The Wellington Files

  • Rocky, Dave, and Dick

    What the hell was I thinking when I doubted that the alcoholic rapist Trump appointed to head the Defense Dept would sail through confirmation? Did I really think a toad like Joni Ernst would show some spine? After a few calls from Magalomaniacs, she fell right into line.

    It’s the best appointment ever! The lunacy is already gushing in. This is from the NYT yesterday:

    Senator Rick Scott of Florida told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he was “disgusted” that the woman who alleged that Hegseth sexually assaulted her was not “willing to go on your show or some show and have you ask them all the questions.”

    Tapper pointed out that Hegseth made her sign a nondisclosure agreement.

    D’oh!

    Are you dreaming of a brown Christmas? If you are, and you live in Rumford, Maine, your dreams have already come true. A malfunction at a paper mill caused the release of “spent black liquor” resulting in a brown snowfall.

    Town officials took to Facebook to reassure residents that the public safety concern is “minimal.” But residents were advised — don’t ingest it or let it get on your skin, and don’t let your kids play with it. And your pets — keep your pets away from it. It’s perfectly safe though, absolutely.

    Andy Spragg posted the following in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) along with the photo, below, which is of the cast of a popular old sitcom in Britain.

    Good moaning. The time has come to tread another fine line between whinge and dull. I wish to raise the topic of my Huawei P30 Pro mobile phone. I bought it a couple of months ago on the basis of its superlative camera; if it hadn’t been for that USP, I would have given up on trying to commission it, a process involving replacing both the phone and the memory card I wanted to use with it before I finally got a combination that played nicely with each other. But that’s not important right now.

    What I have observed is an apparent inverse correlation between the quality of the camera and the quality of the keyboard. I find myself having to constantly correct adjacent-key errors, a problem that I have never had on either of my two previous mobiles (yes, I know the rest of the world replaces their mobile every 18 months on average; I laugh in the face of such short-termism).

    What makes it worse is that because three of the five vowels are adjacent to one another, it’s like being in an endless episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo (see cast, below). It’s possible, of course, that my digital proprioception suffered a step change for the worse at around the same time I changed to this new mobile, but I think most would agree that this is very much the less probable scenario.

    Can we seriously countenance the possibility that keyboard quality (however that is implemented) has been skimped upon in order to provide unrivalled camera quality without excessive cost?

    Jeremy Ping replied:

    Gut moaning. In the photo the scene behind the cast is Lynford Hall, Mundford, Norfolk. For us, in years past, it was a favourite venue for occasional afternoon teas with very best friends. So when we eventually escaped to life in France we brought the boxed set of ‘Allo Allo’, as one must. I’m typing on my laptop because when it comes to the incumbent (Somsang Goloxé) mobile phone I can’t hit the correct ‘key’ for toffee. The old Blackberry had a slide-out physical key pad that was the greatest invention ever until the screen went green so I can’t gauge whether the camera is any good or not. Hope that helps.

    Andy Spragg replied: Thank you, Joramy Pung, vory halpfil.

    [BTW, the initialism USP, above, stands for “unique selling point.” The show Allo Allo ran for ten years up to 1992. It sounds great: “In France during World War II, René Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another’s true identity or presence, exasperating René.”]

    Amazingly, the word Spraggs used above, proprioception, I only learned for the first time ever yesterday in the note about senses I included in OC. How does stuff like that happen?

    David Polshaw of the DMC (UK) shared that a crossword puzzle he solved recently had what must be the dullest clue and answer ever. Clue: Sponge. Answer: Sponge. Andy Spragg took it further in his comment: That would be a great (one-off) crossword compiler’s trick: a crossword for which every answer is the same as the clue.

    Rocco “Rocky” Colavito, Bronx boy, died on Tuesday at his home in Bernville PA. He was 91. He played most of his career with Cleveland, and it is in Cleveland’s Little Italy that a statue of him stands. He was honored by the-then-Indians on his 80th birthday with induction into their Hall of Fame.

    Rocky was a respected slugger in his day, hitting 374 home runs, driving in 1,159 runs, and batting .266 lifetime. He was an All-Star nine times. He hit four homers in consecutive at-bats in Baltimore on June 10, 1959. Exactly 25 years later, to the day, Linda and Avi were married in Prospect Hall, Brooklyn, NY.

    Indian GM Frank Lane stupidly traded Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn in a trade that rocked baseball and, some maintain, set a curse on Cleveland. They have not won the World Series since 1948. When pressed, Colavito insisted that he did not put a curse on the team. “Frank Lane did,” he said.

    Remember the famous pine-tar incident with George Brett and Billy Martin in 1983? Colavito was very much involved. He was a coach for KC at the time and was ejected for arguing with the umps and trying to keep the bat from them.

    Colavito returned to the Bronx in 1968 to end his career with a short stint with the Yankees. His skills had largely abandoned him by then, but he did hit a home run in his first game as a Yankee. And he came in to pitch for them once, pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, and earned the win when the Yanks rallied. He was the last position player to earn a win for over 30 years, until Brent Mayne did so in 2000.

