The Wellington Files

  • Juliet Is The Sun

    We’re hitting the road this week. Driving the old Odyssey out to Sam and Sarah’s. We sold it to their friends Elizabeth and Richard from Chicago who are having twins, and two + one = need an Odyssey. Richard will fly out to Michigan to pick it up, and we’ll rent a car to drive home. It’s got 98K miles on it, but is riding very well. Body beat to shit (Caitlin’s adventures, don’t ask). I’m just happy to stop paying insurance on it. But enough about me.

    This Tiny Love Story from today’s NYT is by Julie Taylor and is called “An Enduring Luster.”

    One of the first things Jay told me was, “I love your hair.” It was 1995, and it was inky black from drugstore dye. After I got my first magazine job, it was colored red in a Madison Avenue salon. When we married, it was twisted in perfect ringlets. After two children, it was in a ponytail 24/7. In our L.A. years it was straightened weekly at a blow-dry bar. During the pandemic, it turned silver. And when it fell out in chunks last month after chemo, it was shaved off by my husband, who said, “I love you without hair.”

    I was just remarking to Linda the other day that I wondered if there was enough warbling going on in the world. I mean, when’s the last time you warbled?

    This story is from today’s Met Diary. It’s by Shelley Russell.

    Dear Diary:

    It was a bright clear morning in Manhattan. I was visiting from Arkansas, helping my college daughter settle into a summer program. While she was in class, I explored the city.

    Wandering through Bryant Park, I spied a crowd of people with their phones out and all pointed in one direction. Some of them were cradling large cameras with long lenses.

    I hurried over, eager for a celebrity sighting. The phones and lenses were angled downward at a cluster of bushes near the carousel.

    The crowd spoke in hushed tones. I was confused.

    “What’s going on?” I whispered to a particularly intense young man with a huge camera. His face was aglow.

    “It’s amazing!” he said. “The mourning warbler. We don’t usually see him here!”

    He lowered his camera, eager to show me shots of the small, brightly colored songbird. He explained its migratory pattern, its unique features and our stellar luck at being able to witness him.

    I nodded gratefully, tickled at his joyous rapture over this avian miracle. He returned to his focus, kneeling for more shots.

    A woman joined us.

    “What is all this business?” she asked, her Australian accent evident.

    “It’s the mourning warbler!” I said, having caught the enthusiasm. “It’s amazing!”

    Anybody have any problems with this poster from a classroom?

    Hard to imagine, right? I mean, if you had to check off boxes that said “Controversial” or “Not controversial,” would you have trouble picking one? Of course not.

    And yet a sixth grade teacher in Meridian, Idaho, Sarah Inama, was ordered to take it down by her school district. Her principal cited district policy that classrooms must respect the rights of people to express differing opinions and that decorations are to be “content-neutral.” What?

    Now, Sarah’s a reasonable and logical person. So she thought it through. It didn’t strike her as very complicated:

    “There are only two opinions on this sign: Everyone is welcome here or not everyone is welcome here,” she says. “Since the sign is emphasizing that everyone, in regards to race or skin tone, is welcome here no matter what, immediately, I was like, the only other view of this is racist. And I said, ‘That sounds like racism to me.’”

    Yup. Us too.

    Nevertheless, she took the sign down as she was directed to. But over the weekend she found it impossible to live with herself, and she and her husband took it to the school and hung it back up. She has been advised that she may be fired.

    She had meetings with district officials so they could explain the school policy to her. “The more we talked about it, the more it just solidified,” she says. “It seems so gross what they’re asking me to compromise about. I mean, there’s no way you’ll convince me that the differing view they’re trying to protect of that sign is not racist.”

    Here’s the district’s position:

    “Classrooms are places where students learn to read, write, think critically and build the skills needed for future success. While classroom decorations can contribute to the atmosphere, a truly welcoming and supportive environment is built through meaningful relationships and positive interactions between staff and students, not posters on the walls. Our focus is on fostering kindness, respect and academic achievement so that every student can thrive in a distraction-free learning environment.

    “This policy is designed to maintain consistency across all classrooms while ensuring that no one group is targeted or offended by the display of certain items. While we respect individuals’ rights to express their perspectives, it is important to reaffirm that this situation is not about limiting speech or expression but about ensuring consistency in our classrooms and maintaining a learning environment free from distraction.”

    Got a shovel? Fifty bucks to anyone who can find a bigger pile of horseshit.

    George! Make sure there’s enough Fresca in the fridge. We’re having some people over later to welcome Sarah into the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame. How are we on chips?

    If you were wondering what integrity, courage, and principles look like:

    In the puzzle today, at 87A, the clue was “Metaphor for Juliet, in Romeo’s soliloquy,” and I’m proud that I remembered SUN.

    But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
    It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

    (Sigh. Young love.)

    I think that was what led Commenter Son Volt to share this pretty song with us. It’s by Iron and Wine and is called “Sunset Soon Forgotten.”

    Oh, and here’s Juliet now. You were in the puzzle today, J!

    Listen, it’s probably the least of your worries, but that sill looks like it could use a little caulking or something. Just sayin’. If the rain starts seeping through you’re f*cked. Believe me, I’ve been there, in the Brooklyn house. Until we figured out what it was I wanted to kill myself. Oops. Sorry.

    ODE is a very common XW answer. It was clued today with “Composition of Catullus in ancient Rome,” which upset one Anony Mouse:

    “I am a Latin teacher and I never think of Catullus as writing ‘odes,’ even if there are addressees. We are far more likely to talk about his hendecasyllabics or elegiac couplets, or the epyllion that is poem 64.”

    For sure! The epyllion. Thanks, Mouse!

    For every poem I share here in Owl Chatter there are about twenty that don’t grab me. I’m going to start sharing pieces of those. Sort of my own personal Bulwer-Lytton contest. Here’s a snippet from a rejection today:

    Like priestly imprisoned poets,         
    the poplars of blood have fallen asleep.
    On the hills, the flocks of Bethlehem                  
    chew arias of grass at sunset.    

    [I swear I did not make that up.]

    I don’t know, kids. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

    Let’s hope for the best and leave it at that. Thanks for popping by. See you next time!

  • Put Me In, Coach

    Meet Buddy, the lettuce-eating dog. He’s buddies with Owl Chatter friend Pennsylvania Nancy (and Eric) and he’s in a beauty contest. Should be a slam dunk, no? Got my vote.

    David Brooks had so many zingers yesterday. Trump has really made him jaunty. I sent this one to Frank Bruni: “One of the reasons MAGA conservatives admire Putin is that they see him as an ally against their ultimate enemy — the ethnic studies program at Columbia.”

    I also liked: “As America withdraws its security umbrella, nations around the world, from Poland to even Japan, will conclude that they need nuclear weapons. What could go wrong?”

    Last one, I promise: “I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist.”

    That last one reminded me of when Bill Parcells became the coach of the Jets and Linda insanely grabbed at a smidgeon of optimism. Not me. I said, “God can take over as coach and they’d still go 5 and 11.”

    In yesterday’s puzzle, for the clue “Bench press?,” the answer was PUT ME IN, COACH. Great answer but the clue seemed a bit clunky to me. It’s a guy on the bench pressing the coach to put him in.

    Commenter PH noted: “Leroy Hoard was a former running back (1990-99 Browns/Vikings). He once said, ‘Coach, if you need 1 yard, I’ll get you 3 yards. If you need 5 yards, I’ll get you 3 yards.’ I don’t why I love that quote so much, but I do.” [OC note: LH played college ball at UMich.]

    Egs had an alternate clue: The response to “Sir, we are able to offer you an upgrade to first class. You’ll be sitting next to Marjorie Taylor Green.” PUT ME IN COACH.

    He was also “tickled to report that at my granddaughter’s Friday assembly, a fourth grader recited Pi to 50 decimal places! The sequence was projected onto a wall behind him so that we could verify his recitation as it went. “

    Happy Pi Day folks (yesterday, 3/14). Einstein’s birthday too, of course.

    An odd flare up occurred over REOS. Rex started it:

    As clued, REOS is terrible (16D: “Classic pickup lines, familiarly”). REO is a “line” (of motor vehicle), but REOS are not “lines,” just as FORD is a line of car but FORDS are not “lines” (they’re part of the same, single line: FORD).

    Then, Jim M wrote:

    I think the lines on the REO Speedwagon pickup are the flair of the fenders, etc. Classic design.

    Anonymous I: Absolutely not. There has to be correspondence between clue and answer. You’re talking about a “feature” of the REOS. The clue is saying the lines “are” the REOS.

    Anonymous 2: I disagree. The most interesting clues are not A = B, but ones that make you think, “Ah, that’s what they meant.” REO Speedwagons were designed with memorable body lines, as opposed to, say, a new utilitarian looking Ford F-150.

    Anonymous 1: Anonymous 2, there’s no basis for disagreement. You’re simply wrong. “Lines” is the main part of speech in the clue. It’s a plural noun. So the answer has to be a plural noun that = “lines.” So REOS *are* the “lines.” Clue would have to be rewritten to have your meaning.

    Jim M again: If the constructor used “lines” to mean vehicle models or manufacturers, then the constructor erred in the verb tense. If (design) lines were meant, then I believe that “REOs” works just fine as an answer. The plural works here as there were several classic REO Speedwagon designs.

    [What?]

    Let me tell you something folks. As a Jets fan, I don’t need another reason to hate Bill Belichick. But have you seen his girlfriend? He’s 72 years old. She can’t even spell her name: Jordon. She’s exactly one-third his age.

    Just kidding. Have a good time, kids. Life’s too short.

    In today’s puzzle, at 26A, “Irish actor who was nominated for a Golden Globe for 2023’s Saltburn” was BARRY KEOUGHAN. That was rough. I needed a lot of crosses. But I should have remembered him from Banshees. It netted him a well-deserved Oscar nom.

    In one scenes he professes his love for Kerry Condon and she so sweetly has to say no.

    Here’s Kerry’s Criterion Closet video. Rex called it his “favorite of all time—charming and funny and sincere, full of genuine, unaffected love of movies—a real model of the form.”

    Do you know about the Criterion Closet? I was today years old when I learned about it. Here — this is from Wikipedia:

    The Criterion Closet is a film closet owned and stocked by The Criterion Collection, a home video distribution company based in NYC with a specific emphasis on licensing, restoring, and distributing “important classic and contemporary films.” Located in their office, the film closet contains every title distributed by Criterion, totaling over 1,700 films. It was formerly a “disused bathroom” before being re-tooled to a film closet.

    In 2010, director Guillermo del Toro visited the Criterion office, during which he was filmed making his selections from the Criterion Closet; there, he made picks such as The Red Shoes by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Crumb by Terry Zwigoff, and Paths of Glory by Stanley Kubrick. Since then, Criterion has filmed over two hundred individuals visiting and making their own selections from the Criterion Closet in a video series called Closet Picks; past visitors have included Bill Hader, Martin Scorsese, Park Chan-wook, Cate Blanchett, Bong Joon-ho, Ayo Edebiri, and many others.

    Here’s a nice shot of CB. Thanks, Phil!

    At 24A, “Drink akin to a Moscow mule” was DARKNSTORMY. Wow, five consonants in a row. It reminded many of the famous worst first sentence “It was a dark and stormy night. . . . ” Up until this year, the English Dept of San Jose State U held the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest, in which contestants had to compose the worst first sentence of a novel. The contest was started in 1982 by Prof. Scott E. Rice of the department and was named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who wrote the novel Paul Clifford (1830) that opens with:

    It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

    The first year of the competition attracted just three entries, but it went public the next year, received media attention, and attracted 10,000 entries. It expanded into subcategories, such as detective fiction, romance novels, Western novels, and purple prose. Sentences that were notable but not quite bad enough to win were awarded Dishonorable Mentions.

    This is the winner from 2023: She was a beautiful woman; more specifically she was the kind of beautiful woman who had an hourlong skincare routine that made her look either ethereal or like a glazed donut, depending on how attracted to her you were.

    A Lyttle Lytton contest is still in operation. It was started in 2001 by a writer, Adam Cadre. Entries are limited to 25 words. Here’s the winner for 2024, by Erin McCourt: He slammed the door in my face, loud and sharp, like an acoustic lemon. 

    The puzzle today is by Ryan McCarty, and there are many fresh, clever clues/answers in it:

    First, 2D and 3D, right next to each other, are AMNESIAC and WHYWORRY?

    35D: “Whiny comeback to a certain parent.” Answer: BUT DAD.

    14D: “Code group.” Answer: ZONING BOARD. Get it? Building codes.

    18D: “Something legally defined in the U.S. as affecting fewer than 200,000 people.” RARE DISEASE.

    7A: “Cozier alternatives to motels.” Answer: BANDBS. You usually see it as B&Bs. It’s called an ampersandwich, according to Rex.

    At 41D, “‘If you squint, maybe’” was a great clue for SORTA.

    Whew. That’s enough nonsense for me, for now. Kerry’s going to send us off today.

    Thanks Babe. George! Get the girl a Diet Pepsi – where are your manners?

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.

  • Chips and Salsa

    Headlines from The Onion:

    Flesh-Eating Bacteria Wishes It Hadn’t Filled Up On Foot

    Cracks In Facade Visible As Teen Enters Third Day Vacationing With Friend’s Family

    Major league ballplayer Frank Saucier died last week at age 98. He has the strangest claim to fame. He was an outfielder with the St. Louis Browns in 1951. I was only one year old at the time but I remember it clearly. (No I don’t.)

    Saucier won three batting titles in the minors, but his MLB career was derailed by an injury and service in the navy. He had only 18 plate appearances for the Browns, getting only one hit, a double, and batting .071. But the reason we are writing about him in Owl Chatter is what happened on August 19, 1951, during a double-header between the Browns and the Detroit Tigers. St. Louis was one of the worst teams in the league when Bill Veeck became their chief owner that July. To draw fans to the park, he announced special festivities would take place on Aug. 19 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the American League.

    Between games, a parade of vintage 1901 cars took place, and Max Patkin, the baseball clown, put on a show. Last, Eddie Gaedel, who was 3 feet 7 inchies tall popped out of a large (paper) cake wearing a Browns uniform with the number 1/8.

    In the second game of the doubleheader, Saucier was the lead-off batter for STL in the bottom of the first, but he was called back and little Eddie Gaedel walked towards the plate. The umpire, Ed Hurley, said Eddie couldn’t bat, but manager Zack Taylor showed him the contract that was secretly signed earlier and Hurley said okay. Gaedel had a little bat (see below), and, taking no chances, went into a crouch. Detroit pitcher Bob Cain walked him on four pitches. Jim Delsing pinch ran for Gaedel and took over in right field for Saucier. Bob Swift was the Tiger catcher. Two days later, AL President Will Harridge voided the contract, under baseball’s “no fun” rule.

    Saucier was born on a farm outside Leslie, MO, in 1926, and died in Amarillo, TX. He is survived by his children, John and Sarah, two granddaughters, and four great grandchildren, all of normal height. He wrote a memoir in 1997 in which he wrote, “Eddie’s antic was the funniest thing I ever saw.”

    Rest in peace Frank.

    My collection already includes index cards signed by Saucier and Bob Swift. I’m going to try to pick up the autographs of Cain, Delsing, and Taylor to complete the story. None is very rare or valuable. Gaedel’s, however, is very rare, and would cost thousands. Ump Hurley is pretty rare too and would run in the $500 – $750 range.

    To my great shame, I was unable to finish yesterday’s puzzle — a Wednesday no less. I did not know the wicked witch of the west is ELPHABA. Did you know it comes from the name of the author of the Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum?

    I was also completely lost at 45A: “Crazy, sexy or cool: Abbr.” Answer: ADJ. Srsly? WTF?? Turns out all three (crazy, sexy, and cool) are adjectives. And the abbreviation, of course, is ADJ. (Boo.) It didn’t help that the A came from 29D: “Sprinkled with seasoning, in Italian.” What?? SALATA. Of course. (How do you say “boo” in Italian?)

    47A was from outer space too: “Boolean operators denoted by v-like symbols.” Answer: ORS. Gimme a break. Commenter JJK asked: Does anyone who’s not an academic mathematician know this?

    Commenter Darren responded: Your question re: ORS reminds me of an old math joke. (Judy, take note!)

    Three mathematicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Would any of you like a beer?”
    The first mathematician replies, “I’m not sure.”
    The second chimes in, “I don’t know, either.”
    At which point the third mathematician says, “No, “

    In the same spirit, my answer to your question as to whether anyone who’s not an academic mathematician knows this is, “I don’t know.”

    Yesterday’s puzzle was a paean to women. It had a whole bunch of women, including Heidi Klum and folksinger Melanie, who, sadly, passed away last year. Here’s a shot of HK’s gorgeous daughter Leni, followed by a Melanie song, “Candles in the Rain.” Mel performed at 1am the first night at Woodstock (right before Arlo). The song was inspired by the candles lit by the audience and held up during her performance. Mel was born in Queens but moved with her family to Jersey, and I’m going to claim her as a Jersey Girl. She graduated from Red Bank HS in 1966, for cryin’ out loud, although she was barred from the graduation ceremony on account of an overdue library book (not kidding).

    I bet you know 44D: “TV series whose name is shown on a vanity license plate in its opening sequence.” LA LAW of course. In my Business Law class a student raised her hand and asked me about a legal situation that came up in the previous night’s episode of LA LAW. I fumbled through a pathetic attempt at an answer and finally gave up and said: “I usually do better on legal questions that arise in The Simpsons.”

    Rex Parker, whose blog on the daily NYTXW I read each morning, especially for the observations of the “Commentariat,” bills himself “the Greatest Crossword Solver in the Universe (when I co-solve with my wife)! (2017 Pairs Division Champions, Lollapuzzoola Crossword Tournament).” Even so, he is human. (Actually, Rex is not human — but his real name is Michael Sharpe, and he’s human.) And since he is human, he, like me, missed two key elements in the theme of today’s puzzle. Let me bore you with an explanation.

    The theme was revealed at 61A: “Commit a party foul, in a way.” The answer was DOUBLE DIP. And in five theme answers, you had to “dip” down twice and take letters from the answers below. For example, at 21A the clue was “Sorts with unruly hair.” And the answer was MOPEDS, which makes no sense, right? But in the word below it, there was an H in a triangle and an A in a circle. You dip down to get those, and mopeds becomes MOPHEADS. See? That happened five times. Okay, Rex and I got that far, but we missed two things: the triangle and circle represented the shapes of tortilla chips and salsa bowls for dipping. More importantly, the ten (5 + 5) letters in those shapes spelled out the words CHIPS and SALSA. Wow. Impressive craftsmanship (craftsmanchip?).

    Pursuant to a recent Executive Order, please delete the clue and answer at 32A from the puzzle today. Clue: “Identity associated with a blue, pink and white flag.” Answer: TRANS. (Good to see it in there, Rich Proulx and Simeon Seigel.)

    There’s a whole bunch of orientation flags. My favorites are “bear” and “leather.” Not kidding — take a look. Some folks even seem to have sex with cooking utensils!! Pansexuals. Linda caught me fooling around with the teakettle the other day.

    Didja see in the NYT today the Republican Chair of a House Subcommittee, Keith Self of Texas, referred to his colleague, Sarah McBride, who is trans, as Mr. McBride. McBride responded “Thank you, Madam Chair,” before proceeding, but Rep. William Keating, D-MA, was having none of it. He requested that Self repeat his introduction, which he did but still referred to Sarah McBride as “Mr. McBride.”

    “Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Keating fired back. “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I’ve come to know you a little bit. But this is not decent.”

    Self said it was time to continue the hearing. But Keating refused to let go.

    “You will not continue it with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way,” he said.

    With that, Self adjourned the session.

    It’s come to this.

    God Bless America.

    The Report from our Sports Consultant, Sarah Fillier of the NY Sirens of the Pro Women’s Hockey League was unusually brief: “Don’t ask.”

    It’s not that she had a bad night. She’s just a little embarrassed. The Sirens were playing the league-leading Montreal Victoire in Jersey, coming off an eight-game losing streak and mired in the cellar. Ouch. But they carried play in the first half, taking a 1-0 lead. The Victoire tied it early in the second half, but Sarah (or Filly, as the coach calls her) netted a sweet goal from the right side to regain the lead. So it was 2-1 NY heading into the third half.

    Then, disaster. It’s a physical game, even when played by the ladies. So Sarah’s stick might have come up a just a smidge high into a Montreal player’s face. Oopsies. She was called for a five-minute major misconduct penalty and tossed from the game. Yikes! Our Sarah!! With the woman advantage, the Victoire tied the game pretty quickly. Brilliant goaltending on both sides kept it 2-2 at the end of regulation play. Then things got happy: an exquisite goal by Maja Nylén Persson about 2 minutes into OT sent everyone home. Yay! The losing streak was over.

    Here’s Maja. She’s Swedish. No doubt her boyfriend (or girlfriend) calls her his/her little meatball.

    From Frank Bruni’s “For the Love of Sentences:

    In WAPO, Catherine Rampell explored the challenge of bringing down supermarket prices: “Importing more eggs has proved complicated, though, and so far there’s not much additional poultry in motion.”

    Sorry to end with this wrenching poem. But once I read it, I couldn’t unread it. It’s by Mosab Abu Toha and is called “[You were so small in my hands].”

    You were so small in my hands
    no shrapnel could hit you,
    but the dust and
    smoke of the bomb
    rushed into your lungs.
    No need for any gauze.
    They just closed your eyes.
    No need for any shroud.
    You were already
    in your swaddle blanket.

  • I Got Some Groceries

    I learned a bit about quarterback signals from an article in The Times this week, a topic we can pretty safely say is of interest to just about no one, and is thus perfect for us here in Owl Chatter. Tyler Bray was a QB with the pre-Mahomes, pre-Taylor Swift, KC Chiefs. During a practice, he signaled for a play using “White 80.” But head coach Andy Reid shook his head and walked over. He told Bray he “held his ‘white’ too long.” OK, so Bray switched to Green 80 but that was no good either, according to Reid. Blue did the trick. Blue 80 worked.

    Are these people insane? What the f*ck difference does it make what color they use when they have to release the ball in under 3 seconds prior to getting slammed into by 400-lb linemen bent on ripping them limb from limb? Turns out it’s all about “cadence.”

    QB signals go all the way back to 1882 when a Yale coach named Walter Camp drew up five signals for plays for the first time in history. He used random phrases. One was “Play up sharp, Charlie,” which meant a quick toss to an end for a sideline run. In either 1887 or 1889 (there is some dispute, don’t ask), signaling became numeric. A play would be called via a number in the huddle and the QB could yell plus or minus something to change it before the snap.

    That held into the 1950’s until a Notre Dame coach named Terry Brennan saw that too many mistakes were occurring, so he devised the color-number system which is still partly in use. Under it, a numbered play is called but with a color, like red 28. Red is the “live” color. At the line of scrimmage if he uses any color other than red, it’s just ignored and they run play #28. But if he yells “red” that means he’s changing the play to a new number. So “Red 17” means switch to play #17. Green, blue, or orange anything means stick with play #28.

    Okay, so if that’s the system, why did it matter, above, what color Tyler Bray used? Because in the modern pro game, the cadence in which the signals are expressed matters too. The rhythm and sound of the signals need to be just right: they control the timing and flow of the play. A back-up QB needs to learn the signals for the play but also needs to mimic the cadence of the starter. They need to practice getting it just right, like with a teammate or in front of a mirror. It’s like an actor delivering a line in a play. Different kind of play.

    Okay, Liveson, now get out there and let me see what you can do. Sure Coach!

    Eudora WELTY was in the puzzle today.

    Here’s a comment posted by Barbara S in its entirety. It’s a good example of why I love the Rex group.

    My favorite passage from The Optimist’s Daughter:

    When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sound of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams.

    Another passage from that book, which describes my life at the moment, goes like this:

    To have the past, and to have loved it, to know it exists in the present, not in the haunting shadows, not in memory, but alive beside me in this room.

    I’m currently in receipt of an enormous number of photographs taken over many years by my sister, who was an excellent photographer. She has Alzheimer’s disease and is in a care home, no longer able to appreciate her own wonderful visual legacy. Many of these photographs are in good order and well-organized, but I’m in the process of systematizing the rest, which has required me to take a deep dive into memory. Truly, studying these photographs is like travelling backward in time: the past reality they present is so real and so vivid, the dead they resurrect are so very much alive, that when I stop looking at them, I actually have to reorient myself to the present – metaphorically shake my head and slap my cheek. “Wake up, wake up, it’s 2025!”

    At 62A the clue was “Compliment on the green,” and the answer was NICE PUTT. Here’s what I posted for the gang:

    “Missed opportunity to see a NICE BUTT in the grid today. D’oh! So close.”

    Today’s theme was ACUPUNCTURE. The clue was “Traditional Chinese medicine component.” (General Tso’s Chicken didn’t fit.) The theme answers were: GET THE POINT, STAB IN THE BACK, and MOVE THE NEEDLE. Theme answers usually run across the grid, but these were down answers and the constructor, Jared Cappel, explained it was like they were needles being inserted into the patient. Jared is a serious Scrabble competitor ranked #4 in Canada. But that rank will have to be adjusted once the tariffs take hold.

    I shared this note with the gang:

    My late brother performed EMGs for a living — electromyography. It involved sticking very fine needles into the patient, giving a slight electrical jolt, and analyzing how the nerves responded. When a member of the NY Jets needed the test done, they used him. He was always amused to see a 350-lb lineman scared of the little needles. They would ask “Will this hurt, doc?” and his answer was invariably “I don’t feel a thing.”

    Laura Howarth, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted the following:

    Having flown a handful of times over the last 12 months with a very dull airline (name loosely rhymes with Lion Hair), I have a question which I’m hoping my fellow dull people can answer. On each and every flight there’s been an announcement “Today we have a passenger on board with a severe nut allergy, therefore please do not consume nuts while on this flight” (or words to that effect). Every flight. Are we being stalked by someone with a severe nut allergy I wonder? Or are there so many people with such an allergy that there is always one on every flight? Or, as I suspect, do they not have a clue about people’s allergies and just announce this to cover themselves just in case??

    Here are a few of the dullest comments:

    Gaz Trowell: I also fly a lot with the aforementioned terrible air line and they don’t always announce the nut allergy over the tannoy. [Tannoy? I had to look it up. It’s a type of public address system.]

    Laura: That means we’re being stalked then!!

    Avi Liveson: If you truly believe you are being stalked by a person with a nut allergy who means you harm, you should eat nuts to foil his or her plan. However, your doing so opens the risk of an innocent person dying if your stalking theory is off. Can you live with that on your conscience? I’m feeling a little bad just for making the suggestion.

    Adrian Bull: Maybe they have something on your passenger profile that says it’s you with the allergy?

    Laura: OMG! Never thought of that!

    Jason Andreoli: Never actually heard that announcement on said airline, however, on some routes they may do it as routine just in case and to ensure liability is covered.. Five Guys Burgers does something similar (although the polar opposite) by frying in peanut oil and having sacks of peanuts scattered around the floor to ensure nobody with an allergy and a brain cell ever gets near their produce. [Wow — never thought of that.]

    Mayblossom Stiffdog: Only way to prove this is to buy every ticket for a flight, you then being the only passenger on the flight and without such allergy will help to prove your point.

    Mark Hall: I can honestly say that in all my 63 years, I have never known anyone with a severe nut allergy.

    Gordon McGoochan: You are lucky. My daughter has a severe peanut and legume (soya, chickpeas etc.) allergy, even the smell of a peanut causes her throat to start closing. Once at school a classmate gave her a chocolate covered peanut for a joke, she went into immediate anaphylaxis and spent the night in hospital, it’s no fun for her and a constant worry for her mother and me.

    Mark: I don’t deny people have them and sincere sympathies to your daughter, it must be hard to go through life avoiding everything. I just haven’t met anyone personally.

    Gordon: Thank you, yes it is incredibly difficult, everything she eats has to be scrutinized in detail, things like pea or soya proteins, chickpea flour and anything cooked in peanut oil for example are all potentially fatal.

    Ian Frazier has a funny piece in The New Yorker of 3/17: “Prayers For Everyday Life.” Here’s a sampling:

    (Throughout the day)

    Oh, dear God,
    May I not have thrown away the
    Top to our sour cream.

    Oh, Jesus,
    Where did all that water in the
    Basement come from?

    (At the workplace)

    Dear God Almighty,
    Why hasn’t that idiot Liam been fired?

    (At the pharmacy)

    Oh, for God’s sake,
    You are not next in line.

    Here’s a fitting tune to send us off tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • The Comfort Of Their Silence

    Have to give credit to commenter Andrew for this one: “Say what you want about Elon, but DOGE has successfully cut down time waste – anyone else notice the number of hours in the day have been slashed by 4%, virtually overnight!?”

    The puzzle yesterday was all about famous headlines from the past, e.g., NIXON RESIGNS, and TITANIC SINKS. One of them was when NYC was facing bankruptcy and President Ford was hesitating to provide assistance. The classic NY Daily News headline was FORD TO NY: DROP DEAD. If you watched the recent SNL anniversary special, you may recall they played with that on a banner that read: NY TO FORD: WHO’S DEAD NOW?

    But by historical consensus the all-time best headline was in the NY Post of 4/13/1983, which the constructor, Michael Schlossberg, wisely included. A decapitated body was found in a city tavern. The headline was: Headless Body in Topless Bar. Interestingly, Vinnie Musetto came up with it, but the Post refused to run it until they could confirm it was in fact a topless bar. The bar was closed and phone calls to it went unanswered. They tried calling neighbors, but none could confirm. Finally, they sent someone down. She reported back that it was closed and was told to look through the windows. In doing so, she saw a sign near a stage that said: Topless Dancers. Bingo!

    Musetta had several other notable headlines to his credit, including: “Khadafy Goes Daffy” and “Granny Executed In Her Pink Pajamas.” But headless/topless cemented his place in history.

    At 43D the clue was “They’re known to open with some jokes,” and the answer was APRILS. (Think April Fools Day.)

    There is a daily “wordplay” column in the NYT that I should read religiously, but don’t. Yesterday it led me to this wonderful video on, perhaps, the greatest April Fools joke of all time: BBC’s report on the spaghetti harvest.

    At 84A the clue was “Headwear that’s stereotypically red.” Seven letters. The answer was FIRE HAT, but several folks admitted to thinking MAGA HAT first, vomitously. Puh-leeeze.

    This poem is from today’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s by David Shumate and it’s called “Chinese Restaurant.”

    After an argument, my family always dined at the Chinese
    restaurant. Something about the Orient washed the bitterness
    away. Like a riverbank where you rest for awhile. The owner
    bowed as we entered. The face of one who had seen too much.
    A revolution. The torture of loved ones. Horrors he would never
    reveal. His wife ushered us to our table. Her steps smaller than
    ours. The younger daughter brought us tea. The older one took
    our orders in perfect English. Each year her beauty was more
    delicate than before. Sometimes we were the only customers
    and they smiled from afar as we ate duck and shrimp with our
    chopsticks. After dinner we sat in the comfort of their silence.
    My brother told a joke. My mother folded a napkin into the shape
    of a bird. My sister broke open our cookies and read our fortunes
    aloud. As we left, my father always shook the old man’s hand.

    Who names their kid Conan? Whatever. It’s Celtic and means “little wolf.” O’Brien was in a clue in the puzzle today and it led guest blogger Eli to share this clip with us. It reminded me of a restaurant in Las Vegas (the downtown, not the Strip), where we had a great breakfast. There were shelves all around holding many many hot sauce bottles from all over the country. One was enwrapped in a black velvet bag, so you couldn’t even see it. Too dangerous, we supposed. We called it the “hot sauce of death” and imagined it could only be used in “last meals.” Anyway, the clip:

    I like Conan’s “don’t worry” at the end.

    The clue at 22D today was “Small duck.” Now it’s Monday, so we should know that. Four letters, so ducklet is out. Duck can’t be part of the answer anyway. Small duck — lunch portion? Too many letters. No idea. You got it? SMEW. Yes, that’s the answer — not a typo.

    Here’s a cute one:

    Commenter Gary was just as lost as me, and he was moved to poetry:

    Only a few know SMEW
    what, pray tell, can you
    tell me of this SMEW
    he’s not a woodland caribou
    covered in powdery mildew
    he’s not a judicial review
    or a system of connective tissue
    does he crow cock-a-doodle do
    or is he an apple from Peru
    should I consult a wandering Jew
    or box a tree kangaroo
    to learn of this SMEW
    does SMEW like tiramisu
    or live on Park Avenue
    will I meet a SMEW out of the blue
    while eating mulligan stew in Mogadishu
    is SMEW a celebrated Japanese yew
    growing in Kalamazoo with great hullabaloo
    can a SMEW earn revenue
    from his skills on a digeridoo
    are many SMEWS well to do
    or often named Bartholomew
    has he tried a true vindaloo
    while fighting the French at Waterloo?
    A duck say you a duck a duck!
    OHO! SMEW’S a duck? What the ….

    Our favorite commenter, egsforbreakfast, was off in Europe for a while. There were a few hairy moments during the flight home. “I can see the headline now,” I said to Mrs. Egs. “Regular Rex Parker Blogger, 318 Others Perish In Frigid Atlantic.”

    When I typed MAGA HAT above, I asked Phil what sort of people wear them, beyond the low-IQ morons you see interviewed on TV. Look whom he came up with — this woman is Jewish, 29 years old, a supporter of Ukraine, active in fighting anti-Semitism. She’s also a model and the national spokesperson for the GOP. She was married at Mar-a-Lago. Elizabeth Pipko. Say it ain’t so, Babe! Open those smoky eyes.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Tea Dresses

    Today’s puzzle by Joe Deeney is an amazing feat of construction, IMO. (Not to be confused with feet of construction, below.)

    Each corner had a “stack” of four ten-letter answers. And each stack had another crossing ten-letter answer that met in the center. Twenty ten-letter answers all perfectly interlaced in a spiral design. Bravo.

    At 38A, for “Common component of ranch dressing?” I first thought of mayonnaise, which is impossible to spell. It’s ten letters. But it was a trick question. The answer was STETSON HAT. (Get it? — what you’d be dressed in on a ranch.)

    Another cute one was at 22A: “Private agreement?” (The cute ones tip their hand with a question mark at the end.) This answer was YES SIR. It’s a private in the army, of course.

    You ladies may know what TEA DRESSES are, but I didn’t. The clue was “Garden party outfits often with floral patterns.”

    Phil! Where did you drag that poor girl? Is that Ukraine? You couldn’t find a garden somewhere? Are we going to get calls about this?

    The puzzle included a shout-out to LGBTQ activist CECE McDonald, whom I had never heard of under my rock. Cece is 35, from Chicago, and is a trans woman. In June of 2011 Cece and some friends were assaulted outside a bar in Minneapolis. Cece’s face was slashed by a broken glass and required stitches. She took a pair of scissors out of her purse and stabbed one of the men and killed him. Fearing a 20-year sentence, she pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter taking a three-and-a-half-year sentence.

    According to the Bay Area Reporter, her conviction “sparked outrage, and was viewed by many as an act of transphobia and racism against a woman who defended herself.” Although a woman, McDonald was housed in two men’s prisons. An online petition “led to the state department of corrections administering the full regimen of hormones she needed.” Her story received international attention and she was released after serving a year and a half.

    Articles in Ebony and Rolling Stone were written about her and a documentary was produced, Free Cece.

    This poem is by Billy Collins and is from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Osprey

    Oh, large brown, thickly feathered creature
    with a distinctive white head,
    you, perched on the top branch
    of a tree near the lake shore,

    as soon as I guide this boat back to the dock
    and walk up the grassy path to the house,
    before I unzip my windbreaker
    and lift the binoculars from around my neck,

    before I wash the gasoline from my hands,
    before I tell anyone I’m back,
    and before I hang the ignition key on its nail,
    or pour myself a drink—

    I’m thinking a vodka soda with lemon—
    I will look you up in my
    illustrated guide to North American birds
    and I promise I will learn what you are called.

    Ed Sylvester, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), posted this lovely note about his dad, with appropriate documentation, below.

    My Dad was the epitome of a Dull Man. He was on a mission to make the world a better place – writing letters to corporations highlighting their shortcomings.

    Just going through his stuff we’ve found this perfect example of dullness. The background is that he bought a pair of trousers from M&S, and discovered that the zip was shorter than he was used to – thus making the act of going for a wee a tiny bit more inconvenient.

    He wrote to them in early 2015, and received a suitably dull response confirming this was a ‘one off design fault’. You can see his delight in his notations on the letter ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes!’

    Emboldened by his victory, he then went back to the M&S store and discovered they were still selling the ‘faulty’ trousers. He wrote to M&S and demanded they take them off sale. They replied in June 2015 apologising and promising to look into it.

    Someone in his friendship group was also clearly traumatised by the issue, and it even made the news in the Daily Telegraph later that year.

    If there were no Dull Men holding these companies to account, we’d all be wearing trousers with zips too short. He’s not with us any more, but I hope his legacy lives on through other Dull Men.

    “This might come after the check” was a neat clue for MATE. But “Singer Dua” was pretty lame for LIPA. Did you know she is part British and part Albanian? Dua means love in Albanian. She was one of 186 signers of an open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the killing of civilians. Israeli music duo Ness & Stilla released the single “Harbu Darbu,” which called for Lipa’s death.

    This song, Levitating, was a massive hit for Dua a few years ago. Very sexy, but does she seem to be mailing it in at all? She took some grief a while ago for lackluster stage performances. I’d concede she’s not as electric as Jagger, whom we posted performing Start Me Up two days ago. But who is?

    Okay. I’m going to levitate my fat tuchas out of here now. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Ovals

    Sophie Aldus, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), asks this entirely theoretical question:

    If a person were to attempt a repair using superglue and get more superglue on their hand than on the object needing the repair, what might said entirely theoretical person do to remove it? For the purposes of this theoretical exercise, this person has misplaced their superglue remover and is currently unable to bend one of their fingers.

    Here are the dullest of the 82 comments:

    Neale Rumble: It will come off on its own.

    Ruth Hunt: The finger?

    Bob Lyons: A mate of mine had a similar issue when he tried to open a tube of superglue with his teeth.

    Stu Davies: Will the next question be “How does one remove superglue from a keyboard..?”

    Alison Ritchie: or how does one remove a keyboard from one’s hand?

    Rob Sancassani: Chainsaw.

    Vicky Gerard: They should, theoretically, entertain the masses by posting a video/photos of theoretically glued fingers…

    Bill Jeffs: Imagine (theoretically) being so benighted the first time you used super glue that you didn’t know you had to pierce the top, so you’ve got the object to be repaired in one hand and you (theoretically) keep squeezing the tube becoming impatient as no glue is forthcoming, so of course (theoretically) you squeeze more and harder…

    At some point the tube gives way, but not at the front of the tube: it (theoretically) makes a small hole at the back and is now jetting! over your (theoretical) self.

    Now imagine you have a big curious dog coming over wondering why you’re cursing and screaming and what those things are in your hands.

    (Theoretically) I had visions of rocking up to the ER trying to explain why I’ve a Weimaraner stuck to me…

    And then, theoretically, there’s this:

    Reuters reported this morning that Trump’s Department of Inhuman Affairs is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks and have temporary legal status in the U.S. These people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American to even come here. “This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty” Trump is inflicting on innocent people on Putin’s behalf. The NYT also states the State Department is making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe. 

    I saw Zelensky being interviewed by a foreign journalist the other day. The journalist said: “I heard you told Trump that Putin is afraid of him. Did you tell him that?” There was a long pause before Z answered. He was hesitating to admit he said that because it’s a preposterous statement. Putin, of course, has nothing but contempt for Trump whom he correctly views as a dimwitted lackey. And yet Z did tell Trump that as part of the flattering nonsense Trump laps up from everyone he deals with. Finally, Zelensky answered and said “Yes.” Then there was another pause and he added with a smile: “So now he knows.”

    Today’s poem-a-day from poets.org is by Laura Read. It’s called “Love Poem With Staples.”

    After the nurse has taken all the staples
    out of Brad’s new scar, he asks me how many
    there were, and I regret not counting.
    This is the seventh surgery
    since his accident fifteen years ago,
    the hardest except for the first
    because the doctor had to rebreak
    the bone and start over.

    We can rebuild him, we have the technology
    is something Brad likes to say
    because before all this,
    he was a boy in the 1970s
    who watched The Six Million Dollar Man.
    The morning of the accident, our sons
    were at swim lessons.
    I was watching Matthew’s round head
    as he did his bobs, the water slicking
    his hair to his face so he looked like
    he was being born.
    I never saw him like that since I’d had
    c-sections and my own staples.
    One of my last memories of Brad’s brother
    happened at Staples.
    They were leaving to drive across the country,
    and we were saying goodbye, and it was late
    and dark, but they were still going
    to try to make it to Montana,
    and of course before they left,
    they needed to print something at the last minute
    because for them time was always something
    you could make more of.
    We said goodbye under the red sign
    that said Staples, and this stapled itself
    to the moment so now when I drive by Staples,
    I think of Terry bending down to hug me
    for one of the last times before he died.
    Brad walked into this room
    on the same crutches he’s been using
    since the original accident.
    The handles are wrapped in blue tape,
    and parts of the gray cushions are flecking off.
    They are the Velveteen Rabbit of crutches.
    There are many ways to be broken,
    and Brad is all of them.
    After she was dead too,
    I read in my mother-in-law’s journal
    how grateful she was for me
    so Brad would not be alone.
    I thought how prescient because now
    it’s just me here with him, and the nurse
    who is funny and kind and fills up
    the room and makes us feel
    like things will be all right
    but is also almost done with the staples
    and on her way out.

    Today’s puzzle is by Malaika Handa who subs for Rex once a month. So I sort of feel like I know her a little which gives the puzzle some personality.

    Here’s a great clue for the simple word OVALS: “Slices of hard-boiled eggs, for instance.”

    But it got on John H’s goat. He wrote: NO ONE slices eggs on the long axis (making ovals). Egg slices are circles. [Hrummmmph!]

    Anon I shot back: No way! Ovals are used for salads all the time. Makes for the best distribution of yolk in every slice.

    And Anon II chimed in with a little edge to it: My egg slicer pretty much requires slicing on the long axis. But make your declarations, John.

    Potatoes have eyes, right? But dates don’t. That’s why they’re called BLIND DATES. Actually, the clue was “Some romantic setups.”

    And if you’re planning to wear your SUNDRESS to that date (“Sleeveless summer attire”), you might want to go in for a BRA FITTING. Just sayin’. (“Service for someone who needs support?”) And don’t even think of a visit to the DONUT SHOP till it’s over (“Enterprise with many holes in its business plan?”), unless you don’t mind a lot of ALONE TIME in your future (“Introvert’s need”).

    Today’s visiting starlet: the lovely OLIVIA RODRIGO, “Pop star with the #1 albums ‘Sour’ and ‘Guts.’” She just turned 22 and is single. We’ll let her bed head and pretty eyes send us off tonight. Nice shot, Phil. See you tomorrow!

  • Start Me Up

    Let’s remember Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and Christopher Monk today. These were the five colonists killed in the Boston Massacre that took place this week, on March 5th, in 1770.

    British troops were quartered in Boston to protect the King’s tax collectors and tension was growing. Did you ever not pay for a haircut? Crazy, right? — they have those razors. Anyway, a barber’s apprentice claimed that a British officer failed to pay for his haircut. A fight broke out with the officer knocking the young haircutter down. A crowd gathered and soldiers came out. The crowd jeered the soldiers and threw “ice and oysters.” They dared the soldiers to shoot and they did! — killing the five named above. There’s no telling how many oysters were also slain. Five deaths is fairly skimpy for a “massacre,” but every life is precious, and the incident had legs, as they say, and helped stir the colonists towards revolution.

    The soldiers were placed on trial, by the way. No attorney would defend them, so John Adams took the case, in the belief that everyone was entitled to a defense. He argued that the British policy was to blame, not the individual soldiers, and all but two were acquitted.

    Here’s Crispus Attucks, the first to die in the massacre, and, actually, in the Revolution, although there is some dispute as to the latter point. Get this: He was African-American. (Are we still allowed to point that out under the new freedom of speech guidelines? We certainly can’t say if he was trans.)

    Headline from my brain:

    Opposing Thumbs Erupt In Thumb War

    The NYTXW has certain guidelines, e.g., you will never see Hitler in a puzzle, even if he were clued appropriately by something like “mustachioed monster of historic proportions.” And the famous (maybe) “breakfast test” holds that the puzzle will not include words that might disgust a NYT reader sipping his or her morning coffee. I’m not going to give you any examples because I am sipping my morning coffee at the moment. Anyway, apparently, the proscriptions don’t extend to EL CHAPO, who visited the grid today as “Onetime leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.” The former drug lord was a pretty bad dude, believed to be responsible for 34,000 deaths, pretty impressive by monster standards. I mean, if five can constitute a massacre . . . Do the math.

    Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera is his real name. He got the nickname El Chapo from his heavy use of Chapstick. (No he didn’t.) You may have not thought of the guy for a while, if ever, but he is still alive and living in Colorado! No need to cancel that Aspen trip, though, — he’s in federal prison. Of course, back in 2001 he escaped from a maximum security federal prison (bribes), so there’s that. He was caught in 2014, escaped again in 2015 (tunnel), and caught again in 2016.

    Here’s EC’s wife Emma, proof that quarterbacks and drug lords get all the pretty girls. She helped in one of his escapes. You’d do that for me, Linda, right? Linda? Hello?

    After we annex Greenland and Canada and take the Panama Canal back, we may have to go to war with Lesotho for its uppity response to Trump’s diss in his ridiculous speech this week. Making his idiotic case that foreign aid is wasteful, Trump said we gave $8 million to help gays in Lesotho “which nobody has ever heard of.” Of course, this outrageous insult to a sovereign state by our fat f*ck of a president garnered a hefty, sickening laugh from his toadies in Congress.

    When we do go to war with them, Lesotho will hold the high ground in every sense of the word. It is the highest country by altitude in the world — the only independent state entirely above 1,000 meters (3,281 feet). Its population is 2 million and its capital and largest city is Maseru. The government was deeply insulted by Trump’s moronic, gratuitous slur, and will lodge formal protests. Happily, these beautiful Basotho women couldn’t care less.

    It’s been a while since Owl Chatter has reported on faves Taylor and Travis, so let’s catch up. Well, Trav has decided not to retire from football. As he told his big bro Jason on their podcast, he loves the game too much to leave it quite yet. And he feels he let his team and fans down with his poor performance in the Superbowl and wants to make up for it. For his part, brother Jason seemed to choke up describing how hard it was to watch the debacle. These two are just big bushy teddy bears.

    As for Taylor, look for her on the silver screen along with vinyl in the coming days. Word is she’s thinking about acting — perhaps a superheroine role in a sci-fi film? Give Ana a holler, Babe — she’ll fill you in.

    If you live in Westport CT and happened to drop into the library yesterday you would have seen Governor Lamont awarding the first Connecticut Governor’s Award for Excellence to, what? who?— Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones? The very same.

    Keith is 81 now and has lived in CT for forty years. He wrote the acclaimed memoir Life in 2000, and 2014’s biographical Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar. His acceptance speech started out a bit clunky but adorable. “Without our books, without knowing things, without knowing their special meaning—this isn’t movies, this is not someone drawing you images. This is a book, and you have the movie in your head.” He then pushed back against book bans, saying “It’s very important that we keep our books unburnt.”

    Keith went on:

    “I’d like to say thank you to you all and thank you to the state of Connecticut. You kind of get lost for words with something like this around your neck,” he said, referring to the award he’d just received (see below). “I’ve been here for 40 years, and it’s been a great place for me. I brought the kids up here. I was interested when the kids were here, and I said I have to get the kids out of New York City so they could get some fresh air to breathe. And ever since, we’ve had a great life. I’m incredibly happy about everything, especially things like this, because you don’t get them every day.”

    The award was a custom-designed medallion crafted by State Trooper Danny Carvalho.

    OK – enough of that — turn it up!

    From The Onion:

    Area Dad Needs More Time With Museum Plaque

    In the puzzle today at 10D the clue was “Highlight of many a Jimi Hendrix concert,” and the answer was GUITAR SOLO.

    I shared this joke with the Commentariat.

    A young anthropologist made contact with a tribe in the deepest jungle that had never been studied before. She arranged to spend some time there learning about their culture. She trekked for days through the difficult terrain and finally reached the small village. Her contact in the tribe greeted her and showed her to her tent. He spoke a little English and was very pleasant and welcoming. But when she asked him about a constant drumming sound that she heard, he tensed up and just said: “Drums good; drums no stop.” She tried several times to find out if the drumming had some cultural or religious significance, but each time she tried, he just tensed up and repeated “drums good, etc.”

    As the days went on, she got used to the constant drumming and the visit went very well. It became a pleasant background noise. When it was time for her to go and she was packing up her gear, she noticed that the drumming had suddenly stopped. Its absence was eerie and troublesome. She ran to her guide to see what was up and found him with a terrified look on his face. She asked him, “What? What does it mean? What’s going to happen?” He just began weeping and said: GUITAR SOLO.

    There was no response — probably for the best.

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads!

  • Brilliant Magicians

    Two and half percent of Vermonters speak French at home as their primary language. Is that a lot or a little? Seems like a lot. Only fifty percent of Vermonters believe in God. That’s a little — for the country overall it’s seventy percent.

    It was an independent nation, the Vermont Republic, for 14 years (1777-1791). It had its own money, sovereign government, and a constitution that explicitly forbade slavery — almost a century before the U.S. did. It also required government taxes to support public schools. Here’s the money.

    Stella Quarta Decima, the language on the coin, means “the 14th star” reflecting Vermont’s desire to become a state: the 14th, after the original thirteen colonies. And on this date in 1791, March 4, Vermont became a state.

    Hanna Teter is from Vermont, the Olympic gold medal winner in snowboarding. She’ll be representing the state for Owl Chatter today, Phil told us, droolingly.

    So this family is sitting around the breakfast table: Mom, Dad, and two boys. Mom asks one of the boys what he’d like for breakfast and he says, “I’ll have the fucking pancakes.” Aghast, she slaps him, then she slaps him again, and the dad takes off his belt and starts beating him with it. The kid screams bloody murder as they both beat the crap out of him and send him to his room. Then the mom turns to the second boy and says, “What would you like for breakfast.” And he says, “Well I sure don’t want the fucking pancakes.”

    Have you ever seen an albino gorilla? Me neither. This poem is by Billy Collins. It was in today’s Writer’s Almanac and is called “Searching.”

    I recall someone once admitting
    that all he remembered of Anna Karenina
    was something about a picnic basket,

    and now, after consuming a book
    devoted to the subject of Barcelona—
    its people, its history, its complex architecture—

    all I remember is the mention
    of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park
    where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.

    The sheer paleness of her looms over
    all the notable names and dates
    as the evening strollers stop before her

    and point to show their children.
    These locals called her Snowflake,
    and here she has been mentioned again in print

    in the hope of keeping her pallid flame alive
    and helping her, despite her name, to endure
    in this poem where she has found another cage.

    Oh, Snowflake,
    I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia—
    its people, its history, its complex architecture—

    no, you were the reason
    I kept my light on late into the night
    turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.

    You talkin’ to me?

    The surgeon comes out of the OR and walks slowly over to the wife. He tells her, “I have bad news. It didn’t go well. Your husband is paralyzed from the neck down. You’re going to have to care for him like a baby. Wash him, dress him, get him into a wheelchair to take him out. He has no control over his bladder or bowel functions, so you’ll have to wipe him and change his diapers frequently.”

    The wife says, “Oh, no!” and the surgeon says: “I was just joking with you — he’s dead.”

    The best clue/answer in the puzzle today was at 60A and is brilliant, IMO: “Make two dos, say?” At first I was thinking about exchanging vows: I DO, so the answer might be WED? But it’s a nine-letter answer — yikes! The answer was TRANSLATE. Get it? Two is dos in Spanish. So to make two dos you’d translate it.

    At 45D, shades of my first car: “Beetles.” Answer VW BUGS.

    But Anony Mouse had a different notion:

    “Volkswagen Beetle?” you shrug.
    Nope. Instead, here’s a plug
    For the Velvet Water Bug.

    ‘Fore you can say “Ugh”…
    Down its hatch, chugalug,
    Goes a springtail. Glug, glug.

    Manmade poisons not needed,
    Carbamates superseded,
    It ingests unimpeded.

    A draw from the jug,
    Then a raise of my mug
    In toast to this thug

    The Velvet Water Bug

    The puzzle’s theme “revealer” today was way at the end at 65A: “This news has got me rattled!” The answer: I’M SHOOK! And the theme answers were all things that get shook — POMPOMS, TAMBOURINE, SPRAY PAINT, and POLAROID PICTURE. Remember that last one? After the photo emerges, it’s wet, so you shake it to hasten its drying. If you listen to this tune til the end, you’ll see what I mean. After that, I’m going to go with the Byrds instead of Dylan, if you don’t mind.

    The 2019 Nats, the team that won the World Series and won me over as a fan, had some great personalities. Max Scherzer, with one blue eye and one brown eye, was (and still is) insanely intense. Juan Soto was just starting to turn heads. Strasburg threw heat. Howie Kendrick swung a devastating slashing bat, and Trea Turner combined speed and power and looked like Peter Pan would if he could hit.

    Max and Trea were in the news this week, facing each other in a Spring Training game. Max is with Toronto now and Trea’s on the Phils. They are very good friends. As you may have heard, MLB is experimenting with an automated ball/strike system, supplementing the human umpires. It’s called ABS, the automated ball-strike challenge system. Under it, a batter, catcher, or pitcher can challenge the ump’s call on a pitch. He must do so immediately (without communication with the dugout), and a series of cameras located around the ballpark will analyze the pitch and make a determination. The system is set for a 17-inch-wide strike zone, the width of home plate (duh). And the height will depend on the height of each player, which is fed into the system earlier. Each team is allowed two challenges, but if a challenge is successful it does not count against the two allowances.

    Anyway, no shrinking violet, Scherzer railed against the system: “Can we just play baseball?” Scherzer asked. “We’re humans. Can we just be judged by humans? Do we really need to disrupt the game? I think humans are defined by humans.” (His first two challenges went against him.)

    Word of Max’s rant reached the Phillies and Trea knew what he had to do. He stepped into the batter’s box for the first pitch of the game. Max’s pitch was right down the center of the strike zone: a no-doubter. Trea backed out of the box and tapped his cap — he was challenging the call. Max almost never smiles on the mound, but he appreciated the gesture.

    It’s a two-poem day (three, if you count the water bug). This one is by Susan Brown and is called “Becoming a Poet.” It’s the poem-a-day from poets.org.

    I was five,
    lying facedown on my bed
    when someone stabbed me in the back, 
    all the way through to my heart. 
    I screamed & my parents came running,
    my father carrying me into the living room.
    We sat in the chair with the high sides 
    like wings. I kneeled on his lap, 
    my arms around his neck. 
    My mother sat across from us,
    saying, honey, it was just a bad dream.
    I looked over my father’s shoulder
    at the dark ocean of air,
    at the colorful, iridescent fish.
    I tried to explain what I saw. 
    It’s your imagination, said my father.
    The fish swam like brilliant magicians 
    toward the window. Then they were gone.
    My parents didn’t know death like I did. 
    Or the fish, their strange beauty
    my secret.

    I stuffed Caity’s state tax return into a regular-sized envelope and put a “forever” stamp on it. I knew it weighed more than an oz so I took it to the post office where I was absolutely stunned by what occurred. First, you should know I’m a stickler for correct postage. I do not want to send something off with too little postage, and I most certainly do not want to put too much postage on.

    I placed the envelope on the scale. The woman said I needed a second stamp. OK. “So do you want to buy one, it’s 73 cents?” I said, “But isn’t the second stamp less?” She misunderstood me and said, “It’s 1.7 ounce, you need another stamp.” She was expecting me to pay 73 cents for another forever stamp!! I said, “I understand that, but isn’t the second ounce less than the first? Don’t I just need an ‘additional ounce’ stamp? For around 28 cents?” (I wasn’t sure of the exact amount.) She said, “Yes, they are 28 cents, but we don’t have any — some man came in and bought 500.” I said “I have one at home,” and took the envelope back. I am still aghast – agog – that she wanted to charge me for a 73-cent stamp when I just needed one for 28 cents. Jesus Christ!! Is there no sane corner left?

    Thanks for popping in. See you tomorrow.

  • Who’s Gonna Drive You Home?

    The poet James Merrill was born in NYC on this date in 1926 and died at the age of 69 in Tucson AZ. Get this: his dad was the Merrill of Merrill Lynch. He had a privileged youth but lived modestly as an adult, and set up a fund to assist writers and artists. He and his siblings renounced a good portion of Merrill’s estate so it went to charity.

    This poem is by Cecilia Woloch. It’s called “On Faith” and appeared in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    How do people stay true to each other?
    When I think of my parents all those years
    in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
    longing for anything else—or: no, they must
    have longed; there must have been flickerings,
    stray desires, nights she turned from him,
    sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
    smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
    and tangled limbs must have seemed
    not enough. But it was. Or they just
    held on. A gift, perhaps, I’ve tossed out,
    having been always too willing to fly
    to the next love, the next and the next, certain
    nothing was really mine, certain nothing
    would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
    faith that this latest love won’t end, or ends
    in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
    When he turns his back to me now, I think:
    disappear. I think: not what I want. I think
    of my mother lying awake in those arms
    that could crush her. That could have. Did not.

    Cecilia is from Pittsburgh, 68, and may be a vampire. I say this because she went to college at Transylvania U. (It’s a private university in Lexington KY.)

    Our photographer Phil was afraid of her and said he would only photograph her eyes. (Is that a vampire thing? I learned long ago not to ask Phil questions.)

    Even those of us living under a rock are aware of Anora’s massive sweep at the Oscars last night: Best Picture, Director, Producer, and Actress. Four awards for one picture is a record. We are kvelling, especially since Director Sean Baker is a Jersey boy, born just up the road in Summit. And the beautiful Best Actress is a sistah! Mikey Madison’s last name is Rosberg and she’s Jewish. She’s also 26, vegan, single, and lives in LA. Phil described her as a Jewish Anne Hathaway. We can see it.

    Headline from The Onion

    Couple Forced To Sit Next To Dead Body On Plane For 4 Hours After Woman Dies Midflight

    Funny-sounding words are always welcome, amirite? So I was happy to learn from CNN that the dust storm sweeping across the Southwest is called an haboob. It’s not just any old dust or sand storm that merits the name — it has to be especially intense. The term originally applied to the serious-shit sand storms of the Sudan, which is apparently the major league of sand storms, but was adopted for the U.S. Southwest in 1971 when all hell broke loose in ‘Zona.

    Take a look. It’s like a tsunami, but with dust.

    BTW, our friend Donna knew someone who was caught in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed 230,000 people: one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. He was dragged out to sea but, incredibly, survived with only some damage to one arm. Several months later he was coming out to visit Donna and she asked us for ideas on what to get him as a gift. I suggested a hair dryer. (True story.)

    We’re going to let The Cars send us off tonight with their song “Drive.” It relates to the puzzle, the theme answers for which incorporated the words, PARK, REVERSE, NEUTRAL, DRIVE, and LOW in an assortment of phrases.

    “Who’s going to pay attention to your dreams?”

    See you tomorrow!