The Wellington Files

  • I Am A Donut

    Nick Mangold was a mensch. He was drafted by the Jets out of Ohio State in the first round in 2006 and distinguished himself as one of the NFL’s best centers throughout his eleven-year career with the Jets. He was inducted into the Jets “Ring of Honor” in 2022. An Ohioan born and raised, Jersey claimed him as one of theirs from his playing days on. In fact, he lived here in Chatham, the site of Owl Chatter headquarters, during his playing days, and just moved up the road to Madison when he retired.

    Nick put out a call seeking a kidney donor just two weeks ago, but succumbed to kidney failure and passed away on Saturday. He was only 41. He is survived by a sea of very adoring Jets fans, and by his wife Jennifer and their kids Matthew, Eloise, Thomas and Charlotte, for all of whom he so ably anchored the line.

    Running back Thomas Jones, for whom Mangold blocked for three seasons, wrote: “Rest in peace to my brother & teammate Nick Mangold. I keep seeing your smiling face in the huddle bro. One of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”

    Rest in peace, Nick.

    The Jets won their first game of the season yesterday after seven losses, 39-38 over Cincy.

    Owl Chatter readers expressed some interest in Bruce’s lady-friend from the new movie, the Australian actress Odessa Young. Turns out her parents were a musician (dad) and writer (mom) and are big Bruce fans. Odessa herself is too and really pushed to get any role at all in the movie, not expecting to land the major one she did. Her character represents an amalgam of women Bruce dated during that era.

    Odessa has been acting since the age of 11, mostly in indie films, with much success, but this role should push her into the stratosphere. Scott Cooper, who made the movie, said of her: “Her stillness and her ability to communicate volumes with her eyes are real strengths. She can convey a whole spectrum of emotions—sorrow, defiance, hope—without saying a word.”

    She’s 27 and, sorry fellas, married to director David Raboy, whom she met back in 2019 on the set of The Giant. This was the first photo of her I landed on today. No need to search any further.

    Shakespeare’s PORTIA dropped by the puzzle yesterday, clued via her role in Merchant. She’s the one who said the quality of mercy is not strained. So, tell me, Porsh — how does it keep from getting lumpy?

    Also a wonderful visit from STAN LAUREL. What a treat. I once heard someone describe Laurel and Hardy skits as involving some hysterical predicament from which they finally extricate themselves only to find something as crazy waiting in the wings. E.g., in one film they are tasked with carrying a piano across a rope bridge over a deep gorge. Dayenu, right? No, that’s not enough, so a gorilla comes out on the other side. Here it is.

    There was a frankfurter in the puzzle today, but not the hot dog kind. It was Justice FELIX Frankfurter and I was surprised to hear from Rex that he hadn’t heard of him. What!? An English prof at SUNY Binghamton, around 50 years old. How could that be? I commented that not having heard of the Justice doesn’t cut the mustard.

    A very brief discussion ensued on how some German place names became associated with foods. And I learned that there’s a whole big deal about whether JFK announced to the German people that he was a donut. “Berliner” is a term for donut. If you are saying you are from Berlin you are supposed to say Ich bin Berliner, without the “ein.” With the “ein” you are saying you are a donut. But Kennedy was in fact correct to use “ein.” Because if you are not truly from Berlin (as in JFK’s case), “ein” is appropriate. For example, if you are Ronald McDonald saying you are a clown, you would not use “ein.” But someone being silly who refers to himself as a clown would use “ein.” (Did that come across clearly? Am I a donut?)

    What a nice lunch today! Met two old buddies from Hunter at Kimura on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. Toshi ordered a whole mess of things for all of us to share and it was out of this world. I tried a Japanese IPA (Neko) and it was very good! (Burp!)

    Let’s close today with this car story shared by Rex Commenter Barbara S because there was an ALFA Romeo in the puzzle (at 30D). She writes well and I like her usage of caribou towards the end:

    “I think I recently threatened to tell a story about ALFA Romeos, and thanks to 30D, this puzzle has given me the opportunity. My husband and I had a holiday in a very pretty part of rural Ontario earlier this fall. We stayed at an inn which had been recommended by a friend. It’s a big place – more like being on a campus than in a hotel. There are a number of buildings with guestrooms and suites, a separate cottage with reception desk and gift shop, a ‘cookery’ school, a pub and a restaurant. There are parking areas scattered around these buildings, and one evening as we were walking to supper, we gradually became aware that there was an enormous number of ALFA Romeos, some new and some vintage, parked here, there and everywhere. Also an overabundance of Porsche Carreras and, most spectacularly, a 1929 Bentley that looked like it had just exited the factory! What!? We soon saw that the far end of the dining room had been given over to the ALFA Romeo Club of Montreal, a lively bunch who were eating, drinking, being merry, raising their glasses and giving the odd speech. My husband talked to one of guys the next day and it turned out they were on a touring holiday to Lake Huron. And they were mostly ALFA drivers but the Carreras and the Bentley, affiliated with another classic car club, were welcome add-ons.

    “The Bentley sported a shiny, new-looking metal plate that announced it contained Lucas electricals. This made my husband nearly choke as Lucas electrical systems, manufactured in the U.K. starting in the mid-nineteenth century, were notoriously unreliable, dubbed by frustrated owners, ‘The Prince of Darkness.’ There are websites devoted to Lucas jokes, such as: Lucas invented the three-way switch: Dim, Flicker, and Short, and its back-up: Smoke, Smolder and Ignite. Oh dear. We don’t know whether this magnificent and still fully functional car retained its Lucas components, or whether the owner kept the plate as a conversation piece.

    “When the ALFAs & Co. left the inn the following morning – what a sight! You’ve watched footage of the great caribou migrations across the northern tundra? Well, it was not remotely like that, not even a little. But it was a grand parade in its own luxury automotive sort of way.”

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads! It’s Hayride Day with Isaac!

  • Hatcheries

    Happy Birthday Pablo! On this date in 1881, Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain. The Writer’s Almanac attributes this quote to him: “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Sounds like Yogi Berra, amirite?

