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Check Mate
Nina Rachel Gordon Shapiro is Jewish and has a degree in art history from Tufts. She’s 57 now, but back in the 90’s, using the name Nina Gordon, she joined Louise Post to form the alt-rock band Veruca Salt, named after the spoiled-rotten rich girl from the 1964 children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Nina’s batting lead-off for us today because their first hit was called “Seether” and Rex shared it with us because he was reminded of it by TEETHER which was in the puzzle as the answer to “Something to chew on.” Like for a baby. Here’s Nina, and then the song. (The drummer is Nina’s brother Jim.) I think I missed that whole decade.
Carl Ives, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted the following: I am the proud owner of a dehumidifier the use of which to dry clothes is far too exciting for this club. However, I was wondering is the water that collects a distilled water and drinkable or would it be tainted with the residue of the detergent used to wash the clothes?
Some comments:
Chris Bater: Try it and let us know what it’s like, if you live long enough.
Stuart Kerr: I used to top up the goldfish tank with the water from the dehumidifier in the belief that it was pure water, the goldfish didn’t thank me.
Rowan Diaper: I put some round my plants. They weren’t happy for a few weeks. I think it burnt the leaves.
Scott Richardson: We have one in the chapel of our church. Being a typical church, the building gets very damp and the dehumidifier will collect a couple of litres of water every 2 days. So, because our diocese is striving for more eco-friendly buildings, we’re considering keeping the water for baptisms. This will reduce water consumption and hopefully our water bills.
Mary Lucille Hindmarch: that should discourage the devil & all his works.
Murray Atkinson: Have you checked the cost of water? You’ll be saving about 0.2p per day on water. Turn the de-humidifier off for 5 minutes to save more than that on electricity.
Stephen Arthur: Yeah drink it, it will be fine – water is always fine – any clothing chemicals will just help the body absorb the microplastic from your food which we all know is good for everyone
Jan Close: I think there’s a village looking for you.
Former World Chess Champion Boris Spassky died on Thursday in Moscow, at the age of 88. Cause of death: Pawn to King’s 4. He was a very thoughtful and deliberate man. A close friend once remarked: “I love having lunch with Boris, but it takes him ten minutes to pass the salt.” As a toddler, he studied chess at his mother’s knee: they couldn’t afford a set.
Spassky earned the title of “grandmaster” in 1956 at the of 19. He was best known for his match with Bobby Fischer in 1972. Fischer was portrayed as a lone gunslinger boldly taking on the might of the Soviet chess machine, with Spassky representing the repressive Soviet empire. But in reality Fischer was a spoiled 29-year-old man-child, often irascible and difficult, and Spassky, at 35, was urbane, laid back and good-natured. Fischer drove Spassky and the officials nuts with crazy demands and won 12.5 to 8.5.
Spassky’s position in Russia was diminished after losing and he moved to France for a time via his marriage to Marina Stcherbatcheff, a beautiful woman whom he loved deeply despite never being able to spell her name. “She has me under her spell,” he often joked, though it never got a laugh and their friends found it tiresome. Here’s Marina S.
In all, Spassky was married three times and all three ended in divorce. His second wife was pretty too: Larisa Zakharovna Solovyova. He used to joke that she was impressed with his “moves,” again to nobody’s amusement.
Despite the bitterness of the 1972 match, Fischer and Spasskey became great friends later in life and staged a rematch which Fischer again won. Fischer said of him “Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he’s mating or being mated. He can blunder away a piece and you are never sure whether it’s a blunder or a fantastically deep sacrifice.”
Here’s how the obit in the NYT ends:
Mr. Spassky’s warm feelings for Mr. Fischer were genuine, as he showed in 2004, when Mr. Fischer was arrested in Japan for not having a valid passport and was threatened with deportation to the U.S. to face charges for violating the sanctions against Yugoslavia. Before Mr. Fischer was ultimately released and sent to Iceland, Mr. Spassky sent a letter to President Bush, asking for clemency.
“Bobby and I committed the same crime,” he wrote. “Put sanctions against me also. Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess set.”
Spassky is survived by his son, three grandsons, a knight, and two bishops.
Rest in peace, Grandmaster.
At 15D, “Shape of the border between yin and yang,” was ESS. I was given the assignment to use that answer in sentences, along with AENEID, (Thomas) PAINE, and ERODED. Here’s what I came up with:
AENEID to re-read Virgil like I need a hole in the head.
Solving parts of the puzzle today was a real PAINE in the ESS.
‘ERODED ‘is ‘orse into town.
At 39A, for the clue “Mafiosi,” the clue was MADE MEN. So it got me wondering: When the mafiosi go to war and “take to the mattresses,” are those “made beds?”
[And you thought Spassky’s jokes were bad!]
Enjoy the Oscars! See you tomorrow.
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Charlie Hustle
Headline from The Onion:
Director Of Census Bureau Calls For Updated Population Report After Realizing He Forgot To Count Himself
Trump ignited a furor with world-wide implications yesterday. I’m referring of course to his announcement that he is “pardoning” dead baseball great Pete Rose. He stopped short of saying he will bring him back to life. Rose, of course, was banned from baseball and barred from the Hall of Fame for gambling.
“”Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning. He never betted (sic) against himself, or the other team. [What?] He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history.”
By Trumpian standards, it’s a pretty good post. The third-grade-level error making “betted” the past tense of bet is to be expected from Trump, who is barely literate. According to grammar-monster.com, “bet” is an irregular verb. (This means that “bet” does not form its simple past tense or its past participle by adding “-ed” or “-d” to the base form.)
When Trump says something that is true, or correct, it is pure coincidence, of course. This occurred when he noted Rose is the all-time MLB hit leader, although I would quibble over the “by far.” Rose had 4,256, just 67 more than Ty Cobb’s 4,189. And Cobb had his in just 13,103 plate appearances, way less than Rose’s 15,890, btw.
Further, when Trump says Rose “won more games than anyone in sports history” that is gibberish. Only pitchers are credited with wins. Cy Young had the most, by far, with 511. Walter Johnson comes next nearly 100 behind at 417. Wins by position players does not even exist as a statistic.
Last, “pardoning” Rose makes no sense since he was never convicted of a crime. It surely has no effect on the MLB ban.
Rose was a notorious philanderer. He was about to be honored with a spot on the Phillies’ Wall of Fame when it emerged in a civil suit that he had had sex with an underage girl. The ceremony was canceled. The age of consent was 16 where it happened and the girl was 14 or 15. Rose explained that he thought she was 16. Oh, okay. It gives a whole new twist to the phrase “spending time in the minors.”
When his first wife divorced him he married a Playboy bunny, Carol Woliung, thus becoming one of the very few of us who lived two of every man’s dreams: major league ballplayer and sex with a Playboy bunny. When Carol and he separated, he dated (and got engaged to) a Playboy model 40 years younger than him, Kiana Kim. Dayenu! Pete and Kiana appear in this ad together that aired during Super Bowl XLVIII, in which Seattle dismantled the Broncos 43-8. (Ouch.)
Here’s Pete with Wife II and their daughter Cara, who seems to be eyeing Phil a little warily and holding on to her bag tightly.
Cara’s an actress and has been on Melrose Place and other soaps, with the stage name Chea Courtney.
The NYC subway is its own world. Every New Yorker has a love/hate relationship with it. You can get a very accurate, if small, taste of it in this Met Diary story by Josh Schultz.
Dear Diary:
It was June 2016, and I was on my way to my first 9-to-5 job in Midtown. I boarded a crowded #1 train at 135th and Broadway and then gingerly made my way onto an even more crowded express at 96th Street.
It was clear that no one really wanted to be on the train, but everyone was civil about it. People moved in where they could and put their backpacks on the floor to accommodate others.
The air-conditioning was hardly working and we were all packed like sardines in silence. I held my right hand against the ceiling to balance myself on the way to the next stop, 72nd Street.
