The Wellington Files

  • Derek and Kermit

    The NYT had a piece today on commencement speakers at various campuses. Derek Jeter is speaking at UMich. Go Blue! If you’re wondering why a NY Yankee in Ann Arbor, it’s because DJ is from Michigan — Kalamazoo. He would have gone to UMich had he not gone pro out of high school. But UMaryland is one-upping even Derek this year. They’ve invited Kermit the Frog to give the address. Could you croak?

    Here’s Derek with Elmo. Kermit’s below.

    Hey who’s Tiger’s new babe? Looks like she could be about the age of his granddaughter, no? (In fact, no — she’s 47, just two years younger than Woods. There must be a painting of her, aging, in some attic somewhere.)

    You hear about this? It was news to me. That woman has five kids of her own. Need another hint? Their last name is Trump. Yeah, you heard me. Trump. It’s Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of Trump’s idiot son, Donald, Jr. The oldest of their five kids, Kai, below, is turning 18 in two weeks. She’s a competitive golfer and spoke at the 2024 GOP Convention. If Tiger becomes her step-dad it won’t do her golf game any harm.

    Eugenio Suarez is one of the few Venezuelans left that Trump hasn’t shipped off to an El Salvadoran prison, and Diamondback fans are relieved. He hit 30 homers and drove in 101 runs for them last year, and last night he hit four dingers in one game — only the 19th time that’s happened in MLB history. Making it even rarer in an odd way is the fact that ‘Zona still lost the game, 8-7 in 10 innings. It’s only the second time ever that a batter hit four homers in a game his team lost.

    Maybe Gino’s feat is not so surprising: he twice had 3-homer games, and he’s a pretty accomplished slugger, with four seasons of 30 or more along with hitting a whopping 49 in 2019 (with 103 RBI).

    The puzzle today was a little blah, IMO. The whole trick was that the theme clues seemed to be long numbers or equations. But you had to realize they were numbers that, when you turned them over (upside down), they became words. You can do this if you limit yourself to these letters: BEGHILOS.

    For example, take my favorite. The clue was

    Depiction of

    If you turn those numbers upside down they become letters spelling out HIGH HEELS. (See it?) So the answer was STILETTOS. The problem was once you saw the trick, the whole puzzle fell into place. (There were 8 of those.)

    Hey, while we’re on the topic, Armas — can you model a pair for us?

    Thanks Babe. BTW, you can be sure that’s Ana and not an imposter by the little heart tattoo.

    This one spelled out HILLBILLIES BOOZE:

    Depiction of

    The answer was MOONSHINE. Son Volt shared this song on it.

    Did you know about these? The clue was “Food-centric broadcasts originating in South Korea” and the answer was MUKBANGS. They are videos people make of themselves eating. [Who are we to judge?] Most go on for quite a while, but here’s a short clip that gives you some idea.

    I also liked 14D. The clue was “Tough customer for a wedding planner,” and the answer was BRIDEZILLA.

    This tiny love story by Reem Faruqi is from today’s NYT.

    When my father was a college student and moved from Karachi to California, his father wrote him letter after letter that could be collected only at the post office. When my father told his father that his shoes were getting worn out by walking to and from the post office, his father promptly airmailed him a package. Inside the box: new shoes. Luckily, I’m a 45-minute drive away from my father, not a daylong flight. Yet, the cycle of care packages continues. For me, he will deliver steaming soup, my favorite books and box upon box of sweet mango juice. 

    Happy 44th (!) wedding anniversary today to Ringo Starr, 84, and his bride Barbara Bach, 78. It was the second marriage for each. Barbara had two kids and Ringo three from their exes (and no kids together). In 1985 Ringo became the first Beatle to be a grandfather and has eight g’kids now. In 2016 he was the first to become a great-grandfather.

    Ringo is very funny. I heard him begin an interview once by saying “I was born at an early age. . . “

    L’Chaim, kids!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Mood

    Aaron’s Boone’s near-haiku may become this season’s motto, at least for NY baseball. This time it was the Mets who could say:

    The audacity

    Of the call standing

    Is remarkable.

    And the result this time was a triple play! Here’s the story: The Mets were playing the Gnats in DC yesterday and they had runners on first and second with no outs: Vientos on first, and Nimmo on second. Winker (“Wink”) was at bat and hit a soft liner towards first. First baseman Lowe made a nice backhanded play on it, trapping the ball on a short hop. But the ump did not have a good view and said Lowe caught it on a fly. Both runners left their bases without tagging up (which is what they should have done, since the ball was only caught on the bounce). Lowe threw to Abrams at second, so Nimmo was out. He then tagged Vientos, who advanced there from first. That was the third out.

    But he trapped it. It hit the ground. The replay clearly showed that. So why wasn’t the call overturned on review? Because, for some (crazy?) reason, the question of whether a ball was caught or trapped is reviewable when it occurs in the outfield, but not when it occurs in the infield. The call was not reviewable. Mets manager Mendoza begged the umps to confer as a group, thinking one of the other umps must have seen the play clearly as all the Mets did from their dugout, but the umps refused. The call stood.

    The Mets ended up losing by one run. The call may have cost them the game. It was the third ever triple play pulled off by the Gnats — and only the first at home.

    That play involved two fielders — Lowe caught the ball for one out. And Abrams made both of the other outs by touching second base and then tagging the runner from first. An “unassisted” triple play — where one fielder makes all three outs — is much rarer. There have only been fifteen ever. (Perfect games occur more often.) The most famous was by Bill Wambsganss for Cleveland in the 1920 World Series. Oddly, as rare as they are, in May 1927 two occurred within 24 hours of each other. It was then a 41-year wait for the next.

    If I may crow a bit, I got a big laugh out of my g’kids Leon and Rafi yesterday. We picked them up from school and Leon was holding a little sapling to plant at home. They had planted a tree at school for Arbor Day, and each student was given a little one to take home. Leon said he didn’t remember the type of tree it was. I said “Evergreen?” and he said yes. I said that’s because it doesn’t turn brown in the winter so it is “forever green.” Okay. Then I said, “Do you know what else is green?” and they both listened attentively. “MY BIG FAT BUTT!!” I exclaimed, and they roared. Maybe the biggest laugh I ever got out of them.

    That’s a good example of one of the great lessons I learned from my brother — not expressly — by observation. Trying to make someone laugh is a way of saying you love them.

    The puzzle was very good today — top notch constructor team of Sarah Sinclair and Rafael Musa. I learned a neat piece of slang: MOOD, at 27A. It’s slang for “that’s so relatable.” It’s better than just saying “same,” “me too,” or “I hear ya.” It’s like you’re saying “I can relate to that and it’s the story of my life.”