    Colavito was movie-star handsome and, as you can see below, quite a hit with the ladies.

    He married his wife Carmen in 1954 and they were married for 70 years (!) until his death did them part. Carmen survives him along with their three kids, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and the entire city of Cleveland, grateful for its adopted son from the Bronx.

    Speaking of baseball, Dick Allen and Dave Parker were voted into the Hall of Fame this week by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. Bravo, gentlemen — well-deserved. I was shocked, shocked, to learn that my autograph collection was missing both of these sluggers. OMG. I rectified it forthwith by finding two nice samples on ebay. Can’t wait for them to arrive!

    As promised a few posts ago, here are Gillian and David:

    Hope you’ve had your fill of nonsense for the day. See you tomorrow!

  • Noisy Confidence

    The State of Israel does not generally impose the death penalty.

    But for you . . .

    Capital punishment had never been imposed by Israel until Adolf Eichmann was put to death. Shalom Nagar, the prison guard tasked with releasing the trap door underneath Eichmann, thus causing his death by hanging, died himself in Israel two weeks ago. He was in his late 80s.

    Nagar was out walking with his wife and infant son on 5/31/62 when a van screeched to a stop and he was grabbed. He knew immediately what it meant, but he had to talk the driver into turning around so he could let his wife know he wasn’t being kidnapped. “If I don’t, she’ll kill me — imagine the irony,” he said. (No he didn’t.)

    Speaking of irony, of the 22 prison guards assigned to protect Eichmann, only Nagar wished not to be the executioner. But he was chosen by lottery and convinced to accept the assignment by being shown atrocities for which Eichmann was responsible.

    Nagar talked about how careful they were to protect Eichmann during this period. To prevent a retaliatory attack on him, all the guards were Sephardic Jews unrelated to victims or survivors of the Holocaust, and his food was delivered in locked containers. “Before I gave him his meal, I had to taste it myself,” Nagar said. “If I didn’t drop dead after two minutes, the duty officer allowed the plate into his cell.”

    The job of removing the noose from the dead body and preparing it for cremation was terribly gruesome. Nagar was supposed to accompany the ashes to a port so that a Coast Guard vessel could take them to be scattered beyond Israel’s territorial waters, but he was too shaken and was sent home instead. When he arrived, covered in blood, his wife was stunned, and the hanging haunted Nagar for the rest of his life.

    In discussing the execution years later, Nagar invoked Amalek, the biblical archenemy of ancient Israel, to justify his task. In spite of the trauma, he said, he appreciated the value of his experience: God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”

    Shalom Nagar, alav hashalom, is survived by all the rest of us, we who are still here.

    Where else but in Owl Chatter will you find a segue from that story to today’s NYTXW? At 65A the clue was “Repositions, as tires,” and the answer was ROTATES.

    My mechanic Marvin suggested I rotate my tires, but I said “Don’t they rotate by themselves as I drive?”

    I was horrified to learn he had become addicted to brake fluid. I said “Marvin, that’s very dangerous.” And he said, “Don’t worry, I can stop whenever I want to.” Here are the hallowed grounds.

    At 15A, the actress who said “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it” was MAE WEST. I guess she was the Ana de Armas of her day.

    Take a load off, girl — you ever hear of Fresca? Georgie — get our guest a cold one!!

    As some of you already know, we welcomed a new owlet to our Owl Chatter family (Michigan branch): Harold Barney Crane Liveson, born 11:49 last night (12/10), at 5 lb 4 oz, Morris’s baby bro. Welcome aboard little fella. We have so much nonsense to share with you!! Scads of it!!

    Kooz! — you got anything for us on this special day?

    This is one of my favorites, from Winter Morning Walks.

    Walking in darkness, in awe,
    beneath a billion indifferent stars
    at quarter to six in the morning,
    the moon already down
    and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning
    at the edge of the west,
    my shoes too loud in the gravel
    that, faintly lit, looks to be little more
    than a contrail of vapor,
    so thin, so insubstantial it could,
    on a whim, let me drop through it
    and out of the day,
    but I have taught myself
    to place one foot ahead of the other
    in noisy confidence
    as if each morning might be trusted,
    as if the sounds I make might buoy me up.

    Today’s puzzle’s theme involved the five senses. You know, sight, smell, etc. And Commenter Anoa Bob just had to show off:

    “As an aside, there are more than five senses. For example there’s proprioception, a sense of body position, the vestibular sense of gravity and acceleration/deceleration and the haptic sense, the ability to identify familiar objects by touch only.”

    Okay — thanks!

    The letters for SMELL were embedded, not too painfully I hope, in the actor SAM ELLIOTT. TIL he’s married to Katherine Ross — Elaine from The Graduate. They’ve been married for 40 years — which is also the age of their daughter Cleo — what are the odds? You may recall KR was very pretty and very alluring in The Graduate? Then you won’t be surprised to see what Cleo looks like. Brace yourself, fellas. Our beauty and culture consultant, Ana, notes the effective use of both smoky eyes and bed head. Thanks, Armas.