    Dammit, Phil. You couldn’t let the guy get dressed??!! It’s his goddamn birthday and he’s 144. Argggggh. Sorry Pablo!

    Any of you old-timers relate to this piece from tomorrow’s Met Diary? Me neither. It’s by Maria Lisella.

    Now 6′ 2″, at one time even taller.
    Like a tree bracing its corner of the elevator,
    he extends his cane to hold the door open for her.
    A gesture, gracious, effortless, done a thousand
    times before at the sight of a pretty woman.

    “Thank you, so that’s good for more than one thing,”
    she flirts. His comeback quick: “And it’s good
    for closing my car door too.” Once dashing,
    Scandinavian-broad shoulders, long legs,
    Marlboro-man square jaw, cleareyed. Hair
    now feathery, thick ankles, halting shuffle
    . . . a book under his left arm, another sign he is
    still who he truly was, the cane leading on the right.
    Important to him to let her know he is still a man
    even if not quite in the game, he has a car,

    he drives the car, he gets around . . . wants
    her to know that much as they part on Eighth Avenue.

    In an op-ed piece in today’s NYT, Ross Douthat takes on Taylor’s new album which he says people are finding a little coarse/bawdy, in particular the song Wood, about which I agree, and conservative, in the sense of looking forward to the married/kids-in-the-suburbs life.

    He lost me pretty quickly in an onslaught of gobbledy-gook:

    “The religious pronatalist who wants babies in lifelong companionate marriage shares a post-liberal ecosystem with the secular pronatalist who wants them by any means necessary, from polygamy to hatcheries. Likewise the would-be Calvinist patriarch and the would-be Andrew Tate disciple, the heterosexual e-girl flirting with Catholicism and the homoerotically inclined Nietzschean vitalist, and so on through the carnival.”

    What?? Can you repeat that please, slower, and in Yiddish?? What carnival? There’s a carnival?

    But this sentence seemed idiotic to me: “The impulse to elevate marriage and kids as core life goals is much stronger on the right than on the left, as are heteronormative life scripts and the actual practice of heterosexual marriage.”

    Could the “non-heteros” be on the left because the right has declared all-out cultural (and legislative) war on the LGBTQ community, especially the T part? That’s like saying, hmmmm, I’ve noticed Jews don’t like Hitler.

    It’s a good thing I don’t let stuff like this upset me.

    Everyone over at Rexworld loved today’s puzzle by Byron Walden, an old pro. I did too. It was super-hard. Impenetrable. Like a Saturday should be. And then, little by little, it opened up.

    Here’s a small example. For the simple word ONE, the clue was “1992 U2 hit inspired by German reunification.” That’s a helluva clue for “one.” And it’s a good song that was new to me.

    Have you heard of PHILO Farnsworth? Me neither. Here’s his clue: “_____ Farnsworth, inventor dubbed ‘The Father of Television.’” He was granted the first patent for television. It’s usually a pretty good hint that someone is a big deal if he or she has a stamp issued.

    Two “fun” answers crossed each other. The clue at 16D was “Especially gratifying, so to speak,” and the answer was BETTER THAN SEX. It was crossed by 30A: “‘You’ve called at a bad time.’” Answer: I CAN’T TALK.

    Here’s Rex on that cross: “The best part was the big-answer collision smack in the middle of the grid. BETTER THAN SEX / ‘I CAN’T TALK’–if something is better than sex, so much better than sex that it leaves you speechless … well, that sounds pretty great. I’m happy for whoever got to experience that.”

    [We cruciverbalists are an easily excited group. We spend our lives watching Mel OTT and Bobby ORR forever playing their sports, while we munch on our OREOS.]

    Perhaps people liked the puzzle because it brought us back to innocent, less-horrifying times. At 17A the clue was “46 years?” and it was a reference to Prez #46. The answer was: BIDEN PRESIDENCY.

    Conversely, 32D was “Cursed vibe” for BAD MOJO.

    Linda and I dashed out to Madison today and voted for Mikie for Governess. Remember what Abbie told us: Vote early and vote often. Then it was up to East Hanover for the new Springsteen movie. Loved it. Not a concert film at all, although the music that was in it was very much appreciated. I was immediately sad for the very compelling young woman he fell for, knowing from real life it couldn’t have lasted. She’s Australian but does a damn good New Jersey, if you ask me (and I oughta know). Odessa Young.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Check Mate

    In a book called Kosher by Design by Susie Fishbein, there is a recipe for brisket called Mexican Brisket, that is so easy and comes out so good that it completely changes one’s view on the making of brisket. It’s not as high a hill to climb anymore. We’ve used it three times now, with great success.

    Here’s how easy it is to use. Take a 3-4 lb brisket, sear it on each side in a pot in a little oil for a few minutes, add a 24-oz jar of salsa, a 12-oz can/bottle of beer, potatoes (5), carrots (3), and an onion, and that’s it. Simmer covered for 3 hours. Done. Easier to slice (against the grain, of course), if you let it cool a bit.

    M’wah.

    There are things that never get boring. Zoey’s face. Lianna’s crazy banter about her music or characters. Leon’s jokes. All the stuff of all the grands really. Their mishegas is inextinguishable. And I thought of them when I read what Daniel (“Danya”) Naroditsky, who became a grandmaster at the age of 17, said about chess:

    “Even at my level, I can still discover beautiful things about the game every single time I train, teach, play or am a commentator at a tournament.” Every single time.

    His older brother Alan introduced the game to him when he was six but he didn’t explode into it, and Alan routinely beat him for about six months. Chess was just one of the things they played, and his early memories are more generally of loving to play anything with his brother. Then he started getting good. As a fifth grader, he became the youngest person ever to win the Northern California K-12 Championship, then he was the under-12 world youth champ, and earned the title of international master at the age of 15. He was still in high school when became a grandmaster.

    After graduating from Stanford with a degree in History, he took a paying position at the Chess Center in Charlotte NC, wrote about chess, became a commentator and on-line presence, and took on students. In 2022, he became the chess columnist for the NYT. Everyone he came in contact with remarked on how clearly he expressed difficult topics and how funny he was.

