Linda: Yes.
    Me: But it says Truckers Not Advised.
    Linda: Don’t do that.

    It’s a verbal Escher painting.

    Here are belated Happy Hanukkah wishes from the late Tom Lehrer, alav hashalom.

    Tom Lehrer passed away last June in Cambridge MA (“our fair city”) at the age of 97. Amazingly, until yesterday, I had not heard this song of his. Tom never married and had no children. So who’s Betsy? IDK. A sister?

    The theme today was FAKE IDs. Answers used the initials I and D and had something fake about them. ITALIAN DRESSING is actually from America and is rarely consumed in Italy. ISAK DINESEN is the author of “Out of Africa” who is actually named Karen Christentze von Blixen-Finecke. And INDEPENDENCE DAY is an “observance celebrating a decision actually made on July 2 — the date when John Adams predicted it would be celebrated.”

    John Adams wasn’t the only wild guy in the puzzle today. At 6D for the clue “Silly character on the Sesame Street segment ‘Elmo’s World,’” the answer was MR NOODLE. Nice ‘stache, Mr. N.

    We’re closing the store early today. Xmas eve festivities, then it’s off to Michigan in the morning. Broadcasting may be spotty for a few days.

    Happy Holidays from all of us at Owl Chatter. Maybe next year will be better! (Just kidding — we’re f*cked.)

  • One Wish

    Good morning readers! (It’s morning here.) Before we go any further, we have an addendum to an item from the Dull Men’s Club (UK) that appeared in our previous post. It was the note about DMC(UK) member Andy Spragg’s bottle of Gravy Browning that was finally finished after a long period of devoted service.

    Since our report, the following back-and-forth appeared:

    Kenneth Harwood: Your troubles are over!! You can get it on eBay. Here’s an item number 235423495375. Mind you not for 40p.

    Andy: I probably can’t overemphasize the importance of the 40p-ness TBH.

    OC Note: It’s an interesting item. It only colors whatever it’s added to. It does not flavor it (other than adding salt). I haven’t seen it on the shelves here in the U.S.

    Meet Foxglove. Opening yesterday in Rex’s holiday pet pix feature. Hi Foxie!

    Here’s a holiday love song, courtesy of Son Volt. Thanks SV!

    Carat, karat, caret, or carrot? Even people adept at karate can have trouble distinguishing carat from karat. I know, who kares, right? Well, when you are talking about the weight of a diamond, that’s in carats. The “fineness” of gold is karat. Pure gold is 24 karat. If it’s only 14/24 gold, that’s 14 karat. And caret is the little arrow symbol you use to add material to text (^). It has nothing to do with jewelry.

    Phil had us add carrot to the list so he could try to hit on Bernadette here. It didn’t go well. You’ll get ’em next time, Buddy! Her loss.

    Here are some items from Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature:

    In Wired, David Ferry, on people with Parkinson’s disease wrote: “Amy Lindberg spent 26 years in the Navy and she still walked like it — with intention, like her chin had someplace to be. But around 2017, her right foot stopped following orders.”

    In The New Yorker, Helen Rosner named the filet o’tofu sandwich at Mommy Pai’s in Manhattan as a 2025 restaurant highlight: “As the name of this sandwich suggests, it bears some structural similarities to a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, but only in the sense that we human beings share more than half our DNA with a banana.”

    In The Wall Street Journal, Jason Gay wrote about the phenomenon football fans experience when a catch is being reviewed. Of course it was a catch. Wait a minute — did it touch the ground? Did he have “control?” What’s “control?” Here’s Gay: “It’s the affliction of overthinking: If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, wait, hold on, it must be a chandelier. It’s further evidence humans can ruin the spirit of anything, if given the time and technology.”

    Gay also marveled at the return of the quarterback Philip Rivers, 44, a grandfather, who’d retired and was coaching high school football, to replace an injured starter for the Colts: “He moved like a man trying to make a sandwich in the dark.”