    Let’s end tonight with two pet pix shared by Rex from his commenters. First is Freya. Rex’s comment: “Freya is concerned this sweater makes her butt look big. (How do you people even get your cats into these get-ups? When I imagine trying to put a sweater on either of my cats, I can already feel claws slashing my arms and (probably) face).”

    And here’s Woody, “who’s just glad to be here,” says Rex. “He thinks his left side is his good side. All your sides are good, Woody!” 

    Woof, woof. See you tomorrow!

  • Just The Blues

    We arrived early for the Gillian Welch concert at Capital One Hall in Tyson’s Corner Sunday night, with me worried about how parking would work and the digital tickets. After only minor glitches (by my standards) we were in this gorgeous lobby with plenty of time to spare.

    Our seats were pretty good — Side Orchestra, Row L. The audience was a nice mix of ages, albeit 100% white. And the concert was excellent. I’ll try to find a nice song to share with you later in the week. Gillian and her musical partner Dave Rawlings are both in their mid-50’s. I stupidly didn’t think to familiarize myself with their music, esp the new album Woodlands (or the Yiddish version, Voodlands), and only knew one of her songs Look At Miss Ohio, which I shared on Owl Chatter awhile ago. I hoped they would perform it, but their music is very accessible and we loved it all. Their two regular sets ended without a performance of Miss Ohio, but the audience got them back out for two encores and they finally sang Miss Ohio for one of them — beautifully. It was just the two of them on guitar all night with a backup bass player. Dave’s guitar was excellent and Gillian’s voice perfect. Great concert. I would have enjoyed more banter from them, but that’s a very small nit to pick.

    As you may recall, our assignment for Sunday morning was to drive about 20 minutes (Alexandria is big) to the Aslin Brewery to get a four-pack or two of their highly rated ales. I sampled one, bought it, drove back to our hotel, discovered I left my credit card at the Brewery, drove back to get it and then drove back to the hotel again. Seniors at play. Arggggh.

    A highlight both mornings was good strong coffee and excellent breakfasts at St. Elmo’s Cafe, where we lingered comfortably, doing puzzles and gazing at the locals.

    As I mentioned yesterday, this was the Del Ray section of Alexandria. I tried to get a shot of this “Greetings From Del Ray” artwork, but some fat guy kept blocking me.

    We left on the early side Monday because it was rainy, and meandered our way home the long way, through York, PA. I read about a neat lunch place we wanted to try called Gather 256, and it was great. In the middle of nowhere, a community center type of coffee place with sandwiches. We each had a cappucino, and ordered the roasted veggie panini and the Cubano, but couldn’t even start the veggie — they were so big. Very friendly folks too — will certainly try to get back there. Look how nice.

    Here’s a bumper sticker I liked from New Orleans via Del Ray: No Black, No White: Just the Blues.

    Okay — as I always say after a trip — Back to our miserable lives. (I said that to our very friendly limo driver on the way to the airport in Dublin for our flight home and he loved it and said he’s going to use it on customers.)

    Do you have a spelling bugaboo? Many of us do — a word or words you just can’t spell no matter how many times you write it over the years. One of mine was niece — for decades I just couldn’t get the “ie” part down. Anyway, Monday’s puzzle sent Rex off on a hilarious (IMO) spelling rant. It wasn’t any word in the puzzle so much as the name of the constructor. Here’s what he wrote.

    “OK, first of all, this constructor’s name is like a double-dog-dare challenge. Is it the two-L “Elliot” or the two-T “Elliott” or the combo of both or is it just one “L” one “T,” two “L”s one “T” … if I didn’t have a computer to remember it for me, I’d be misspelling it all day long, forever and ever. And then add in the last name of “Caroll,” which has Exactly The Same Spelling Issues. One or two “R”s? One or two “L”s. Both? Neither? Nightmare. Surprised the constructor can even spell their own name. Clare Carroll has been writing for me (on the last Tuesday of every month) for years now, and I’m still like “… is it Claire with an ‘I’? Without? Two “R”s? Two “L”s? Both? Neither?” Anyway, congrats on the debut, two-L’s one-T one-R two-Ls Elliot Caroll. Man, I just realized that this name also has the two first names / two last names issue. Carol Eliot. Elliot Caroll. It’s the slipperiest name imaginable. And so innocuous-looking. Also gender ambiguous! Most of the El(l)iot(t)s I know are men, but today’s constructor is a woman. I’m really in awe of this name. It would be so much easier to just call her “Al,” but where’s the challenge in that? In semi-conclusion, Elliot Caroll is a lovely name, even if I am doomed to never spell it correctly on the first try.”

    Rex’s reference to “Call me Al” was apt because that was the theme of EC’s puzzle. The theme revealer was the Paul Simon tune, YOU CAN CALL ME AL, and the three theme answers had first words that you could shorten to AL: ALBERT BROOKS, ALABAMA SLAMMER, and ALUMINUM FOIL. I bet most of you old timers are familiar with this video. I still love it and am sharing it here for the benefit of you young’uns.