    In October of 2024, a former world chess champ named Vladimir Kramnick accused Naroditsky (and numerous others) of cheating in online games. Many prominent chess leaders rose to Danya’s defense, but it took a terrible toll on his spirit. “To do what Kramnik has done and what everybody who supports him have done, in my mind, morally, it makes you worse than dirt.” He called Kramnik’s campaign “a sustained, evil, and absolutely unhinged attempt to destroy my life,” adding, “He is trying to ruin my life; he’s trying to inflict emotional harm, physical harm on me. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” It may have worked. Naroditsky died last Sunday, just shy of his 30th birthday. The cause of death was not announced. Some speculate suicide or a drug overdose.

    What a terrible loss of an extraordinary young man. Rest in peace, Danya.

    From The Onion:

    Trump Touts Productive Call With Putin About Ballroom Sconces

    “You know, Vladimir and I aren’t as far apart as critics believe. There’s a lot of overlap in terms of our love for hand-cut crystal, gilded iron, and warm-toned bulbs. This bodes well for when we get to picking chairs,” Trump noted.

    So much good stuff in the puzzle today! I got a chuckle out of 9B where the clue was “Plan B, for seniors.” Ready? — SAFETY SCHOOL. Commenter Mark didn’t get it, so asked for someone to explain it. That led to about six responses like: “A high school senior is worried he may not get into Harvard, so he applies to UMass as a SAFETY SCHOOL.” Then I posted the following: “It’s like a safety pin, but with a school.” I got one LOL, which is rare, so I’m happy.

    Other solid Friday-level clues: 10D. “It’s on the right in the second row.” Answer: THREE PIN.

    53A. “Number discovered in the 1500s.” Answer: ETHER. (Think “numb,” not math.)

    12D. “Bolted some nuts down.” Great clue for the simple word ATE.

    18A: “Synthetic oil producer?” ART FORGER.

    61A. “Bobblehead, e.g.” Great word: TCHOTCHKE. Murder to spell.

    In the center, across, there was one long answer that spanned the grid. The clue was “Snarky reply to a question that starts ‘Can I …?’” And the (snarky) answer was: I DON’T KNOW, CAN YOU? It breaks the XW rule against dupes: having the same word in both the clue and the answer. But it has to, because the whole point is the focus on the word “can” as opposed to “may.” (The kid in the clue is being chided for saying “can” instead of “may.”)

    Our Phil tells us Taylor and Trav are planning for the wedding to take place at the Breakers Mansion in Newport RI. He’ll be there as a guest, of course, but not in any professional capacity. We’re sure he’ll sneak a few shots out to us though.

    Looking good, sweetheart, as always. You hear about George?

    Well, the Dodgers’ plans to steamroll over Toronto went about as well as Putin’s grab of Kyiv. If last night’s 11-4 drubbing is any sign, it may be a long hard slog. Kudos to the Jays’ handsome young (25) slugger, Addison Barger, for his pinch hit grand slam dinger that iced the game for Canada. He was a “barger,” all right — he barged right up those Californian tuchases. BTW, it was the first ever pinch hit grand slam in World Series history. Suh-weet!

    Here’s a shot of him when the buffet opened at his cousin Yitzhak’s bar mitzvah.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for stopping in.

  • In A Pickle

    Excoriating Lincoln as a “woke” president, Trump today began demolition of the Lincoln Memorial. “People always complain that there’s not enough parking in that area, so we’re replacing it with a multi-level parking lot like no one has ever seen before,” he explained. “Probably the greatest in the world. Either that, or something with a lot of gold sh*t in it. Whatever. Who cares? I’ll forget about all of this by tomorrow anyway.” Congressional leaders were unaware that the demolition was taking place.

    Trump assured reporters that Lincoln’s head would be saved. “It’s an extraordinary work of great historic significance,” Trump explained. But that was the first part of the monument to be destroyed, as this photo shows.

    Are Linda and I the only people left in the world who do not play Pickleball? Seems like it. Today’s puzzle was a paean to its popularity. PICKLEBALL was the theme’s revealer at 62A, clued with “Sports craze of the 2020s.” And three “rebus” squares all had words meaning “to be in a pickle.” JAM, MESS, and BIND. Last, PICKLE in the grid was crossed by CUKES, which are, after all, pickles in waiting. There was nice wordplay in that the three “pickle words” were embedded in six longer answers: NIN[JA M]ASTERS and BA[JA M]EXICO; THUM[B IND]EX and CA[BIN D]OORS; and JA[MES S]PADER and TI[MES S]QUARE.

    The grid also featured a visit by XENA the warrior princess. Phil was scared of her, but here’s a nice shot of her pretty companion Gabrielle.

    You’re in luck, girls — George is back! Help yourselves to some Diet Cokes and chill with us for awhile.

    At 23A, “‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast host Cooper” was an odd clue for ALEX, IMO. It’s a woman I’ve never heard of from under my rock. She performed a disrespectful “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” at Wrigley and was roundly booed by the crowd. I would have been among the boo birds. Is nothing sacred?

    Short one today. See you tomorrow!

  • Spiders From Mars

    From our “You Cannot Make This Stuff Up” Dept. The subtleties of the video Trump posted on “No Kings” day elude me. In it he’s piloting a fighter jet and spewing sh*t, literally, on the protesters below. What’s he trying to say?

    And last week, when HuffPost asked at a press briefing who chose Hungary as the site of an upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, “Your mom did.” (Not kidding.)

    I gotta admit it, between that sexy photo of KL we posted recently and her “your mom” response, she’s starting to win me over. Bondi’s got the looks, but lacks the charm. Although what Leavitt has is more like counter-charm. Still not convinced? How about this baby tuxedo? Adorbs?

    How’s this for awkward? For wanting the earth to swallow you up? It was at the Miss Grand International beauty contest in Thailand. A pretty big deal in that world. Seventy-six knockouts adorned the stage, nervously hoping to be among the 22 finalists. When Miss Panama heard herself called, she covered her face with her hands in joy, marched down the steps, and posed for ten seconds as they had been instructed. So what’s the problem? They hadn’t called “Panama.” They called “Paraguay.”

