The Wellington Files

  • Bruce

    NFL fans are stunned that Bill Belichick failed to get into the Hall of Fame in his first try. “I’m as deflated as a Tom Brady football,” lamented the 95-year-old Belichick. “Jesus H. Christ,” his 14-year-old girlfriend Jordan Hudson fumed. “How many [bleeps] do I have to [bleep] to get that geezer inducted?” Hudson’s his biggest cheerleader. Literally.

    Back on Earth, composer Philip Glass notified the Board of the Kennedy Center that he is canceling the premier of his Abe Lincoln Symphony that had been scheduled for June

    “Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony,” Glass wrote. “Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”

    It’s absurd to think he would have let it go on.

    Sticking with music, if you haven’t heard it yet, or would like to hear it again, here’s the boss.

    All these reports have Trump sagging in the polls and “under water” on the issues — but he’s still at 40%. Are the killings of two liberals (one gay) going to change things much with that crowd? Puh-leeze. Our political man, George Santos, tells us to keep an eye on what DOJ is doing with voter rolls it’s collecting. The midterms are going to get very ugly. [By the way, we’re a little low on Diet Pepsi, Georgie — the kind with caffeine.]

    The puzzle today was a debut effort by one of the regular commenters on Rex’s blog — kitshef. It was great and he (I think he) talked about the process a bit. He says the puzzle people at The Times replaced 50 of the 76 clues he wrote: Many for minor issues but some were substantial, e.g., he disavowed the clue at 66A: “Five train in Brooklyn.” Answer: NETS. You need to think basketball and not subway, and train is a verb not a noun.

    The theme was tricky to figure out and there was no revealer. The first theme clue was “Expand,” and the answer ran across the entire row: GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. What? The second was “Sadness” and the answer was SORSORSORSORSOR. Finally, “Day after today,” was TOMORTOMORTOMOR. It took me a while to see that you needed mentally to add “row” to each answer. So “expand:” Grow; “Sadness:” SORrow; and the third was TOMORrow.

    Anyone who hated it, or failed to see it, surely landed on Desolation Row, wouldn’t you say?

    They’re selling postcards of the hanging
    They’re painting the passports brown
    The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
    The circus is in town.

    Did someone say “tomorrow?” How has this song eluded me for 76 years? Thanks to commenter jberg for sharing it, although my brain hurts a little now from trying to parse it. It goes from bad to verse, and here’s one of the verses:

    If you had gone to Morrow yesterday now don’t you see
    You could have gone to Morrow and returned today at three
    For the train today to Morrow, if the schedule is right
    Today it goes to Morrow and returns tomorrow night”

    I once asked a great Rabbi how Jewish tradition views the beginning of the Universe. He said at first there just a great void. Then there was another one. And one void led to the next.

    That’s going to be the last void today. Thanks from dropping in!

  • Flying High

    From today’s NYT letters.

    To the Editor:

    While driving Saturday, the day Alex Pretti, a peaceful protester, was killed by a squad of federal agents while he was trying to help a woman who had been pepper sprayed — I saw a woman standing at the main intersection of a small town on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, 30 minutes after sunset, holding a solo candlelight vigil.

    I slowed down my car, rolled down my window and asked, “This is for the man in Minnesota, right?”

    “Yes,” she said.

    “Thank you,” I said.

    “Thank you,” she replied.

    David Moore
    Sequim, Wash.

    The puzzle today was great, and spoke especially to Welly and Wilma, the owls of Owl Chatter. We’ll let Wilma talk about it.

    Hi everybody! The theme was all about birds leaving home, which we know all about from when our son Worthington took off for Michigan. The revealer clue was at 54A: “Metaphor for a parent whose youngest has ‘launched’ … like the little bird whose progress is suggested by the three theme answers.” The answer: EMPTY NESTER. Then the three theme clues/answers were:

    “Far from any urban center, colloquially.” IN THE STICKS

    “Potentially at risk, metaphorically.” OUT ON A LIMB

    “In a soaring mood, so to speak.” FLYING HIGH

    Here’s a song on the topic. Tom Rush said when he first learned it he couldn’t perform it — he would break down.

    In connection with the above, egs posted:

    We have a bald eagle pair nesting in our back yard and, believe me, you don’t know “sticks” til you’ve seen an eagles’ nest. It must be 10′ across. A couple of days ago I guess they decided it needed some work and we watched them ferrying 4′ long sticks there for hours.

    okanaganer added: around here the power company builds platforms on top of some of their poles so the eagles can build their nests there. And yes, they’re big!

    Cdilly52 chimed in:

    egs, I envy you your eagles and your locale! Ages ago, when my husband and I were still doing rugged camping, we were treated to an eagle nest repair just as you describe, and a gift from Mother Nature we never forgot, a peek at two very young egrets as they were fed and encouraged. We stayed a week up in the Pecos Wilderness to watch the eagles rather than complete our planned trek.

    Sometimes you need to be super clear when making an assignment. Here’s what Phil got for us when I told him we were doing a story on bald eagles. Argggggh.

    I learned something from the puzzle about a word I thought I knew: MOOT. It means “deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic,” right? The issue became moot once the debt in dispute was paid. And it does mean that, but that’s only its secondary meaning. Miriam says the primary meaning is “debatable,” open to question. He says they should have foreseen the accident, but that point is moot, i.e., debatable.

    The clue for STAY, at 66A, was: “Corset component.” And here’s some random woman in a corset dress:

    You may have heard Syd got into a little hot water out in Hollywood. She is launching a line of bras and may have crossed the line with a promotional stunt. [I’m going to pause a bit now to let the fellas recover from the association of Sydney Sweeney with bras in that last sentence. Deep breaths, guys. Maybe a drink of water?] Our Phil was on hand, of course, and turned his videotape of the scene over to TMZ for their report, below. You can see Syd herself climbing the HOLLYWOOD sign to festoon it with chains of bras. Her team may have gotten permission to film near the sign, but did not have permission to use it as they did. Whatever. We’re not going to lose sleep over this.

    That’ll do it for today. More nonsense tomorrow! Sleep tight!

  • Happy Birthday Jules Feiffer

    “Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we give them our honor, and our gratitude.”

    Those words were spoken at the deathbed of a U.S. veteran by his RN at the VA, Alex Pretti. A video of Alex saying them was posted by the veteran’s son after Alex was killed. The Earth is a colder place without him.

    Happy to see the Seahawks advance to the Super Bowl last night. Nothing against the Rams, but we like Seattle QB Sam Darnold from his dreadful time with the Jets and we like their outstanding RB, Kenneth Walker III, from the Big Ten (MSU). Since the game was in Seattle, a few football personalities showed up at Pike’s Place, where the fish fly, literally, at the famous market.

    From Frank Bruni’s “For the Love of Sentences.”

    Ron Charles, in WAPO: “If, as King promised, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, we could use some more torque these days.”

    In her newsletter, Joanne Carducci (a.k.a. JoJoFromJerz), below, wrote: “The rest of the world is looking at us the way you look at a family having a full-volume meltdown in the cereal aisle.”

    As lazy as I am, I hate to give you work to do, but this poem asks for (and rewards) some effort. Right off the bat, it’s called “Poem in Which the Poet Ventriloquizes the Beloved.” It’s by Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, pronounced “kee-OH-gay.” First, the poem. Then, her notes on it (which help).

    I’m sorry I’m taking the car to the airport that is closer to,
    rather than farther away from, the oncoming hurricane.
    In the parking garage of my love for you, I circle around
    quietly, looking for a space to put the day’s best guesses,
    one not too far from the kiosk of you, standing mute and
    ready to hand me a small slip of paper that reads I’m sorry
    I can’t tell you what I want.     So we’re both mildly apologetic
    all the time, which is a small courtesy, two pulsars fanning
    light at one another in bursts detectable years later. Why
    won’t you take this bundle of daffodils. Why have the
    daffodils turned into dirty forks. I’m sorry about my socks.
    See, there I go again. In the backyard, a vine from next
    door has crawled up and over the fence and has flourished
    there, a great nest of green six feet off the ground. I’d
    trim it, but you’re holding the hedge clippers against your
    hair. You’re saying that your hair is morning glories and
    you’d like to keep the morning glories if possible. I don’t
    even know what morning glories are exactly; my mother
    is an excellent gardener but I have neither her memory for
    color nor your cataloguing tendencies and it’s late in the day
    and I’m sorry for that. It’s difficult to hold you in this
    shaft of light when you keep taking three steps away and
    sitting down in the nearest chair, one hand on each knee
    like a monument. It’s difficult to feel your body against
    my side in sleep, the desires it holds distant and tired,
    like an animal that has walked too far in an inhospitable
    climate. I am full of water but as thirst is a form of
    suffering, I would not wish it upon you. Instead, I will
    work my way through your dreaming, which I know is of
    endless snow fields. I will wait in this puddle of melt.
    Perhaps, one day, you will come to me with your skin
    near to brittle from the cold you love so much. Perhaps on
    that day we can begin to think together about the seasons,
    about how spring can also arrive in precision, if you let it.

    Kim’s notes: “This poem takes the interiority of the ‘lyric I’ and tries to graft it onto perhaps the most common object of apostrophic address: the beloved you. I wanted to create a character out of the quotidian realities of love beset by the kind of illness (depression) that seems to evacuate all capacity for feeling. That vacuum creates a specific type of alone-togetherness that this poem attempts to capture: tender, yet confused, somewhat exasperated, and, in the very best cases, steadfastly patient. I’m lucky, in other words, and this poem wants to honor that.”

    Here she is, with some serious-ass bedhead.

    Notes from the collection. The flurry of articles about the Hall of Fame that appeared when Beltran and Jones got in, alerted me to the probable eventual induction of two great managers: Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy. Since they are both missing from my autograph collection and are readily available on eBay, I picked up one of each over the weekend for about $20 total.

    (Signed on the back.)

    Happy Birthday Jules Feiffer (1929). He passed away last January, just shy of his 96th birthday. He won a Pulitzer Prize for cartooning in 1986. He said: “I was a terrible flop as a child. You cannot be a successful boy in America if you cannot throw or catch a ball.” 

    Confirming my “reverse-Pinocchio” theory that Karoline Leavitt gets sexier the more lies she tells, she was droolingly gorgeous today lying egregiously about the murder of Alex Pretti, dressed in a black top that set off her searing dark eyes. I couldn’t stop looking at her, but I also couldn’t stomach the sh*t flowing out of her mouth. Finally had to get up and turn the sound down.

    Looks like they’ve decided to throw Bovino under the bus. And as for the great investigation they’re conducting — we’ll get the results about the same time we get the Epstein files. Notice how they are hiding behind this bullshit investigation? Why aren’t they being asked why there’s no investigation of Renee Good’s killing? It’s sickening and deplorable. Trump is reeling but not dead. Look for an attempt to cancel the midterm elections via the Insurrection Act.

    See you tomorrow.

  • How Many Deaths Will It Take?

    America is on fire. From sea to shining sea. Alex Pretti was only 37 years old and was a nurse, like our Caitlin. It is a caring profession. Others more eloquent than us are telling the tale. Everyone reading this shares our sorrow and rage. To honor Alex’s memory (and Renee’s), here is a picture and an old song.

    This “tiny love story” is by Alexander Lau. It’s called “The Decision to Embrace,” and is from today’s NYT.

    Leon is in his high chair, giggling. Then — a crash. Bacon and potatoes everywhere. He laughs; I snap. Suddenly a full-time pandemic father, grappling with the identity loss of leaving my job, I feel anger flare white-hot. I yell, slam my hand down. Leon’s face crumples, lip trembling, eyes wet. He looks afraid. Just like that, the anger drains into shame. “I’m sorry,” I say, but he turns away. My wife takes over. That moment, I changed. Now a parent of two, I no longer see the challenges of parenthood as burdens, but as the opportunity to be a father.

    Robert Burns was born in Alloway, Scotland on this date in 1759. He was a tax collector. Also wrote poems and songs. Among his compositions was Auld Lang Syne. And Jumpin’ Jack Flash (no it wasn’t).

    According to The Writer’s Almanac, upon writing his first poem, Burns observed: “There certainly is some connection between Love and Music and Poetry. I never had the least thought or inclination of turning Poet till I once got heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart.”

    Happy Birthday Bob!

    In yesterday’s puzzle, the clue for TURBAN was cute: “It may wind up at the top of one’s head.” Commenter RickS confessed that he filled in AIRBUN before getting TURBAN, and asked: “Who knows, maybe an airbun is a thing?” Which led me to reply: Yes, according to Miriam Webster, an “airbun” is what you’re left with when you grab at someone’s tush but they pull away in time.

    Most commenters appreciated GENDER EUPHORIA as an answer yesterday, but some complained about the clue which was “Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring.”

    Kitshef: I don’t get how the GENDER EUPHORIA clue relates to the answer.

    Lynn: I agree. The clue for GENDER EUPHORIA was very general. Everyone gets new haircuts and new clothes.

    tht: To make sense of GENDER EUPHORIA, it might help to set it against gender dysphoria, in order to imagine how something that might seem so quotidian like getting a hair cut can take on an entirely different significance for someone who has suffered from gender dysphoria. I thought the clue-answer pairing were great, and also thought-provoking.

    Les. S. More: I agree with you that GENDER EUPHORIA is a really nice answer but I think the clue, though colourful, was a bit weak. If I have to infer the answer’s opposite (euphoria/dysphoria) to understand it, that should be hinted at in the clue. And I don’t think it was. Getting a haircut or new clothes can spur a kind of euphoria, but it doesn’t necessarily include gender identification.

    JeffLett: Hairstyles and clothes are strongly tied to people’s perception of gender roles, enough so that it’s very common for people to be teased or even bullied for not having the “right kind” for their gender. Even though what counts as “masculine” and “feminine” has changed drastically over the centuries! So for people who maybe grew up teased for their style choices to finally boldly and confidently wear them — it must feel good.

    Jacke: GENDER EUPHORIA was not clued as a universal phenomenon ⸺ it specifically says “might.” Incidentally though, there is an interesting discussion to have about whether it is experienced by everyone. I’m pretty sure that the underlying feeling is similar to when a cis-lady finds a very becoming dress, or a cis-gentleman gets swole at the gym for instance. It’s less likely to achieve the level of euphoria, probably, because the good gender feels are closer to those people’s baseline gender experience. And of course it’s not consciously identified as related to gender because cis people in general do not think about how weird it is that, e.g., mainly only women feel actualized in a becoming dress.

    Let’s give Carola the last word: “GENDER EUPHORIA was new to me as a phrase but immediately brought to mind the photo of someone very dear to me after they’d gotten their first haircut that matched their gender identity – the most joyful smile ever.”

    I googled the term and then clicked on “images.” Hi kids!

    At 61D today, “V-shaped designs” was CHEVRONS. This lyric came immediately to mind.

    See the geese in chevron flight
    Flapping and racing on before the snow…
    They’ve got the urge for going
    And they’ve got the wings to go.

    It’s Joni’s song, of course. When she sings it, below, I love watching how the men look at her.

    I first saw Tom Rush perform in Ann Arbor at The Ark. It was an orientation weekend for Sam at Umich and they took him away from me. So I plopped down $25 for the show and saw it alone. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Hysterical stories that had me in tears laughing, followed by wrenching songs that had me in tears again, crying. I saw him several times after that and he was always wonderful, but never as brilliant a storyteller as that first time at The Ark.

    At 127A, “Chips may go into it,” was ONION DIP. I liked this note from Anony Mouse: My superpower is the ability to finish a (large) bag of Ruffles at the exact same time as a (small) tub of ONION DIP.

    At 107A, the clue was “Symbol of transformation in The Silence of the Lambs.” The answer was MOTH. And Anony Mouse wrote: I like to watch the credits at the end of movies, there is good stuff in there sometimes! I especially like oddball credits (e.g., Malcom X had a “Stunt Waitress” credit). One of my favorite odd credits is in Silence of the Lambs: someone is credited as “Moth Wrangler and Stylist” (which would be pretty good on its own!), but if you wait another minute or so, after umpteen intervening credits, they list an “Assistant Moth Wrangler and Stylist!”

    Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!

  • Come As Close As The Air

    Well, you don’t have to get all snippy about it, you f*cking sore loser Romanian b*tch.

    Whoa, what’s that about? Naomi Osaka was dissed by Romanian
    Sorana Cîrstea after beating her at the Australian Open. Cîrstea was miffed at the way Osaka was saying “Come on” during the match, something she often does to motivate herself. Cîrstea complained to the official about it at one point during the match but no action was taken, because it’s a ridiculous complaint. Then, after the match, at the traditional handshake, Cîrstea dissed Osaka and accused her of unfair play. Here’s what it looked like:

    Osaka noted that Cîrstea said nothing to her about it during the match, and when asked in the post-match on-court interview what it took for her to win the match quipped “Apparently a lot of ‘Come-ons’ that she was angry about, but whatever.”

    Our Phil was covering the match for us, and we asked him if Osaka seemed upset over the flap. “Here’s our girl,” he replied. “Does she look upset?”

    And here’s sore-ass Sorana.

    There was some great stuff in the puzzle yesterday. A lot of folks loved this clue: “She’s out there!” It’s brilliant. The “out” here means “openly gay.” The answer is LESBIAN BAR. Rex explained the use of the exclamation point in the clue:

    “The ‘!’ tells you that the clue is meant to be taken extremely, even absurdly literally—literally in a way that changes the apparent surface meaning. We often get ‘!’ at the ends of clues containing ‘it’ ([Step on it!] for STAIR, [Beat it!] for DRUM, etc.), but today the mystery word isn’t ‘it’ but ‘there’—is she ‘out there’ because she’s wacky, because she’s on the loose, because she’s literally in your backyard? No. She’s ‘out (as in openly gay) there.’ She’s out where? She’s out at the LESBIAN BAR.”

    If she meets someone cute, she might resort to what’s at 22D: BEDROOM EYES (“Longing look”). But we may have left that bar by then, because right next to BEDROOM EYES is ERECTOR SET (“Classic toy for budding engineers”). Tee hee. Here are two sets of bedroom eyes, one of each flavor.

    It’s a very racy puzzle, even by non-NYTXW standards, because all of the following are crossing the BEDROOM EYES/ERECTOR SET duo: TONGUE, EASY, HARDER, and FREE.

    At 35A “Micromobility option” is E-SCOOTER. Here’s Commenter Gary: I rented an e-scooter once and rode it to the train station in Denver from my old condo. It was fun, but I never did it again. I think it turned me into an old man. That was my last great adventure.

    He had more to say about the “hot fudge sundae” that was in the clue at 8D:

    Like our current administration, I have reordered the food pyramid. Hot fudge sundae made at home (ideally as a surprise from my wife) with Tillamook old-fashioned vanilla and warmed Hershey’s syrup is on the top of the pyramid obviously. Then under that is Weinerschnitzel-Tastee Freez. I’m pretty sure there’s no real food in those and you don’t expect it, do you? It’s main purpose is to give you an alternative to driving your car off an overpass just so you can feel like a bird. Then of course McDonald’s comes next mainly because there’s a McDonald’s in eyesight from every location in Albuquerque. And finally DQ’s dairy-esque treat substance served in our local shop that smells like cleaning solvent. Those are the four food groups.

    Today, at 14A the clue was “Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring.” I was thinking along the lines of that fresh new feeling you get with stuff sometimes, like the new-car-smell effect. But it’s deeper and more beautiful than that. Think of a young person suffering from gender dysphoria: where he or she feels trapped in the wrong gender. And, if a girl, she finally makes the move to get a boy’s haircut, or to cast away her feminine outfits for male garb. That deep feeling of “rightness” is the answer the puzzle was looking for: GENDER EUPHORIA. Bravo, constructors Adrian Johnson and Ryan McCarty.

    As if that weren’t enough, at 36A the clue was “1960s protest singer Phil.” OMG, Phil OCHS! How important a figure was Phil Ochs to us? Well, we had Linda’s sisters Bobbie and Judy learn and perform two songs for our wedding and one was Phil’s Changes. (The other was Dylan’s I Believe In You.)

    What made me propose Changes were the opening lyrics, which mirrored my message to Linda on that day: Sit by my side, come as close as the air.

    Neil Young performs it below, and after that Phil performs another one of his songs for us.

    So sit by my side, come as close as the air
    Share in a memory of gray
    And wander in my words
    Dream about the pictures that I play
    Of changes.

    There’s no place in this world where I’ll belong when I’m gone
    And I won’t know the right from the wrong when I’m gone
    And you won’t find me singin’ on this song when I’m gone
    So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here

    Rest in peace, Phil — you’re still very warmly remembered — hey, you’re in the f*cking New York Times Crossword on a Saturday!

    Historian Heather Cox Richardson has been relentless in her coverage of Trump’s abuses. It’s hard to take it all in. Sometimes as I click it open I’m hoping for one of her days off when she just shares a lovely photo. Here’s how she opened today:

    Tens of thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets today in bitter cold temperatures with wind chills of -20°F to protest the occupation of Minneapolis and St. Paul by federal agents from ICE and CBP. A protester walking down the street held a sign that said: “CLASSIC NAZI BLUNDER: INVADING IN WINTER.”

    Look, I may have bumbled my way through law school, but even I see the sanctity of the Fourth Amendment protecting us in our homes. I don’t even like it when company we invite comes over: I certainly don’t want the cops busting in at their whim. Here’s Richardson again:

    On Wednesday, Rebecca Santana of the Associated Press reported that ICE has been breaking into homes under the authority provided by a secret memo of May 12, 2025, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, saying that federal agents do not need a judge’s warrant to force their way into people’s homes.

    What the f*ck!

    There’s also this: ICE agents arrived in Maine this week, and one took pictures of a legal observer’s car, prompting her to remind him that it is legal to record their actions and to ask why he was taking her information. He answered: “‘Cause we have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.” He appeared to be referring to Trump’s September 25, 2025, memo NSPM-7 that describes opposition to the administration’s policies—opposition protected by the First Amendment—as “domestic terrorism.”

    My guess is Trump picked Maine because its governor stood up to him recently on some other outrage. I think his shit will go over even worse there than it has in Minny, if that’s possible. Those folks up there are made of granite; right-from-wrong is in their bones. They won’t give an inch.

    Hunker down, Chatterheads. Thanks for stopping in. See you tomorrow!

  • Yard Goats

    It’s National Polka Dot Day! It’s not exclusively linked to Minnie Mouse, but she’s a central figure. BTW, did you know “Minnie” is a nickname? Her name is Minerva (not kidding). Does life imitate art or is it the other way around? Whatever. Get this: One of Minnie’s voice actresses, Russi Taylor, fell in love with and married one of Mickey’s voice actors, Wayne Allwine. They each held their roles for over 30 years. They had four children together: Two boys, a girl, and a toon. Just kidding — actually they had no children together, but Wayne had four from a previous marriage. Russi and Wayne were married for 18 years, until Wayne’s death did them part in 2009.

    Polka dots popped into the national consciousness in 1926 when Norma Smallwood was named Miss America and wore a dotted swimsuit in the swimsuit competition. Hubba hubba.

    Here’s a shot Phil gave us for the legmen in our Dirty Old Man Dept. That’s Norma (Miss Tulsa) way on the right. Phil himself confesses he went bonkers for Miss Yonkers.

    If there’s one thing we’ve learned from writing close to 1,000 posts (!) on a blog devoted to nonsense, it’s that nonsense pops up everywhere. It’s not limited to the White House. So it didn’t surprise me to find a course in our local Adult School catalog on “Reliving Past Lives.” It meets once and costs $39. “Many of our present day problems may be traced to a life that may have existed before our time. Using self-hypnosis, discover some interesting things that could help improve your life.” I sent an inquiry via email asking: “If it turns out I took the course before, do I get my $39 back?”

    It goes on to say (I am not kidding): “Bring a pillow to class.” That is so fantastic. I just wish I had told that to my students at Hunter. I taught my law class at 8 am one semester, and the hardest part was tiptoeing out of the room when it was over so I wouldn’t wake anyone up.

    Here’s the photo Hunter used for my courses in the college catalog.

    In the puzzle today, at 14A, for “Goddess depicted with cow’s horns,” the answer was ISIS. At 2D, for “Am I wrong about that?” the answer was IS IT NOT?

    Here’s what egs put together for us:

    Scene from Bill Clinton’s upcoming Epstein testimony:
    Comer: Mr. Clinton, can you please tell me who is the Goddess depicted with cow’s horns?
    Clinton: That depends on what your definition of ISIS.
    Comer: IS IT NOT ISIS?
    Clinton: What ISIS IS IS a terrorist organization.

    The puzzle had some folks in a tizzy today. The theme was TRAFFIC SIGNALS. And the four theme answers only made sense if you switched GO for GREEN, and STOP for RED. E.g., at 45A, for the clue “Result of missing the boat,” you were to fill in LOREDOPPORTUNITY. So if you (mentally) switch STOP for RED, it becomes LOSTOPPORTUNITY.

    And what frazzled a few pearl clutchers was 18A where the clue was simply “Happens.” Exchanging STOP for RED gives you COMES TO PASS, but what got filled in in the grid was COME RED ASS. It’s rare to get a scarlet tuchas in the NYTXW.

    The minor league baseball newsletter I get tipped us off to a team we must see play this season: The Hartford (CT) Yard Goats. They play in Dunkin’ Park, dubbed the nicest Double A park in the U.S. It’s in the Colorado system. We’re starting to have baseball fever as the snow piles up.

    Yesterday, “What arms might do on a final gym rep,” was TREMBLE. It led Son Volt to share this Laura Cantrell song.

    We’ve become big fans of LC. Loved “Bees.” Hauntingly beautiful, she’s a Tennessee girl.

    Two worthy ballplayers were voted into the Hall of Fame this week: Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones, both centerfielders. They were born exactly one day apart in 1977, with Jones a day older. Jones is the first player from Curacao to make it into the Hall. Bravo, gentlemen. Jones played most of his career in Atlanta. Beltran bopped around a lot but spent seven years each in KC and NY, with the Mets. He’ll likely go in as a Met, meaning he’ll be wearing a Mets cap on his plaque.

    Carlos and wife Jessica live in NYC and have three good-looking kids, below. In 2012, Andruw got into deep shit with his ex-wife in a domestic abuse situation. They have two kids.

    Good night, Chatterheads!

  • Echo Beach

    We discussed Roman Numerals yesterday in connection with the NYTXW where a clue called for the longest number using them. Not many people are aware of “Jewish Numerals.” Here’s the longest number using them:

    OYMYBACKISKILLINGMEYOUSHOULDNTKNOWFROMIT

    Our Sirens fell behind 3-0 to Ottawa on the ice last night, but rallied to take the game into overtime. They fell, but, still, an OT loss counts for a point in the standings, so “Good work girls!” Two more assists for our Sarah, who is among the league leaders in that stat. Brava, babe!

    Their next game is in St. Paul, MN, where a different type of ICE has been in the news. We asked Minnesota-born Taylor Heise, who plays forward up there for the Frost, what her thoughts were about the situation. “I can tell you this,” she noted calmly. “If those f*ckers come near any of us girls, they’ll be picking up their teeth with broken fingers.”

    [Backing away slowly.] We hear ya, babe.

    Here’s Taylor.

    Christian Dior was born on this date in 1905 in a seaside town in the north of France, Granville. He served in the French army until 1942, but worked as a designer during the occupation for a French fashion house, where, ironically, he was designing dresses worn by the wives of Nazi officers while his sister was serving in the French Resistance. His post-war “New Look” marked the rebirth of femininity in women’s fashion. “We were emerging from the period of war, of uniforms, of women-soldiers built like boxers. I drew women-flowers, soft shoulders, fine waists like liana and wide skirts like corolla.” Happy Birthday, CD!

    This poem by Ted Kooser is from his Winter Morning Walks.

    In a rutted black field by the road,
    maybe a dozen bulldozed hedge trees
    have been stacked for burning—-
    some farmer wanting a little more room
    for his crops—-but the trees
    are resisting, arching their spines
    and flexing their springy branches
    against settling so easily
    into their ashes, into the earth,
    so that there is a good deal more wind
    in the pile than wood, more tree
    than fallen tree, and the sparrows
    fly in and out, still singing.

    Yesterday’s puzzle revolved around one long neat word. ECHOLOCATION. You hear of it? The clue was “Skill shared by bats and dolphins.” It’s amazing. What a bat does (and a dolphin underwater) is emit a sound, and sense from the echo of the reverberating sound wave where an object is. It’s an effective method I often use myself. The sound I emit is: “Linda! Where the hell are my f’cking keys?” Based on the response, I am able to locate my keys!

    Cleverly, in the puzzle, the theme answers were all different things in which you can “locate” an echo. The NATO ALPHABET, in which ECHO is the letter E; GREEK MYTHOLOGY, where ECHO is the nymph in love with Narcissus (below, per John William Waterhouse); AMAZON WAREHOUSE, where ECHO is a device that helps with Alexa; and the GRAND CANYON, for obvious reasons.

    Any drummers out there, other than my grandson Isaac? There was a clue/answer for you yesterday at 45D: “Drum kit components descended from ‘sock cymbals.’” Answer HI HATS. Hi hats used to be down at sock level.

    Here’s Robin (the artist formerly known as Lianna), at her set (in our basement). The hi-hat is on the right.

    Ba da boom!

    And here’s a sock puppet.

    A SERIAL COMMA was in the puzzle as an answer even though it’s generally not used by the NYTXW. It’s also called an Oxford comma. It’s the comma that appears before the conjunction in a list. “Tom, Frank, Alex and Sally” would use one after Alex. Personally, I like them. (What do you call someone who wildly overuses commas? Commatose!) How do we know the NYTXW does not like them? Well, there is often a list in a revealer clue like “as found in 16, 19, 22 and 26 across” and the serial comma is never used (says Rex, who ought to know).

    BTW, Rex shared a nice pic of his mom yesterday. I’d be proud of her too, if she were my mom, aleha hashalom.

    “Shout-out to my [Rex’s] mom, out on the streets protesting fascism (that’s her with the “Democracy Depends on Rule of Law” sign) (shout-out to the other lady too!)”

    Loved the puzzle today. Let’s start with this poem that comprises the theme clues:

    Lee has a hot bowl of [blank] to start his day
    Says [blank] to his neighbors, then heads on his way
    With gossip and beer over Friday’s [blank] game
    Life across the [blank] is much the same.

    Filling the blank in the final line gives you PACIFIC OCEAN right down the center of the grid. Then, each of the other lines is filled in one way west of the ocean (China) (on the left side of the grid), and a different way east of the ocean (America) (on the right side). CONGEE/OATMEAL; NIHAO/HELLO; and MAH JONG/BRIDGE. (Congee is a Chinese porridge.)

    And Son Volt fastened onto the OATMEAL to share this exquisite, devastating song.

    What could follow that? See you tomorrow!

  • Sirens Win!

    Hi everybody! Broadcasting today from our temporary DC headquarters on 16th Street NW, near Dupont Circle.

    Here’s the message to the nation:

    I’ll tell you who didn’t give up — our Sirens, that’s who. It was a bruiser of a game, end-to-end action throughout. The house was packed: 17,228 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a women’s pro hockey game in the U.S. With only 1:24 gone, Kristyna Kaltounkova gave us the lead but a power play goal tied it with under a minute to go in the period and Montreal seemed to be carrying the play. We got the feeling that whoever scored next had a good chance of bringing it home. And that’s what happened. Anne Cherkowski scored for us five minutes into the second period and it held up for a 2-1 win. Goalie Osborne was sensational, turning back dead-on shots repeatedly. Our Sarah assisted on both goals! Good game, babe!

    The trip has been excellent. Love our location near Dupont Circle. Able to walk almost everywhere. Excellent Aboriginal Art Exhibit at the National Gallery. Thanks, Bob!

    Saturday’s NYTXW had the following clue for the answer running down the entire center (15 letters):  Longest number writable in standard Roman numerals. Note they weren’t asking for the largest number, just the longest one (most letters). Rex took a good approach: he listed each numeral as many times as allowed. BTW, I learned you can’t use more than three of a numeral in a row. So the start is MMM. Then you can only use one D, because two would be an M (500 + 500 = 1,000). Then three Cs: the maximum, but only one L because two Ls would be a C. Finally, three Xs, only 1 V, and three Is. So it comes to MMMDCCCLXXXVIII (3,888).

    The largest possible roman numeral is MMMCMXCIX (3,999).

    At 17A, “Too late, say” was OUT OF TIME. If you’re not in that position, check out these tunes:

    At 32D today, “Spot to find a pulse” was WRIST. Commenter Gary made the macabre observation that it’s also the spot to not find a pulse.

    At 28D, “Lesser-played part of a 45” was SIDE B. It opened a little door for Rex. This is from Wikipedia: Side B Christians are Christians who identify as LGBT or have LGBTQ+ experiences, but take a traditional view of human sexuality and thus commit to celibacy or a mixed-orientation marriage. The term Side B derives from an Internet forum where Side A Christians, with an affirming view of LGBT sexuality, were contrasted with Side B Christians. In particular, Side B Christians reject conversion therapy. Side B is also distinct from Side Y, which does not affirm LGBT identification.

    Saw an 11am showing of Is This Thing On? at the historic Avalon Theater this morning. A tad long, but very good. Then we took a 3-mile round-trip walk down to (and back from) a Potbelly sandwich shop on Connecticut Ave. First choice, Comet Pizza, wasn’t opening until 5. Tired now. Back to Jersey tomorrow.

  • Jink

    On my fiftieth birthday, twenty-six years ago today, I slipped on our icy front steps and fell on my fat tuchas with a painful thud. Alright, I thought. It’s starting. My “back nine,” as the golfers say.

    Now birthdays seem like little personal Yom Kippurs to me. In the ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the Big Fella reviews your record and decides whether to give you another year. And if it’s thumbs down, God forbid, He works out the specifics. “Who by fire? Who by water?” In my case, it’s “by bladder? by lungs? by heart?”

    Oy. Here’s hoping we get another round.

    The puzzle today — my birthday puzzle! — defeated me! D’oh! Curse you Kyle Dolan! My downfall came at the cross of 25A/25D. “Nimble, zigzagging maneuver.” Answer: JINK. WTF?? And “Shortest-reigning English monarch (9 days).” Do you really think the 9 days will help anyone? It was JANE GREY. Who?

    But at least we got a pretty face in the grid, if tainted. “White House partner, for short,” was FLOTUS. Malaria, of course. Hey Girl: You may want to stay out of Minny for a bit. Unless you like the smell of tear gas in the morning.

    Here’s egs on the topic: We’re fed up with FLOTUS and POTUS and SCOTUS — and you can QUOTUS!

    Birthday celebrations will take place on the ice tonight as the Princeton Women Tigers take on Harvard at 6pm. Here’s forward Hannah Fetterolf.

    Closing the shop early today. Heading down to DC for a few days. Big Sirens game on Sunday. Broadcasting may be spotty. Thanks for stopping in!

  • ICE Capades

    Things are going so badly. I mean, did you ever think we’d be stressing over Greenland? Greenland? It’s like suddenly having to worry about cottage cheese. Anyway, things are going so badly I think we need a new photo of my grandniece Maeven right away.

    In lieu of a poem today, here’s a post by John Scotland of the Dull Men’s Club (UK):

    Midweek dullness. With no work booked in, and dry weather in prospect, I walked just over two miles to the nearest village, by an old farm road, past the French Prisoners’ Bush. This took me to the village hall, where the locals were having a coffee morning, with vast amounts of home baking. I had a cheese scone, a plain scone, and a Viennese thingie with my coffee.

    Making my way back, I took a slight detour to look at the site of the Auld Kirk of Lindean, one of the alleged sites which is claimed by some as the place where Sir William Wallace was appointed Guardian of Scotland in 1297 / ’98. No proof, of course, he didn’t scratch ” Wallace woz ‘ere ” with the point of his sword, or anything like that. Anyway, I picked up a decent size fallen branch that was lying on the road, and brought it back for firewood.

    The newly installed woodburner isn’t lit just now, it’s turned out to be a surprisingly mild day for mid January. Stay dull, good people.

    Marion Cochrane: Lovely. Hope the ladies’ home baking doesn’t end up in heartburn.

    John: It was excellent, and they gave me a small bag of plain scones to bring back for my girlfriend ( she was busy walking doggies this morning. )

    Nigel Andrew: Magnificent.

    Vivian Comer: A larger than life-size statue of Sir William Wallace watches over the city&county drinking water reservoir in my Baltimore Maryland USA neighborhood park. Thank you for sharing your morning walk, coffee&scones

    Steve Price: Oooooh, wood.

    I added this photo of the Baltimore statue for the gang:

    Remember during Trump 1.0 a whole spate of articles appeared urging us not to dismiss his supporters as brainless losers, but to respect them and try to appreciate their positions? Can we agree now that was all a huge crock of sh*t? Those f*cking morons have broken America. Even the polls showing Trump sinking continue to show him with 35% or so. These idiots still don’t see anything. I remember Barney Frank responding to a question once by saying, “Madam, talking to you would be like talking to a table.”

    A recent obit in the NYT brought a Holocaust story to my attention. The woman who died was Hessy Levinsons Taft. She was 91 and died in San Francisco. In 1934, Hessy’s parents were opera singers in Berlin and arranged for a well-known photographer, Hans Ballin, to take her portrait. She was 6 months old. Here it is.

    So her folks kept it on their piano, and one day their cleaning lady mentioned that she saw the photo on a magazine cover. And it wasn’t exactly Ladies Home Journal. It was a pro-Nazi publication Sonne ins Haus, or Sun in the Home. WTF??!! They ran to Ballin to find out what was going on.

    He told her the Nazis invited him to submit photos for a contest to find a baby representing the epitome of the Aryan race, and Hessy’s was among those he included in his submission. Goebbels chose the winner: Hessy.

    “But you knew that this is a Jewish child,” Hessy’s mother told the photographer.

    He replied, “I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of this joke.”

    The photo went viral, to use the current term. It appeared everywhere: in ads, on postcards, in people’s homes. Hessy’s parents were terrified that if the truth got out they’d be killed. So they kept Hessy as hidden from public view as possible and eventually fled. Only in 1987, as her parents advanced in age, did Hessy put the story out.

    The family kept three copies of the magazine. Hessy donated one to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, and another to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial center. Her children kept the last copy.

    In retrospect, Hessy was pleased with how things turned out. “I thank him [Ballin] for having the courage to do that, as a non-Jew, to challenge his own government. It was an irony that needed to be exposed.”

    Hessy is survived by her children, Nina and Alex Taft; four grandchildren; and her sister.  Rest in peace, Hessy.

    A neat story in a minor league newsletter I get listed the oldest minor league stadiums. I’ve been to two! One was Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver. (Hi Joe!). And the other is in Reading PA (Hi Chris!).

    The oldest is in Daytona Beach FL, Jackie Robinson Ballpark, which opened in 1914 as City Island Ballpark. In 1989, 75 years after it opened, it was named after Jackie Robinson. This rechristening was in honor of the events of 1946, when Robinson played at the park during spring training. This marked his first appearance as an active player in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, more than a year before his epochal Major League debut. Here’s how it looks today:

    Gosh, Karoline Leavitt just gets sexier and sexier as the lies grow bigger and bigger. It’s a reverse Pinocchio effect. In response to a question about ICE, she asked reporter Niall Stanage “Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”

    Stanage replied: “Are you asking me my opinion? Because an ICE agent acted recklessly.”

    “Oh, okay, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion,” Leavitt said. “Yeah, because you’re a left-wing hack. You’re not a reporter. You’re posing in this room as a journalist. And it’s so clear by the premise of your question. And you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist. You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.”

    She went on: “Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who [sic] ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t. I bet you didn’t even read up on those stories.”

    “I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray or all of the innocent Americans who were killed at the hands of illegal aliens in this country. And the brave men and women of ICE are doing everything in their power  to remove those heinous individuals and make our communities safer. And shame on people like you in the media who have a crooked view and have a biased view and pretend like you’re a real honest journalist.”

    Did you hear that, Stanage? Shame on you.

    According to ICE’s own data, ICE is currently holding over 68,900 individuals and has made over 352,000 arrests.

    Hubba hubba.

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.