    I think Rex only started this last year, but it was so popular, it’s becoming a regular December tradition. His readers send him holiday themed photos of their pets and he shares them. I sent in Zoey with her cat Emily last year. It was neat. Here’s one from this year: It’s Cleo, and as Rex put it — good luck finding her.

    I have lambasted the New Yorker cartoons for being the opposite of funny in these pages in the past. I was about to do so again several issues ago for a collection of cartoons so lame I wondered if there was some campaign being waged to destroy humor. I didn’t do so for the reason I usually don’t do whatever I don’t do — too f*cking lazy. But then, it today’s issue, I saw this cartoon by Avi Steinberg. Hope you like it as much as we do.

    “They’re going to try using you to get to me.”

    See you tomorrow!

  • Del Ray

    We’re staying in the Del Ray area of Alexandria in a hotel with a virtual lobby. They emailed me a secret code to get in. It took me 45 minutes to figure out the TV. I had to go to websites and enter things. Still got to see the Dawgs topple Texas for the SEC title in OT. Gutsy fake punt. Wow.

    It’s a wonderful part of town. There’s a public piano. Just sit down and bang away.

    Very dog friendly. Look at just part of this wall. (Hi Norrie!)

    We drove 1.5 mi. to an Ethiopian restaurant in the middle of nowhere for dinner. The woman who waited on us was so sweet we didn’t care that our order got screwed up. It was all yummy anyway.

    And my cold Fathead Ale from Pittsburgh was perfect with it. Tomorrow we’ll visit the Aslin Brewery, Virginny’s finest. And dinner will be takeout from this BBQ shack not far away.

    Whenever I’m down here I remember a Joseph Heller character who introduced herself as “Virginia: Virgin for short. But not for long!”

    See you next time!

  • Road Trip!

    Readers — Owl Chatter is taking to the road for a few days, down to Virginny to hear Gillian Welch perform. Phil is also out, on “assignment,” with whatever floozie he has talked into taking him in. If you need to contact us while we’re away, George will be available at: [address] unknown, or [phone] disconnected. Back Monday!

    Have a great weekend, everybody!

  • Yiff-Niff

    So the scuttlebutt is Trump is bailing on our man Hegseth to head the defense department in favor of boring Ron DeSantis. Oh, no! Please, readers, contact your senators immediately and voice your support for Owl Chatter fave Pete. I’ve already reached out to Cory Booker and will call our other one as soon as I find out who it is. (We have two, right?)

    Calvin Trillin turned 89 today, kinahora. Happy Birthday CT! He’s one of my favorite writers — one of the few writers who, when I read his stuff I say “That’s it — that’s how I wish I could write.”

    The only quote of his The Writer’s Almanac shared on the occasion is: “The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

    I remember most two things from his writings. One was on his late, and very beloved, wife Alice. I forget most of the details, but Alice was working with a group of children, one of whom was severely disabled. The kids were sitting in a circle and playing some game or singing songs, and the mom of the disabled girl asked Alice if she could pass her daughter a note, amidst all the goings on. Unable to resist, Alice stole a glance at it. The note said: “If all the little girls in the world were lined up and I got to choose one to be my own, I would choose you.” On her way to delivering it, Alice handed it to Calvin and said: “Quick. Read this. It’s the key to life.”

    The second one was from a long piece he wrote in The New Yorker about his father. (It later came out as a book.) He said when his dad drove Calvin and a friend of his somewhere, he ran a contest of sorts. He said he invented a word that was pronounced yiff-niff, but that wasn’t how he spelled it. Whoever could figure out the “correct” spelling would win a new bicycle. Calvin himself had an inkling, but no one ever got it right. Then Calvin wrote: “And if you are thinking it was a trick on my father’s part and no correct spelling existed, let me just say that my father’s stance on honesty made the Boy Scout position on the matter seem wishy-washy.”

    There was an unusual clue in the puzzle today for ALAMO. It was “[Blank] Drafthouse.” You hear of it? Alamo Drafthouse is a movie theater chain that serves meals in your (reclining) seat, and has the following policies:

    Guests won’t be admitted to the theater once the movie has started (i.e. after the trailers and Alamo ad reel). Latecomers may exchange tickets for a later time or a ticket voucher for a future show of their choice.

    We have a no-tolerance talking or texting policy. After one warning, disruptive guests will be kicked out of the theater without a refund.

    Unaccompanied minors are not allowed in showings, except for members of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Victory Vanguard rewards program, which allows 15–17 year-olds to attend showings unattended after their application to the rewards program has been submitted and reviewed. The application involves demonstrating an understanding of the theater’s policies around talking, texting, arriving late, and basic tipping etiquette.

    At 24A the clue was “What Monday meals might lack,” and the answer was MEAT. You hear about this? There’s a campaign to reduce meat consumption called Meatless Mondays. The moooooovement was started by a group of rare talking cows in Idaho.

    At 16A, the clue for OPERA was “La Forza del Destino,” for one.

    According to Wikipedia, La Forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny) acquired a reputation for being cursed, following some unfortunate incidents. In 1960 at the Met, the noted baritone Leonard Warren collapsed and died during a performance. The “curse” reportedly kept Pavarotti from ever performing the opera, and the tenor Franco Corelli used to follow small rituals during performances to avoid bad luck.