    Last, in The Times, Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer mused about Trump’s failed efforts to prosecute his perceived enemies: “Revenge, it turns out, is a dish best served with evidence.”

    If you SHORT CHANGE someone, you “cheat” them, according to Suzanne Oliver, the constructor of yesterday’s NYTXW. But it had another meaning in the four theme answers yesterday too. In JAZZ QUARTET, we had a quarter “short” of the R. In JEDI MASTERS, we had a dime “short” of the E. In OPEN NOTES, we had a penny “short” of the Y. And in PERSNICKETY, we had a nickel “short” of the L. So “short” change — get it?

    Commenter Lewis came up with this poem:

    First we lose the mighty PENN
    A coin once stubborn as a JENN
    Next to go will be the NICKE
    Which has slowed down to a TRICKE
    Followed by the mighty DIM
    Certainly, it’s past its PRIM
    Sadly, next will be the QUARTE
    I’ll drown my sorrows in a PORTE
    I guess I find it very STRANG
    To have to say goodbye to CHANG

    Miriam Webster’s word of the day today is “bespoke,” and I’m glad it is because I always wonder what it means when I see it but have been too lazy to look it up. It means “custom-made.” I’ve heard of bespoke suits so that makes sense but it’s not limited to clothing. I googled “bespoke ice cream” and this came up among the photos. That’s the most drooling I’ve done since the last Sydney Sweeney photo.

    Today’s puzzle was one for the C-SUITE. Normally that’s where the CEOs hang out, but today it revealed the theme of “sweets” that had two C words, viz., CHOCOLATE COIN (you know, for Chanukah), CUPCAKE, CANDY CORN, and CHRISTMAS COOKIE.

    In general, you want to keep your theme clean. That is, there should be no other (non-theme) answers with two C words in the grid. Rex had some cat fun with that at 2D. The clue was “Go off a ski jump, say,” and the answer was CATCH AIR. Here’s Rex:

    I’m not really sure what a CAT CHAIR is (is it sweet?), but I want one for my cats now. Actually, scratch that. They have plenty of chairs. All the chairs in this house are CAT CHAIRs. Hell, every rectangular-shaped surface in the house is a CAT CHAIR. This crossword puzzle was on the counter for all of ten seconds before it became … CAT CHAIR!

    Follow-up notes to CAT CHAIR:

    Bob M: I’ll have to check with a Bronte expert, but did Rochester ever CATCH EYRE?

    Jnlzbth: First line, last chapter: “Reader, I married him.”

    KBF: A cat chair need not be rectangular. If there’s a sock on the floor, Tasha will sit on it.

    Anony Mouse: Is a dog chair a “bark-o-lounger?”

    “Maybe we should take our mouse ears off.”

    The Mariners and Gnats traded . . . actors? The Gnats picked up Harrison Ford in exchange for Jose Ferrer. Remember Jose?

    So. What the hell am I talking about? It was a real trade. Harry Ford (first name Harrison) is a minor league catcher and top prospect, and Jose A. Ferrer is a solid relief pitcher. Here are the nonactors:

    May the force be with you, Gnats! Harry is a rare-for-baseball dual British-American citizen. He was born in Atlanta, but both his parents are British. He has played for British teams in international baseball competitions. Jose is Dominican and a good left arm out of the bullpen. The Gnats will miss him.

    Clever clue/answer in a recent LA Times puzzle: “Subject of some air battles?” Answer: ARMREST.

    Nooooo! Not that!

    “B . . . twelve! You have a B-twelve deficiency.”

    Let’s close today with this poem from Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser. One of my favorites.

    A little snap at one side of the room,
    and an answering snap at the other:
    Stiff from the cold and idleness, the old house
    is cracking its knuckles. Then the great yawn
    of the furnace. Even the lampshade is drowsy,
    its belly full of a warm yellow light.

    Out under the moon, though, there is at least
    one wish against this winter sleep: A road
    leads into the new year, deliberate as a bride
    in her sparkling white dress of new snow.

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads. Thanks for popping in!