When the train pulled in, a large crowd was waiting. Very few people got off and only a couple of people managed to get on. A well-dressed woman in a leopard-print dress stared into the car from the platform, looking for somewhere she could fit.
“Guys, really?” she said. “Make room for me. Please.”
No response.
“I can clearly see enough space for three to four people in the car,” she said.
As the doors began to close, a voice came from the other end of the car.
“Yeah,” the rider said, “maybe in your house.”
*************
Yup — if that leopard-print won’t get you on the goddamn train you’re in for a long hard day.
In the puzzle today “Emulate Arachne” was SPIN A WEB. Pretty classy. Commenter Barbara S. referred us to The Spinners by Velazquez, below, “thought to be a depiction of the weaving contest between Arachne (facing away from the viewer on the right) and the goddess Athena (disguised as an old woman at left). (Yes, this looks like spinning rather than weaving, but I guess the one is preparatory to the other.)”
“Arachne was apparently a little too big for her britches and announced she was the greatest weaver in the world without giving Athena, the inventor of weaving, her due. So, there was a contest between the two, which Arachne won, producing a tapestry masterpiece that you can see in the scene in the background. Athena was so enraged at Arachne’s pride and the excellence of her work that she ripped it to shreds, causing Arachne to hang herself in despair. Athena then turned her into a spider so she and her descendants could spin and weave for all eternity.”
Crossworld, at least my small part of it, split into two camps today. It all came about because the clue at 30A was ” ______ Aran, protagonist in Nintendo’s Metroid.” What the f*ck? Fortunately, the crosses were merciful and I was able to come up with the answer: SAMUS. Here’s Rex on it: What is that? Just the stupidest name I’ve ever seen in the grid (tapping the “Not All Debuts Are Good” sign, once again). I barely know what Metroid even is, and certainly never seen this “protagonist’s” “name” before. The Nintendification of puzzles has gone way too far. Feels lazy and sad. Is this what you want your generational contribution to crosswords to be? Apparently. It doesn’t even look like a name. I would have to guess at how to pronounce it. Just desperate, ugly fill. SAY-mus? SAM-us? SHAY-mus? … SAW Moose?
I’m in that camp.
But a whole bunch of folks responded with stuff like:
I’m going to politely disagree with you on SAMUS. She is absolutely crossworthy, as she was one of the first big female protagonists in video games. It was a huge moment when you saw it was a woman inside her helmet, because almost all major protagonists before her had been men.
Agree. I very often agree with Rex but I think his take on SAMUS is dead wrong. Character has been around since 1986, appeared in a litany of games and comics, and as you mention, was one of the first-ever female protagonists in a video game. Video games clearly aren’t Rex’s cup of tea and that’s fine, but SAMUS is crossworthy and to say otherwise is just silly.
As a big fan of the Metroid series I won’t stand for this anti-SAMUS vituperation.
As a non-Metroid fan, I still recognized Samus from the many hours of Smash Bros I played with my kids over the years.
As a gamer, it’s insane to think somebody wouldn’t know Samus! It’s up there with Mario and Kirby in names I assume everybody knows.
Same – this strikes me as classic “I don’t know this so I’m going to be angry at it and pretend no one knows it.” The series is almost 40 years old, there have been at least 15 games with this character … it’s fair game.
There’s always a lot of video game hate here, and it’s never made sense to me. Video games can be just as much a medium for storytelling as books, tv, or movies, and their characters can be just as deep and developed. If we’re comfortable having characters from books, TV, and movies in the grid, we should have space for characters from video games too.
Enough? Enough.
Here she is.
Picked nit of the week: The clue at 36A was “High-calorie burger toppings,” and the answer was BACON STRIPS. Kitshef: A bacon strip is 43 calories – is that ‘high’? The bun is typically three times that.
I’m not going to express myself on what happened when Zelensky was in the Oval Office yesterday. Write your own outrage. This take by Carville is very funny though. And he was not trying to be funny.
See you tomorrow!
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Twenty-Seven Cents And Some Soul
When I first read this beautiful love poem called “March” by Jessica Jiang, the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation, I thought the poet was thinking back to when she was in college, because it refers to a dorm room. But Ms. Jiang is still in college, a senior at Williams. Any of you see her at the Tunnel Cafe last July 4? Maybe with Tiffany?
March
Tiffany,
I’ve gotten used to sunlight with you,
but no pressure! Just—
spring doesn’t hurt as much anymore.
Your softness,
as the green seeps in.I’ve got only 27¢
and some soul
to spend on you.
Sudden sunlight striking through,
to find myself kneeling.
My bones shattered
then welded
into this sudden page
and you.In a dorm room,
we make sin out of our bodies,
such joy despite illegality.
There is no shame in love
like this: our mouths open,
gasping white plumes,
we send messages to the sky.Yesterday
I opened my coat
and your yellow hair flew out
like a migrant bird.
I watched the wind take it upward
and I was beside you, flying.
My beautiful daughter Caitlin sent me this photo of her (and our) Zoey. (Hey, are those PRIDE sox, Zo?) We moved a gorgeous dollhouse into Zoey’s room yesterday that had been in my office at Hunter for decades. Caity wanted to let me know that when she went up to check on Zo early this morning this is how she found her. (That’s a cello she’s holding in her hands, btw.)
This is the conversation between Linda and me that ensued:
Avi: That Zoey is so sweet.
Linda: They all are.
Avi: That’s right. They all are. We deserve some of the credit, don’t we?
Linda: Yes. Most of it.
Avi: Maybe all?
An unvaccinated child died from the measles yesterday in Gaines County in West Texas. The county is home to thousands of Moronites, an insular Christian group that historically has had low vaccination rates. Oops, I’m sorry — it’s Mennonites, not Moronites. The county’s vax rate is 13% below what is needed to prevent outbreaks. Criticize the Jews all you want — who doesn’t? At least we don’t kill our own children out of idiocy. Jeez Louise.
RFK, Jr., “downplayed” the death (that’s the word used by the NYT), noting it’s “not unusual.” That should be comforting to the parents. In The Measles Book, published in 2021, Kennedy wrote: “measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear,” leading government officials to “inflict unnecessary and risky vaccines on millions of children for the sole purpose of fattening industry profits.” The outbreak in West Texas has spread into New Mexico. Junior has blood on his hands. He’ll be knee deep in it soon.
Miriam Webster’s “Word of the Day” is doff. I almost skipped reading about it thinking it was nothing special — that it just means to take off your hat out of respect. But I was wrong. First of all, it’s not limited to hats and is unrelated to shows of respect. It simply means to take off any article of clothing. Best to think of it as the opposite of don, which it is. It’s from “to do off,” as don is from “to do on.” Juliet used it in her “rose by any other name” speech: “Romeo, doff thy name; / And for that name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.” [Sigh.]
True to form, our Phil broke into J’s bedroom (climbed through the famous window) for this shot. We normally berate Phil when he does that, but we can’t this time — she’s too beautiful. That’s Hailee Steinfeld, btw, engaged to marry NFL QB Josh Allen, who is apparently not deterred by her tragic death. “Nobody’s perfect,” he reasoned.
The puzzle by David Steinberg was brilliant today. The theme was POCKETS. There were four across answers that were types of pants: TROUSERS, BLUE JEANS, CORDUROYS, and JODHPURS (look it up). Each of these, fortuitously, has the letter U in it. That U served as a “pocket” to hold something from the crossing down word. E.g., at 4 down the clue was “Shook one’s defender, in sports lingo.” The answer is GOT OPEN, but all you could fit into squares was GOTO and the “pen” fit into the U from TROUSERS, see below. Similarly, the “glove” at the end of BIG LOVE fit into the U of BLUE JEANS; the “phone” at the end of PERSEPHONE fit into the U of CORDUROYS; and the KEY at the end of MICKEY fit into the U of Jodhpurs. When you finished, these neat pictures appeared in your completed grid:
Note there are no other Us in the entire grid, a nice touch.