    Personally, I make sure to wear my lucky socks whenever I attend a performance. Here’s the leading lady.

    Headline in The Onion: Judge Delays Decision After Learning One Menendez Brother Always Lies, One Always Tells The Truth

    For the Swifties among us, a reminder that it’s T’s birthday next week (12/13), so you’re going to want to get your cards and gifts in the mail pretty soon. You know T: she wants to hear from every one of you. George is heading out to the Post Office for us as we write.

    Wonder what Travis has planned. Phil — he say anything?

    Still hot, girl — 35 is nothing to worry about.

    In a follow-up to yesterday’s bombshell discovery that the Mona Lisa was painted on a wooden panel, today we learn that Duchamp’s famous painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, was drawn on the side of his cousin Loretta.

    Just got Frank Bruni’s newsletter. He says Trump’s cabinet will be “an embarrassment of wretches.”

    From his “For the love of sentences” feature, Melissa Clark in the NYT was let down by the chef Thomas Keller’s restaurant Per Se: “Instead of Mr. Keller’s brilliant butter-poached lobster, we got two wee langoustines topped with a damp crust of grated brussels sprouts that promptly, with flawless comic timing, slid off like loose toupees.”

    If, like me, you don’t know what a langoustine is, it’s a Norway lobster.

    Hold on a sec — who’s this hottie? Alex who? Alex Consani?

    Want a closer look? Who wouldn’t? (Phil!! Argggggh! Let her finish with the makeup!)

    Consani is in the news because she was just named Model of the Year: the first time since 2016 the award didn’t go to a Toyota (just kidding: not that kind of model). Actually, though, she is a “first.” She’s the first transgender woman to be named Model of the Year. So — have at her, haters.

    Hey — don’t look at us in that tone of voice, AC — Owl Chatter’s on your side.

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads. Thanks for popping by.

  • The Hula Hula Boys

    Forgot to share my favorite clue from yesterday’s puzzle. It was at 44D: “Way of getting online that might sound like ‘beep beep beeHAW beeHAW beeeeeep SHRHRHRHRH’” Get it? Answer was DIAL UP.

    The theme yesterday was EMPTY CALORIES, but not necessarily junk food. It was phonetic: “Empty” sounds like MT, so the theme answers were all two-word “M-T” foods like MINI TWIX, MOOSE TRACKS (the ice cream flavor); and MAPO TOFU (Yum!).

    The last one was clued with: “Fictional burrito on ‘Parks and Recreation’ that ‘literally killed a guy last year.’” I didn’t see it, but the answer was MEAT TORNADO.

    Rex hadn’t heard of Mini Twix. Regular Twix are so small I don’t see the point of minimizing them, but they do exist. It’s like travel-size floss. Is the regular size too cumbersome to pack?

    Yesterday’s puzzle also had “Attorney General before Garland,” who was, of course, BARR. Yeccchh. Fittingly, he sat in the grid near EGO and ASS.

    Here’s Randy Rainbow with a song from the good old days.

    This song on the MT theme is by a Canadian singer Kathleen Edwards.

    Okay, fasten your seat belts Chatterheads, I am about to blow your minds, except for maybe our art department (Hi Bob!) and a few others: At 26A yesterday the clue was “What the ‘Mona Lisa’ is painted on.” The answer was WOOD. It’s on wood? The Mona f*cking Lisa is on wood? How could I not know that? Solace: Rex didn’t either. It’s on a poplar wood panel. Sheesh.

    Maybe if I spent less time searching the Web for Jets cheerleaders and more time on loftier pursuits, stuff like this wouldn’t happen. (Don’t worry, just kidding.)

    So this old Jewish guy goes to the doctor. The doc says “Abe, you’re going to have to stop masturbating.” Abe says, “Why?,” and the doc says “So I can examine you.”

    In today’s puzzle, the clue at 16A was “Dance with hand gestures that can represent ocean waves.” Pretty easy, right? — HULA.

    She’s gone with the hula hula boys
    And she don’t care about me
    She’s gone with the hula hula boys
    And she don’t care about me they’re singing

    Ha’ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana
    Ha’ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana
    Ha’ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana
    Ha’ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana

    I didn’t have to come to Maui
    To be treated like a jerk
    How do you think I feel
    When I see the bellboys smirk?

    At 11D the clue was “What self-driving cars and spell check are meant to compensate for,” and the answer was HUMAN ERROR. Eli, Rex’s guest blogger today wrote: “At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, self-driving cars and AI are still human creations and therefore inherently error-prone. I love technology, but leaning into laziness and stupidity will doom us all.” Then he posted this to illustrate “grumpy old man.”

    Okanaganer wrote: My great nephew’s fiance’s parents (whew) visited our cabin in September, arriving in a self-driving Tesla. He insists he did not even have to touch the steering wheel in the 2.5 hour drive, even going through multiple construction zones with single lanes marked off by traffic cones. I had thought the self driving idea was a fantasy.