    Oopsies. “Aaah, I beg your pardon, I announced Miss Paraguay,” the host said, drawing out the long, awkward silence. “There is a lot of noise in this hall, packed full of fans from all over the world,” he added trying to allay her rising suicidal feelings.

    Here’s what the miffed Miss Paraguay looks like. She’ll live.

    There was so much to unpack from today’s puzzle. First of all, did you know SHEILA is a term for women in Australia? The equivalent of “bloke” for men. In fact, the clue at 39D was “Young woman, in Australia.” From what I gather, it was a very common term in the past, and still is in rural areas. But it may be taking on derogatory baggage these days. Rex linked us to a discussion in Reddit that contained the following notes (among many others):

    “I think these usual terms of endearment/referral (Sheila, chick, missus, bitch) can come off as offensive because they can be interpreted as dehumanising. Even if the user doesn’t mean it maliciously, to me when I’m referred to as those terms it makes me feel like an object, someone who’s name men (or others) don’t bother to learn. It’s like being referred to as a girl when I’m a woman – it diminishes who I am as a woman. Men may not feel this way when referred to as bloke/dude etc because they’re (usually) not made to feel that they’re lower in the hierarchy.”

    Reply: “Bitch is not in the same category as those others. If I was talking to a bloke and he referred to his partner as a bitch I would think he’s a fuckhead, the other ones would be fine.”

    “I’m a female Aussie.. the term Sheila is one I grew up with.. Not offensive at all.. I just think of it as an Aussie slang for woman..”

    These four Sheilas (Gorry, Catley, Kerr, and Foord) are on Australia’s Women’s World Cup soccer team that made it to the semi-finals in 2023, the first time in eight appearances the team made it that far. Brava ladies!

    The puzzle had WORLD SERIES as its central answer, clued with “Climactic baseball event,” but it was not otherwise baseball-related. The “series” referred to a series of numbers (via wordplay) in other parts of the world — a “world series.” DOS (2 in Spanish), FIRE (4 in Danish), OTTO (8 in Italian), and SEIZE (16 in French). That series in turn related to nuclear FISSION in some way (don’t ask), which was the answer at 26D (“Atomic reaction”). And the OTTO referred to above, was OTTO HAHN who discovered nuclear fission. FUSION was tossed in for good measure at 3D, albeit clued nonnuclearly with “Kind of cuisine.”

    There was other fun stuff today too. 25D: “David Bowie’s astronaut persona.” Eight letters. For some reason I couldn’t let go of STARDUST, as in Ziggy Stardust, but all the crosses fought me. Of course, it turned out to be MAJOR TOM, duh.

    And there was this great clue/answer at 8D: “You got that right!” was the clue. It’s an expression I like to use. But the answer was new to me: SING IT! Fantastic. If you need one example of why I love crossword puzzles so much, that might be it. Sing it, Mojambo!

    And this at 34D: “Sara Bareilles musical set in a diner.” Answer: WAITRESS.

    I usually root for the Tampa Bay Bucs if I’m watching a game of theirs. It’s because their coach is Todd Bowles. He was a defensive back as a player and he’s their head coach now. He stands very still with his headset on and watches the game intently. Linda once asked me if he was a person (i.e., or a statue) and she wasn’t kidding.

    My heart goes out to him because for four years he was the coach of the Jets. They went 10-6 his first year and almost made the playoffs. But by the time he left, their record was down to 4-12. He wrote a memoir of those years and bookstores display it along with the memoirs of Holocaust survivors.

    Headlines from The Onion:

    Anthropomorphologists Find Earliest Known Evidence Of Banana Walking Upright

    Study: Pretending Everything’s Okay Works

    CAMBRIDGE, MA—A study released Thursday by researchers at Harvard University’s Psychology Department has found that the simple act of pretending one’s life is not a complete shambles threatening to collapse at any moment works. “Even when everything is coming apart at the seams and disaster is almost certainly imminent, putting up a good front for friends and loved ones makes everything better,” said Professor Chris Wanamaker. “Smiling a lot and evasive answers are usually enough to get by. Tell everyone that things are fine, and they will be fine. Just don’t over-think it.”

    Damian Kimmi Marritt of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) reports as follows: I’m on holiday in Keswick and we went to the Derwent Pencil Museum. It was far too exciting for me, but my 17 year old son didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as I did. I now know how to wrap a map of Europe up small enough to be hidden inside a pencil along with a compass as was issued to air crews during the second World War.

    Steve Craig: I don’t see the point.

    Gary John: Didn’t hold my dog’s attention for very long.

    Tony Phillips: I went there once but apparently my post wasn’t dull enough for the admin to approve.

    David Stiles: Are you the Anthony Phillips who preceded Steve Hackett as the lead guitarist of Genesis?

    Tony: I wish.

    Clare Lorraine Payne: Cuckoo clock museum in Cheshire, that’s worth a visit….maybe a little over stimulating what with the noises.

    Steve Foote: You should try the Barometer museum in Barnstaple.

    Tim Bucknall: Surely the spiritual home of the DMC.

    Aimee Yates: The Museum of Drainage in Prickwillow near Cambridge surprised me by being quite interesting!

    Sarah Harris: I plan to take my grandson on a re-creation of the movie Sightseers (without the murder parts, probably) in a campervan when he is 4 or 5. The pencil museum will of course be one of the highlights.

    Avi Liveson: But the murders were the best parts!

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads! Thanks for popping in.

  • Springer Has Sprung

    When my beloved Aunt Ida (aleha hashalom) was working on getting her education degree, Pennsylvania kept increasing the number of credits required for a teaching license. She’d earn six credits and they’d raise the requirement by six credits. It was not in her nature to get discouraged. Ever. But she did joke that it would say on her tombstone: She finally made it!

    I tell that story because of Yankee great Don Mattingly. He’ll be participating in his first World Series this year as a coach for the Blue Jays at the age of 64. He finally made it! He starred for the Yankees during their World Series drought (1982-1995) and managed the Dodgers during theirs (2010-2015).

