The Wellington Files

  • Fifty-Year Cycles

    It’s becoming obvious to even the most thick-headed among us that Trump has no idea what the f*ck he’s doing in Iran. If he’d just glance down for a moment he’d see they’ve got him by the Hormuz and are squeezing with all they’ve got. A big advantage Iran has (like Putin) is that they don’t give a f*ck about Iranians (or Russians) dying. Trump couldn’t care less about Americans either, of course (just take a look at his healthcare policies), but Americans do, and he cares about polls. We’ll see where this goes for ground troops. Here’s a headline from The Onion.

    Trump Weighs Deploying 340 Million More U.S. Troops To Middle East

    This poem is from today’s Writer’s Almanac. Different war. Same America f*cking up. It’s by Walter McDonald. “What If I Didn’t Die Outside Saigon?”

    So what do you want? he growled inside the chopper,
    strapping me roughly to the stretcher
    as if I were already dead. “Jesus,” I swore,
    delirious with pain, touching the hot mush of my legs.
    “To see my wife. Go home, play with my kids,

    help them grow up. You know.” His camouflaged face
    was granite, a colonel or sergeant who’d seen it all.
    He wore a parka in the rain, a stubby stale cigar
    bit tight between his teeth, a nicked machete
    like a scythe strapped to his back. He raised a fist

    and held the chopper. He wore a gold wrist watch
    with a bold sweep-second hand. The pilot glanced back,
    stared, and looked away. Bored, the old man asked,
    Then what? his cigar bobbing. I swallowed morphine
    and choked, “More time. To think, plant trees,

    teach my kids to fish and catch a ball.”
    Yeah? he said, sucking the cigar, thinner
    than he seemed at first. Through a torrent of rain,
    I saw the jungle closing over me like night.
    “And travel,” I said, desperate, “to see the world.

    That’s it, safe trips with loved ones. Long years
    to do whatever. Make something of my life. Make love,
    not war.” I couldn’t believe it, wisecracking clichés,
    about to die. He didn’t smile, but nodded. So?
    What then? “What then? Listen, that’s enough,

    isn’t that enough?” His cigar puffed
    into flame, he sucked and blew four perfect rings
    which floated through the door and suddenly
    dissolved. Without a word, he leaned and touched
    my bloody stumps, unbuckled the stretcher straps

    and tore the Killed-in-Action tag from my chest.
    And I sat up today in bed, stiff-legged, out of breath,
    an old man with a room of pictures of children
    who’ve moved away, and a woman a little like my wife
    but twice her age, still sleeping in my bed.

    Hard to believe it took over a thousand OC posts for RENEE Rapp to visit us. She was in the puzzle this week, clued with “Actress Rapp of ‘Mean Girls.’” First of all, fellas, simmer down, she’s gay.

    Love the jacket, Babe.

    Hangs with British rocker Towa Bird.

    Renee is 26 and from North Carolina, which, oddly, is in the south somewhere. Her parents intentionally named her alliteratively “just in case” she made it in show biz. Smart. She’s doing well, despite the delay in her OC premier. Was on SNL and is an “ambassador” for L’Oréal.

    George! Get the girls a couple of Frescas! Cans okay, ladies? We can rinse out a few glasses if you prefer.

    Here’s another story from The Onion:

    Entire Spring Break Spent In Airport Security Line

    Today’s puzzle was brilliant. I’ll try not to do too much damage in discussing it. It was called “Roundabouts.” (In the NYT, XW puzzles only get names on Sundays.) At five symmetrical locations, a word “drove into” a roundabout: that is, a square that did not contain a letter itself, but served as the center of a verbal roundabout, or rotary. My favorite was at 42A. Take a look at it, below. That may help to see what’s going on. So the clue for 42A was “Nevertheless” and the answer was BUT. Okay. Then those letters (BUT) enter the roundabout. The first exit is at 52D, where the clue is “Mayor Pete.” Using the BUT and adding TIGIEG going down after exiting the rotary, you get BUTTIGIEG. Then continuing around the rotary, you get to the second exit at 43A. The clue there is “Rear end.” Using the BUT and the T from 52D, you add OCKS at 43A to get BUTTOCKS. Finally, you get to the third exit, clued sorta upside down at 14D with “Alternatives to zippers on blue jeans.” Using the BUT and TO picked up in the rotary and exiting upwards, you get BUTTONFLIES.

    Amazing wordplay, and that happened five times.

    A few nitpickers noted that the roundabout concept wasn’t perfectly executed because in each case the first answer (BUT, above), enters the roundabout but does not itself exit. It just hangs there.

    But I noted: In Jersey, there are many roundabouts in which the driver enters and doesn’t exit. We call them pile-ups.

    Oooh, what’s that up there at 124A? RIOT? (The clue was “Real comedian.”) Remember these guys? Turn it up!

    Tom Friedman’s article on Minny brought out some letter writers. Here are clips from some in today’s NYT.

    A Southern friend of mine — a MAGA believer — recently claimed that Minnesota protesters had hired 50,000 professional agitators to stir dissent against ICE and federal agents conducting raids in the state. I told him plainly, “No mercenary protester would march outside in below-zero weather, sing songs of resistance and then kneel on frozen pavement to pray.”

    Minnesotans understand something essential: Survival in a harsh climate depends on neighborliness, regardless of race or religion. That instinct — to protect one another in hard times — is also what keeps a democracy alive. (Judith Moen, Atlanta)

    In his book “The Imperial Presidency,” the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. warned that “corruption appears to visit the White House in 50-year cycles.” With remarkable insight, he wrote: “Around the year 2023 the American people would be well advised to go on the alert and start nailing down everything in sight.”

    The people in Minnesota took it upon themselves to hammer down some of those nails. (Jerold D. Cummins, Arlington, VA)

    What’s missing from [Friedman’s] account is the perspective of those who endured the winter in their apartments with the shades pulled down. If Mr. Friedman had spent time in their living rooms, he would not put such a neat bow on this catastrophic story. There is nothing “post” about a federal agent presence that is roughly three times its pre-surge level.

    I am part of a suburban Minneapolis group that delivers groceries to neighbors unable to leave their homes. When I see their sparse living rooms, empty walls and minimal furniture, I feel a rush of anger. Why is our government picking on this vulnerable population? People who work so hard for so little reward, who now have to live with such fear? (Dan Forstner
    Bloomington, MN)

    Friedman’s column about Minnesotans reminded me of my time as a reporter in the 1970s for a regional newspaper up there. In particular, I recall a comment made by my managing editor after his return from assignment along a two-lane highway during a subzero, dead-of-winter blizzard.

    While he was out there he noticed a farmstead light maybe a quarter-mile off the road. “I just knew if I was stalled there and somebody at that farm saw me, they’d bundle up and hike out to ask if I was OK.” He said such gut-level caring was one of the main reasons he worked there. It’s good to read that Tom Friedman found it’s still like that. (Ed Maixner, Herndon, VA)

    It’s nice when a puzzle takes you nice places. Here’s what Commenter Pabloinnh said today: “My favorite word today is TENACIOUS as I met my bride-to-be in the fall and as we passed a small maple on campus that was still holding on to some of its more beautiful leaves I said it was nice to see such a thing, and she said yes, said tree was certainly TENACIOUS, and that’s where it all started. The stuff you remember.”

    At 23A, for the clue “WWI helmet,” the answer was TIN HAT. Since we’re a country at war let’s listen to this great tune again. See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.

  • Are You Alright?

    Headline for the lead story in the NYT today: Trump Concedes He Doesn’t Know What The Fuck He’s Doing; Doesn’t Care.

    His divorce from reality has been finalized. My favorite recent pronouncement (not kidding): Trump says we’ve pretty much worked out an agreement with Iran in which we get everything we want.

    Kaitlin Collins: They are giving up control over the uranium?

    Trump: Yes.

    Kaitlin: They agreed to open the Strait of Harmuz?

    Trump: Yes.

    Kaitlin: When?

    Trump: Immediately.

    Kaitlin: Oy, I need a drink. This schmuck has really lost it.

    I’ll give him this much — his stand-up routine has gotten pretty crisp.

    Stop in to fill up lately? How’s the 401(k) doing? Who’s benefiting from your pain?– Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the wealthy investors clued in to the Trump-induced market manipulations (per Paul Krugman). It certainly ain’t me or you.

    Unlike most teenage girls in America, our Robin is pretty serious about her appearance. (That was a joke.) She generally dresses in a rock band’s black t-shirt, appropriately torn black jeans, and various (and numerous) bracelets, belts, neck things, what-have-you. She makes much of her stuff herself. In the coming days, I’ll try to get a more current shot without incurring her wrath. Here’s one from not too long ago.

    Anyway, I mention this because we were tasked with driving her and boyfriend Diegan around a bit yesterday (with their friend Derek). Diegan is also pretty cool-looking. One of our stops was for ice cream (the cost of which ran to over $32 for four). School had just let out and we were in Summit, so the shop was teeming with middle school girls. (Not complaining.) As we were out on the sidewalk deciding how to proceed, a girl came out of the shop, walked over to Robin and Diegan and said “I just want to tell you my friends and I think you guys really look cool.”

    If you are Jewish and you love someone, your expressions of worry far outweigh and outnumber your expressions of affection. The ratio of “Are you alright?” to “I love you” — roughly five-to-one, I’d say. And that’s okay. With us, “Are you alright?” is an exact equivalent.

    My mother could have written this song. It’s a paean to worry. It should be part of the Shabbos service.

    At 22A in the puzzle today, the clue was “Do we have a problem here?” and the answer was ALL OK? It did not ring true for Rex: I do not believe in the phrase “ALL OK?” Like, at all. Cannot hear it. “YOU OK?” I can def hear. “ALL GOOD?” I can kinda hear. “EVERYTHING OK?,” sure. “ALL OK?,” no. No.

    Rex’s note on 56D was even more pointed: The clue was “NFL coach Quinn,” and the answer was DAN. Here’s Rex: “NFL coaches, esp. their first names, there’s just no way. I do not care. ‘Some guy’s first name’ may as well have been the clue for DAN. The clue doesn’t even tell you the team he coaches. It’s a really underwritten clue; we don’t even learn any potentially interesting trivia. Meh.”

    I took it upon myself to defend the constructor (Zachary David Levy). My comment: DAN did rattle around in my brain when I saw QUINN. You must not be wasting enough time watching football on Sundays, RP. He’s not a run-of-the-mill NFL coach, historically. He was the head coach of the Falcons in Super Bowl LI when they held a 28-3 lead over the Pats in the third quarter and still managed to lose (in OT). For Atlantans, it’s a close call between that game and the Civil War.

    Did someone mention the Civil War? Here’s a shot from the Dirty Old Man’s Guide to the Confederacy (Owl Chatter Press, 2024).

    Speaking of dirty old men, at 25A the clue was “Epithet for Bill Clinton.” Five letters. I put down SLICK. Slick Willie, right? But it was BUBBA. D’oh! I shared this note with the gang:

    One of my first thoughts today was “Clinton has an epithet? When did he die?” So I looked up epithet to make sure I wasn’t confusing it with “epitaph.” (I was.) It’s defined as “an adjective expressing a quality characteristic of the person mentioned.” And the example given for it was: “Old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet ‘dirty.’” (I’m not kidding.) It’s certainly not “unfairly” in my case.

    Here’s Monica.

    When my cousin got shingles, he didn’t know whether to go see a doctor or a roofer.

    Whoever said laughter is the best medicine didn’t have very good insurance.

    Wilma’s been after my ass to talk about yesterday’s puzzle: the one about birds. Okay, girl, don’t get your feathers all ruffled! Sheesh!

    I loved it. The theme was tipped by the revealer: “Make a rude gesture.” Answer: FLIP THE BIRD. Then in the four theme answers a bird was embedded, but it had to be in reverse (“flipped”). Wow. So, e.g., one theme answer was POL[EGRET]IST. See the egret in there? Well, you had to read egret backwards to get POLTERGEIST. (The clue was “Literally, ‘rumbling ghost.’”)

    Another example was FALL[CRANE]HES. Reading crane backwards yields FALLEN ARCHES, for the clue “Flat feet.”

    The other birds in the puzzle were HAWK and TERN. No owl!!

    On the theory that one good TERN deserves another, I made up three on my own, taking a slightly different approach. In mine, the bird was embedded backwards. (Wilma says: sounds painful.)

    1. They populate the WNBA. Answer: TAL[LWO]MEN. See the owl in there backwards? Sure you do.

    2. Hot-dog-themed amusement park: WIE[NERW]ORLD. (See the wren in there?)

    And my favorite: State of being tired of gawking at women at the shore: BIKI[NIBOR]EDOM. (Robin)

    Commenter Gary took me to task, saying: This is no such thing as bikini boredom.

    Point well taken, I conceded.

    It’s only Opening Day and I’m already disgusted with players standing at home plate to admire their home runs instead of running hard out of the box. Our beloved CJ Abrams did that against the Cubbies yesterday only to watch the wind keep his ball in the park. He was tagged out at second and it cost the Gnats a run. C’mon man! The damn place is called The Windy City, for Pete’s sake.

    Well, you gotta hand it to Hegseth and Trump. At least they are openly racist and sexist. The dog lovers don’t have to worry about their four-legged friends being bothered by dog whistles. It’s blaring for all to see and hear. In his latest move, Hegseth removed four military officers from a promotion list: two Blacks and two women.

    According to the NYT, Hegseth had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Army Sec’y Driscoll, for months to remove the officers’ names. But Driscoll, citing the officers’ decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused. So Pete took the matter into his own hands and removed them himself. He appears to lack the authority to do so: He can approve or disapprove the list but only in its entirety.

    Since taking office, Hegseth fired or sidelined at least two-dozen generals and admirals so that, currently, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all five service chiefs and nine of the military’s 10 combatant commanders are white men, a return to the status quo that existed for decades.

    Last summer, Hegseth signed off on a sweeping overhaul of how officers are selected for promotion. To lead the process, he tapped Anthony J. Tata, a retired brigadier general, who once called President Obama a “terrorist leader,” and who has a documented history of making Islamophobic comments.

    Why aren’t military leaders resigning in protest to support their Black brothers and Black and white sisters? When Gen. Milley’s portrait was removed from a gallery by Trump in a hateful and childish act of retribution, why didn’t every other living General with a portrait in the gallery ask to have his portrait taken down as well? Easy for me to say, so I did.

    It’s hard to take an ethical stance when your career and/or paycheck is on the line, but it boils down to how fundamental your principles are to your life. Remember Pacino in Scent of a Woman?

    “I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.”

    Here’s Milley. I hope we have enough like him. It’s going to get ugly out there before it’s over. See you tomorrow.

  • Postal Disservice

    This poem is by W. B. Yeats. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac and is called “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”

    Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half-light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

    Here’s a headline from the sports page I read to Linda in bed last night and we roared.

    Quadruple Amputee Cornhole Professional Jailed On Murder Charges

    It leaves a lot to unpack, amirite? First, cornhole is that game where you try to throw beanbags through a hole in a board. Like so —

    Phil! That’s a great shot for the story — very sexy — now leave the girls alone. Do not introduce yourself!! George is not going to fly down there to bail you out again.

    Okay, where were we? Oh, yeah, cornhole. I had no idea you could be a professional. But I found this in Wikipedia:

    The American Cornhole League (ACL) is one of the sanctioning bodies for the sport of professional cornhole in the US. Headquartered in Rock Hill SC, the ACL hosts over 25,000 tournaments per year and has an active player base of over 100,000 players. The ACL features a group of professional cornhole players that compete on TV broadcasts (network partners include ESPN and CBS). These players are referred to as ACL Pros.

    Okay, so we covered that part of it. Now, as for amputees, quadruple has to be the maximum, right? Unless you’re an octopus? So I’m thinking, how do you throw (or propel) the beanbag? — with your mouth? Hard to picture. But of course he must have prosthetic limbs. Duh.

    The murder is the easy part. He (allegedly) killed someone in a dispute in the front seat of his car. He asked the two folks in the back to help him with the body — what are friends for? — but they went to the cops instead. Win some, lose some. His name is Dayton James Webber. He must have been born back when it was popular to name kids after cities in Ohio. I’ll spare you the photo. It’s not a happy tale. When he was ten months old, he contracted a bacterial infection requiring the amputations. Oy. Aside from the pain and anguish, it cost an arm and a leg.

    In happier (much) news, we attended a concert at Morristown HS last night. Our Robin’s in the orchestra as a violist, which is reason enough to be excited, but get this: she was asked to design the program cover. Caity said she really worked hard on it. She has been designing amazing character drawings on her PC for years and I guess people know about it. Anyway, it came out great, see below, and she received a very nice credit for it in the program itself and was personally thanked by the orchestra leader on stage. You can see Robin’s signature on it to the left of the word “Directors.”

    Look at the details: the highlights in the hair; the finger positions; the tiny folds in the shirtsleeve. Caity said Robin worked a long time on getting the positioning of the arms just right. If you can read music, you can see that the musical notes on the cover are from the popular Yiddish tune Bei Mir Bistu Shein. (No they aren’t.)

    Long-time readers of Owl Chatter, both of them, know full well how far ahead we are of the public at large. So, for example, we’ve been excited about women’s ice hockey for over a year now. Mostly because of the sexy uniforms, but still. . . . Well, the sports world has caught up and the PWHL has been soaring in popularity, especially after the brilliant showing by all of the ice girls in the Olympics. The April 5th Sirens game in Madison Square Garden has already sold out! It’s going to be tough to get cheap seats for Sirens games in Newark soon. We were planning on getting to a playoff game, but the girls are in sixth place and only the top four teams get in. Rats! Still nine games to go, so we’ll see.

    We were delighted to see that Issy Wonder, a star for Princeton, has been included in the top ten prospects for the PWHL draft this year. At 5’11”, Wonder looks big on the ice and wields a deadly stick. It would be great if joined our Princeton alum Sarah on the NY squad.

    I had an awful experience at the Green Village (NJ) post office today. I will be filing a formal complaint. I placed one copy of Robin’s program in a 9 x 12 envelope to mail to Sam and Sarah. I placed one Muhammad Ali stamp on it and knew I would have to add postage. I handed it to the clerk. She clicked her price gun on her sheet of forever stamps, put three of them on the envelope and asked me for $2.34 (which is 78c x 3). What? Usually, the screen shows the weight, a choice of costs, and credit for the postage already on it (78c in this case: the Ali). She said it comes to $2.34 because of the large envelope. I asked if I was getting credit for my 78c stamp and she said yes (which was a lie). With much hesitation I paid her and walked out. But it didn’t sit right. How could the cost come to exactly 4 forever stamps? I looked up postage rates for large envelopes on my phone. It’s $1.63 for the first ounce and 24c for each additional. So even if mine came to three ounces, that’s $2.11. And I paid $3.12: my 78c stamp plus $2.34. That’s an overcharge of over $1 on a $2 item!

    I went back in, held up my phone and said, “I’ve been overcharged.” Now get this — she took a stamp off of the sheet, handed it to me, and said “Is that okay now?” I said, “What? No. I was charged over $3.” At no point did she ever try to actually determine what the proper cost should be. She finally removed the three stamps she had put on, gave me back my money, and I walked out (in a huff) with my envelope unsent. There were three women on line behind me at this point. No doubt this idiot will overcharge them too.

    I learned that there is a way to file a complaint online with the postal service. I’ll take care of that tomorrow. I wish I had noted her name. Argggggh.

    The theme of yesterday’s puzzle was STARVING ARTISTS. The three theme answers were all artists clued via works of theirs that involved food. LEONARDODAVINCI (“The Last Supper”), PAULCEZANNE (“The Buffet”), and CLAUDEMONET (“The Luncheon”). Here are the latter two, respectively.

    I know nothing about cocktails. I needed all the crosses to get NEGRONI: “Cocktail made from gin, vermouth and Campari.” Rex, who loves cocktails, wrote: Mmmm. It’s almost Negroni Season. When is Negroni Season? No one really knows. That’s the beauty of Negroni Season.

    Anony Mouse clarified things for us: “Negroni season runs from June 1 and ends May 31.” 

    It’s Opening Day for the Yanks today. Hope they win. Last year the Yanks lost the opener and couldn’t serve beer the whole season.

    I thought I’d post a shot of manager Aaron Boone and then, out of curiosity, googled to see who his wife is. He married a cover girl. Literally — her name is Laura Cover. They have four kids and were a model marriage until they weren’t. Boone recently filed for divorce. We wish them all well.

    As for a photo, brace yourself, fellas. Hubba hubba.

    See you tomorrow!

  • That Hurt

    It’s hard to pick a favorite part but I think it’s the lack of a “filter,” and the shamelessness. So there was the delicious moment in which we savored how Trump would respond to Bob Mueller’s passing. I was hoping he’d suggest shoving dynamite up his tuchas and blowing him to hell, but even for Trump that would be a reach. The actual Presidential posting: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” I don’t know. It does the job, but he seems a little off his game. The second sentence is good, but overall it’s a bit colorless.

    How’s the war going? Gas up to $5 a gallon yet? Here’s Sen. Chris Murphy on Trump’s brilliant move to lift the sanctions on Russia and Iran.

    “We’re gonna give Iran $14 billion to fund this war with the United States? We’re gonna give Russia billions of dollars to fund their war with Ukraine? We’re literally putting money into the pockets of the very nations that we are fighting right now. We’ve never seen this level of incompetence in war-making in this country’s history.”

    We don’t mean to diss the media but do they really need to fawn over every pronouncement Trump blows out of his ass? Isn’t it clear he might as well be singing show tunes when he says things like “no troops on the ground?” To repeat an observation I made years ago about a corrupt lawyer I knew in Rochester (NY): “To Trump, the truth is a coincidence.”

    With the war, it seems to me, Trump has crossed the line to hurt the class of people that I’m in. I mean via the zooming gas price and the stock market falling to hurt our retirement holdings. It’s pretty much only the very wealthy that have been safe from him so far. And his lunacy and incompetence should eventually do so much damage that even they will take a hit, IMO. The courts are doing their best, but are impotent to a great extent. We’ll see what happens with the mid-terms: I predict DJT will try to stop them entirely via the declaration of a national emergency. But even if the Dems take the House (and Senate), can Trump’s lawlessness be countered legislatively? Via hearings? We’ll see, I hope. So far the only truly bright star in these dark 15 months has been the extraordinary Minneapolis story.

    Let’s listen to these pretty Irish girls now.

    If it seemed like the puzzle today gave off a WEIRD VIBE, then you probably did well with it. The theme was WEIRD VIBE. I.e., the theme answers were two-word phrases (or a name) with the words attached by the letters V-I-B-E spelled not in that order (so, “weirdly”), three different ways. My favorite was: “Popular character actor in both ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Barney Miller.’” ABE VIGODA, of course. The others were MOVIE BUFF, EXECUTIVE BRANCH, and LOVE BIRDS (Awww).

    The Vigoda quote several commenters noted from You-Know-What was “Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.”

    And Anony Mouse wrote: Abe VIGODA played the chief in my favorite movie, Joe vs the Volcano, and delivered the most poignant line:

    “We are children of children and we live how we are shown.”

    I had forgotten this too:

    From Wikipedia: Prior to his actual death in January 2016, Vigoda was a repeated victim of mistaken death announcements. These led to jokes, often with Vigoda as a participant. In 1982, People magazine mistakenly referred to Vigoda as dead. At the time, Vigoda, aged 60, was performing in a stage play in Canada. He took the mistake with good humor, posing for a photograph published in Variety, in which he is sitting up in a coffin, holding the erroneous issue of People. 

    Well, they finally nailed Bill Cosby, at least in a civil suit in California. Cosby, who is 135 years old now, was found liable for sexually assaulting Donna Motsinger, a waitress, in 1972. Motsinger, 108, was pleased with the verdict. The jury awarded her $37 in damages, but with interest it comes to $19 million.

    Take the LOVEBIRD
    Kiss the stranger
    Leave the trailer
    Take the car

    If you can get past the album cover . . . .

    Closing the shop early tonight. Tired from a long day of doing, hmmm — nothing. Good thing I retired. See you tomorrow.

  • Billikens

    The poem we shared in our last post by Linda Gregg, as you may recall, was called “Bamboo and a Bird,” despite seeming to have nothing to do with either. It takes place entirely on a subway platform. But I learned that bamboo and a bird is a thing in Asian art. Bamboo represents strength and birds freedom.

    Today’s puzzle started off with a Great Gatsby clue. At 1D, the clue was “Jay Gatsby’s obsession in ‘The Great Gatsby,’” and the answer, of course, was DAISY. I proposed an alternate clue: Oopsie _______. But no one listens to me.

    At 57D the clue was “Israel’s first U.N. ambassador,” and the answer was EBAN.

    So I shared the following observation with the gang:  There is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright, called “Gadsby” that does not use the letter “E” — not even once in over 50,000 words. I guess the author was observing the EBAN.

    [A reply informed me that a few E’s did slip in! OMG. One in “officers” and a couple in a few stray “the’s.” Pesky ones.]

    Two answers yesterday were XENA, the warrior princess, and COSSACK, you know, the bad Russian dude. Here’s what I came up with:

    1. Fear of women warriors: XENAphobia?

      2. My friend Cassie saw a COSSACK dressed in a cassock at a Costco in Coxsackie recently. Must have been buying cashews, no?

      This is the sort of wordplay with the grid for which the beloved Commenter egs has gained well-earned notoriety. I was honored when, recently, egs said he wondered if he and I might be distant cousins.

      BTW, regarding the recently departed Chuck Norris (at 86), egs noted there is a genre of Chuck Norris jokes, centering on his toughness. E.g., when Chuck Norris left home, he told his father: “You’re the man of the house now.”

      For some reason, maybe I dreamt it, I thought Norris might be Jewish. Maybe I was confusing him with Itzhak Perlman, which I’m sure happens often. Anyway, he’s definitely not. For one thing, Norris was born in Oklahoma, and no Jew has ever been born in Oklahoma, ever.

      I don’t want to leave the puzzle before sharing this sweet song, courtesy of Son Volt. The “link” was 77D: “South Park co-creator Parker.” Answer: TREY.

      We had our first good look at the UMich 5 yesterday, watching their win over St. Louie — the Billikens. I thought a billiken was Irish, perhaps a cousin of a Leprechaun, but I was wrong. It’s a charm doll devised by an art teacher in Kansas City. Here’s the little guy on campus.

      So where was I? Oh yeah. The Billikens were good! Made us work for about 3/4 of the game, before pulling away for a 95-72 win. The ‘Rines are very good. Charles Barkley said they’ll make the finals, for sure. The starting five are brilliant: Mara, Lendeborg, Burnett, Cadeau, and Johnson, Jr. Mara is 7/4″ and very good, but Cadeau at point, and Lendeborg (Jersey boy) at power forward make things go. I thought they had someone named Cheddar on the bench, but I see now it’s Tschetter. At 6’8″ 230, that’s one helluva chunk of cheese. Lendeborg’s from Pennsauken and his first name is Yaxel. Says he owes everything to his mom, who was there, up in Buffalo, cheering him on. Love those moms.

      Here are some of them. Mara (15) makes Yax (23) seem short, but he’s 6’9″. That’s Cadeau (3) in the middle and Johnson, Jr. in the rear. Go Blue! We’ll find out late tonight whom they play next.

      Remember youth? (Sigh)

      A duo that had the hit “Steal My Sunshine” back in 1999 was the clue for LEN. It was their only hit. It’s a good tune and is familiar, but I had no memory of their name.

      Rex says he would have liked to see LEN Deighton get the honor instead. He says so many of his friends have raved about Deighton that he began checking him out: “I’ve started with The Berlin Game and so far, I’m loving it. It’s got sentences that stop you in your tracks they’re so well written. Not many writers in any genre write sentences that can do that.”

      I’ll have to give it a try. That’s high praise coming from a curmudgeonly English prof.

      We just got back from an outstanding performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. Wow. It was at a gorgeous modern church in Ridgewood NJ with great acoustics. They posted the lyrics in German (as sung) and English on screens as the performance ran, and, I gotta tell you, the Jews don’t come off very well in this version. Partway into the second half I started looking over my shoulder. Sheesh.

      See you tomorrow Chatterheads. Hang in there, everybody — Opening Day’s right around the corner now.

    1. I Got It! I Got It!

      So, apparently, when Cesar Chavez was picking tomatoes, he was also picking tomatoes.

      I forgot to mention that Angela Davis was an answer in last Thursday’s puzzle! Full name, no less. Her clue was “Activist/scholar known for her work in the prison abolition movement.” She was an undergrad at Brandeis in the early 60s, about five years before Welly and I got there. She was one of only three Blacks in her class. She’s 82, kinehora, and lives in Birmingham AL where she was born.

      How’d things go for you in ’71? Davis was TIME Magazine’s “Woman of the Year.” Top that, Whitey.

      The theme of yesterday’s puzzle was OFFSIDES, the hockey/soccer infraction. There were five across theme answers and you had to remove the “side” letters for each answer to make sense. And the removed letters spelled FRIES and SALAD. Get it? — “sides.” So, e.g., to get the F and S (at 17A) you solved for “A boatload,” and got FOODLESS, which makes no sense, right? But remove (and save) the F and S and you get OODLES.

      Here’s a discussion that arose:

      Pabloinnh: Explaining the OFFSIDES rule in soccer to someone with no knowledge of it is like trying to explain the infield fly rule to a non-baseball fan. If you know it you recognize it instantly in a game situation, if you don’t, good luck.

      Anony Mouse: Hard disagree. Offside is a simple concept. It has exactly two elements.

      kitshef: The official FIFA rulebook devotes three pages to defining Offside, with a further seven pages of explanatory notes and diagrams. The base concept is simple, but there are a lot of subtleties.

      Liveprof (me): It’s even more complicated in the Yiddish version.

      Separate interesting (?) point by egs: did you know that a horse’s right side is the OFFSIDE and the left side is the near side? This is utilized tons in polo where near side shots are always more difficult because the mallet must be held in the right hand, regardless of whether you are left handed or right.

      Pablo’s mention of the infield fly rule, above, led me to post: You got me thinking (no mean feat). If an infielder on purpose drops a catchable ball (to try for a double play), the umpire may use his or her discretion to call the batter out and have the runners return to their bases (i.e., thwart the fielder’s nefarious plan). That being the case, why do we need the infield fly rule, whose purpose is the same?

      So I looked it up. It turns out the ump can only use his/her discretion if the ball touches the fielder’s glove and is then dropped intentionally. Nothing prevents the fielder from letting, say, a soft liner, fall in front of him (instead of catching it), and going for a double play. So the infield fly rule is needed for popups that the fielder would let drop untouched.

      I got it! I got it!

      I didn’t follow the World Baseball “Get Your Handkerchiefs Out” Classic closely but it was clearly terrific for those who did. Here’s how the end was described in yesterday’s Times by Katie Woo:

      Manager Omar Lopez had tears running down his face as he celebrated with his coaching staff. William Contreras and Willson Contreras–brothers playing on the same team for the first time–held each other in embrace, both crying.

      Eduardo Rodriguez, the starting pitcher who shut down the U.S. team’s offense with four and a third scoreless innings, wiped away tears during his postgame interview. Suarez, the hero of the night after his go-ahead double in the ninth inning, spoke at length about Venezuela’s camaraderie and the privilege of representing your country.

      “The unity. We are together the whole time. We’re not just teammates, we are family. This team is awesome. We are family here. That’s why we play with passion, with love, because we feel the jersey. We feel our country in front of us.”

      We feel the jersey.

      It’s impossible to distinguish actual scenes from the White House from SNL parodies anymore. Did you see DJT with the Japanese Prime Minister yesterday? A Japanese reporter asked why he did not consult with allies before starting the Iran war. Trump said we didn’t want to risk losing the element of surprise. Then he went on to say (and I am not kidding): “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?”

      Jimmy Kimmel said “I guess we should be grateful he didn’t do an accent.”

      “What is going on through that orange head of his?” Kimmel asked. “Let me tell you, there’s no doubt in my mind that everything he knows about Pearl Harbor begins and ends with a movie starring Ben Affleck.”

      Beloved Commenter Lewis gave me an opening today when he noticed several answers in the puzzle and wrote: Got me thinking Hemingway, with the OMEN and the SEE.

      My reply:

      I took up your challenge in Ernest, but this was the best I could do:

      AFFAIR Well To Arms

      HASAN Also Rises

      For Whom The Bell TELLS ALL

      I chimed in again later. For the clue “Philosophy of a devil’s advocate?” the answer was SATANISM. Kitshef noted: “Hand up for thinking of SATANISM as a religion, but after research it seems for many Satanists, it really is more of a philosophy. In fact, it sounds very similar to libertarianism.

      My reply: “When it comes to sheets, pillowcases, pajamas, etc., my wife is a SATINIST. But that’s very different, I hope.”

      Speaking of satinists, these poor girls were knocking on my door all night. I finally had to get up and let them out.

      This poem is, for some reason, called “Bamboo and a Bird.” It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac, and is by Linda Gregg. I bet it becomes one of my candidates for Owl Chatter Poem of the Year.

      In the subway late at night.
      Waiting for the downtown train
      at Forty-second Street.
      Walking back and forth
      on the platform.
      Too tired to give money.
      Staring at the magazine covers
      in the kiosk. Someone passes me
      from behind, wearing an orange vest
      and dragging a black hose.
      A car stops and the doors open.
      All the faces are plain.
      It makes me happy to be
      among these people
      who leave empty seats
      between each other.

      I had to stick my nose into two more puzzle answers: DINERO (“Pesos or euros”), and JACKPOTS (“Lotto prizes.”).

      Diners A-N and P-Z are gone. The only one left is DINERO.

      JACKPOTS: Where to cook Jackrabbits.

      47D: “It has more than 4,000 islands off its coast.” Who knew? MAINE.

      “With these strikes, the President sends a powerful message to the world. We’ll let you know when we figure out what it is.”

      In yesterday’s puzzle, a very cute clue/answer was “How Jean Valjean repeatedly breaks out in ‘Les Miserables.’” Answer: IN SONG. Here’s Rex: “What the hell kind of clue is this? How else is he going to ‘break out?’ IN A RASH? IN HIVES?” I think he was kidding. In any event, he then shared this hysterical clip with us.

      Thanks for dropping by! See you tomorrow.

    2. Venezuela Wins!

      Kudos to Venezuela for knocking off the big bad USA in the World Baseball Classic, in a thriller, 3-2. Yankee fans still have to worry about Judge’s choking. He seemed to shake off the charge in the playoffs last season, but he really ate it last night: 0 for 4, with three strikeouts. Ouch.

      To mirror the tradition of the winning USA team visiting the White House, the Venezuelan squad will be vising Maduro in his prison cell. Did you know Maduro was originally a bus driver? Not kidding. Phil came up with this shot of him from those happier days.

      Ever try a OUIJA board to summon a spirit? It was an answer in the puzzle today, cutely clued with “Game to play when the spirit moves you?” I don’t think of it as a game, but that’s how Hasbro markets them these days. It’s sort of like a parlor/party game/activity, with no winner or loser. I did mess with one once — it’s all a crock, of course. My mom came back to tell me I needed a haircut.

      The clue/answer at 35D brought to mind the famous observation of my bro-in-law Mitch (alav hashalom): “I must say, Avi, I was shocked to discover the level of ignorance that’s out there. There was a woman in the class who actually did not know what a logarithm is.” The clue was “Westernmost African capital,” and the answer was DAKAR. Shocked? As Commenter kitshef notes: “The clue for Dakar should specify mainland Africa. Praia is well west of Dakar, and Cabo Verde is considered part of Africa.” Of course! Idiots!

      At 9D, the clue was “Pulitzer-winning ‘Fat Ham’ playwright.” Ever hear of him? James IJAMES. That’s not a typo — the last name is IJAMES. Rex observed that modern playwrights don’t have the “cultural penetration” the previous ones had. Giants like Edward Albee, or, later, Tony Kushner. The term “cultural penetration” resonated in our Dirty Old Man Dept. It would be a good way to describe how the Prez screwed the Kennedy Center.

      What image does the word “nymph” call up for you? Something like this?

      Then you might have trouble solving 1A today where the clue was “Young grasshopper” and the answer was NYMPH. SRSLY? It’s the second meaning: an immature form of an insect that does not change greatly as it grows. Not limited to grasshoppers, but certainly inclusive of them.

      How about this one at 18D: “Country known for luxury tourism, in brief.” Answer: UAE. Here’s Rex on it: “Well, how’s that going for you? Luxurious enough?”

      Per historian H.C. Richardson, Trump has been railing about the Supremes lately, saying “[t]his completely inept and embarrassing Court” is “hurting our Country, and will continue to do so. All I can do, as President, is call them out for their bad behavior!” Trump called the court “little more than a weaponized and unjust Political Organization.” At last, something we agree with him on.

      Trump has certainly been led around by the nose by Bibi on this war, but Krugman points out today that Saudi Arabia’s a big beneficiary too. And Russia, of course, by all accounts. Krugman ends with this great version of an old song on the topic.

      And so will we. See you tomorrow!

    3. Best Funeral Ever

      Hardly an Owl Chatter post goes by without my referring to Rex Parker’s blog on the NYTXW, or the commenters to it. It enriched my view of crossword puzzles. Made me see them more like short stories than only wordplay. You get to know Rex a little through it. He’s an English prof at SUNY Binghamton, married to Penelope, a New Zealander, and they have a daughter who is in the production end of theater. Yesterday he shared a beautiful message Penelope crafted on the passing of her Aunt Sandy. I hope you can click your way to get to it via this link. Below the link are the two of them, back in 1975.

      https://sandy983.blogspot.com/2026/03/2026-march-14-sandra.html

      Yesterday’s puzzle was for people who love Latin, i.e., LATIN LOVERS. That was the revealer, and the theme answers were familiar Latin phrases: AD INFINITUM, SUI GENERIS, QUIDPROQUO, and POSTMORTEM.

      AD INFINITUM: A commercial that seems to go on forever

      Our neighbor brought over a large container of home-made Chinese food and refused to take a penny for it. He was Chop SUEY GENEROUS.

      Danny Federici on the accordion. He passed away in 2008 when he was only 58. There’s a short tribute to him at the end of the video. He was an original member of the E Street Band, up there with Clarence now.

      The answer at 54D was QUILT, boringly clued with “Warm bed covering.” It led me to channel my inner Carl Z and come up with the following:

      My wife complains that I hog the comforter at night: a blanket accusation! She says my excuses are all cover stories. I went to the rabbi for advice. He said it’s a question of QUILT or innocence. Not every marriage is a bed of roses. He’s going to sleep on it and get back to me.

      Here’s what I did today with this collection of answers: DUNST (“Actress Kirsten”), RUB (“Spice mixture”), ONION BAGEL (“Deli order that may lead to pungent breath”), LSDTAB (“Dose dropped for a trip”), and ACAI (“Smoothie fruit”).

      Are you keeping track of what I owe you for the hallucinogens?

      LSDTAB

      Dyslexic spy:

      ACAI agent

      Fair maiden: What hast thee DUNST with the spices I put together?
      (Wife gestures towards a bowl on the counter.)
      Ay, there’s the RUB.

      Commandment for someone who hates ONION BAGELs:

      Honor thy poppy and thy sesame.

      General bagel commandments:

      Thou shalt only toast thy bagel using thy toaster’s bagel setting.

      Thou shalt not place lox on thy cinnamon-raisin bagel, for it is an abomination unto me.

      I can’t remember the rest. About 25 years ago Vermont Susan and I came up with “The Ten Commandments of Bagels,” and I sent it in to the New Yorker. I should hear back pretty soon, no?

      Here’s Kirsten, full guns blazing.

      Most of us who do the Spelling Bee (daily and/or Sundays) have a personal list of words we fervently believe should be accepted but are rejected over and over and over again. Two of mine are “aroar” and “halvah.” And it’s especially annoying when words that are far less common (and which we miss) are accepted, e.g., nanotube, recently. (Argggggh.) SRSLY.

      [In case you don’t know, you are given seven letters in a Bee, one of which is central. In the daily Bee, you must come up with words with a minimum of four letters using only those letters. The central letter must be used. On Sundays, the minimum is five. The words are to be in “common usage,” as defined by the Bee gods, arbitrarily, to put it mildly.]

      I showed the Bee to Lianna once and she came up with “NO.” I explained that the words had to be at least five letters long, and she said “Noooooooooo.”

      In comments to Rex’s post yesterday, after Bob M complained that RIATA and ANNUITANT were not accepted by the Bee, Anony Mouse wrote:

      Went to a funeral not long ago where, per the deceased’s wishes, the only reading was her compiled list of Spelling Bee grievances. Hysterical. Best funeral ever.

      [OC Note: I think my “best funeral ever” was Neal Grossman’s, alav hashalom. What a mensch. I’ll share my observations on it here someday. I spoke about it in class, but only once or twice because I invariably embarrass myself by choking up towards the end.]

      Have you noticed gas prices inching up a bit? Wait’ll that moron goes after Cuba — you think cigars are expensive now? I’m stocking up, and I don’t even smoke them.

      Yeah, I’d worry too if I were you, babe.

      On gas, I was in Macy’s yesterday, buying Linda some perfume as a birthday surprise. I asked the woman what a half-ounce bottle of a nice scent I picked out costs and she said $85. I said “$85!! What the hell is in it — gasoline?” On the way home, I pulled into a station. The attendant asked me if I wanted to fill up. I said, “No, just give me $100 worth.”

      This is a popular station near us, for some reason.

      Don’t tell the owls, but we picked up a rotisserie chicken at Costco recently and I tore a lot of it apart today to make chicken salad. I use grapes, per Vermont Susan, and walnuts, celery, mayo, of course, some salt, and curry powder. We’re going to let them all get to know each other overnight and have it for lunch tomorrow.

      Grab your partners, Chatterheads, and turn up the old record player. Here’s a nice tune Son Volt shared with us containing that QUILT that was in the puzzle just yesterday.

      I’ve got the sun to see your blue eyes; and tonight you’re in my arms.

      Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Who’s better than the Irish? We spent a week there two years ago and had a blast. The entire country is devoted to nothing other than music and Guinness. (Burp!) In Killarney we stayed in a little inn across from the Killarney Brewery, the only place, our guide said, where you can have a Killarney Blond and not have the wife get upset. (I did, and she didn’t.)

      I gave my law class a midterm on St. Patrick’s Day one year. It just worked out that way. And I told them that after my last exam ended my first year in law school, I was talking with my friend Robert. He said he didn’t feel as great as he thought he would. I said, how do you mean? And he said, “You walk out of that room, and if there’s not a parade going on, it’s a letdown.” Very true. “But here it is St. Patrick’s Day,” I told my class. “And when our test ends, there will be a parade going on!”

      See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in.

    4. The Ragged People

      My favorite clue yesterday was “Noted series with over 200 Emmys … and an Oscar.” When I worked the answer out to SESAME STREET, I figured it must have earned all those Emmys over the decades, and I was pretty sure there was a Sesame Street movie at one point, but didn’t recall that it won an Oscar. It turns out this is the Oscar:

      I’ve been waiting for this day since December, which a good indication of what my life has been like in retirement. Back then, I read (and, of course, shared in this space), what was billed as “the world’s greatest anchovy joke.” In case you don’t remember it and are too lazy to go scrolling back, here it is again:

      Three lads go for a meal at a new pizza restaurant, whose pitch is that you can totally personalise your pizza: you just have to choose any three ingredients from a huge list, and voila: made to measure pizza.

      So the first guy who is a total carnivore opts for a venison, kangaroo, and biltong pizza. The second guy who is an out-and-out veggie opts for an artichoke heart, salsify, and banana blossom pizza. The third guy, who just loves anchovies, doesn’t want anything outlandish to distract from the anchovial loveliness, so he opts for anchovy, onion, and tomato.

      Appetites duly whetted, they sit back to await events. After a bit, three pizzas get delivered, and the first two guys are raving about theirs and how generous all the portions are of their chosen toppings. Meanwhile, the third guy is looking at his pizza and wondering what went wrong. He calls the waiter back. “My two mates are raving about their pizzas, no complaints there. And mine … well, no complaints about tomato and onion, but they were just supposed to be a foil for the anchovies. Where are they all? There seem to be only three of them!”

      And the waiter, looking a bit dumbfounded, replies “But sir, most people don’t like anchovies.”

      **********

      Well, since then I’ve been waiting for something in the NYTXW to give me an excuse to share it with Rex Parker’s readers via a comment. Finally, at 67D today, the answer was ANCHOVY PASTE. It was part of the theme that listed ten ingredients for Caesar’s salad. Amazingly, the ten were fitted into the grid symmetrically in five pairs. And, in a nod to today’s date (the IDES OF MARCH), the letters IDE were rebused (squooshed) into one square seven times, working both down and across, e.g., DIVIDEND crossed SPIDER. A “double theme” in a way. An amazing feat of construction by Miranda Kany.

      (Sorry, last time for that photo (maybe).)

      Today’s poem in The Writer’s Almanac is by Katrina Vandenberg, and is called “Consuming Desire.”

      I’m not making this up. In Cafe Latte’s wine bar
      one of the lovely coeds at the next table
      touched John on the arm as if I wasn’t there
      and said, Excuse me, sir, but what
      is that naughty little dessert?
      And I knew from the way he glanced
      at the frothy neckline of her blouse,
      then immediately cast his eyes on his plate
      before giving a fatherly answer,
      he would have given up dessert three months
      for the chance to feed this one to her.
      I was stunned; John was hopeful;
      but the girl was hitting on his cake.
      Though she told her friend until they left
      she did not want any. I wish she wanted
      something—my husband, his cake, both at once.
      I wish she left insisting
      upon the beauty of his hands, his curls,
      the sublimeness of strawberries
      and angel food. But she was precocious,
      and I fear adulthood is the discipline
      of being above desire, cultivated
      after years of learning what you want
      and where and how, after insisting
      that you will one day have it. I don’t
      ever want to stop noticing a man like the one
      at the bar in his loosened tie, reading
      the Star Tribune. I don’t want to eat my cake
      with a baby spoon to force small bites,
      as women’s magazines suggest. And you
      don’t want to either, do you? You want a big piece
      of this world. You would love to have the whole thing.

      We saw the Morristown HS production of Fiddler last night. Our Robin (the artist formerly known as Lianna), was not involved, but she had friends who were. They did a great job. It never fails to move me to tears, though I am, admittedly, pretty pathetic. My favorite song is usually the Sabbath prayer, but this time several others reached me more deeply: the love songs.

      PAUL SIMON (full name) crossed yesterday’s grid, clued as writer of “The Boxer.” You ever hear this version? It was new to me.

      A bit of a foofaraw arose yesterday regarding Commenter Gary’s note. He described the Times puzzle editors as “our fancy New York charcuterie-forking boxed-wine-slurping art-show-gawking editors.” Said they are “kinda judgy,” and called them “snobarians.”

      It moved Commenter C. Kelly to reply:  the editors of the New York Times puzzle, whom you so glibly, condescendingly and unfairly caricature and demean in your description of them, . . . based upon unfounded assumptions about them, and incorrect information. . . . If anyone is being “kinda judgy,” it is you. These editors are human beings; not comic book characters there for your amusement.

      Ouch!

      Gary responded today with: “My post yesterday rankled a couple. It came across kind of mean about the editors of the NYTXW. I even suggested they drink boxed wine. In truth, I imagine our editors are hard-working fair-minded pleasant and smart people with wonderful senses of humor, but it’s far more amusing imagining them as Quasimodos lurking in dingy basements of a rat-infested city lonely and bitter their Ivy league education has them looking up the Wikipedia page for Yoko Ono again and desperately searching for the word ASS in puzzle submissions.”

      Our favorite humorist Egs chimed in on the contretemps today: Gary: Don’t apologize or explain your sense of humor. It is a treasure shared with us most every day, and I’m sure I speak for many others.

      As Liveprof, I added “Seconded.”

      It didn’t end there, but it got tiresome.

      The clue at 65A was “Sch. whose team name is a poisonous nut.”

      Commenter Coprophagist said: The answer had to be Trump University, but I just couldn’t make it fit.

      I ruled out Ohio State because I thought Buckeyes were some kind of animal. But I was wrong — the Buckeye is a nut that is poisonous, so the answer was indeed OSU.

      That puzzle also had the clue “Hip places?” and the answer was BELTLINES. Here’s a fact you absolutely must know, courtesy of Ukulele Ike: When Julie Newmar was cast as Catwoman in the BATMAN TV show, she moved the belt from her waist to her hips to make her tuchas look cuter.

      Attention to details!

      See you tomorrow!

    5. Jets Win Super Bowl!

      We start today with breaking news from The Onion:

      Trump Defends Wearing Fruit Hat, Samba Dancing During Transfer of Fallen Soldiers

      WASHINGTON—Maintaining that his conduct was well within the guidelines for the solemn occasion, President Trump on Thursday defended his decision to wear a fruit hat while samba dancing during the dignified transfer of soldiers killed in Iran. “There’s no reason I can’t honor the sacrifice of these brave men and women while wearing a headdress piled high with bananas, oranges, and papayas,” said Trump, adding that only a corrupt media desperate to attack him would fault a president for clapping and shimmying in six-inch platform heels as the flag-draped caskets were carried past en route to their final resting place.

      Two short answers carried a lot of freight in the puzzle Wednesday. They were ONE and NUTS, both very nicely clued. For ONE, the clue was ‘Answer to the riddle ending “How many are going to St. Ives?’” So you had to have heard about the riddle/poem. Here it is:

      As I was going to St Ives I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks. Every sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kittens. Kittens, cats, sacks and wives. How many were going to St Ives?

      It’s a trick question. The speaker was going to St. Ives, as it says. But there’s no indication that anyone else is. So the answer is ONE.

      For NUTS, the clue was “The place you least want to be kicked.” No, just kidding. It was “McAuliffe’s one-word reply to a German commander’s demand of surrender.” I hadn’t heard of this either.

      Here’s what one commenter explained: During the Battle of the Bulge, the 101st Airborne was surrounded by German forces in the strategic town of Bastogne. On December 22, 1944, German officers demanded the surrender of the US troops.

      Upon reading the demand, McAuliffe initially muttered “Aw, nuts,” and subsequently typed “NUTS!” as the official written reply. When German officers asked for clarification, they were told the phrase meant “Go to hell.”
      The reply boosted morale and became a defining moment of American resolve during World War II.

      When I read through the obits in the Times, only once in a great while does one clutch at my heart. You know, since I’m so tough. It happened when I read about the passing of Matt Snell. Snell was the hard-running fullback for the Super Bowl Champion Jets of the Joe Namath era. Yeah, let that roll around for a bit: “the Super Bowl Champion Jets.” It’s as rare a phrase as “honorable Republican.”

      Anyway, as team leader, Namath was named Super Bowl MVP, but many felt (including many Jets), that it was really Snell who carried the day. He had 161 total yards and was key in grinding out the first downs we needed to run the clock to hold the 16-7 lead. He scored the only TD the Jets got. BTW, if you don’t recall, it was one of the great upsets in NFL history. The then-Baltimore Colts were 18-point favorites. It was the game for which Namath made his famous pronouncement “We’re going to win.” He later explained it wasn’t boasting or bravado: he had just watched some game films and determined that the Jet receivers should be able to outrun the Colt defense. So it was simply his professional assessment. Anyway, getting back to that Super Bowl MVP award — even though it went to Namath, the Jets recognized Snell and gave him a green and white Cadillac. Nice gesture.

      The greatest competitors rise to their occasions. At the Orange Bowl that day, Snell ran with or caught the ball in 34 of the Jets plays: the most in his career. On most other plays he was blocking to protect Namath, who was not very mobile due to bad knees. Just about the only thing Snell didn’t do in the Stadium that day was man a hot-dog stand.

      Snell was motivated by the pregame hype lavished on the Colt running backs and was miffed that he was being dissed. “For the first time in my life, I’m going to be looking for people to run into,” Snell told his backfield partner Emerson Boozer. “I’m going to be looking to punish people.” Boozer had a good reply: “Be looking for the goal line, too.”

      Snell was born in Georgia and raised on Long Island. While in college at Woody Hayes’ Ohio State he took summer jobs as a laborer, and worked on the construction of Shea Stadium, where the Jets played for many years.

      Matt is survived by his wife, Sharon, two children, a grandson, three siblings, and the rest of us long-suffering Jets fans, who will never forget our one moment. Rest in peace, 41.

      Stu Davis, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) shared this story with us:

      The Art of Being a Twin…

      Before I start this, I would like to make it clear, this is not written as anything more than a carthartic attempt by myself to make sense of the world on a night where sleep would be a miracle, but will probably not be as inexorable as it seems, the sun always rises.

      Every since I was in the womb I have been an identical twin.

      In medical terms this means that the egg that was fertilised split into two and created two identical people, both sharing the same genes.

      How freaky is that?

      In practical terms this means that when two babies are being born and one gets in the way, the other gets stuck, which is what happened to me.

      Not an amazing start, I know.

      A lifetime of being claustrophobic has followed.

      The first few years of our lives were unremarkable, then at some point we must have realised that there was mischief to be had…

      This started with simple things, like swapping our different coloured glasses and progressed to swapping our carefully picked clothes.

      Much fun could be had until, quite frankly we got bored and settled down, the joke just got old, I suppose.

      I could go on for hours about the pranks we played, but I shan’t tonight.

      As we moved into our teens, we started to develop slightly different personalities, mine was a little more easy going, we also got into a little bit of trouble because anything one of us had done wrong was automatically blamed on both of us, so to the perception of any adults around us, the trouble was, quite literally double.

      We also started falling out a little more, the love was always there between us, but mixed with the inability to ever back down in an argument, we had some absolutely epic battles, some epic laughs and some rare late night chats putting the world to rights.

      The telepathic bond that twins are purported to share never existed for us, we didn’t care about that anyways.

      Later in life, we slightly went our own ways, moved in slightly different circles with some mutual friends between us, trying to define our own identities.

      We both found girls, settled down and got married, then I had one lovely daughter and later, a lovely 21st century daughter and I also became an uncle to a lovely little lad.

      We always shared a massive passion for motorcycles, don’t know why, having and riding was and still is a need.

      We would always try to outdo each other in the riding stakes, which I suppose was ok on smaller 1980s machines, but could get a bit scary when we moved up to big monster machines.

      I still maintain I could ride corners harder than him, but will concede his massive wheelies were beyond my ability.

      I would love to have an epic argument about this, neither of us would back down.

      One thing I have been thinking about was the summer morning thirty years ago when we welcomed his son into the world…

      We were driving down to Mater’s house to wake and annoy her and watch the joy of her having a brand new baby grandson.

      We kept saying silly things like…

      “That’s the first rabbit I’ve seen since you were a Daddy.”

      “That’s the first crow I’ve seen since I was a Daddy.”

      “That’s the first sunrise I have seen since you were a Daddy.”

      A joyous, happy time, shared, between two people, who could happily sit in each others company and just enjoy what we had.

      Two nights ago, my twin, Graham, Gravy, Grumpy Gray, let his inner demons get to him and took his own life.

      Last night I stood alone and watched the sun go down for the first time as a single person.

      I tried saying about the sunset out loud, but no words could be formed.

      The outpouring of support from dozens of DMC members was nearly as moving as the story. Other twins chimed in (and one triplet!). Much warm advice on handling grief. Some were short like this one by Martin Wreford-Bush: “Obviously I don’t know you mate, but I am so sorry for you.” Others spun a sincere para or two on loss or grieving.

      My own small note was: “Dear Friend, I hope it matters to you, and helps a little, that this group of lunatics who will most likely never meet you, care about your loss, care about you, and are grateful for your sharing your story. We are all enriched by it.”

      Hope he’s okay. Rest in peace, Grumpy Gray.

      We’re not sure if we’ll be watching the Oskies on Sunday. Only saw one of the Best Pic noms (Sinners), although we may stream One Battle After Another over the weekend. How out of the loop are we? I was surprised to learn Jessie Buckley is a woman. (Guess I was thinking of Jeff Buckley.)

      She’s from Killarney! Let’s let her pretty Irish face close us out today.

      Thanks for dropping in!