    It’s hard to imagine any of you Owl Chatter babes out there not running right out to pick up UConn star Paige “Buckets” Bueckers’ newly released player-exclusive Nike sneaks. A year ago, Paige joined an exclusive roster of college athletes to sign a NIL (“name, image, likeness”) partnership with Nike. And now she has become the first college athlete to design and launch her own player-exclusive colorway. 

    It retails for $190 at select shops, but under a special arrangement our George negotiated with Nike, if you mention “Owl Chatter” at the time of purchase the price will be adjusted to $225.

    Wait, what?

    The numbers on the sneaker represent the area codes for UConn and her hometown in Minny. And the colors are her favorite colors (vu den?). Needless to say, they look pretty hot on her, but what wouldn’t? (Phil! Where did you drag her for that shot? Some sort of basement? Don’t try anything stupid — she’ll break your ass in half. Seriously.)

    Ha’ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana — and so the story is told.

    Thanks for dropping in! See you tomorrow.

  • Tiny Red Sailboats

    Today’s poem in The Writer’s Almanac is by our own Ted Kooser. What a treat. It’s called “Applesauce.”

    I liked how the starry blue lid
    of that saucepan lifted and puffed,
    then settled back on a thin
    hotpad of steam, and the way
    her kitchen filled with the warm,
    wet breath of apples, as if all
    the apples were talking at once,
    as if they’d come cold and sour
    from chores in the orchard,
    and were trying to shoulder in
    close to the fire. She was too busy
    to put in her two cents’ worth
    talking to apples. Squeezing
    her dentures with wrinkly lips,
    she had to jingle and stack
    the bright brass coins of the lids
    and thoughtfully count out
    the red rubber rings, then hold
    each jar, to see if it was clean,
    to a window that looked out
    through her back yard into Iowa.
    And with every third or fourth jar
    she wiped steam from her glasses,
    using the hem of her apron,
    printed with tiny red sailboats
    that dipped along with leaf-green
    banners snapping, under puffs
    of pale applesauce clouds
    scented with cinnamon and cloves,
    the only boats under sail
    for at least two thousand miles.

    I told you the Hegseth appointment is a gift that just keeps on giving. Gaetz looks like Mother Teresa next to this guy. This is from the newsletter of historian Heather Cox Richardson on reporting by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.

    Hegseth was forced to leave leadership positions at the advocacy groups Veterans for Freedom (VF) and Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) because of “financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.” Under his direction, huge debts were incurred by VF for inappropriate expenses; the group’s donors squeezed Hegseth out of his job and then shuttered the organization. He moved to CVA. [Tee hee — Next!]

    A whistleblower for CVA reported that Hegseth was repeatedly so drunk at events that he had to be carried out, and that he once tried to join dancers on stage at a strip club to which he brought his work team. Hegseth and other members of his team divided the female staffers into “party girls” and “not party girls” and pursued them, leading to allegations of sexual assault. Another complaint said that at a bar in the early hours of May 29, 2015, Hegseth began to chant drunkenly: “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

    An email from one of the whistleblowers to Hegseth’s successor at CVA said that “[a]mong the staff, the disgust for Pete was pretty high.” The letter detailed Hegseth’s “history of alcohol abuse” and said he had “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account—for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road.”

    By 2016, Hegseth was out at CVA [Next!] and joined Fox News as a contributor. It was during this period that he spoke at the California Federation of Republican Women’s convention, where he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman.

    Whew — slow down buddy — it’s hard to keep up. Hey, speak of the devil — here are Pete and (current) wife Jen right now!

    Welcome to Owl Chatter kids! Georgie!! Company!! Get Pete a couple of cold Iron City Lights. Jen — what’ll it be? Diet Coke? Ever have Shasta? Clear that crap off the sofa — we were just talking about you. How are the kids?

    A gritter in England is a truck that spreads grit or salt when the roads get icy. Martin Goodhew posted the following for the Dull Men’s Club (UK), with the photo:

    I can at least console myself that I didn’t spend any time at all over the last 12 months knitting a Christmas sweater for a gritter lorry.

    Paul Hare: I was once commissioned to photograph gritting crews and lorries in North London. Their role often required time away from family sleeping on camp beds at the depot overnight on standby.. awaiting weather forecasts, frustration of being stood down, regular verbal abuse from car drivers when on duty. They were all incredibly dedicated to and passionate about their role to keep drivers safe over winter..and as result of spending weeks with them witnessing this.. I totally get the knitted contribution!

    Sandra Davies: I love the names of our gritters in Shropshire: Snow Be Gone Kenobi, Gritter Thunberg, Gritty Gritty Bang Bang, Grit the Road Jack, Usain Salt.. There’s also Slush the Magic Wagon, Snow Patrol, Spreddie Flintoff and David Plowie. 

    [David Plowie! — took me a sec to get that one.]

    Alan Davis of the club just wanted to share some good feelings and a nice photo:

    I’m enjoying a quiet lovely pint of homebrew. From grain and hops, no tins involved. Happy days.

    Too lovely. Can’t top it. See you tomorrow!