    BTW, my Aunt Ida had a great career as an elementary school teacher in Pittsburgh. She regaled us with stories of her kids. Here’s one: She was teaching “Creative Dramatics” in an inner city school, a position she invented and wrote a handbook about. She put on plays with the students. In one third grade play, one scene called for several little girl mice to be playing on stage and they are surprised by a cat (a boy), and run away. Well, on performance night, when the cat jumped out to scare them, instead of running, they turned and beat the crap out of him. She could go on for hours with stories like that. (Miss you, Aunt Ida.)

    The owls always root for the bird teams and so will root for the Blue Jays in the World Series. And so will we. But the Dodgers are a likable bunch: Mookie, Freddie, and Shohei. It looks like Bo Bichette is returning (from injury) for the Jays and we’re hoping the Series will be tightly contested. As of now, the gambling people give the Dodgers a 69% chance of winning. We’ll see.

    If you weren’t watching Game 7 last night, Seattle took a 3-1 lead into the seventh. Woo had pitched two strong innings, but just missed his ball four pitch to put the leadoff batter on. Ominous. The next batter was the weak-hitting Kiner-Falefa, but Woo put him on too, via a single. The wheels weren’t off the bus yet, but they were wobbling pretty badly. Gimenez laid down a sweet sacrifice bunt and then this: Springer sprang. He’s one of those players who doesn’t get the press like Judge or Ohtani, but he’s a crucial figure in whatever lineup he’s in. Last night: Boom!

    The “aforementioned” Don Mattingly (the very same), had some tsouris in his life. He married his wife Kim when he was just 18, and they had three sons. But she was an alcoholic and it ruined the marriage. They divorced at the end of his playing career. [Their son Preston is the GM of the Phils.] Don remarried when he was 49 and had another son with his second wife at the age of 53. Mattingly’s playing career, entirely with the Yankees, was marred only by its brevity. Back problems cut it short. He was the AL MVP in 1985 and an all-star six times. He won nine Gold Gloves. His lifetime batting average was .307. More importantly, he has always been a mensch.

    A controversy arose when Mattingly’s hair length ran afoul of the Yankee grooming rules. Steinbrenner was insisting he get a haircut but Mattingly was miffed and refused. He was benched! It was played up big in the press but was quickly resolved by Mattingly caving, but not really — the haircut he got removed virtually nothing, but allowed Steinbrenner to save face, or, in this case, scalp. It got Mattingly a spot on a Simpsons episode.

    In the puzzle today, at 17A, “Redwood or cottonwood” was TREE. And an ACORN didn’t fall too far from it, at 55A, clued with “Nut-brown hue.” Some folks (me included) weren’t aware that there’s a color called acorn. One Anony Mouse wrote: As an old professional illustrator/cartoonist, trust me. “Acorn” is not and never has been a color. (And get off my lawn!!)

    But commenter kitshef found it as Benjy Moore’s #1125. And here it is in skirt form:

    kitshef went on to note: “BTW, their 2026 color of the year is ‘silhouette,’ which is described as ‘reminiscent of tailored suiting, this elegant color weaves rich espresso hues with refined notes of charcoal.’”

    Wife: I think I heard someone downstairs. You better go check.

    Husband: Okay, you wait here.

    Husband: Hey, what are you doing here?

    Burglar: I have a gun. Don’t make me use it.

    Husband: Okay, okay. Calm down. You can have whatever you want. I have cash and jewels in that safe over there. How about I open it, you take it all, and leave?

    Burglar: Never mind that crap. Where’s your kid’s toy chest?

    Husband: What?

    Burglar: You heard me!! Show me the f*cking toy chest or I’ll blow your head off!!

    If you are wondering what the hell is going on, look no further than this story in the NYT: “When detectives from the Santa Rosa PD arrived at a house in Lake County, Calif., on Monday, they discovered what looked like a Lego crime scene. Plastic figurines were everywhere, their heads removed from their bodies and organized in neat rows by facial expression (see photo, below). Tubs and bins brimmed with loose pieces — tens of thousands of them, according to the police — and were scattered across desks in the living room. Unopened sets lined the hallway floors. An investigation that began last month culminated in the arrest of Robert Lopez, 39. He had stolen more than $6,000 worth of the popular toys.”

    Detective Jim Bradshaw put aside a pirate ship he was working on and explained: “Limited edition Lego sets can cost up to $1,000 and are becoming collector’s items. A Lego Spiderman figurine was valued at $15,000 recently.”

    Upon his arrest, in addition to demanding a call to his lawyer, Mr. Lopez requested that he be allowed to put his shoes on. “I’m tired of stepping on these goddam f*ckin’ things at 3 am on my way to the john.” Okay, Lopez, but hurry it up.

    Are you going to the Mozart concert tonight?

    No, I’m Bizet.

    Better stop. See you tomorrow!

  • The Pastures of the Northland

    We took a deep dive into the bowels of governmental bureaucracy and emerged whole. Got off to a bad start when I failed to make the turn the GPS lady was adjuring me to make — it seemed like a turn into a restaurant parking lot. But, five minutes later, having bumbled around for a second chance, I took the turn and, sure enough, the Motor Vehicle Commission building was hiding behind the restaurant out of sight and as inaccessible as possible. But I made it by the ID check and the strip search didn’t tickle too much. Twenty minutes later we emerged with new plates (C33WGK) and a whole bunch of paperwork validating me and our little 2012 Toyota Camry. Yay! God Bless New Jersey! (We traded cars with Sam who could use the larger Subaru to greater effect with their two little ones.)

    This poem was yesterday’s poem of the day from Poem-a-Day by poets.org. It’s by Elias Lönnrot and was translated from Finnish by John Martin Crawford. It’s called “From the ‘Kalevala’ [Proem].”

    Mastered by desire impulsive. 
    By a mighty inward urging, 
    I am ready now for singing, 
    Ready to begin the chanting 
    Of our nation’s ancient folk-song 
    Handed down from by-gone ages. 
    In my mouth the words are melting, 
    From my lips the tones are gliding, 
    From my tongue they wish to hasten; 
    When my willing teeth are parted, 
    When my ready mouth is opened, 
    Songs of ancient wit and wisdom 
    Hasten from me not unwilling.
    Golden friend, and dearest brother. 
    Brother dear of mine in childhood, 
    Come and sing with me the stories, 
    Come and chant with me the legends 
    Legends of the times forgotten, 
    Since we now are here together. 
    Come together from our roamings. 
    Seldom do we come for singing, 
    Seldom to the one, the other, 
    O’er this cold and cruel country, 
    O’er the poor soil of the Northland
    Let us clasp our hands together 
    That we thus may best remember. 
    Join we now in merry singing, 
    Chant we now the oldest folk-hue, 
    That the dear ones all may hear them, 
    That the well-inclined may hear them. 
    Of this rising generation. 
    These are words in childhood taught me. 
    Songs preserved from distant ages, 
    Legends they that once were taken 
    From the belt of Wainamoinen, 
    From the forge of Ilraariuen, 
    From the sword of Kaukomieli, 
    From the bow of Youkahainen, 
    From the pastures of the Northland, 
    From the meads of Kalevala. 
    These my dear old father sang me 
    When at work with knife and hatchet; 
    These my tender mother taught me 
    When she twirled the flying spindle, 
    When a child upon the matting 
    By her feet I rolled and tumbled.

    Here’s Elias, just a bit past his rolling and tumbling days.

    I’m glad that HAYAO Miyazaki was in the puzzle today because I have a bone to pick with him. Miyazaki is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation. His The Boy and the Heron won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2023. My bone: we didn’t like it. That’s it: more of a chicken bone than a dinosaur bone. We saw it in Oregon the day after Michigan won the National Football title. Don’t know what all the fuss is about.

    Do you know what a spurious correlation is? It’s when statistics show a connection between things, but it’s false (spurious) — there is no rational basis to accept the connection. Schwalberg’s example in class (50 years ago, alav hashalom), was that statistics showed a connection between cigar smoking and car theft: obviously absurd (unless, as I theorized to him, the thieves were after the ash trays in the cars). Anyway, I’ve long wondered whether the correlation between family dinners and all sorts of wonderful results later in life was spurious. A recent op-ed piece addressed the issue.

    As Frank Bruni put it introducing a snippet from it for his For the love of sentences feature, Erin O. White exposed the tyranny behind the insistence that all members of a household gather reverently toward the end of the day for a shared meal: “The messaging on family dinner is intense! I would like to get the P.R. machine behind family dinner working for the end of gun violence in America. Family dinner will make your children smart! It will keep your children off drugs! Your children will learn languages, turn away from vaping and join model U.N. if you just sit together at the table for 15 minutes every evening, a plate of food in front of you.”  Erin just stopped serving them and the world didn’t end.

    Music clues like these terrify me: “Only black key in a G major scale.” How the hell am I supposed to know that’s F SHARP? Anything harder than “Big brass instrument” for TUBA loses me.

    Drove up to Montclair State College last Thursday to catch a good band: Nefesh Mountain. They put on a terrific show. Here’s a sample, which, in retrospect, seemed to catch the spirit of the No Kings rally we attended just two days later.

    The controversy du jour from today’s puzzle was at 39D where the clue was “Aforementioned.” The answer was VERY SAME. So what do you think? Equivalent? Close enough for crosswords? I’m generally pretty loose on these, but this one gets on my goat a bit. Here’s Rex on it:

    “VERY SAME is way more colloquial than mere ‘aforementioned’ and requires a much clearer, more proximate referent. I could drift away from my topic and then use ‘aforementioned’ to bring you right back, whereas if I used ‘VERY SAME,’ I’d need to have just been talking about whatever I was talking about for it to make sense. Aforementioned is a defensible clue, just a vague and rather unclear one, to my brain.”

    Anony Mouse says:

    I don’t agree that “aforementioned” is a legitimate clue for “very same,” even when one could be swapped for the other in a sentence. “Very same” means “identical.” It doesn’t mean “previously stated.” The gulf is just too wide.

    But commenter jberg writes: Rex, I think you’ve got it backward. VERY SAME doesn’t always mean aforementioned, but aforementioned always means VERY SAME. At least, that’s how I always read words.

    And commenter tht added: To me, “aforementioned” is pretty close to “same as above,” and VERY SAME would function as an emphatic variant. The answer should be capable of subbing in for the clue, where “capable of” implies “under some circumstances,” and not necessarily “under all circumstances.” E.g., it works in this example: “Kacie herself was asking that very same question after hearing the news,” i.e., aforementioned can be substituted for very same here.

    My head is starting to hurt. Let’s let it be.

    Why does the press continue to report on whatever Trump blows out of his ass on Ukraine? He’s long ago forfeited any credibility he may have had, which is none anyway. Save your breath and save your ink. Ukraine will continue to blow up Russian oil facilities and Russia will continue to blow up civilians. Call me back in six months and we’ll see what we’ll see.

    These Ukrainian women are beautiful and tough as nails. Don’t look at us in that tone of voice, Iryna!

    We’ll let that stern visage close things out tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • Ta Moko

    When we moaned at breakfast today “something horrible is happening at 1,” Linda knew exactly what we meant. “Jets game?” she asked. This was to be the dawn of a new era: new coach, new quarterback, new defensive and offensive coordinators, etc. And the Jets hit the ground running. The only problem is they’re running in the wrong direction. Their record is now zero wins and six losses and the only reason it’s not worse is they’ve only played six games. Coach Glenn is beginning to be criticized. I would say the honeymoon period is over, except that with the Jets there is no honeymoon: it starts with a funeral. Sigh. Let’s see what happens today against the 3-3 Panthers in Jersey. [Jets lost.]

    These members of the Jets “flight crew” are ready. Whoever #10 is may be in for quite a ride.

    I haven’t been following the NYC mayoral race but from my disadvantage point in NJ, it look like Zohran Mamdani is going to win. Once I nailed down the m/n progression I came to like the name. I have a cousin named Zoltan (my Uncle Morris’s great grandson). Cuomo has spent his career making people not like him and that’s coming home to roost, it seems. The NYT has a story today on Mamdani impersonators. Neel Ghosh is a comic who does a good job. Mamdani himself is playing with it. He recently set up two look-alikes to appear at events simultaneously and posted: “I can’t be two places at once. Or can I?”

    Here’s Ghosh out of character.

    The constructor of yesterday’s NYTXW, Samuel Smalley, took some heat for his clue/answer at 1A. The clue was “Measure of rank in Maori culture, informally,” and the answer was FACETAT. It turns out the Maori markings are sacred and meaningful and calling them face tattoos is disrespectful. They are called Ta Moko. Receiving moko constitutes an important milestone between childhood and adulthood, and is accompanied by many rites and rituals. Apart from signalling status and rank, another reason for the practice in traditional times was to make a person more attractive to the opposite sex. Men generally received moko on their faces (moko kanohi), buttocks (raperape) and thighs (puhoro). Women usually wore moko on their lips (ngutu) and chins (kauae). Other parts of the body known to have moko include women’s foreheads, buttocks, thighs, necks and backs and men’s backs, stomachs, and calves.

    At 24D, “Bonheur who painted “Ploughing in the Nivernais” was ROSA. Here’s the work:

    Bonheur was widely considered the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century and was best known for painting animals. (To be clear, she made paintings of animals – she did not paint on animals.) She was openly lesbian and dressed in men’s clothing at a time when neither was acceptable in society. Here’s a portrait of Rosa, painted by Edouard Dubufe. Rosa painted the bull herself (not kidding).

    Today’s puzzle by Daniel Grinberg is called “Same Difference.” (In the NYT, only Sunday puzzles have names. And they are larger than the dailies: 21 x 21, as opposed to 15 x 15.) At six places in the grid there is a circled square. And in each of those both the down and across answers are correct whether you fill in the circled square or leave it blank. Thus, “same difference.” For example, at 112A, the clue is “Annoyances for ticketholders.” If you fill the circle in with a T, you get (T)RAIN DELAYS. See? Both rain delays and train delays answer the clue. And it works going down as well. At 112D the clue is “Decorative auto upgrade,” and you get (T)RIM: both trim and rim work. That happens six times in the puzzle. Here’s another one COUNT(R)IES and COUNTIES (“Divisions on a map”), work with BU(R)STS and BUSTS (“Ruptures”).

    That would be enough wordplay to justify the puzzle for me, though it’s not particularly exciting a play. But there are two additional features that take it to another level. First, the six circled letters are placed symmetrically in the grid, and, second, the six circled letters spell (in order) DROP IT.

    33A was clever. The clue was “Fights back tears?” and the answer was DARNS. Get it? Like to darn a sock. The ? in the clue tips you off that something funny is going on,

    There was a gay mini-theme, which I liked, given the dreadful anti-LGBTQ bigotry in the air. At 28D, for “Openly reveal one’s sexuality,” the answer was COME OUT, crossed by CLOSET. And at 114A, “Palm Springs or Puerto Vallarta, notably” was the clue for GAY MECCA.

    Puerto Vallarta’s in Mexico. In addition to great beaches, the town looks neat.

    We had the most perfect day. Shot down to Princeton for Princeton Pro Musica’s Bachtoberfest, followed by brilliant burgers and a Fiddlehead ale at the Rocky Hill Tavern.

    It was an outstanding concert. Several Bach concertos in the first half, and exquisite choral works in the second. We came early for the conductor’s talk and he was terrific. Get this: at one point he told us to note that the trumpets that will be played will be the old-fashioned kind, without valves to press. There are several air holes the players can use to affect the sound, but some high notes will depend entirely on the player’s use of lip muscles. Amazing! So the cabbie in our Harry James story yesterday was right: It’s all in the lip!

    Don’t the pretzel look good! See you tomorrow, Chatterheads! Thanks for stopping by.

  • George Is Back!

    Our faith in the perfidy and idiocy of the administration has been richly rewarded! What better way to celebrate this, our 900th post (!), then with the return of our beloved Georgie to our staff! It’s been hell here without you, Buddy. Yes, George Santos has been freed. There were tears in our eyes as we stared into the empty Owl Chatter fridge, soon to be brimming anew with diet sodas of all stripes and stars. Take a few days to celebrate and settle down into life as a free man again. Then hurry back, big fella. We love you!!

    Spirits ran high at the No Nudniks rally in New Providence NJ. Who’s this young lass?

    Good Michigan win today over U. Washington. They have a quintet of easy games on the schedule and then the big one, Ohio State on 11/29. Don’t let your sweethearts down, fellas.

    Here’s a story from tomorrow’s Met Diary. It’s by Robert Plummer.

    Dear Diary:

    It was years ago and my wife and I were on our honeymoon. We hailed a cab near Central Park. I heard a trumpet blaring from the radio.

    “Nice music,” I said.

    “Harry James,” the cabbie said. “He’s the best. I play a little trumpet and I can tell you that it’s the lip that counts, and nobody has a lip like Harry James.”

    “How about that?” I said. “I’m from the town in Texas where Harry grew up, and I actually took trumpet lessons from his father, Everette James, when I was a kid. I’m a fan of Harry’s too.”

    We had the usual “it’s a small world” conversation and discussed some of the great Harry James hits.

    After arriving at our destination, we paid the fare and began to get out of the cab.

    “Wait,” the driver said. “One more thing.”

    I thought we might have left something behind.

    “You’ve got to tell me,” he said. “Did he say it was all in the lip?”

    Tired now. See you tomorrow, Chatterheads!

  • No Nudniks!

    This poem by Sasha Wade was the Poem-A-Day from Poets.org. It’s called “Del Parto.”

    I don’t know what carried me here 
    to Monterchi, perched above mountain bulges 
    shaped like the side-bellies of well-fed sheep. 
    Or why, when taken in 
    to view Piero’s fresco of the Madonna del Parto,
    I feel like an intruder
    walking in on a girl—tangled in teenhood—
    loosening the buttons of her faded lapis robe. 
    Flanked by two boy-angels, she is heavy 
    with child, anchored in a tent of light-grey fur, 
    drapes the color of dried blood. 
    Her oval eyes, downcast, direct my gaze 
    to her right hand, hanging above a slit 
    of white cloth that covers from breast-bone
    to navel. Her fingers are soft but gnarled, 
    perhaps from twisting and untwisting her hair 
    late at night. Does she believe no one 
    will notice the crooked fingers of her left hand 
    curled into hip, as if trying to hide 
    the fingernails’ insatiable need to fidget, pick? 
    Her hands pull me back to the pouty nineteen year-old
    I once was: dressed in baggy denim cut-offs, 
    cream-colored peasant blouse, my fingers tapped 
    uncontrollably on invisible piano keys
    lining my outer thighs. Walking home
    I was petrified my mother—who knew I was too young 
    to be a mother—would notice my skin-glow, 
    feigned half-smile. Now, fifty years later, facing 
    the Madonna, I wonder how Piero knew  
    to mute most of the fear on her face 
    with shades of pearl. She looks serene
    yet distracted—like when something 
    has already happened without announcing itself.
    Like the low, faint hum of a hymn 
    that stays long after an angel leaves. Like the newfound
    power she did not choose, but one that will be 
    hers forever after she is drained dry.

    Today’s puzzle. How could you not love a puzzle that contains SNAUSAGES? The clue was “Meaty dog treats ‘in a blanket.’” Is it a portmanteau? If so, it’s one of my favorite portmanteaux. But what is the SN at the head coming from? — snuggles? snout? Snoopy? It may be snack, actually.

    Speaking of those things, there was a bona fide one at 46A: “Portmanteau for evidence based solely on personal accounts.” ANECDATA. Good one!

    I had to look up the plural of portmanteau. You can use either an “s” or “x.” The “x” seems classier. Does “plural” have a plural? (It’s already plural.) Of course it does: plurals. Or pluralx.

    We were tipped off to the fun right off the bat at 1A where the clue was “What a comment might be made in.” The answer was JEST. (Rex’s first thought was “the comments section.”)

    Another great clue/answer was at 49A: “Act of writing down whatever comes to mind in order to clear mental clutter.” BRAIN DUMP. (Ouch. Sounds a little like Owl Chatter.)

    Commenter Barbara S. gave us a little history lesson in brain dumping:

    “I’ve never heard the term BRAIN DUMP, but the clue [Act of writing down whatever comes to mind in order to clear mental clutter] sounds like automatic writing, a creative technique much beloved by the Dadaists and Surrealists. They didn’t view the product as mental clutter, however, but as the written manifestation of the unconscious mind, something they were always trying to access in order to bypass the learned, the rational and the socially normative. A passage that’s often quoted is from André Breton and Philippe Soupault’s The Magnetic Fields, 1919:

    These grocery stores beautiful as our random successes compete with each other from floor to floor in the labyrinth. A guilty thought lays siege to salesmen’s foreheads. On a strip of whistling sky treacherous flies return to the seeds of sun.

    “Passages of automatic writing are always head-scratchers, but their lack of conventional sense reflects the attempt to tap into the deepest recesses of the human psyche where dreams and nightmares and irrational impulses come from. And sometimes the imagery is quite arresting, such as the final sentence, above. The appearance of these movements during and immediately after WWI is no accident: supposed rationality got us to the biggest and most destructive conflict in human history – let’s scrap all that and try a new way of thinking and being.”

    Speaking of dumpy brains, Trump’s sexy press sec’y Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that “[t]he Democrat (sic) Party’s main constituency are (sic) made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” Leaving aside our shock that she incorrectly said “are” instead of “is,” our question is in which category are we? Violent criminal I guess. But I’m such a wimp.

    If it looks to you that there’s a small animal on her shoulder, there isn’t. Those “eyes” are the snaps or buttons on her collar.

    Here’s how she was portrayed on South Park.

    Some commentators opined that she may have loosened her wardrobe up a bit as a result. She definitely started wearing her cross less often.

    OK, you’ve stared at that picture long enough. Max Scherzer has been a fave of ours since his days with the Gnats (including his Game 7 performance in the 2019 WS). And he was at it again last night pitching Toronto to their crucial win over Seattle. Here he is in the fifth inning explaining calmly to his manager John Schneider that he’s feeling fine and there’s no need to remove him.

    Phil showed that clip to a friend of his who can read lips. He’s certain Max is saying: “DAM BURNED DOWN. GOAT.” It’s understandable that he’s upset if the dam burned down and his goat is in danger.

    At 1D today, “Historic Émile Zola letter of 1898,” was J’ACCUSE!

    Egs was able to add this little-known fact for us: “How Emile Zola relaxed: J’ACUZZI.”

    Mike Greenwell passed away at the ridiculous age of 62. He played left field at Fenway for 12 years, literally in the footsteps of Williams, Yaz, and Rice. He fell in the category of players who are outstanding but land just outside of the Hall of Fame. He was robbed of the MVP in 1988 and was bitter about it. Greenwell hit .325 with 69 extra base hits, and 119 RBI that year. But he came in second to Jose Canseco who later admitted to steroid use. “Where’s my MVP?” Greenwell groused for good reason. Injuries slowed him down in his later years, but he finished with a lifetime batting average of .303.

    Greenwell wrestled alligators and once captured one, taped its mouth shut, and placed it in a teammate’s locker. If you’re thinking there aren’t too many alligators in Boston, you are right! He undertook this prank during spring training in Florida, where they are as plentiful as dogs and cats.

    On September 2, 1996, the Red Sox beat the Mariners 9–8 in 10 innings in Seattle, with Greenwell driving in all nine runs for the Sox, a record for most runs driven in by one player accounting for all of that team’s runs in a single game.

    He is survived by his wife Tracy (a nurse), and their boys, Bo and Garrett.

    Rest in peace, Mike.

    See you tomorrow! And don’t forget to go to your local No Nudniks rally!