Too bad David didn’t put BRASS in one of the pockets.
Commenter Egs noted: The items are the things, employed in the exact order, that I spend the bulk of my days looking for every time Mrs. Egs tries to embark on any outing……glove, pen, key, phone.
Continuing with the pocket theme, a commenter suspiciously calling him or herself Mae W. wrote simply “No banana?” It recalls Ms. West’s famous line: “Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? (The pistol is sometimes replaced by a banana.)
The puzzle also asked us to know who the author of “Dubliners” is. JOYCE, of course, and it led Son Volt to share this song with us, that includes a reference to JJ.
Rex’s write-up today (he loved the puzzle too) included a reference to Musk’s Nazi salute. It generated this back-and-forth by commenters:
It started with Rachel, for the defense:
As the granddaughter of a Survivor I am very sensitive about anyone who would make that salute and I don’t think Elon Musk did that. Here’s what I do know for a fact: Elon Musk visited Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 22, 2024. This private visit took place before he attended a conference on antisemitism organized by the European Jewish Association in Krakow, Poland. During the visit, he was accompanied by his young son, as well as by Rabbi Menachem Margolin, and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev. Musk laid a wreath and participated in a memorial ceremony at the site, which was a former Nazi German concentration camp where over 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II. Pretty sure he didn’t give a Nazi dog whistle salute a year after that visit. It was just an awkward gesticulation used as a desperate attempt by his political opponents to vilify him.
Sir Hillary countered: Your last sentence seems to be the point you really wanted to make, which is of course your right. But how can anyone be “pretty sure” about what Musk thinks or does? Face it — none of us has any idea what’s going on in his head — “mercurial” doesn’t even begin to describe the way he rolls. If that’s why you like him, fine, but your argument in this case might be more convincing if he didn’t have [Germany’s right-wing] AfD leadership on speed-dial.
Later in the day, Rachel took some heavier hits:
Anony Mouse I wrote: You have no way of knowing his motivations for any of the above, but what we do know is how his supporters are interpreting his salute to validate and further their own racism. Being a descendent of a survivor doesn’t mean you get to justify harmful rhetoric as “he didn’t mean it.”
Anony Mouse II: You’re just gaslighting yourself. There’s nothing awkward about it, he clearly planned it ahead of time, and he’s had every opportunity to apologize and clarify, but he’d rather court neo-Nazis.
Anony Mouse III: You should be ashamed for defending this guy.
Anony Mouse IV: What horrid propaganda. Guy is a neo-Nazi. Idiocy to pretend otherwise: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276084/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-holocaust
Frank Bruni’s “For The Love Of Sentences” feature was on fire this week. First, our sports consultant Sarah was delighted with this description of a hockey game in The New Yorker by Louisa Thomas: “Skaters turned and arced, arced and turned, their jerseys, bright against the white ice, reorganizing like a kaleidoscope.”
Sticking with sports, in The Athletic, Brendan Quinn and Brendan Marks visited with the young Duke basketballer Cooper Flagg and his parents: “Mom has a tendency to dominate chats, cutting in like an 18-wheeler changing lanes with no signal. Cooper is said to get his basketball moxie from her.”
Last, this hysterical quote in The Atlantic by Gary Shteyngart appraising his own body (or, rather, his punishing self-image of it): “When I finally found people to have sex with me — I had to attend Oberlin to complete the task — my expression upon disrobing resembled that of a dog looking up at his mistress after a bowel movement of hazmat proportions.”
It reminded me of Rodney Dangerfield’s comments on his own looks: “When I was born, the doctor slapped my mother.”
Enough. See you tomorrow.
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Mrs. Kennedy and Mr. Hill
Let’s open today with a pretty face. At 59D the clue was “Band with the 1984 hit ’99 Luftballons.’” Yikes, was it really over 40 years ago? NENA.
It’s such a good song. Turn it up!
George Harrison was born on this date in 1943. In Liverpool (duh). He passed away in 2001. Did you know he was only 14 when he joined the Beatles? There was some grumbling about his always being treated as “the little brother,” although that’s what I was and it never bothered me. To the contrary, I always felt loved. But where was I? Oh, yeah, George. So he was only allocated two songs per album and when the band broke up and he went solo he had a huge backlog to draw from.
Here’s a tune of his I like, below. It’s a love song George wrote for his then-wife Pattie Boyd. Pattie went on to marry Eric Clapton after she and George divorced. Pattie and George were married for eleven years and remained close after splitting. George called Clapton his husband-in-law. Pattie is still living and is 80. George is still dead. You know Clapton’s song Layla? Sure you do. Pattie is Layla. It was the world’s loss that neither marriage resulted in children, though they all tried. Pattie was a model whose look helped define the era. It’s easy to see how all the boys fell for her. She said if a biopic is ever made on her life, she’d like Taylor Swift to play her. (I’m requesting Tom Cruise for mine, BTW. Just sayin’.)
At his death, Paul said of George: “He was a lovely guy, and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother.”
The limo in which John F. and Jackie were riding on that fateful day in 1963 is on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. We saw it; it’s chilling. Amazingly, it was fixed up and still used for a time in motorcades after the assassination. Anyway, if you recall that day, you will recall the image of Jackie, terrified, climbing out of her seat. The car was speeding to the hospital and if Jackie had fallen out and onto the road, she would likely have been run over and killed. The Secret Service agent who climbed onto the trunk and pushed her back in is thus credited with saving her life. That agent was Clint Hill. He died last Friday at the age of 93.
Hill was chosen to protect Jackie because he was close in age to her, and Jackie and he grew to be very close friends, although he always called her Mrs. Kennedy and she called him Mr. Hill. He stayed by her side for four days after the shooting. Thirteen days after it, in a ceremony attended by Jackie, Hill received the highest award bestowed on Secret Service agents, for “extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger.” He remained the protection for Jackie and the kids for a year.
Despite being considered a hero by others, Hill was tortured for years by the belief he could have saved JFK had he only reacted better once the shooting began. He told Mike Wallace in an interview “Had I turned in a different direction, I’d have made it. It’s my fault. I have a great deal of guilt about that.”
He sank into a terrible depression and alcoholism and retired at the age of 43. He only made peace with himself when he visited the scene, and went into the building where the shots came from. He concluded nothing he could have done would have saved the president. In time, he snapped out of his depression.
Hill married his second wife in 2021, Lisa McCubbin, the journalist/author with whom he wrote his memoir “Mrs. Kennedy and Me” in 2012, and she survives him, as do his two sons from his earlier marriage to Gwendolyn Brown, a college classmate; five grandchildren; two step-grandsons; and all the rest of us, in this poor beaten-up country, who are grateful for our time with Jackie Kennedy, whose beauty and grace kept the glow of those years alive for all those extra years thanks to Clint Hill.
Rest in peace, Agent Hill.
This was just reported: Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) took a hard fall in his home state after slipping on ice Sunday, suffering “a severe concussion, a seizure, and a slight brain bleed,” and is taking it “day to day” before returning to his congressional duties.
He’s a Republican Senator — what congressional duties?
Here’s a shot of him going down.
Oy.
Speaking of falling on your ass, you may recall commenter Gary had trouble with the puzzle yesterday since he was prepping for a procedure (no doubt a colonoscopy). Here’s what he wrote today:
“Solved this under the lingering effects of fentanyl after my procedure. So as you can imagine, I found this puzzle quite pleasant.”
At 54A the clue was “Wide-eyed with wonder,” and the answer was AGOG. At 18A the clue was “Not very approachable,” and the answer was ALOOF.
Can you use both in a sentence? A gog and a loof walk into a bar . . .
Barry McMahon posted the following for the Dull Men’s Club (UK), but, for those of us who care deeply, it’s hardly a dull topic:
“Me and the wife have been having a silent battle for years now. She always puts the toilet roll on the holder with the end hanging down the back. Every time I use the toilet I will switch it to the “correct” way, end hanging down the front. Neither of us has acknowledged the fact, but we both know it’s happening…………… Unless she just couldn’t care less and doesn’t notice.”
Did you know there are names for each way: hanging down the front (the correct way) is called a beard. Hanging down the back is a mullet.
Here are some of the 43 comments:
Murray Atkinson: Every time I visited my mum I would turn it round. It was always turned back immediately.
Jim Robertson: The only reason to have the roll hanging at the back, is if you have a toddler or cat who likes to unroll the entire roll for fun.
Alan Hunt: Why don’t you put it your way, over, when you use it and then put it back ,under, when you leave…. She will then think she has won, but you will have more than one ‘over’ her….. see what I did there? …. I’ll get my coat
Gilly B: We have a bathroom each. As a consequence I have no idea how he hangs his.
Chris Fitzgerald: I use the Daily Mail
Liz Webster Goddard: Install a second roll holder.
Rose Kocher: The correct way is whatever way she likes it.
Dominic Hill: Divorce is the only option if she can’t accept she’s wrong
Marc Hurd: My wife is a rare woman. After we married I explained the correct way to hang a toilet roll and she, being able to see the logic, accepted it without question. She has made mistakes from time to time over the last 45 years when she has her head in the clouds but it’s unusual so I quietly forgive her, correct the problem and administer no lectures or punishments.
Paula Adams: I couldn’t care less which way it goes, but I do change them round in other people’s toilets for a giggle
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!
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Baby Steps
Patsy Grimaldi died February 13 at age 93 in Queens. He revolutionized pizza in NYC by introducing coal-fired artisanal pies at his Brooklyn parlor.
His customers included Frank Sinatra (who was the only one to whom Grimaldi delivered), Joe DiMaggio, Rodney Dangerfield, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall. (Sinatra would order two large sausage pies, if you must know. Grimaldi picked up fennel sausage at a pork store in Queens every morning, while his competitors bought theirs from big distributors.)
Matthew Grogan, an investment banker who co-founded Patsy’s pizzeria Juliana’s, named for Grimaldi’s mom, who thought he knew good pizza, spoke for many customers when he said after tasting a coal-fired pie: “I’ve been living a fraud all these years. This is the greatest food I ever had.” When mob boss John Gotti was on trial at the federal courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn, his lawyers carried slices wrapped in foil in their attache cases to him for lunch.
Pete Wells wrote the obit in the NY Times. It includes this lovely paragraph:
“Mr. Grimaldi’s pizzerias attracted long lines of diners outside, on Old Fulton Street, who were hungry for house-roasted peppers, white pools of fresh mozzarella and tender, delicate crusts baked in a matter of minutes by a scorching pile of anthracite coal.”
Grimaldi is survived by his sister, his daughter, a grandson, and one, large, with sausage and peppers.
Rest in peace, Patsy.
Tristin Giblin posted the following for the Dull Men’s Club (UK) under the title, “what are the odds?”
“I was being rude and looking at the phone at the till when the cashier said to me “11:53.” I said yes, thinking she was telling me the time. Turns out the time was the exact amount I’d spent on Turkish and Greek beer.
“She was mildly surprised. Apparently it had happened 63 times that day.
“When I walked home I tripped into a worm hole and woke up naked next to Picard in a petting zoo.”
I replied, asking if Picard was naked too.
I’m retired and was a state (NY) employee, not a federal one, but I was thinking about what I’d write if I had to answer Musk’s call for 5 accomplishments last week. I came up with “made a cheese omelet,” and “lay around drunk.” I’m drawing blanks now, but I’m going to keep at it.
There is more than enough material for Owl Chatter to open a new department devoted entirely to Nazi salutes. The latest was the CEO of a construction company in Idaho, Thomas Hill, who deemed his speech at an employee gathering an appropriate occasion for repeated salutes. Apparently, these racist morons keep forgetting that everything everyone does these days is captured on video by someone since even homeless people have smartphones. After being caught, his Oopsies fake apology defended the salutes (there were two) as attempts at humor and claimed he was being “unfairly judged.” The idiotic apology generated as much of an uproar as the salutes, so he apologized again, leaving out the bogus “attempt at humor” defense. We’ll keep you posted as additional apologies fly out of his ass.
Ever wonder what news people in Idaho are like?
In more news from the potato state, at the direction of the sheriff, a woman was removed from a town hall meeting for voicing dissent. Three men who refused to identify themselves treated her quite roughly.
Meanwhile, the event’s emcee Ed Bejarana taunted the woman: “Just look at this. This little girl is afraid to leave. She spoke up and now she doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.” The woman’s name is Teresa Borrenpohl, hardly a little girl. Apparently, in Idaho, there are “consequences” for speaking up. Is that supposed to be?
I solved the puzzle today using only the down clues, a method that makes Mondays much more of a challenge. I usually cave with a few blanks left and check some acrosses but not today. So I’m crowing: Caw! Caw!
Without question, how you are feeling can have an effect on how well you perform on the puzzle. Here’s how poor Gary described it today: A good deal tougher than the usual Monday, but I’m prepping for the once-a-decade procedure and I haven’t eaten for 24 hours and I’m cold, and jittery, and filled with existential remorse. Either that or it’s a tough puzzle or I’m stupid.
At 46A, the clue was “Prepared students specifically for material on standardized exams,” and the answer was TAUGHT TO THE TEST. Gary again: Back when I taught high school, we taught sophomores an essay format to pass the high school competency exam. Then, in 11th grade I had to unteach them that so they could write like normal human beings. I will bet if I asked most of them today to write an essay as 50-year-old adults, most of them would begin the second sentence with, “First, …”
The NY Times is not known for humor or sarcasm in its headlines, but how else to read “Zelensky Resists U.S. Mineral Deal.” Trump’s offer is hysterical. In exchange for the $180 billion in aid the U.S. transferred to Ukraine, they would agree to pay us back $500 billion by giving us 50% of their income from natural resources. $500 billion is more than twice what Ukraine’s economic output was in 2021 (before the war). Z said it would take ten generations of Ukrainians, or 250 years, to pay off the $500 billion. And that’s just for past aid we gave them which they are under no obligation to repay. For every dollar in future aid, they will owe us an additional $2. As Z noted, that’s a 100% interest rate. In return they get no security guarantees (not that any by Trump would mean anything). Here’s the punchline: Trump says once the U.S. has such a big stake in Ukraine (by screwing them with this “deal”), Putin wouldn’t dare attack them. Even our Phil, who spends every waking moment drinking, says “Olena didn’t marry an idiot.”
Stuart Davidson of the DMC(UK) sent me running to the dictionary with this post.
Tonight I went to the gym for the first time since my orchidectomy in September last year. I’ve gained almost 2 stone since the procedure.
Motivation to do anything has been lacking ever since. So tonight was the night I was going to change that. I pulled up in the car park, watched a laughing crowd of young muscular, athletic youths enter and thought sod it. Turned the car around and got a kebab instead. Perhaps next week.
*******
I had to look up “orchidectomy,” which I thought meant orchid removal, which makes no sense. It means removal of a testicle (or two — maximum two).
Here are some of the duller of the 75 comments:
John Scotland: A damn’ good walk in the hills will provide at least as much benefit, and you won’t see the athletic muscular young posers who probably still haven’t left home…
Stephen Arthur: That’s a good work out. The young ones only use the machines to sit on them for hours looking at their phones anyway
Kirkers SJ: Baby steps.
Chris Halliday: Gained 2 stone. I laughed out loud to that; bloody brilliant.
I was in my thirties when Caity was born, and then Sam. So I set aside my years and started counting theirs. You know, diapers, kindergarten, el-hi, college. And when all that finished I let go of their years and went back to mine. I think some part of me went through it like this:
I’m back.
Ok, but you’re in your fifties now.
Wait, what? Why? No! Thirties, forty tops!
But you’ve been gone for twenty years. Do the math, Einstein: 35 + 20.
No! Those twenty were their years, I’m coming back to my years — I’m still in my thirties! No way that’s fair!
Fair? You expected fair?
This poem by Dennis O’Driscoll is called “Time Enough.” It was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.
The tally of years
added up so rapidly
it appeared I had
been short-changed,
tricked by sleight
of hand, fallen victim
to false bookkeeping.Yet when I checked
my records, each
and every year had
been accounted for,
down to the last day,
and could be audited
against old diary entries
(client briefings,
dental check-ups,
parent-teacher meetings,
wedding anniversaries),
verified with credit
card statements
(multi-trip insurance,
antibiotics, concert bookings,
mobile top-ups).And, although
nagging doubts
remained—an
inkling that I had
been ripped off
in some way,
given short shrift,
made to live at an
accelerated pace,
rushed through
my routines with
unseemly haste—
nothing could be proved,
no hard and fast
statistics adduced.I had, it seems,
unknown to me,
been living my
life to the full.
OK, chatterheads, we’ve all had enough nonsense for the day. I’m going to crawl into bed now, stay away from the news, and see if there’s some Spring baseball on TV to watch. See you tomorrow!
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Definitely Bobcat
Yesterday’s constructor, Colin Adams, must have a thing for hair. Men’s hair in particular. First, at 39D, the clue was “What pogonophobia is the fear of,” and the answer is BEARDS. I don’t have a fear of beards, but I have a fear of snakes. And I would be afraid of a snake with a beard, so there’s that. The beard thing is a real phobia stemming from “negative past experiences with bearded individuals, societal stereotypes associating beards with danger or untrustworthiness, cultural perceptions, personal anxieties about masculinity, or even a fear of the unknown as a beard might conceal a person’s face.”
According to Wikipedia, BBC’s Jeremy Paxman accused the BBC of pogonophobia after he caught sh*t for presenting some programming while bearded. He (unhappily) became a “poster boy” for the Beard Liberation Front, he claimed. Broadcaster Robin Lustig, previously winner of “Beard of the Year,” also described the BBC as pogonophobic. Sorry to say, we’ve lost a lot of respect for the BBC over this.
Then, at 28D, “Did some personal grooming” was MANSCAPING. Miriam tells us it means trimming or shaving a man’s body hair to enhance his appearance. Think I’m making this up?
Comedian Glaser was NIKKI Glaser. Many of us had not heard of her so she became part of a “natick” when a word crossing her was “Going backward, in skateboarding slang,” which was FAKIE. (I know — what? Seriously.) Even Rex was defeated (as was I) thinking it was Nicki and Facie. D’oh! (Natick is the term for the crossing of two obscure crossword clues.)
Anyway, here’s what Nikki Glaser says about babysitting: “I hated babysitting. It’s so hard because it’s like you’re a mother but you don’t love them, so it’s hard to do the right thing. I would just let them watch TV all day in the basement or wherever I kept them. Who cares? I don’t see the harm in letting your kids watch TV all day. I grew up watching TV, and I turned out perfect. I don’t read or anything, I mean besides tweets and Plan B’s side effects. I’m not like digging into chapter books. That’s how little I read: I still call them chapter books.”
Here’s a nice shot of Glaser doing her imitation of Musk’s Nazi salute.
At 13D, “Sort who might go for all the bells and whistles?” was ONE-MAN BAND. I’m sure you remember it in this lyric from long long ago. Note the lovely job Sabrina Carpenter does on it.
Here’s another look at a new feature at Owl Chatter we call “Inside My Brain.” So I was in the shower this morning and it occurred to me that showers are better than naps in one way. If you miss a few nights of sleep and then manage to sneak in a bit of a nap, that’s good — it helps. But you’re not “caught up.” You’re still going to have to get a good solid night of sleep to become yourself again. Conversely, you can go a week without showering, and then take one good shower and you’re all caught up. It’s like you never fell behind. You’re back on the beam.
Stick with us here at Owl Chatter for more profound observations from “Inside My Brain.”
Catharsis. Sometimes you feel constrained to hold in or tamp down your emotions. Maybe to be polite, or to avoid confrontation. After a period of some constraint, if they are released it’s “cathartic.” This short scene is a good example.
Similar to Musk recently, Steve Bannon took advantage of a friendly crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference to invoke Hitlerism with a Nazi salute to the crowd. Are we coming to a time in which we’ll see a rally crowd all chanting Heil Trump, and saluting back? Is it a matter of months? Will it take a year? What else are Musk and Bannon planting these seeds for? Apologists say, but Obama, Harris, and Warren all raised their hands in a similar fashion one time or another. Maybe so — but the difference is they are not Nazis.
Today’s puzzle, at 7D, had “Big shot performer.” It was HUMAN CANNONBALL.
At 17A, “How criticism of a pastry chef might be delivered?” was TARTLY.
But, yet again, the puzzle defeated me. For “School of whales,” all I could think of was POD, even after the last two letters came in as AM. Turns out a GAM is also a collection of whales.
At 12D, the clue for MILK DUDS was “Candies named for their imperfect shape.” It led CDilly52 to share this family story.
Long ago, when our daughter was about 10 and her dad could do no wrong, we were in Santa Fe for our annual camping and opera week. Dear friends were also there: Mike as percussionist in the orchestra and his wife, Nancy (offering dance workshops) and daughter, Jen (about our daughter’s age). With a Monday off, they joined us for a hike.
We are a couple miles in, and had been showing the girls different flowers, trees, birds and generally enjoying our time together. Lots of teachable moments and fun. After narrowly escaping being “dropped on” by a sassy Blue Jay, and nearly avoiding stepping on a pile of deer scat, the girls became interested in finding different “piles.” We were, after all in a very remote area of the National Forest, heading for a small lake – a favorite picnic spot and wildlife watering hole. Evidence of animal life was abundant.
My husband, ever the prankster called the girls over and said “here’s some more,” meaning yet another ”pile.” Our daughter Kate looked and opined that the pellets were “bigger than deers and rabbits and not a big squishy pile like cows, so Daddy what kind of scat is this?” She was so proud of herself, using her new word “scat,” and so certain her dad knew everything – such a golden time with kids, right?
I could see on his face that this was going to be a famous “gotcha” moment but had no idea how. Larry bent over, took a stick and moved a couple pellets around, looked critically at the pile and then picked one up and ate it! The girls screamed and we all gasped, as he smacked his lips and said “definitely Bobcat,” and casually started to walk on. As we all looked on in utter shock, he turned around and tossed the two girls a box of Milk Duds.
Let’s close tonight with a poem called “Scheming in the Snow.” It’s by Jack Gilbert and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.
There is a time after what comes after
being young, and a time after that, he thinks
happily as he walks through the winter woods,
hearing in the silence a woodpecker far off.
Remembering his Chinese friend
whose brother gave her a jade ring from
the Han Dynasty when she turned eighteen.
Two weeks later, when she was hurrying up
the steps of a Hong Kong bridge, she fell,
and the thousand-year-old ring shattered
on the concrete. When she told him, stunned
and tears running down her face, he said,
“Don’t cry. I’ll get you something better.”
See you next time!
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Two Philadelphians
This is the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. It’s by Philadelphian Tim Seibles. Phil and he really hit it off. It’s called “Something Like We Did II.”
Light years in time, ahead of our time.
—George Clinton, “Mothership Connection (Star Child)”They did not
expect to, nor did they
find usbeautiful
despite how much
we loved to see
ourselvesdespite the way
we dressed
our bodies—as though both trying
to hide and begging
to be seen. The wayour hands moved
when we spoke
startled themand our mouths:
the animal sounds we called
laughing struck themas a kind of
punctuation
in a worldwhose machinery
never stopped
eatingour lives
though we
had made itthough we
worked hard
to maintain it.This is why
they would not
harm us: our aggressivestupidity
that we could not
see was visibleto them like a halo
of cellophane capping
our heads—whichappeared to grow
a restless vegetation
that we attendedmore than our
actual lives, which
seemed to bewhat we wanted
to avoid: our fragility
the imminenceof History and worry
about what we called
the future—though it had
already comewhile we
averted our eyesand often forgot
the constellationsbetween which
the Earth swerved
The puzzle defeated me today. I couldn’t get the four-letter answer to “Man.” The crosses I messed up led me to TYPE. I guess it could be a type of man? It made no sense but I couldn’t shake it. I had “dated” instead of FADED for “past its glory.” I couldn’t get OCULI for “Round windows.” (Gimme a break!) Anyway, “Man” turned out to be DUDE. (Grumble, grumble.)
At 28D, the clue was “Home to many kings and queens,” and the answer was HOLIDAY INN. An anonymous commenter wrote: I don’t understand the HOLIDAY INN clue?? Can anyone explain it to me please?
Here are the responses: Beds; Mattress/bed sizes; kings and queens are bed sizes. holiday inn is a hotel chain. 🙂 so they “are home” to lots of [beds]; King beds and queen beds; Think mattress sizes; King and Queen beds; Beds.
Then I posted: When a king and/or queen from another country visits the U.S., they usually stay at a HOLIDAY INN.
At 39D the clue was “Nine daughters of Greek myth,” and the answer was THE MUSES.
Here’s egs:
Teacher: Today we shall learn of nine daughters of Greek myth. This knowledge will have many uses, such as solving crosswords, displaying your erudition at cocktail parties, and generally feeling grounded in western culture.
Redneck Student: I don’t like THEMUSES!
Teacher: Please! It’s “those uses.”
Admission to the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame is a little I-don’t-know-what’s-the-word: eclectic? Mostly, you need to be a mensch, or a menschette. It is a moment of profound joy for all of us when a new member is welcomed.
Chris Klewe was born in Philly on Christmas eve, 1981. He’s 43. He played football at UCLA, from which he graduated with degrees in Poli Sci and History. He was a punter in the NFL, mostly for Minny. He made 623 punts in his career, averaging 44.4 yards, for total yardage of 27,683. He and wife Isabel have two daughters.
Chris was arrested Tuesday for an act of civil disobedience at a city council meeting in Huntington Beach, California. He protested the placement of a plaque in the local library honoring MAGA. He read the following statement and then approached the council peacefully, prompting his arrest.
“MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for re-segregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing. MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children.
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy, and, most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement. You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
Chris was literally carried out of the meeting in handcuffs and spent four hours in custody.
Upon his his retirement from football in 2014 he stated he believed his outspoken views, including support of same-sex marriage, and criticism of coaches in the past would keep teams from signing him.
Chris’ admission to the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame was a no-brainer. Settle in, buddy. Love the statement!
Let’s clean the palate with some chips. You hear of Takis? I hadn’t. They were in the puzzle today at 41A: “Alternative to a spicy Dorito.”
Takis are Mexican rolled tortilla chips introduced into the U.S. in 2001. There are more than 30 flavors, including Angry Burger, Kaboom, Ninja Teriyaki, Lava, Outlaw, Xplosion, and Zombie.
See you next time!
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Messing Around
Good morning Chatterheads! We’re in icy cold Bloomfield Hills, MI this week. The owls are visiting their son Worthington, and we are visiting new grandson Harold, aka Harry Beary, who turned two (months) old last week. Looking good, little fella! He has already doubled his weight (to roughly what I was at birth), and is a real good eater, kinahora!
Here’s the view from the kitchen. Brrrrrr. It’s 5 degrees, up from 3, and we’re looking to hit 20 in the afternoon. Heat wave!
Speaking of grandchildren, does he look like him at all? This is Jesse Madden, recent UMich grad. He played one game at QB a few years ago, but mostly defensive back, including play with the 2024 National Champs. Jesse is one of John Madden’s five grandchildren, and the first to enter the NFL. (John and wife Virginia had two sons: identical twins.) Jesse was just hired as offensive quality control coach for the Washington Commanders..
So, I ask you, Does he look like his grandpa?
I don’t see it. Maybe a little. He does look footbally. Love the tie, JM!
But let’s get that football face replaced by something prettier. Yesterday’s wonderful puzzle by ace constructor Erik Agard had this clue at 41D: “Move that sends tresses flying.” Do you have enough to carry one off? It can apply to men as well as women. It’s HAIR TOSS. Here are a couple:
I’ve been doing puzzles long enough to recognize instantly that “Messing around on set” was DEBRA. Actress Debra Messing of course. But it took a crafty commenter to note (lasciviously) that messing around on set could also involve having the actress “de-bra.”
DM has been in the news of late, supporting Israel and catching sh*t for it. Maybe Will Shortz was going for some balance by having AHED Tamimi in yesterday’s puzzle: Palestinian activist.
Debra’s 56 now, with a nice head of hair, just itching for a good toss. Phil caught Deb on her way out to pick up a few things at Target.
And here’s Ms. Tamimi, also with the hair. She just turned 24.
I woke up at 5 am in our hotel on the outskirts of Youngstown OH in a panic over whether our car would start. It was 8 degrees out. So I threw on some clothes and went out to see. Mozart, Beethoven — nothing comes close to the sound of that engine roaring to life on a freezing cold in predawn Ohio. Thank you Honda gods!
Unable to get back to sleep, I grabbed a complimentary copy of USA Today and settled into a comfortable seat in the lobby waiting for breakfast to open. And it was there that I considered for maybe three seconds whether to rent some chickens. The story started off noting the soaring price of eggs which resulted in increased business for Jenn and Phil Tompkins who founded “Rent the Chicken” in Pennsylvania.
It costs $500 for a six-month contract. That includes two hens ready to lay eggs within two days of arrival. Two hens usually lay about a dozen eggs a week. You also get a portable chicken coop, feed for the chickens, food and water dishes and access to experts if you have questions. You get the option to buy the chickens at the end of the rental period or even to “chicken out,” as Tompkins said, and return the chickens early, when you realize it was another of one of your insane ideas that went to sh*t.
Here’s Jenn. Our owls said they liked the idea except for the poor chickens being literally cooped up in those little coops — a deal breaker as far as they were concerned.
As a 75-year-old who has spent a lifetime watching the federal government waste zillions of my taxpayer dollars, it’s heartening to watch Musk cut out swaths of waste and fraud in just a matter of days. At the moment, he’s seeking access to all of the information IRS has on all of us. A White House spokesperson explained that “waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.” Makes sense.
Incredibly, skeptics have been asking exactly what fraud Musk has unearthed: what savings has he produced. So on Monday he listed $16 billion in canceled contracts. The New York Times made a teensy-beensy correction, noting that a contract Musk valued at $8 billion was actually closer to $8 million. C’mon fellas — they got the 8 part right. The Times also noted claims of $55 billion in savings lacked documentation. Last, when Trump and Musk both stated that Social Security is paying tens of millions of dead people they were wrong — based on shoddy software. As right wing podcaster Trish Regan put it, “Looks like the team got out over its skis on this one.” Seriously.
Seriously. That was the theme of Erik Agard’s puzzle yesterday. The single word “seriously” was the same clue for each theme answer. The first answer was I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU. Next was THE AUDACITY! Then WHO DOES THAT? Finally – WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! It was noted that the last answer set the record for longest one-word palindrome.
At 3D, “Important Powwow figure” was interesting. I just thought powwow meant “meeting.” But it’s a more significant cultural event for a tribe, typically marked by tribal dancing and other cultural activities. Hence, the answer was HEAD DANCER.
And 32D was interesting. We all remember Three Mile Island, right? Well just as harrowing (if not more) was the nuclear plant mishap at CHURCH ROCK, clued with “New Mexico site of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history.” It’s named after a prominent natural landmark.
On July 16, 1979, the dam at a United Nuclear Corp Church Rock uranium mill was breached and spilled 1,100 tons of milled uranium ore and 94 million gallons of heavy metal effluent into the Puerco River. This was the largest release of radioactive waste in U.S. history. In the great tradition of head-up-your-ass-ism, until recently, no epidemiological studies were undertaken on the effects on the population.
The theme today was QUILTING BEE. It was a bit foreign to commenter Southside Johnny: I have trouble visualizing how it would work – seems like it would be a bunch of people sitting around knitting. Come to think of it, I don’t know how a “book club” would work either . . . maybe everyone gets together to talk about a specific chapter?
It garnered two replies:
First: Quilting bees actually have a great history- quilts are very labor intensive and were often “pieced” by an individual (piecing is sewing the different pieces of cloth together), then people would come together in a “bee” to do the quilting collectively. Quilting is when the stitches you can see on the front and back of the finished quilt are created to hold the pieced top to the batting (stuffing) and the backing. To do this, people actually do sit in a circle and all do stitch work on the same quilt- it is a beautiful (and very practical) community activity!
Knitting in groups also allows for great organic exchange of craft knowledge, but knitted objects are almost always made by just one person.
These (historically feminine) activities are not frivolous or ancillary to our culture, they’re fundamental and profound!
Second: I can take this one. In a book club, people read a book and then talk about it.
A little later, Commenter Dennis posted: My mom was a big quilter so I enjoyed this puzzle’s theme. She passed away last year, but was still quilting up to the end. She made over a hundred quilts for her family and friends. I have very fond memories of quilting bees in our home before I started school. There was nothing better than sitting underneath the quilting frame with my mom and aunts and neighbors gabbing away above.
And whatsername added: Lost my mom nearly 12 years ago and like yours, she had a quilt going right up to the very end. I still have the pieces she had started and thought I might finish it someday. But I don’t have her gift or patience and somehow I like having her unfinished work there, just as she left it.
Local News Headline from The Onion:
Heroic Dog Saves Family Of Five From Herb-Roasted Chicken
See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by!
-
UCONN Women Rule!
Whether you agree or disagree with Musk’s “makeover” of the federal government, surely you must be impressed with how precisely and effectively it’s being carried out? Here’s a paragraph on just that point from today’s newsletter of historian Heather Cox Richardson:
On Thursday Musk’s team fired more than 300 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, apparently not aware that they were the people who oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons. NBC News reported that officials are now trying to rehire them but can’t figure out how to reach them because the workers lost access to their work email when they were fired.
Can you put a face to “transgender.” We can. Several. One of our Lianna’s first trans friends is the sweetest young man, Oliver. They met online through some shared interest and Linda and I drove her about 30 minutes north for their first in-person meeting a while ago. It was our job to assess the safety of it, you know, meet the parents, etc. It took about five seconds. The house and neighborhood were nice and the mom had a streak of pink in her hair and we connected instantly. But the joy of Lianna’s and Oliver’s meeting was more to the point. They just started jumping up and down together. They are wonderful kids. Beyond wonderful.
Kudos to the NYT for devoting their entire editorial page today to the hateful and brutal campaign Trump and the Republicans are waging against the trans community. Anyone who has resisted comparisons to Nazi Germany thus far can pretty safely join the rest of us now. Here are a few statements from the Times Editorial Board:
What shouldn’t be debated is whether the government should target a group of Americans to be stripped of their freedom and dignity to move through the world as they choose. This is a campaign in which cruelty and humiliation seem to be the fundamental point. The chaos of these past few weeks shouldn’t mask that in this period, Trump has waged as direct a campaign against a single, vulnerable minority as we’ve seen in generations.
Within hours, a series of executive orders and actions were issued excluding transgender people from nearly every aspect of American public life: denying them accurate identification documents such as passports, imposing a nationwide restriction on gender-affirming medical care for trans youths, investigating schools with gender neutral bathrooms, criminalizing teacher support for trans students, and commanding the Federal Bureau of Prisons to force the estimated 1,500 trans women in custody to be housed with men.
Another order aims to oust openly transgender soldiers from the armed services. In this move Trump took aim at people who have put their lives on the line for their nation. The order called for imposing federally mandated discrimination against the estimated 20,000 Americans who have put their lives on the line to defend the nation. He offered no evidence that this order would remove unqualified people from the armed forces or make the country safer, because there is none. The language of the order was notable for its meanness.
“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Not only does this order erase the honorable service (and potentially the pensions) of soldiers who led infantry patrols in Afghanistan and flew combat missions over Syria; it denies that they exist as transgender people at all.
But we know you exist, Oliver. Hang in there buddy.
[Sorry for devoting so much space to this, but it really gets on my goat.]
Oh, last point, almost forgot: Headline on page 25, front section of today’s Times. Five Arrested in Death of Transgender Man Who Police Say Was Tortured.
If you need to put a name and face to it: Sam Nordquist, 24.
His mom described him as “very kind,” and shared that he was loved by his family. Regarding the torture, Police Capt. Kelly Swift said: “In my 20-year law enforcement career, this is one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated.”
OK, let’s divide ourselves up into two groups, using this tiny love story as the vehicle. It’s by Elizabeth Vecchione and is from today’s NYT.
I was sitting at my kitchen table, mulling over the reality of my life after the death of my beloved husband, Joe. This was the second Valentine’s Day without him, and my loss was still painful. No more large bouquets of roses from the Korean market across the street; no more cards with the sappy verses he favored. Just then, a large silver and red Mylar balloon floated by — staying for a quick wiggle in front of my 25th-floor window. Was this Joe sending me a valentine, after all? I acknowledged his message to me, and smiled appreciatively.
So what group are you in reader? Was it Joe?
Those of us who sport one were happy to see a moustache in the puzzle today. And not just any moustache — a WALRUS MOUSTACHE. Neat clue too: “Style sported by Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain.”
Here’s Teddy’s, sorely needing a trim.
And MT’s, even more unruly than Ted’s.
Does the constructor have a thing about facial hair? There was also “Van _____ (beard style).” A Van DYKE is required to have a moustache too, BTW. It’s defined as beard + moustache with the cheeks shaved. Here’s Ned Flanders, Sr. with one.
First time I recall actress Portia de ROSSI in the grid. She is 52 now and married to Ellen DeGeneres, who is 67. Before her marriage, she dated Francesca Gregorini – the step-daughter of Ringo Starr. Portia and Ellen have been married since 2008.
Turning to sports, we watched the UCONN women stomp the crap out of South Carolina, 87-58. It was tense because we kept thinking SC, ranked #4 nationally, above UCONN, would come alive at some point. Get this — the game was in South Carolina and the loss snapped SC’s 71-home-game winning streak. Seventy-one! OC fave Paige Bueckers had a solid game (12 pts, 10 assists), but Azzi Fudd, below, no relation to Elmer, was brilliant with 28 points.
Less successful were our Sirens, bowing to a very tough Montreal team 6-2 in front of a sell-out (10,000) crowd up there yesterday. Our Sarah, skated well, but with Alex Carpenter still out, we just didn’t have the firepower to keep up with the league’s top team on their home ice.
We’ll let Sarah’s pretty smile send us off tonight. Thanks for popping by. We’ll see if we can report on the road from Ohio tomorrow.
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No One Promises You Tomorrow
Upon RFK Jr.’s confirmation, William Dunham, a research associate in math at Bryn Mawr, in a letter to the Times today, imagined Trump’s choice to head a Math Department.
It would be a person who rose to fame by asserting that 2 + 2 = 7. Senate Republicans, putting aside any arithmetic qualms, would confirm the nominee in order to “shake things up.” When the new secretary of mathematics assumed office, there would be no more D.E.I. (Divisors, Equations, Isosceles triangles), and odd numbers would be forbidden because they were too “woke.”
[OC note: 2 + 2 = 4.]
In another letter, Suzy Szasz of Richmond, VA, writes:
By confirming RFK Jr., four Republican Senators who are doctors — John Barrasso of Wyoming, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Roger Marshall of Kansas and Rand Paul of Kentucky — have violated a portion of the Hippocratic oath they swore as physicians: “I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm.”
Michael Weiden wrote this piece for tomorrow’s Met Diary:
Dear Diary:
My friend of 72 years and I stopped at a bodega at Broadway and 107th Street to buy lottery tickets. We don’t play unless the payout is astronomical.
It was 9 o’clock on this particular Saturday evening and we thought we were the only customers in the place. We asked the owner when the drawing would be announced. “Midnight,” he said.
My friend and I agreed that we would be asleep by then and would have to learn the results the next day.
At that moment, a man dressed entirely in black whom we hadn’t noticed standing in a back corner spoke up. “No one promises you tomorrow,” he said without looking up from the gardening magazine he was reading.
My friend and I, both 79, were all too familiar with this wisdom. We exchanged knowing glances with the bodega’s owner and politely thanked the man in black for his advice. He ignored us.
We went to my friend’s apartment, where we tried, and failed, to stay up till midnight.
We learned in the morning that we had unfortunately not won the lottery. On the other hand, we had our tomorrow.
This poem by Joyce Sutphen is called “Breakfast.” It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.
My father taught me how to eat breakfast
those mornings when it was my turn to help
him milk the cows. I loved rising up fromthe darkness and coming quietly down
the stairs while the others were still sleeping.
I’d take a bowl from the cupboard, a spoonfrom the drawer, and slip into the pantry
where he was already eating spoonfuls
of cornflakes covered with mashed strawberriesfrom our own strawberry fields forever.
Didn’t talk much—except to mention how
good the strawberries tasted or the waythose clouds hung over the hay barn roof.
Simple—that’s how we started up the day.
I posted my dull information about Nevada for the Dull Men’s Club (UK). I wondered what sort of non-splash it would make as an American note in the predominantly British club. Here’s what happened:
My post:
“U.S. trivia of interest to nobody: The state of Nevada has the highest percentage of federal land, i.e., land owned by the U.S. federal government, 80%. Alaska has four times as much acreage owned by the Feds, but percentage-wise it’s only 60% of the state.”
First of all, it got three “likes,” including one from Chris Bater, who is famous in the club for always posting “I don’t know” as his comment for almost everything. One person once suggested that he be banned and a large mass of members rose to his defense. It was beautiful and he was very moved by it.
Okay, and here are the dull comments it generated:
Adrian Thiemicke: Your first statement is correct. (I replied: Good to reach agreement!)
Shaun Gisby: That is indeed dull. Wasn’t Bonanza set in Nevada? Do maps still spontaneously combust there?
Neale Rumble: And?
To which Cathy Kelly Gibbs responded:
It’s a big deal for Nevada.
1) The federal government pays no property tax and in fact, charges fees to ranchers to graze on federal land.
2) The feds grip on Nevada land is one of the biggest reasons for exorbitant housing prices. This severely limits the supply to keep up with demand.
3) It undermines the self-determination of the state. Nevada has to beg to have land released for growth. In some instances, land parcels have been traded so BLM’s (Bureau of Land Management) overall holdings are not diminished.
While the OP may be correct on the percentages, the impact on Alaska is not as great as much of that area is not developable. The Federal government owns land in every state, as it should, for military bases, National Parks, and similar, but the disproportionate amount of Nevada land under federal ownership affects every Nevada citizen.
Murray Atkinson then replied to Cathy:
Burning Man is held on federal land in Nevada… it is a dry lake bed that can’t be used for anything else (except possibly mining). They are charged 10s of 1000s of dollars for the privilege.
But historically the federal gov had to ask states to hand over land they didn’t want as a way of reducing the federal tax burden needed to run federal stuff. There’s not enough water in Nevada for much of the land to be developed. And BLM land is great for camping on!
I was thrilled with having stirred up all of this dullness. So I tacked on this story:
For most of my life I was mispronouncing Nevada. Then we took a family trip out there and heard the natives pronounce it. Incorrect: Ne-vah-da. Correct: Nevada (middle A as in “atom” or “avid”). My daughter continued to pronounce it Ne-vah-da. I said, Caity — we just learned that the people who live here pronounce it Nevada (with the A as in atom). And she said, “I don’t live here.”
The puzzle today is by David P. Williams. Rex says this about him: I think this is the constructor who’s in the process of publishing 13 identically shaped themeless puzzles and then whenever he’s done … something will happen? It has something to do with “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens. I do not care about any of this, I just want my Saturday puzzles to be good, but now that someone told me about it, I can’t unknow it, and now you know it. When I opened the grid, I was like “Oh, right, this guy, this grid again.”
Puzzle people talk about a puzzle’s “flow,” i.e., each segment blends into the next, for a whooshing effect, if you’re doing well. But today’s has five segments without much flow, i.e., like five separate little puzzles. And the one in the Great Northwest pounded the crap out of me. I just couldn’t break into it. There was an 8-letter answer for “Pirate’s lack, stereotypically,” and I was pretty sure it had to end with NC. All I could think of were eye patches, peg legs, parrots, hooks for arms, and funny ways of talking. Answer: VITAMINC. D’oh!
Here’s a joke about Jewish pirates. So two old Jewish pirates, both retired and in their 70’s run into each other in Miami Beach.
Abe! How are you?
Max! How’ve you been?
Not too bad; can’t complain.
But, what happened? — your hook for an arm? Your eye patch? You didn’t have those the last time I saw you.
Oh, yeah. Terrible. The hook I got when I was boarding a ship. I wasn’t careful and during the fight, one of the crewmembers lopped off my arm.
Terrible. And the eye?
Yeah, that was terrible too. I was just relaxing on the beach and this damn seagull pooped in my eye!
OK, but would that cause you to lose it?
Well, I had just gotten my hook. . . .
Two comments questioned why I made them Jewish, one noting this isn’t the Borscht Belt. I replied that it wasn’t a requirement, but it seemed funnier to me that way.
People are so sensitive these days.
At 31D, the clue was “What solving a Saturday Times crossword might earn you, informally.” Answer: NERD CRED. But I don’t think I agree with that. I think of nerds more in connection with engineering (Hi Sam!).
Remember CERTS, the breath mint? The clue was “Classic candy brand discontinued in 2018.” They were discontinued because they contain cottonseed oil which was prohibited in food products.
Rex was quite miffed: OK, yes, they were “two mints in one,” a “candy mint” (?) and a “breath mint,” but you cannot leave out the “breath mint” part, that’s definitive. CERTS are (uh, were) breath mints. They had Retsyn, the magical proprietary breath-freshening agent that (it turns out) contained partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, which (it turns out) was the tragically ironic cause of CERTS’ eventual discontinuation. Live by the Retsyn, die by the Retsyn. Anyway, CERTS were about Retsyn and Retsyn was about fresh breath. That was their whole deal: breath-freshening. Call things what they are for ****’s sake!
This was a tough Saturday-level clue/answer: Clue: “Disregard.” Answer: NONCHALANCE. What? Miriam Webster tells us “nonchalant” means: having an air of easy unconcern or indifference. Still, without the crosses that’s way over my head.
Owl Chatter is heading west on Monday: spending the week out in Michigan with Sam and little Harold (2 months old, kinehora). Should be able to report from there. We’ll see. (Sarah and Mo will be in Florida, visiting Mo’s great-grandmother and great-step-grandfather.)
Thanks for popping in. See you tomorrow!
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The Wellington Files 