  • 243 Stolen Bases

    Mazel Tov to Ian Kinsler on his appearance for the first time on baseball’s Hall of Fame ballot. He’ll almost certainly fall short, but it’s a very nice honor. He’s Jewish and is listed in Wikipedia as “American-Israeli” because he made aliyah in 2020, i.e., he emigrated to Israel and became an Israeli citizen.

    Ian played eight seasons for Texas and four for Detroit, was an all-star four times, and won two Gold Gloves at 2B. He batted .269 and had 1,999 hits (d’oh!). I was surprised to see he hit 257 home runs, for three years hitting 28, 30, and 31. Good power for a little guy. In 2014, his first year with Detroit, he led the majors with 726 plate appearances and 684 at bats. The man showed up for work.

    He was a gonif, Hebrew for thief. He is the all-time stolen base leader for Jewish players with 243. Kevin Youkilis and he were friends. Kevin is also Jewish and was an infielder, mostly with Boston. Kinsler said whenever he met him on the bases during a game, Youk would make some Jewish reference, like “Happy Passover.”

    Kinsler finished his career with the last-place Padres in 2019. His very last game found him, of all places, on the mound. The Pods were down 10-2 and called on Kinsler to mop up the ninth inning. He hadn’t pitched since Pony League. He hit a batter and gave up a hit, but then got a double play, walked two, and got the last batter to line out. So he is in the record books with an ERA of 0.00. He said his dad made him choose between pitching and being a position player when he was 13 and he chose the latter. “Maybe I missed my calling.” When he came up to bat in the bottom of that inning — his last at-bat — he homered.

    Here he is, with the whole mishpocha, at his induction into the Texas Rangers HOF.

    Kilroy was here. You know about that from WWII? GIs were finding it and putting it everywhere they went during the war. Here’s what it looks like:

    The origin is most often credited to James J. Kilroy, a shipyard inspector during the war. He chalked the words on bulkheads to show that he had been there and inspected the riveting in the newly constructed ship. As a joke, troops began placing the graffiti wherever they (the US forces) landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived. It became a source of comfort when found by troops. It was even planted in Stalin’s private bathroom during the Potsdam Conference (and it freaked the f*cker out).

    It was so important a phenomenon that it’s part of the WWII Memorial in Washington DC. You can find it inscribed in two places (if you know where to look). I learned about it from today’s puzzle in the New Yorker. Joe Heller was in it too — clued with the play he wrote, “We Bombed in New Haven.”

    The NYT puzzle today had a simple but nicely executed theme: a vowel ladder. The five theme answers all started with P[blank]SS and the blanks were filled in by AEIOU. So they were PASSINGFAD, PESSIMISTIC, PISSEDOFF, POSSIBILITY, and PUSSYFOOTS. The first and last (both ten letters) were placed symmetrically with each other, as were the second and fourth (both eleven letters). PISSED OFF was centered. So graceful. Symmetry is required by the NYT.

    The constructor was concerned whether “pissed off” would be acceptable, but they’ve been tossing so many “asses” in lately, it’s clear The Times has been a changin’. A smattering of the Commentariat was miffed.

    We turned one clue/answer over to our Dirty Old Man Dept for them to drool over: at 11D, for the clue “Height of fashion” the answer was HEMLINE. We sent Phil out on the assignment with the proviso that he had to keep it tasteful for once. Nothing too hot. Thank God he didn’t listen.

    From The Onion: Study: Overuse Of Hair Detangler Giving Rise To Product-Resistant Supertangles

    Getting tired. See you next time.

  • Young Lion

    Once every so often, a figure emerges onto the scene who is perfect for Owl Chatter, our blog devoted entirely to nonsense. These days, I wake up each morning, clutch on to both sides of the bed, and thank God for Peter Hegseth.

    The NYT released an email from his own mom calling him despicable and abusive in his treatment of women. She accused him of “lying, cheating, sleeping around and using women for his own power and ego.” “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say…get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Pete’s mom wrote.

    His second marriage broke down after he got a co-worker pregnant. And there was that silly rape charge brought against him in 2017. Pete said it was consensual. Consensual rape. Charges were not brought.

    To their credit, Republicans are outraged. Oh, wait a minute — they are outraged at The Times for publishing it. Never mind.

    Pete’s mom told The Times that she wrote the email at a turbulent time in the family’s private life and insisted her son was “a good father and husband.” Insisted!

    Now, I ask you, readers — does this look like someone who could abuse women? Yeah, sort of, I guess.

    With six minutes left in the third quarter of yesterday’s improbable 13-10 UMich victory over Ohio State, the Buckeyes completed a pass for six yards and a first down. How stifling was Michigan’s defense (on the road and against the #2 ranked team in the nation)? OSU did not get another first down for the remainder of the game. Yeah — you heard me — the last 21 minutes of play — zippo. Among others, Mason Graham had a really good game. Look at that punim! Go Blue!

    Yesterday was the birthday of Mark Twain (1835). He said:  “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.” I thought of that when I read this Tiny Love Story in today’s NYT by Mina Bressler.