    “That gorgeous girl in my bio class shot me down again.”

    “Mood.”

    Here’s egs on it:

    Farmer: I was out in the field and my cow did something so relatable, I said MOOD.
    Pal: What’d the cow do?
    Farmer: Mooed.
    Pal: Was she ok?
    Farmer: Yeah, just a little MOODy.

    15A was a little unusual: “Tantric meditation practiced while in a sleeping state.” Answer: DREAM YOGA.

    I got this from Wikipedia: “In the yoga of dreaming, the yogi learns to remain aware during the states of dreaming (i.e. to “lucid dream”) and uses this skill to practice yoga in the dream.” A lot of my tax students took a similar approach in class. They entered a dream-like state, occasionally tipping over onto the floor with a thud. I’m not sure I’d call it “lucid,” though.

    Please make up your own joke about combining dream yoga and goat yoga. I can’t do everything around here.

    At 54A, the clue was “Rely on audience support during a show?” and the answer was STAGE DIVE. Here’s one:

    And then there’s this.

    31A was good. The clue was “Words on a statue honoring Washington.” So you start thinking about George, but it’s about Denzel. The answer was BEST ACTOR, and the statue was an acting award. It led Rex to share this short wonderful piece.

    It was an example of a puzzle with cluing so erudite and clever that you stop and think — wow, there can really be a lot more to these puzzles than silly wordplay.

    Here’s how they clued the simple four-letter word WEPT: “‘The young man who has not ___ is a savage:’ George Santayana.”

    And at 43D, the clue was “Something picked in a fortunetelling game,” leading Rex to wonder,  “‘What the hell is a fortunetelling game?’ I couldn’t think of any. Magic 8 Ball? Is that a ‘game?’ But no, the ‘game’ was some version of ‘(s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not …’” The answer was PETAL.

    OK, let’s see what’s up at the Dull Men’s Club (UK).

    Brian Greenhalgh posted this photo on how to eat those half-chocolate biscuits. And then wrote: “Chocolate side down? Must be joking.”

    Here are the dullest of the 28 comments:

    Adrian Bull: Your taste buds are on your tongue, not the roof of your mouth. So if you want to taste chocolate more than biscuit, it makes sense. Then again, I know that but still eat them the “right way up.”

    Mike Knee: Whichever side is on the bottom will get more heat from the hand, if the biscuit is held lightly, which is the main reason I hold them chocolate side up. However, I think the flavour and the crumb-dropping behaviour are both better chocolate side down.

    Daniel Faraday-Kiss: This doesn’t work for dunkers. Chocolate on the bottom makes it heavy side down and more likely to break off in your brew. Also causes more Chocolate ingress into the tea. I’d also feel uncomfortable putting a biscuit on a plate with chocolate down. All in all I give this information 7 thumbs down.

    Ben Farrington: He’s not the boss of me.

    John Scotland: Noooooooooo. . . .

    Mike Pezaro: NOBODY TELLS ME HOW TO EAT MY BISCUITS. That be fighting talk!

    Neale Rumble: I like to eat them in pairs, choc to choc.

    [Sadly, at this point the matter took a slightly ugly turn.]

    Mark Daniels: Chocolate side down is the only way that makes sense. Come on! Where are your taste buds, people?

    Sultan Brown: Don’t you chew?

    Mark: Think, Sultan Brown, think! It’s really not that difficult. Taste buds are on the tongue, chocolate is concentrated on one side of the biscuit. Where do you want that when biscuit enters your mouth??? Chewing comes later… Duh!

    Martin Tweddle: Same as pizza or anything else you want your tongue to taste

    Robin Smith: That’s where I’ve been going wrong. I’ve never tasted any topping on a pizza for that reason – they only taste of bread and nothing else.

    Andy Steele: When a digestive biscuit is made, it’s plain and the writing is on the top. It gets a pattern on the bottom side from the mesh that it’s baked on. If this biscuit it subsequently turned into a chocolate digestive, the chocolate is not poured on. That would be very tricky to get right. Instead it travels through a lake of molten chocolate which sticks to the underside. As it cools the classic hatched marking appear as the mechanisms flip it over. The chocolate which was the bottom, now becomes the top. But the bottom is now the originally top of the plain digestive. Thus, it has two tops, and therefore no bottoms. Which way up a person eats them, becomes an arbitrary decision as both sides are tops.

    Avi Liveson: For a brief moment there you almost seemed to be making sense.

    Let’s leave it at that. See you tomorrow!

  • Baby It’s You

    There’s a terrible pall over Owl Chatter headquarters. Our George was sentenced today and will be going off to the Big House for over seven years. Ouch. And we don’t mean Michigan’s football stadium. We will miss you terribly, Georgie. Stay strong. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a can of Fresca without tearing up. Get through this and come back to us Buddy. Meanwhile, we’re just going to remember the good times.

    The puzzle today, by Adrian Johnson, was full of neat stuff. Sometimes an answer just doesn’t make any sense to me. In that case, I resort to Rex’s column hoping he clarifies it, or some member of the commentariat does. For example, at 7D today the clue was “Ran through some laundry, maybe,” and I had no idea why the answer was BLED. But Rex explained it: “Laundry is (notoriously) sharp, so when you run through it, you cut your feet and they bleed.” Thanks! Makes sense now.

    A HIDDEN STAIRCASE ran right across the grid — i.e., not very well hidden. The clue was “Passage in a mystery novel?” and it brought back Nancy Drew memories for some. Barbara S. was able to recall that “The Hidden Staircase” was book #2 in the series (right after “The Secret of the Old Clock”). And two folks had stories to share (one of them was me!).

    Here’s what egs wrote: My father was an architect and my brothers and I grew up in a house he designed. It was a lovely house, but for some reason we always expressed a sort of amazed disappointment that there was no secret staircase or hidden passage. I mean, if you can design your own house, obviously you’d incorporate the good stuff like that. Right? Well, many years later, he and my mom built a second home. When we visited, the grandchildren were delighted beyond words (as were my brothers and I) to find that when you tried to pull from a built-in bookcase a book titled “The Hidden Passage,” the whole bookcase swung open to reveal a small playroom. From the inside, a button could be pressed to open a completely disguised exit door onto a stairway middle landing. It has, of course, remained one of all of our fondest memories, even though dad is long gone and the house long sold.

    And here’s mine: About 30 years ago, on a family trip to the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce, one of the rooms I booked for us turned out to be a tacky space above a gas station on the outskirts of a small town in Utah. It had anti-charm — you could look out the window at the gas pumps. But it was clean, roomy, cheap, and my wife didn’t chew me out too badly over it. The gas station had what we would call today a convenience store behind the pumps that sold maps (remember those?), candy, and weird stuff that must have been sitting there for decades and is probably still there. I felt a bit sheepish for subjecting my family to such a dump, but the more little odd spaces my kids found, the more excited they got. My son’s joy exploded when he found a back staircase that led directly down to that little shop. “Dad!! We have our own private candy store!!” Every once in a while — not often — you get lucky.

    At 27D, for the little answer ITS, the clue was “‘Baby ___ You’ (Shirelles hit).” Rex shared it, along with a cover version by some British band.

    We have a very special birthday to celebrate today. Owl Chatter’s Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is 86, kinehora. Happy Happy Kooz!!

    I am going to steal shamelessly from the nice write-up in The Writer’s Almanac today and then share the poem of his it included.

    He wanted to be a writer, but he flunked out of graduate school. So he took the first job he was offered, at a life insurance company, and he worked there for 35 years. He said: “I believe that writers write for perceived communities, and that if you are a lifelong professor of English, it’s quite likely that you will write poems that your colleagues would like; that is, poems that will engage that community. I worked every day with people who didn’t read poetry, who hadn’t read it since they were in high school, and I wanted to write for them.”

    He resigned himself to being a relatively unknown poet. Then, in 2004, he got a phone call informing him that he had been chosen as poet laureate of the United States. He said: “I was so staggered I could barely respond. The next day, I backed the car out of the garage and tore the rearview mirror off the driver’s side.”

    This poem is called “A Rainy Morning.”

    A young woman in a wheelchair,
    wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,
    is pushing herself through the morning.
    You have seen how pianists
    sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,
    then lift their hands, draw back to rest,
    then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.
    Such is the way this woman
    strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,
    letting them float, then bends again to strike
    just as the chair slows, as if into a silence.
    So expertly she plays the chords
    of this difficult music she has mastered,
    her wet face beautiful in its concentration,
    while the wind turns the pages of rain.

    An article by Antonia Hitchens in the April 28th New Yorker is all about the sycophancy that has gripped the GOP, and serves as a large-scale emetic for the rest of us. If you’re not familiar with the term sycophant, this should help. [OMG, I only just now realized how much Rubio looks like George Santos!]

    The story starts with Rep. Andy Ogles who proposed changing the 22nd Amendment to allow Trump to serve a third term. A criminal investigation into his fundraising activities was withdrawn by federal prosecutors the following week. (One was a GoFundMe account that raised $25,000 for a burial garden for stillborn babies that never materialized.)

    At a cabinet meeting during which Secretaries took turns gushing, Brooke Rollins (Agriculture) said: “Your vision is a turning point and inflection point in American history.” AG Bondi said: “You were overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority–Americans want you to be President.” And Rubio said: “What you’re doing now is a great service to our country, but ultimately to the world.”

    Wait, it gets better.

    GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna proposed legislation to arrange for the carving of the figure of DJT on Mount Rushmore. Rep. Brandon Gill proposed a bill requiring Trump’s image on $100 bills. Rep. Claudia Tenney’s legislation would make You-Know-Who’s birthday a federal holiday. Rep. Addison McDowell wants Dulles Airport to be renamed Trump International, and Darrell Issa is nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. “No one deserves it more,” Issa said.

    Hitchens attended a meeting of the House Committee on Natural Resources where Marjorie Taylor Greene was seeking to have the Gulf of Mexico’s renaming apply more broadly. Jared Huffman, the ranking Dem railed against the rampant insanity on display as business as usual (“crazy, destructive, incompetent, and corrupt”). After the hearing he suggested an amendment to rename Earth “Planet Trump.”

    Here’s Huffman.

    See you tomorrow!

  • The Chronicle Of Wasted Time

    Leave it to Shakespeare to come up with the best ever description of Owl Chatter. It’s from his “Sonnet 106,” which appeared in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac, to our great good fortune. Take a look:

    When in the chronicle of wasted time
    I see descriptions of the fairest wights [persons]
    And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
    In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
    Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
    Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
    I see their ántique pen would have expressed
    Ev’n such a beauty as you master now.
    So all their praises are but prophecies
    Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
    And for they looked but with divining eyes,
    They had not skill enough your worth to sing.
         For we which now behold these present days,
         Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

    And, speaking of “sweet beauty’s best,” the lovely Sarah Palin was in the news again. So many fond memories. The villains (and villainesses) were so less villainous back then. Sigh. Palin’ by comparison.

    Phil! Can you dig out an old shot or two for us?

    Nothing sexier? Gotta give her credit — despite decades in the public eye, she was careful to avoid photos with even the hint of indecency making their way onto the internet. Believe me, I’ve searched relentlessly (you know, for a minute or two). Don’t get me wrong — not a fan. Just sayin’. Credit where due.

    So, where were we? Oh, yeah. SP is back in the news this week. A jury ruled against her in a defamation suit she filed against the NYT. An editorial said Palin’s PAC contributed to an atmosphere of violence by circulating a map of electoral districts that put Gabby Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs. Seems accurate to me, but the Times quickly corrected the article, saying it had “incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the shooting” and that it had “incorrectly described” the map. The jury agreed with the Times that it was an honest error and that it took reasonable steps to correct it.

    Palin’s response:  “I get to go home to a beautiful family of five kids and grandkids and a beautiful property and get on with life. And that’s nice.”

    Dripping with venom, clearly.

    The sh*tstorm Trump has unleashed is so dizzying and multifaceted that it’s easy to miss big pieces here and there. For example, did you know about this item in historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter: Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed an order assigning to the assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget, control over the Department of the Interior, including its personnel and budget. He is DOGE operative Tyler Hassen, the CEO of a Houston-based energy company, who has not been confirmed by the Senate. Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands.

    The upshot: Burgum has handed power over the Department of the Interior to a hitherto unknown political operative who is holding his position in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution. Hassen is responsible for 70,000 employees, the administration of international treaties, the welfare of 574 Native American Tribes, 433 national park sites, over 500 million acres of public lands, 700 million acres of subsurface minerals, and 3.2 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. Look for the government to sell off massive swaths of public land as a way of raising revenue. They have not been shy about expressing that aim.

    From The Onion:

    Trump Opens Up Nation’s Aquariums To Commercial Fishing

    2-Year-Old Unaware He’s Basis For 6 Couples’ Decisions Not To Have Kids

    For us to go to a Mets game (from NJ to Queens) is a big commitment of time and energy; we have plenty of the former and very little of the latter. We took a 9:30 train into NY yesterday for a 1 pm game and got home around 7 in the evening. So you hope to be rewarded with a decent game. In our case, it was way beyond decent. The Mets were playing the Phillies and it was clear that a lot of Philly fans came up for the game. The teams appear to be the main rivals for the Division crown. The Mets won the first two games and were itching for a sweep. Philly ace Zack Wheeler was pitching against decent lefty Dave Peterson for the Mets.

    Mets second-bagger Brett Baty popped a two-run homer into the seats early but otherwise Wheeler was in command. Peterson worked in and out of trouble, eventually giving up the lead to a flurry of sharp singles, and left in the sixth with the score knotted at two. Meanwhile, we were treated to some serious glovework at short by Francisco Lindor and right in front of us in left by Brandon Nimmo. A whole bunch of fly balls were “finding Nimmo.” (Get it?)

    It was one of those wonderful games in which every pitch seemed to matter. With the score still tied 2-2 in the 8th inning, the Phils put men on first and second with two outs. Oh, no! The next batter, Max Kepler, laced a single to right. But it was hit pretty sharply and right-fielder Soto raced in to pick it up and threw a laser beam to catcher Senger who slapped a brilliant tag on Castellano trying to score. Out! Clearly out! The throw came in a bit on the first base side. Senger knew he’d have to lunge across the plate for the tag, but had no idea where the runner was since he was focused on the ball. “He could have been halfway down the line, and I’d look like an idiot diving towards the plate,” Senger said after the game.

    BTW, Max Kepler was born in Berlin and both of his parents were professional ballet dancers. He is not listed as Jewish in Wikipedia.

    OK, where were we? Extra innings. With the new rule placing a runner on second at the start of every extra inning, we had to hope Diaz, who was pitching his second inning, could keep that runner (Bryce Harper) from scoring. When Diaz struck out Schwarber his chances looked decent, but Harper quickly stole third. D’oh! And the next batter drove him in. Rats!

    Then things got a little weird. Diaz stepped off the mound (“disengaged”) a couple of times and then a third time — that’s an automatic balk and the runner advanced to second. But Diaz called for a conference on the mound: his hip was bothering him. He couldn’t lift his leg. He left the game and, get this — the umps reversed the balk call. Since he stepped off due to injury, it wasn’t a balk.

    Alright, in comes Kranick. Max Kranick. In about two seconds the Phils had the bases loaded. D’oh! And there was only one out. I said to Linda: “We can probably handle being down one, but if all hell breaks loose now, we’re f*cked.” That was my trenchant analysis. Inside baseball.

    Kranick went back to work. The next batter launched a fly to center. It was caught and all eyes went to third base to see if the runner would try to score. He stayed put. That was a big out. And so was the next one, a grounder. So we went to the bottom of the tenth, down 3-2.

    Lindor took his spot at second base as Juan Soto stepped up to the plate, he of the historic $765 million contract. The moment was made for him but his swing yielded only a soft grounder to the right side. Lindor scooted to third. At least Soto advanced the runner. It would be up to Pete Alonso. And he didn’t let us down, driving a double to deep right-center. I knew right away it was deep enough to score the runner from third even if it were caught, but the crowd wanted more and it held off cheering until it was clear the ball was in the gap and Pete lumbered into second base.

    Yes, it was all tied up now, but the crowd wanted Philly blood. Nimmo was walked intentionally to get to Starling Marte. “A grizzled old veteran [36],” I opined to Linda — “he can do it for us.” And he did. He lofted a single to center, but it wasn’t very deep and the question became, could Alonso score from second? The “loft” was the key. Since the ball was not hit hard, by the time the throw home was made, Alonso was far enough along that he could score, barely — with a belly flop. No matter. Game over. Mets win.

    Have you heard of the Israeli-Dutch singer Keren Ann? I hadn’t, even though she’s 51 and has released 8 albums. Rex shared this song of hers in connection with the puzzle today. The clue was “Might, to Shakespeare,” and the answer started with MAY, but how did it end? Mayhap? Mayeth? Nope, neither of those — it was MAYEST. In fact, commenter jberg looked it up and found that WS used “mayest” only 3 times and used “mayst” 76 times. Whatever. It led Rex to share “End of May” with us.

    Among the many atrocities of Trump’s, his support for Russia over Ukraine is pretty impressive, going so far as to blame Ukraine for the invasion and shrieking like a ten-year old at Zelensky to just shut up and give in to all of Putin’s demands. So much for the art of the deal. Europe, of course, isn’t buying any of his sh*t.

    I recently learned the conflict spilled over into women’s tennis, of all places. Have you heard of Anna Potapova? She’s 24, Russian, and ranked around #25 in the world, winning a round now and then, but hardly dominant. She appeared at a match in Indian Wells (CA) in 2023 wearing a shirt supporting a Russian soccer team. Iga Swiatek (currently ranked #1) was aghast. She’s Polish and has a heart and a brain and thought it was outrageous for Potapova to give off any pro-Russia sentiments under the circumstances, and she opened her mouth about it. Potapova said she was not expressing any political views: She was just a fan of the team and has been since she was thirteen. It didn’t help that she was unable to name a single player on the team. She was reprimanded by the tennis authorities. Complicating matters is the fact that she’s very pretty, not that we would ever compromise our principles for anything so shallow. (Much.)

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads, as we crank out another installment of The Chronicle of Wasted Time. Thanks for popping in.

  • Carolina Reapers

    At 37D today the clue was “Feature of the Brontë sisters but not the Brothers Grimm?” That’s a challenging clue for a Tuesday. You need experience in knowing what to look for. The answer, of course, is breasts. D’oh! Just kidding! It’s those two little dots over the e in Brontë. They are called DIERESIS. They look like an umlaut, but they operate differently.

    An umlaut tells you the pronunciation of the vowel under it is different from the usual. An umlaut is only used over a, o, and u. Dieresis tells you to pronounce the vowel under it as opposed to letting it go by silently. So if you put dots over the i in naive, that’s dieresis, letting you know not to just say nave. Similarly, the dots in Brontë tell you to pronounce the e, and not just say bront.

    Another difficult clue in the puzzle was at 44D: “Korean dish similar to sushi rolls.” Answer: KIMBAP.

    You could use both in a sentence as follows: “I was up all night in the bathroom with dieresis; should not have ordered the kimbap.”

    The theme today was names of rock bands that were applied literally. For example, for the clue “Red Hot Chili Peppers,” the answer was CAROLINA REAPERS. (That’s the name of a hot pepper.) For the clue “They Might Be Giants,” the answer was BASEBALL PLAYERS.

    Commenter Lewis shared with us how the band got the name “They Might Be Giants.” They took it from a film of that name and it derives from a passage in Don Quixote where DQ mistakes windmills for evil giants. (If you like stuff like that, there’s a book on how bands got their names called “Rock Formations.”)

    Headline from The Onion:

    Cardinal Who Spent Easter Dinner Telling Pope To Ease Off The Butter Feeling Pretty Vindicated

    Also, this local item:

    Grandmother Palms Grandson $10 Like She’s Fixing Boxing Match

    Is Jim Morrison of The Doors still dead? A documentary came out in January that says he’s alive and living in Syracuse, NY. Here’s the trailer.

    And here’s a photo of Jim taken recently:

    Actually, that’s a photo of a man named Frank X, a maintenance man for Wegman’s, who some believe is Morrison. The thinking is Morrison faked his death way back then in Paris. In fact, there was never an autopsy, and his Social Security Number remains active (and traces to NY). His girlfriend gave conflicting answers as to his demise. Here she is: Pamela Courson.

    The minor league baseball team in Syracuse (the Mets) held a promotion earlier this month in which they invited Frank to throw out the first ball (see below). They also invited anyone who looks like Jim Morrison to attend and they held a Jim Morrison look-alike contest. Nine people entered the contest. Only one looked at all like Morrison, though. (He won.) When asked directly whether he was Jim Morrison, Frank said no. But, then, what would you expect him to say?

    The USA defeated Canada in the finals of the Women’s World Hockey Championship in the Czech Republic last night. It was a hell of a game. Canada was down 3-2 with under six minutes to go when OC fave Sarah Fillier scored the tying goal! Brava Sarah!! Then, 17 minutes into overtime, Tessa Janecke scored the game winner for the U.S. Good game ladies. We’ll see you again at the Olympics in February.

    See you next time!! Thanks for stopping in.

  • You Still Awake?

    It isn’t supposed to happen anymore. When umpires blow a call in a blatant manner, justice is restored upon review. But a dreadful call robbing Yankee slugger Aaron Judge of a home run yesterday was upheld upon review. You be the Judge. No, I mean you be the judge.

    Commentators were impressed with manager Aaron Boone’s eloquent response to the travesty. “The audacity of the call standing is remarkable.” It’s haiku-like, although the syllable pattern is 5-5-5 and not 5-7-5.

    The audacity

    Of the call standing

    Is remarkable.

    Something else happened during the game. Max “The Yid” Fried was on the mound and pitching a beaut. In fact, Max was pitching a no-hitter when the following play occurred in the sixth inning:

    The batter for the Rays was Chandler Simpson, who was just called up from the minors over the weekend. He is extremely fast – perhaps the fastest runner in the majors. You can see in the play that Yankee first-bagger Goldschmidt clearly booted the ball. The official scorer ruled it an error, thus preserving the no-hitter. Max got through the sixth and seventh innings with the no-hitter intact. Cue the nail-biting music, right? Not right!

    Although Max continued to pitch believing he was working on a no-hitter, the official scorer changed his ruling on the Simpson play from an error to a hit in between the seventh and eighth innings. He determined the runner would have beaten the throw to first even if it had been fielded cleanly. No one is arguing against it being ruled a hit. Max yielded a clean single in the eighth inning, so the no-hitter was gone either way. But the timing of the scoring reversal was criticized by some. Was it right for Max to go on believing he had a no-hitter for so long? Should the scorer have delayed the announcement of the reversal until after Max yielded the other hit? Max’s quote on the matter fell short of Boone’s “audacity.” “It is what it is,” he said.

    When we reported on Max in Owl Chatter a while ago, he was dating U.S. soccer star Rose Lavelle. But they broke up (Max complained she never used her hands). Here’s his new babe, Reni Whalley-Meyer, a former volley ball star at USC. She’s met his folks.

    In our You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department, it was just reported that Kristi Noem, head of our nation’s Homeland Security, had her bag stolen in a restaurant. (Not kidding.) Noem had her Homeland Security badge, passport, driver’s license, $3,000 in cash, checkbook, apartment keys, makeup and medication in the bag. [Medication? — maybe up the dosage? Just sayin’.)

    Police are looking for a man around 30 years old, 6 feet tall, who is throwing around a lot of cash, flashing a Homeland Security badge, and wearing makeup.

    Coulda happened to anyone, Babe — don’t let it get you down.

    The puzzle today was nothing to sneeze at. Or maybe it was. The four theme answers ended in order in AH, AH, AH, CHOO, and 56A wrapped things up with GESUNDHEIT.

    At 20A the clue was “Let’s go!” in Mexico, and the answer was ANDALE. It led to this note from commenter Barbara S.

    ANDALE gave me an immediate flashback to Speedy Gonzalez: “¡ANDALE, ANDALE, Arriba, Arriba!” For those young enough not to know, Speedy was a cartoon mouse on television in the 1950s and 1960s. Wikipedia says:

    Feeling that the character presented an offensive Mexican stereotype, Cartoon Network shelved Speedy’s films when it gained exclusive rights to broadcast them in 1999…However, the Hispanic-American rights organization League of United Latin American Citizens called Speedy a cultural icon, and thousands of users registered their support of the character on the hispaniconline.com message boards…Speedy Gonzales remained a popular character in Latin America. Many Hispanic people remembered him fondly as a quick-witted, heroic Mexican character who always got the best of his opponents, at a time when such positive depictions of Latin Americans were rare in popular entertainment.

    Owl Chatter headquarters will be closed tonight for a special prayer meeting. Please, God — don’t let Pete Hegseth be fired. The man’s a national treasure. A gift that keeps giving, 24/7. We know he’s been careless with classified information and then lied about it not being classified. So what? Who hasn’t? And we know all the top officials at Defense have either quit or been fired by him (including a bunch he recently hired himself). Big fucking deal. Hands up if you agree he deserves another chance (or a couple more, actually).

    Thanks, Joni!

    Mark Roberts of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted: Just curious how long can a human stay awake for? I’m on 32hrs now, and had 3hrs sleep before. Looking at another 16hrs before I can finally settle down with a beer and sofa.

    Here are some of the dullest of the 152 comments:

    John Millward: Roughly 9 days of no sleep results in death apparently.

    Avi Liveson: Apparently?

    Pippa Squeak Morley: I hope you’re not driving in that state.

    Avi Liveson: Or in New Jersey.

    Pete Holder: Just tell her to hurry up or you’re going without her.

    Tom Fisher: According to Guinness: 11 days and 25 minutes. Randy Gardner in 1963. No stimulants were used. He was 17 at the time.

    Jem Giles: Guinness no longer keeps track since it’s dangerous to try. Wikipedia says the 11-day record was broken. The longest I could find is 18 days.

    Andy S. Carvey: While filming Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman stayed awake for days so that he’d look right for the part. Sir Laurence Olivier, his co-star, when told, said “You should try acting dear boy… It’s so much easier..”

    Avi Liveson: I heard that when Hoffman asked Olivier what he would have done, Olivier said “I would have pretended.”

    Bridget Butler: Please tell us why you are enduring this.

    Mark: done a night shift, and the wife decided to lob herself down the stairs. So broken leg in 2 places, dislocated ankle, broken foot in 4 places.

    Owl Chatter: Jeez Louise! Must have been one hell of a staircase.

    Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!

  • Jellicle Territory

    It’s Easter Sunday today. So Friday was Good Friday. And that’s fine. I just wish, for once, we could have a Great Friday.

    It really feels like Easter today. I was up around 4:30 this morning and took some Benadryl to help me get back to sleep. You ever do that? It worked, but then when I woke up for real around 7 it felt like I was coming back from the dead.

    It’s also the last day of Passover. In our house Passover is mostly marked by having “matzoh brei” or fried matzoh for breakfast. It’s sort of French toast but with matzoh. Stir up some eggs with a little milk. I use one egg per sheet of matzoh. Three sheets for two people. Then, soften the matzoh using hot water. (I just run hot water from the sink over it until it softens enough to be broken into little pieces.) Then break up the matzoh and stir it into the egg/milk mixture. Let it sit for a bit and then fry it up in some oil, until the egg part is fully cooked. You can use maple syrup on it. It was hard to get real maple syrup in the desert, so some people just use salt and pepper. If that’s your plan you can add sauteed onions and peppers like I did today.

    Anyway, so even though today is officially the last day of Passover, in our family it lasts until we finish up the matzoh.

    This poem is “Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet,” by Ann Caston. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Here is a genial congregation,
    well fed and rosy with health and appetite,
    robust children in tow. They have come
    and all the generations of them, to be fed,
    their old ones too who are eligible now
    for a small discount, having lived to a ripe age.
    Over the heaped and steaming plates, one by one,
    heads bow, eyes close; the blessings are said.

    Here there is good will; here peace
    on earth, among the leafy greens, among the fruits
    of the gardens of America’s heartland. Here is abundance,
    here is the promised
    land of milk and honey, out of which
    a flank of the fatted calf, thick still
    on its socket and bone, rises like a benediction
    over the loaves of bread and the little fishes, belly-up in butter.

    This Tiny Love Story from today’s NYT is by Christine Oh. It’s called “Waiting For My Mother’s Hymn.”

    The walls in our house couldn’t muffle my parents’ fights. My father had a temper, and I doubt my mother ever won. At the end of each argument, she would resume her chores while quietly singing the same hymn. I’d wait for her to start singing: my own reassuring ritual that all was well. Years later, I overheard my mother tell a friend that she sang that hymn whenever she was at her lowest. She passed away last year. I never got to tell her that during her saddest times, as she sang to console herself, she gave me comfort too.

    In the NYT book review section today there’s a review of two books with cats. On “Kafka on the Shore,” by Haruki Murakami, Joumana Khatib tells us that one of the characters is an older man who gained the ability to speak with cats. Crazy things happen and there’s a terrible cat murderer the man learns about from a cat. Khatib writes: “These dialogues can stray into Jellicle territory . . . but occasional inane cat talk is a minor complaint. When nearly everything in a story is a puzzle or semaphoric contradiction, plain-spoken discussions about the deliciousness of tuna come as a relief.”

    [FYI: “Jellicle cats” are briefly mentioned in T. S. Eliot’s 1933 poem “Five-Finger Exercises,” although they are not described until Eliot’s poem “The Song of the Jellicles,” depicting the cats as commonly nocturnal, black and white, scruffy cats. Eliot specifically mentions how they gather at an event called the “Jellicle Ball.” The name “Jellicle” comes from Eliot’s unpublished poem “Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats”, where “Pollicle dogs” is a corruption of “poor little dogs” and “Jellicle cats” of “dear little cats.” (Wikipedia)]

    Here’s a good-looking couple.

    That’s Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed. Hubby Ian popped in to the puzzle today way down at 126A: “Actor Somerhalder.” Some of you may recognize him from his role in the TV series Lost (2004-2010). He was the first major character to die, although, in the spirit of Easter Sunday, he returned for seven episodes post-mortem including the series finale. Wife Nikki also acts. They have two kids. Her mom was Cherokee/Italian and her dad Jewish, and she identifies as Jewish. Baruch Hashem! (Praise the Lord.)

    The puzzle nailed me today at the cross of 118A: “Mother of Perseus” with 109D: “RNA base.” In crosswordspeak, those are two WOES (what on earth?) forming a Natick. For Mother of Perseus my best guess would be Mrs. Perseus, but it’s DANAE. And RNA base is URACIL.

    I liked 49A where the clue was “Honcho,” and the answer was NABOB. No indication of any nattering.

    Now I’m going to repeat a song by The Cure that we shared a while ago because I love it and it’s joyous. At 102A, the clue was “Smitten person’s declaration,” and the answer was (sigh) I’M IN LOVE. Turn it up!!

    We learned a new word today: DRUPE. The clue was “Peach or plum, botanically.” Drupe means: a fleshy fruit with thin skin and a central stone (pit) containing the seed, e.g., a plum, cherry, almond, or olive.

    A Rex commenter today went by the nom de plume of Donatello Nobody. Coulda been head of security on Car Talk. Remember their great staff names? Staff swimsuit designer: C. Bigbe Hinds was my favorite. Also loved Staff Butler: Mahatma Coat, and Staff Chauffeur: Pikup Andropov.

    What do you get when you combine Rogaine and Viagra?

    Answer: Don King.

    Commenter Nancy shared with us that she’s going in for cataract surgery tomorrow. I wished her well and told her my wife had that same procedure. It improved her vision so much that she’s leaving me.

    Sometimes, when I’m flipping around TV channels I fall upon a show on one of the food channels called Man vs. Food. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine. A nice guy named Casey (or Adam in earlier seasons) takes on food challenges offered by various eateries around the land — giant 5-lb burgers, or ice cream mountains, or huge burritos. If he can devour it all, Man wins. If time runs out, Food wins. A small local crowd cheers him on.

    I was watching it the other day when the challenge was for Casey to drink three giant-sized ice cream shakes. As he was downing the first, I realized I had seen that episode before. (Man won.) Here’s a good rule of thumb: You know you may not be making the most of your retirement years when you’re sitting on your fat tuchas watching repeats of some poor slob shoving massive amounts of food down his gullet. Oy.

    As commenter Andrew said: Happy Easter every bunny!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Shazam!

    A baseball curmudgeon might say “Business as usual” at Wrigley Field yesterday when the Cubs took a 7-1 lead into the top of eighth only to emerge down 11-7. Ouch. A ten spot. But they came back to score six runs of their own in the bottom of the eighth and won 13-11. (Check my math.) And that’s not even the story.

    The story is the sixteen total runs scored by Chicago and ‘Zona in that inning set the all-time record for most runs scored in Wrigley in an inning. Since W opened way back in 1914 (and became the Cubbies’ home in 1916), that’s saying something. The previous high was fifteen (duh) set in the fourth inning on 8/25/1922 when the Phillies scored a run in the top half and Chicago answered with fourteen.

    Remember Bo Derek? She was sort of, not really, in the puzzle today via adjacent answers: DEREK (clued via Derek and the Dominoes) and BOO (surprising outburst).

    She was the hottest hottie when she first emerged in the mid-1970s. According to Wikipedia: Her breakthrough performance came in the romantic comedy film “10” (1979), which cemented her status as a sex icon and mainstream celebrity. The role earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year – Actress.

    Her acting career did not exactly take off after that. She “won” the Worst Actress of the Year award in 1982, 1985, and 1991, and the Worst Actress of the Decade award in 1990. She was nominated for Worst Actress of the Century in 2000, but lost out to Madonna. It’s not as awful as it seems — some pretty good actresses got nominations here and there for individual dogs, including Helen Mirren for her role as Hespera in Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), and Anne Hathaway for roles in two films in 2020: The Witches, and The Last Thing He Wanted.

    Look — if it were so easy to be an actress, everyone would want to be one.

    Wait, what?

    Bo is 68 now and married to actor John Corbett. They’ve been seeing each other since 2002 and finally got married in 2020. Many would say JC is also a “10.” Bo never had kids.

    At 57A, “Unwritten reminder” was MENTAL NOTE. Commenter Nancy took credit for this quip: “A mental note isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” It reminded me of a New Yorker cartoon by Ziegler I loved from years ago (when they were funny).

    At 17A, a “Post meeting to-do” is an ACTION ITEM. Turn it up!!

    By 1935, Mae West was said to be the second-highest-paid person in the U.S., after William Randolph Hearst. After writing and starring in “Diamond Lil” on Broadway in 1928, she went to Hollywood, got a part in “Night After Night,” and was allowed to rewrite her scenes. In one, a hat-check girl says to her: “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!” and West replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.”

    But we mention MW because on this date in 1927 she was sentenced to ten days in jail for starring in the play “Sex,” which she also wrote and directed. It had been playing for 41 weeks before the cops arrested the cast and crew for “producing an immoral show and maintaining a public nuisance.” West described it as being “about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.” West was the only arrestee sent to prison.

    In jail, West was forced to turn over her silk stockings (gasp!), but allowed to keep her silk underwear (whew). She had a private cell, and charmed the warden and his wife so much that they invited her to eat dinner with them in their home each night. She was released two days early for good behavior.

    The woman could wear a hat. We’ll give her that.

    At 26D, “Meanders” was ROVES. It crossed 38A where “Mourns” was GRIEVES.

    The Gnats, in need of a laugher, seemed to have one in hand, going into the bottom of the 7th in Colorado up 12-2. But the Rockies rocked and rolled and before you knew it, the lead was down to 12-10. Gulp. Cut to the bottom of the ninth. It’s still 12-10. Gnats manager Davey Martinez calls for closer Kyle Finnegan. At the same time, I call for Linda to get me my heart pills. We like Kyle. He’s a Detroit boy, an All-Star last year, and he gets the save more often than not, but not before sending us all to the cardiologist.

    He walks the first batter. D’oh! But then he strikes out the next two. Yay! Just as we’re apologizing for doubting him, the next batter slashes a triple to right. It’s 12-11 now, and the tying run is on third. I start slamming my head into the wall in a show of support. It worked! — strike three called — game over. Never in doubt!

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads!

  • Mnemosyne

    In the puzzle today, at 56A the clue was “Toward that place, quaintly,” and the answer was THITHER. I posted the following on Rex’s blog:

    Have you seen my zither?

    Thither.

    Right, my zither. Have you seen it?

    Thither.

    Yes. Do you know where it is? My zither.

    Thither.

    (Continue in this vain until tired.)

    [Low-hanging fruit, I know, but someone had to do it.]

    The puzzle was brilliant, IMO. The idea was “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” First, the grid used the black squares to form the picture of a tree, see below. Then in six places an answer was short one letter that was represented by a tree. And the shortened word was separately the name of a tree! So, e.g., where the answer was ELMO, you filled in only ELM and it was followed by a square with a little tree in it. For the answer RASH, you left the R out and got an ASH tree, and so on, six times. And the six “missing letters,” in order, spelled FOREST. Wow.

    Amazingly, this was the debut puzzle of the brother duo, Ilan and Shimon Kolkowitz, one a doctor and the other some type of scientist.

    Many years ago I won a bet with a then-brother-in-law who was certain the expression was “can’t see the forest ‘from’ the trees.” Idiot.

    Impossible not to include this song at this point.

    At 34D the “start of a children’s book series” was ARNIE the Doughnut. An anthropomorphic chocolate-frosted sprinkle doughnut named Arnie? OK, I’ll bite.

    I harbor no ill will towards Gnats pitcher Jorge Lopez. In fact, I wish him and his family nothing but the best. His wife Karla and he have a son Mikael who suffers from a rare condition known as Familial Mediterranean fever and is waiting for a small intestines transplant. But meanwhile Jorge’s not doing himself any favors.

    Back on 5/29/24, playing for the Mets, on his way to the dugout after being ejected from the game, he threw his glove into the stands and untucked his shirt (gasp!). He then called the Mets “the worst team in all of fucking MLB” and they released him.

    The Gnats, who of late actually come closer to that description than those Mets did, picked him up in January for $3 million. He’s made 8 appearances so far and has not hit stride. ERA of 10.57. And last night after hitting Pirate Brian Reynolds with a pitch, he threw one that appeared headed towards Andrew McCutchen’s noggin. He was ejected and faces a 3-game suspension.

    C’mon buddy, pull it together. Jorge was an all star back in 2022. He’s 32 now — can still crank out a few good years.

    Here’s Gnats’ catcher Keibert Ruiz telling Lopez to calm down and keep his shirt tucked in before the benches cleared last night.

    Gnats lost 6-1. D’oh! Lost again today, 1-0. Ever get that queasy feeling?

    Things almost got out of hand on Rex’s blog today. First there was this snippy comment:

    Two answers that annoyed me, as a person who actually knows things instead of having accumulated lists of crossword answers in the back of my brain. The muse of Memory is Mnemosyne: Not MNEME. And the LOTUS, in general, is a water lily, not a tree. Harumph.

    Kitshef replied: Mnemosyne was a goddess, rather than a muse. She was the mother of the nine Olympian muses. Mneme was one of the three muses according to Varro. (There are different numbers of muses, and with different names, according to different authors.)

    And yes, there is a LOTUS that is a flowering aquatic plant, but also a lotus tree, again from Greek mythology. The lotus-eaters from the Odyssey were eating lotus trees.

    Whatsername added the following, for good measure:

    My knowledge of trees is very basic, but where I grew up in mid-Missouri, there were LOTUS TREES in our front yard. They were tall and slender with rough bark and exquisite smelling white blossoms which were always covered with bees. I’ve no idea what the scientific name for them is but that’s what they were commonly called.

    Finally, ChrisS blew me away with this:

    The Lotus tree, native to the Mediterranean area, is not one I was familiar with. I do know of lotus-eaters from Greek myth but did not know they were eating this tree. The Lotus tree is related to the Jujube tree, the fruit of which were an ingredient in the olden days candy Jujubes.

    Jujubes! Wow. That takes me back.

    Armas — you have these growing up in Cuba? Not too good for your teeth.

    Can’t top candy and Ana de for a send-off. See you tomorrow. Thanks for popping by.

  • More Tea, Vicar?

    This quote is from USA Today (yesterday).

    “He’s always looking to purchase missiles,” Trump said of Zelenskyy. “When you start a war, you’ve got to know that you can win the war, right? You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

    Wait, what?

    So Trump is saying Z started the war and then brands him as an idiot for starting it.

    But he didn’t.

    One of my (few) memories from when I was a little boy is riding in the back seat of the family car with my dad driving. He was a terrible driver and he blew through a stop sign or a red light. A city bus was going through the intersection and I remember watching it screech to a halt so it wouldn’t hit us. The driver got out of the bus and reamed out my dad. “I’ve got thirty riders on that bus! — and you’ve got a car full of people!! — do you realize what would have happened if it hit you??!!” He went on like that for a bit, all about what a disaster it would have been if the bus hit us. When the tirade finally subsided, my dad, looking a little sheepish, just said: But it didn’t.

    Is there no end to the ineptitude of this administration? When the Ohio State footballers were invited to the White House to celebrate their national championship, Ohioan JD Vance, attempting to pick up the trophy, dropped it and broke it. That’s him on the right. Put that in the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up dept. To his credit, he recovered the fumble.

    Of all the poems we have shared in 763 Owl Chatter posts (yikes!), I think this one has the best title. It’s called “Renewal.” It’s by Jeffrfey Harrison and is from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac.

    At the Department of Motor Vehicles
    to renew my driver’s license, I had to wait
    two hours on one of those wooden benches
    like pews in the church of Latter Day
    Meaninglessness, where there is no
    stained glass (no windows at all, in fact),
    no incense other than stale cigarette smoke
    emanating from the clothes of those around me,
    and no sermon, just an automated female voice
    calling numbers over a loudspeaker.
    And one by one the members of our sorry
    congregation shuffled meekly up to the pitted
    altar to have our vision tested or to seek
    redemption for whatever wrong turn we’d taken,
    or pay indulgences, or else be turned away
    as unworthy of piloting our own journey.
    But when I paused to look around, using my numbered
    ticket as a bookmark, it was as if the dim
    fluorescent light had been transformed
    to incandescence. The face of the Latino guy
    in a ripped black sweatshirt glowed with health,
    and I could tell that the sulking white girl
    accompanied by her mother was brimming
    with secret excitement to be getting her first license,
    already speeding down the highway, alone,
    with all the windows open, singing.

    Where ya gonna go for your kicks? How about Route 66?

    The puzzle yesterday took us down CEREAL AISLES. At 4D, the clue was “Came out in favor of a certain breakfast product?,” and the answer was ENDORSED CHEX. (Get it?) At 8D, for “Sugary bulk breakfast purchase?” it was WHOLE BAG OF TRIX. And at 14D, “Doing some shopping for breakfast?” was GETTING ONE’S KIX.

    Commenter Andrew shared this great oldie with us:

    At 60A the clue was “Nelson’s blood.” Did you know it’s a term for rum?

    Per Wikipedia, A Drop of Nelson’s Blood is a sea shanty, also known as Roll the Old Chariot Along. The origins are unclear, but the title comes from the line: “A drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm.” Following his victory and death at the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson’s body was preserved in a cask of brandy or rum for transport back to England. “Nelson’s blood” became a nickname for rum, but it can also mean Nelson’s spirit or bravery. The shanty was sung to accompany certain work tasks aboard sailing ships, especially those that required a bright walking pace.

    Philip Gleeson of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) wonders: When I burp in private I still excuse myself. Is this normal/common?

    Someone incredibly named Treasaigh Dubhthaigh said: I do it too and thought it was normal. Is it not?

    Sophie Aldus: Yup. I do the same. Conversely, I know someone who does huge Simpsons-esque burps in company and never bothers. Have we solo self-excusers used up all the manners?

    Sarah Stockwell: I excuse myself when I sneeze in my car.

    Ian Taylor: It’s the law.

    Andrew Green: I still shout “More tea, Vicar?”

    [OC Note: Have you heard that expression (More tea, Vicar?)? It’s British. It’s what you say in a social setting to distract from something boorish someone did like burp (or worse).]

    I took me 75 years to make a good brisket. Not that it aged for that long, although I did. I found the simple recipe in Kosher by design Entertains, by Susie Fishbein. It’s so easy, it’s ridiculous. Here’s all I did. Buy a 5.5 brisket at Costco. Lop off some of the fat and throw it at passersby. Flop the brisket into a big pot (our largest brown Le Creuset) on top of some oil. Season it with pepper and give it a few minutes on each side.

    Throw in a sliced onion and big chunks of potatoes and carrots. Poor a 12 oz can of beer over it all. (I used a Straub’s amber, brewed in St. Mary’s, PA, picked up locally on a trip to MI.) Dump in a 24 oz jar of salsa, medium, not mild.

    That’s it. I swear. Just simmer it covered for 4 hours. Let it rest a bit. Slice it up and let it sit, sliced, in all the liquid that formed. We ate it 4 days later. Tender and tasty.

    It’s why we escaped from Egypt. To eat brisket.

    See you tomorrow!