    My brother and I are sitting on beige pleather chairs in a beige waiting room. Actually, we are not sitting but pacing. Our mother is very sick. The hospital has rooms where people can cry or rage (at God, the doctors), but where we go to giggle. It bubbled up in me first, prompted by the hospital’s Thanksgiving turkey carving contest. “I bet the surgeons are really good at that,” I say. “Is it a contest for surgeons?” he asks. We start writing down everything we find funny on a notepad. Then we come to this room to laugh. 

    The puzzle was by John Lieb today, a high school math teacher who lives in Boston and whose daughter makes good cookies. It’s a great puzzle. I met John briefly when I entered the XW tournament he conducts annually in the Boston area a few summers ago (my first!). The snack set-up included cookies his daughter baked but he urged us to take only one each, since the supply was limited. Fair enough.

    The puzzle featured an ice-skating rink in the center, brilliantly filled in with the answer ICE five times with five different clues, and with the downs clued phonetically, i.e., IIIII was the answer for “Positive votes” (ayes); CCCCC was the answer for “______ the day!” (seize); and EEEEE was the answer for “Comfort” (ease). A ZAMBONI (machine that resurfaces rinks) was sitting in the grid right outside the rink. If you completed the puzzle online, as I did, a little animation feature showed the zamboni entering the rink and resurfacing it. Very cute!

    There was also a bunch of theme answers relating to ice rinks, one of which was SMOOTH OPERATOR, the Sade hit from 1984. I had heard the song of course, even under my rock I couldn’t miss it, but I knew nothing about Sade, not even that she is a woman. Her real name is Helen Folasade Adu and she is British, born in Nigeria on, get this — my birthday! She’s nine years younger than me (still pretty old: 65). She has a son, Izaac Theo Adu, and a stepson. Izaac is transgender and just this fall Sade and the Red Hot Organization’s TRANSA project released “Young Lion,” a song dedicated to him.

    Another theme answer was FROZEN ASSETS. Egs wrote: What do you call extraterrestrials who sit for too long on an ice rink? FROZEN ASS ETS. He also noted: It’s about time we had a good puzzle based on ice resurfacing!

    Did somebody say “Zamboni?” L. Desind shared this story, below, on Rex’s blog. I think it’s worthy of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), no?

    In 1993, the “Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, Newly Revised and Updated” was published. My wife gave me one about 30 years ago. I then first opened it to check the spelling of “zamboni.” It was not there.

    So, I wrote to the editor and explained that there was no entry for the first word I had looked up in my new 2,500 page Random House Unabridged Dictionary, which was a gift from my wife. I received a reply to the effect that if one looks a gift horse in the mouth there are bound to be a few cavities, which I suppose was clever, but not very responsive.

    I wrote back, asking what was the reason for the lapse, pointing out that if it was because Zamboni was a brand name, there were plenty of brand names in the dictionary. He wrote back acknowledging that it was an oversight and that the word “Zamboni” would be appearing in various editions of the Random House dictionary family going forward.

    However, I was not finished. It occurred to me that if “Zamboni” was a brand name, then there must be a generic term for a “Zamboni.” I learned that this term was an “ice resurfacer.” I again opened my new, 2,500 page unabridged dictionary and searched for “ice resurfacer.” It was not there.

    For the third time, I wrote to this editor at Random House. I guess was a bit impertinent, but it annoyed me that there was this “thing” deployed in skating rinks and arenas all over the world and there was no reference to it in this enormous dictionary I owned. So I scolded him on the apparent failure of his dictionary to fulfill one of its chief functions–a “taxonomy of things.” [OC note: I had to look up “taxonomy” and don’t really understand the definition. Something to do with classification.]

    He replied that if there was any evidence that “ice resurfacer” was in general use, then it could be an entry. I found dozens in minutes and sent some to him.

    Soon thereafter, he advised that “ice resurfacer” and related terms that I had also pointed out were missing would be included in future editions of various Random House dictionaries. In fact, a few years later, my children bought me a paperback edition and circled “Zamboni” with an arrow pointing to the notation “look what you did.”

    There’s more. A couple of years later, I was listening to a local radio station. A commercial came on for some Ford truck. The point of this commercial was that the truck was powerful and reliable, just like the ice resurfacing machines manufactured for years by the Zamboni family. It was truly an odd commercial, but, I realized what was going on.

    The appearance of “Zamboni” in the dictionary likely freaked out their attorneys worried about the company losing its trademark to generic usage. So, they convinced Ford to help them out and produced a commercial that had, as its chief purpose, the broadcasting of a rather unsubtle notice to the world that “Zamboni” is not just a word, it is a brand.

    BETTY RIZZO was in the puzzle. She’s a character from Grease (leader of the Pink Ladies). Vanessa Hudgens played her in the show.

    At 75A, “Diving bird” was LOON. Here’s OC fave John Prine on the topic.

    Our hapless Jets fell to 3-9 today, in typical fashion snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This time they used timely penalties to hand the game over to Seattle. It’s okay. I’m still basking in Michigan’s historic upset win from yesterday. So we’re not going to let his get us down — are we, girls?

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads!