The Wellington Files

  • A Foundation of Fevered Mendacity

    Today’s puzzle is all about a HOT AIR BALLOON. First of all, look at the grid.

    Next, the puzzle places you in it because four theme answers have you seeing things from way up in the sky. Girl: WEE LASS; Dwelling: TINY HOUSE; Vehicle: MINIVAN; Neighborhood: SMALL TOWN.

    The clue for the HOT AIR BALLOON itself at 93A is “Whimsical method of transportation depicted in this puzzle’s grid.” Rex took issue with it:

    “Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … a HOT AIR BALLOON. Is a HOT AIR BALLOON a ‘whimsical’ method of transportation? Why? I think of it as just …  a method of transportation? Whimsy not required. Where is the inherent whimsy? I don’t get it. The HOT AIR BALLOON the first successful method of human flight. I guess you can make it whimsical by turning the balloon into various novelty shapes, or by using it to race around the world in 80 days, but ‘Whimsical method of transportation’ seems odd, or oddly narrow, as a description here.”

    Several commenters disagreed, noting that HABs are whimsical because you don’t know where you will land. Also, wouldn’t it be whimsical to go somewhere via a HAB? – who does that?

    And, while we’re on the topic:

    Connie: “Oh, Professor — you’re full of whimsy.”

    Groucho: “Can you notice it from there? I’m always that way after I eat radishes.”

    This story is from today’s Met Diary. It’s by Rayna Rapp.

    Dear Diary:

    It had been raining in the city for two days straight, and I was on my way to Times Square for the opening night of a film festival.

    I waded into the Seventh Avenue subway at 14th Street, but the 1, 2 and 3 trains were all shut down because of flooding.

    I splashed my way across to the Eighth Avenue trains. An A was waiting but delayed. The doors kept opening and shutting. I finally managed to squeeze inside a car tightly packed with riders.

    Suddenly, the train lurched forward. A woman in the middle of the crowded car began to hyperventilate.

    “Let me out!” she yelled. “I have to get out. I can’t stay here.”

    Recognizing that she was having a panic attack, people sprang into action. Somehow, space opened up around her. Someone lowered a window. Someone else produced a bottle of water.

    And then a man holding a wand jumped directly in front of the woman.

    “Watch the wand closely,” he said. “I promise it will be OK. I’m just going to lightly hypnotize you.”

    He kept the woman’s eyes focused on the wand as he talked to her quietly until we reached 34th Street.

    When the train stopped there, everyone filed out in perfect order, helped the woman onto the platform and then packed back into the car for the trip uptown.

    The tall and very beautiful KERI Russell dropped by today at 24A: “Actress Russell.” I watched all of the seasons of The Americans a few years ago — it was my go-to on the treadmill. Her hubby on the show was the Welsh actor Matthew Rhys. He won an Emmy for the role, and she a flurry of noms.

    Actually, Keri’s 5′ 4″ — that’s average height. She just seemed tall in the show. And Rhys, who seemed short, is 5′ 11″. I had no idea they got married IRL too. They had a son in 2016. I loved it when Keri was accosted by some thug, sprung into action, and tore the poor guy to shreds. She’s 48 now and was born in California. At 15, her dancing landed her a role on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. Other cast members were Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera. She took off from there.

    Rhys is a supporter of Plaid Cymru, actively supporting Welsh independence. In 2008, Aberystwyth University honored Rhys as a fellow. (Gimme an A!) He was also honored in ’08 at the Welsh National Eisteddfod by being accepted as a member to the druidic order of the Gorsedd of the Bards for his contributions to the Welsh language and Wales. His bardic name in the Gorsedd is Matthew Tâf. (What?)

    Here they are. What the hell is she wearing?

    Ever hear of DALE Chihuly? Me neither. “Glass artist Chihuly.” He is 83 now and is well known in the field of blown glass “moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture.” If you google him, you’ll see some amazing stuff. This is all blown glass.

    Mark Allcroft of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posts: I reckon if the minute hand on a clock was extended to 106,731,951 miles, the tip of the hand would be traveling at the speed of light. (In a vacuum)

    Murray Atkinson: Sounds about right.

    David Votomov: How would you fit something that long in a vacuum? My Dyson even struggles to pick up matchsticks.

    David Thornton: At my old school, they had clocks that had a minute hand that only moved from one minute to the next. There wasn’t an in-between place it could point to. In theory, that minute hand on this clock would therefore break the speed of light…

    Jeff Mang: How would you know what time it is?

    Mark Allcroft: Stand well back.

    Murray Atkinson: Have numbers near the middle?

    Tony Moran: Please show us your “workings.”

    Mark Allcroft: speed of light = 670,616,629.3844 mph. So the second-hand will move 670,616,629.3844 miles in one revolution. So the circumference off the clock is 670,616,629.3844 miles. Divide by 2 pi to get the radius i.e the minute hand length.

    Tony Moran: Thank you. I concur.

    Ken Irvine: wait a mo… doesn’t time shift as you get closer to the speed of light? The tip of your minute hand would be getting ahead, then behind, then ahead… dependent upon your PoV

    Tony Moran then posted this:

    .

    In case you haven’t seen this, it’s from Roxane Gay’s op-ed piece in the NYT today:

    Mr. Trump’s voters are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc. Many of them believe the most ludicrous things: babies being aborted after birth and children going to school as one gender and returning home surgically altered as another gender even though these things simply do not happen. [OC note: Don’t forget the pet-eating Haitians!] Time and again, we hear the wild lies these voters believe and we act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. We act as if they get to dictate the terms of political engagement on a foundation of fevered mendacity.

    We must refuse to participate in a mass delusion. We must refuse to accept that the ignorance on display is a congenital condition rather than a choice. All of us should refuse to pretend that any of this is normal and that these voters are just woefully misunderstood and that if only the Democrats addressed their economic anxiety, they might vote differently. While they are numerous, that does not make them right.

    These are adults, so let us treat them like adults. Let us acknowledge that they want to believe nonsense and conjecture. They want to believe anything that affirms their worldview. They want to celebrate a leader who allows them to nurture their basest beliefs about others. The biggest challenge of our lifetime will be figuring out how to combat the American willingness to embrace flagrant misinformation and bigotry.

    Georgie! Get that woman a Diet Shasta from the fridge!

    I watched the first half of the Jets game and then, mercifully, went on a shopping run to Costco and missed the rest. The Jets fell behind 13-0 and were unable to muster even a single first down until a little over 2 minutes remained in the half. But they scored at that point and so trailed only 13-7. Then, as the game was winding down, they kicked a field goal to go up 27-22. OK! They just had to keep the Colts from scoring a TD with about 2 min to go. They couldn’t. Indy went up 28-27 with 40 seconds left. OK, now they just needed to get close enough for a field goal. Again, couldn’t. Another home loss to a mediocre team. Record is 3-8 now.

    See you tomorrow!

  • God Wills It

    For the first time I am aware of, I completed a NYTXW yesterday upon which Rex Parker crashed. Yay me. It’s the silly stuff that can get you. For “amount often added” he (insanely) used “tad” instead of TIP. He confirmed tad by entering “ding” for “Online notification sound,” instead of PING. And he couldn’t see that the A in tad was wrong because it was the first letter of “___ Vellani, portrayer of Ms. Marvel on film and TV,” which made sense to him as Aman, but the correct answer was IMAN.

    But am I so small that I take pleasure in the failure of others? Of course. Who wouldn’t?

    This is Matt Gaetz’s wife Ginger. Go figure.

    Her sister Roxanne has called Gaetz a “creep” and said he once tried to set her up with an older friend of his when she was 19. When the allegations came out about Gaetz’s improper relations with underage girls, she said “I saw the character and type of person he is, and when everything came out about him, I honestly, unfortunately, was not surprised.”

    The GOP, of course, is seeking to keep the Ethics Committee Report on Gaetz secret. The victim, who was a seventeen-year-old high-schooler at the time, testified before the committee.  House speaker Mike Johnson said that publishing the report would be “terrible.” Yeah, terrible for Gaetz. He said he would “strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that’s not the way we do things in the House.” 

    In fact, the House Ethics Committee did release a report on Rep. William Boner [OMG, was that really his name?] (D-TN) in 1987 for allegations of corruption after he had already resigned.   

    Back to the puzzle, at 24D the clue was “Unchanged when multiplied by itself, from the Latin for ‘same’ and ‘power.’” Fuhgedaboutit, amirite? It turns out to be IDEMPOTENT. What!!?? Idempotence is the property of certain operations in math and computer science  whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application.  So, e.g., in math the number one is idempotent (if that’s how you use the term) because anything you multiply by one stays the same. If that’s clear to you, that makes one of us.

    How’s this for a high-class clue for PRAGUE? “Where Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘La Clemenza di Tito’ debuted.”

    Here’s DG — up to his neck in babes. Vu den?

    A quote by Georgia O’Keeffe: “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” Happy Birthday GO’K! Born on 11/15 in Wisconsin in 1887. Had no idea she was a cheesehead. Here she is, young.

    This poem by Louis Jenkins from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called “Baloney.”

    There’s a young couple in the parking lot, kissing.
    Not just kissing, they look as though they might eat
    each other up, kissing, nibbling, biting, mouths wide
    open, play fighting like young dogs, wrapped around
    each other like snakes. I remember that, sort of, that
    hunger, that passionate intensity. And I get a kind of
    nostalgic craving for it, in the way that I get a craving,
    occasionally, for the food of my childhood. Baloney
    on white bread, for instance: one slice of white bread
    with mustard or Miracle Whip or ketchup-not
    ketchup, one has to draw the line somewhere-and
    one slice of baloney. It had a nice symmetry to it, the
    circle of baloney on the rectangle of bread. Then you
    folded the bread and baloney in the middle and took
    a bite out of the very center of the folded side. When
    you unfolded the sandwich you had a hole, a circle in
    the center of the bread and baloney frame, a window,
    a porthole from which you could get a new view of
    the world.

    One hundred years ago today the first volume of Marcel Proust’s great work was published. In Search of Lost Time. He was originally going to call it “In Search of Lost Newsweek,” but it turned up. Here’s a trick question: Can you name the publishing company? Nobody can — Proust had to publish it himself — it was turned down by every publishing house to which he submitted it. One chided him for spending 30 pages on turning over in bed before going to sleep. (not kidding)

    I took an adult ed class on it when I was living in Bryn Mawr (1976). The teacher was the head of the French Dept. at Bryn Mawr and it was an incredible course. We just covered part of the first volume. I was determined to finish the entire work once the course ended, but didn’t make it very far without my sherpa. I remember it very much affected my own writing at the time. I started writing in long circuitous sentences. Sheldon Schwartz, a kid in my high school class, was so inspired by our French teacher Oscar Rosenthal (who was wonderful and very funny), that he decided he was going to be a French teacher too. He attended Yeshivah University and majored in French and became a French teacher. I wonder if he read Proust in French and, if so, all seven volumes? Probably, right?

    “Actress Rooney of ‘Women Talking’” in yesterday’s NYTXW is an amalgam of two football heritages both in name and genetically. Rooney MARA’s mom’s family (Rooney) founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, and her dad’s family (Mara) founded the NY Giants. Like my beautiful bride Linda, Rooney was born in Bedford NY. She’s 39 now and went to college at NYU. Hubby is Joaquin Phoenix. Her older sister Kate is an actress too, also married to an actor. Both have two kids. Here’s RM. (Nice shot, Philly.)

    You like my new tattoo? It means “God wills it” in Yiddish.

    Naw, I’m just funnin’ with you. As you must already know, it’s Pete Hegseth’s tattoo. You gotta hand it to Trump — he never lets you down. These appointments are a dream come true for a blog devoted to nonsense. It’s a given that the appointees will all be utterly unqualified for their positions– that’s not even an issue. But Hegseth is both a White Nationalist and a sexual predator. Fantastic! Who better to head the Defense Dept.?

    The cleverest clue today was “Phrase on ID tags.” The answer was FAMOUS POTATOES. What? Well, you see – ID is Idaho, and tags are license plates. It says “Famous Potatoes” on Idaho license plates. It hit a nerve for a commenter from Lewiston, ID. The potatoes are produced in the southern part of the state and Lewiston is up north and he resents driving around advertising the product on his plates. Hrrrrrrumph!

    The hardest clue, IMO was “Prime Minister of Ireland.” How the f*ck should I know?? — Winston Churchill? Someone named Guinness? — Alec Guinness? Alec Baldwin? James Joyce?? Joyce Kilmer??

    Well, it turns out they weren’t looking for the name of the Prime Minister. There is a name for the office of PM and it’s TAOISEACH. It means “chief” or “leader,” and the Irish Constitution of 1937 adopted the term for the office of the Prime Minister.

    Another bruiser was “Ballerina who popularized ‘The Nutcracker.’” The answer was TALLCHIEF. Ever hear of Maria Tallchief? According to Wikipedia, she was America’s first major prima ballerina and the first Osage Tribe member to hold the rank. Together with choreographer George Balanchine, she is widely considered to have revolutionized ballet.

    My plan was to end tonight with a New Yorker cartoon to lighten the mood. But I sifted through all of the cartoons from the last four issues and could find nothing even remotely funny. Arggggggh.

    Maybe tomorrow we’ll spend some time with the Dull Men for some amusement.

    Thanks for popping by.

  • Backsliding

    OMG! Matt Gaetz! It’s already so much more wonderful than we ever imagined! We are qvelling.

    This is from the NYT:

    Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, told reporters that many members of the GOP conference were shocked at the choice of Mr. Gaetz for attorney general, but mostly thrilled at the prospect that he might no longer be a member of the chamber. The House, Mr. Miller added, would be a more functional place without Mr. Gaetz.

    And get this — (We are not making this up. It was reported by historian Heather Cox Richardson in her newsletter.) Pete Hegseth, the guy you-know-who is appointing Sec’y of Defense, said in 2019 that he had not washed his hands in ten years because he does not believe germs are real.

    Andy Spragg of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted this short note with this lovely drawing:

    I was amazed to discover, when I weighed a plastic bucket on the kitchen scales, that it weighed 454 gm i.e. exactly 1 lb (to the nearest gram, anyway).

    Shaun Gisby: It might be underweight; is it a little pail?

    This poem by Louis Jenkins from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called “Mockingbird.”

    I remember when I was a child I had a pair of canaries
    in a cage in my bedroom. I had the idea that I would
    raise and sell canaries. I asked one of my sisters if she
    remembered them. She remembered that they were
    parakeets, not canaries. I asked another sister. She said
    she didn’t remember any canaries but she remembered
    how mean I was to her. My youngest sister doesn’t
    remember having birds but thinks that we had a pet
    rabbit. I don’t remember that. My brother thinks we
    had a pet crow that talked. I don’t remember a crow
    but I remember we had a myna bird for a while that
    said, “Hello sweetiepie,” but he belonged to someone
    else. My mother says that she would never have
    allowed birds or any other animals in the house. I
    remember how the female canary ignored the male
    but chirped plaintively to a mockingbird that sang
    outside my window all summer long.

    Today’s puzzle theme was “Back in Black,” an AC/DC album from the 80s. The word “back” had to be inserted in three black squares for the answers surrounding the squares (on all four sides!) to cohere. E.g., at 17D the clue was “Certain bribe” and the answer was KICKBACK. But there were only 4 letters for the answer. So we were to fill in KICK and the black square after it signified the BACK.

    Rex shared this haunting Amy Winehouse song with us. Rest in peace, Amy.

    If you’re feeling defiant instead of mournful, try this one on. It’s Johnny Cash!

    One of the “Back in Black” clues was at 37A: “Red carpet attire.” The answer was (Back)LESS dress. Here’s a tasteful one my tax student Lila modeled for Phil. [OK Philly — just walk away now — she has a midterm to study for next week.]

    Hop-scotching the news:

    In the “We’re F*cked” Dept, here are the first two paragraphs from a story in the NYT today:

    One year after world leaders made a splashy promise to shift away from fossil fuels, countries are burning more oil, natural gas and coal than ever before, researchers said this week.

    Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, a 0.8 percent increase over 2023 levels. It’s a trend that puts countries farther from their goal of stopping global warming.

    Ya think?

    Actually, emissions declined in the U.S. and Europe and fossil fuel use slowed in China. It’s India and the rest of the world that are ramping up.

    Next.

    The morality police!! What a great idea — who says Iran is a backwards country?? According to a story in the British paper The Telegraph, Iranian women who resist wearing the hijab will be given treatment at a specialist mental health clinic: the aptly named Clinic for Quitting Hijab Removal. The clueless moron who will run the clinic said it “will be for the scientific and psychological treatment of removing the hijab, specifically for the teenage generation, young adults, and women seeking social and Islamic identity.” Is it me? I’m not getting what “the scientific treatment of removing the hijab” means. How scientific can taking off your clothing be? What’s the science — gravity?

    The director said the project is focused on promoting “dignity, modesty, chastity, and hijab” and claimed that attendance would be “optional.” Well, that’s a relief. On the other hand, the clinic will be overseen by Iran’s Headquarters for Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil, the governmental body responsible for enforcing strict religious standards across society. I guess that’s why “optional” is in quotes above.

    [“Enjoining,” btw, is one of those words that means both itself and its opposite: a contronym. To enjoin means both “to encourage” and “to prohibit” depending on the context.]

    Earlier this month, in an act of extraordinary and unimaginable courage, a university student from the Islamic Azad University in Tehran stripped to her underwear to protest against the demands that women wear the hijab. She was branded mentally ill and taken to a psychiatric facility. There’s your “optional.”

    The anti-hijab movement grew after the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. The 22-year-old was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. Da noive! Dead now. Twenty-two.

    Tehran continues to suppress women with increased covert surveillance, a stronger morality police presence, and bans on unveiled women entering public spaces. The UN calls it “gender apartheid.” Sounds like cold-blooded murder to us.

    This video is, unfortunately, in Finnish. But you can get a sense of what it’s trying to convey. It instructs on the proper way to open a door. I ask you — who among us can’t use a little help in that area?

    If you are ever in Jamesburg NJ (which is, admittedly, unlikely, since we have lived in Jersey since 1986 and today was our first time in J-burg), Bovine Burgers makes a good $12 burger. The fries are good too and they use canola oil so the saturated fat guilt is minimized. Good beer on tap. (Burp!) All bases covered.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Sydneysider

    Headline from The Onion: Oklahoma Law Requires 10 Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb.

    Back on Earth, a federal judge held up a Louisiana law requiring the Big Ten to be posted in every classroom. No doubt the decision will be reversed and the judge consigned to Hell by the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    In other religious news the Archbishop of Canterbury resigned after a report was issued detailing his role in the “coverup” (their word) of the Church’s sex abuse scandal. The beating and abuse of an untold number of children in the Church’s “care” continued unabated for years due to the coverup. Good job, Archie. The holy man is looking for a position in Louisiana now, to help install all those Commandments.

    Last, the Religious Times reports that the number of Commandments has been reduced from ten to nine. Trump deleted the one on adultery by Executive Order. (Don’t tell Melatonin.)

    Two things from Down Under: Sydney is not the capital of Australia. Canberra is. Sydney is the capital of the State of New South Wales. What do you call someone from Sydney? A Sydneysider. SIDER was in the puzzle today (“Suffix with Sydney”). Had no idea.

    It’s hard to come up with famous Australians. How hard? In a list of the top 10, I have only heard of the top 4, and two of those are dead. They are, in order: Heath Ledger (dead), Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, and Olivia Newton-John (dead). Number 5 is some race car driver: Daniel Ricciardo.

    Here’s NK, eyeing Phil a little suspiciously, and who could blame her?

    At 11D the clue was “In a better frame of mind,” and the answer was GLADDER. A bunch of folks took umbrage at GLADDER, on the grounds that it’s not a word people use. But commenter kitshef came back with:

    She hears her own voice with a new delight,
    And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes aright,
    Then is she tenfold gladder than before.

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    I’m beginning to think this whole constellation business is just a big load of crap. A giant connect-the-dots scam. Take the one that was in the puzzle today: Aquila. I’m sorry, Ptolemy, but how is that an eagle? If I had to guess, I’d say umbrella.

    David Avery, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted the following:

    The worst symbol for a toilet ever. Male or female?

    Comments:

    Stephen Bounds: Irish Riverdancer.

    Leon Teale sensibly noted that it depends what the other one looks like, but David Avery replied that there was no other one. To me that says it’s unisex. But the comments were precariously split between unisex and male.

    Gareth Whitley wrote: Open and see!

    Those opting for male noted the figure was not wearing a skirt. I can see that, but there’s something vaguely feminine about the legs, no? Here’s a nice unambiguous one:

    Let’s check the mailbag!

    Owl Chatter reader Monty Brockert writes:

    Dear Owl Chatter: Love the blog, especially Phil’s photos. Here’s our question. The missus and I would like to hook up with a similarly interested couple, nudge nudge wink wink. How would we go about setting something like that up?

    Dear Monty: Thank you for the kind words! — we’ll let Philly know he has a fan. As far as your question goes, we recommend an upside-down pineapple. An upside-down pineapple sends out just the signal you are interested in sending out. So, e.g., if you are on a cruise and you post an upside-down pineapple sign on your cabin door, you should get inquiries from like-minded couples. Similarly, placing an actual pineapple upside-down in your shopping cart in the supermarket sends the signal. You could even wear clothing or a pin that has one depicted on it — anyone seeing you should get the message.

    Let us know if you get lucky!

    Best,

    Your friends at Owl Chatter

    This poem is called “Morning,” and it’s by Krista Lucas.

    The stillness, the radio’s news,
    the scent of rain. My neighbor
    bending to pick up his newspaper
    in its orange plastic bag, tossed
    on the step. The cars all
    heading this way or that,
    a fine spray beneath their wheels. Vapor
    rising from sidewalks, and the light
    of the eastern sun, slanting long, as if
    there’s all the time in the world.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for dropping by.

  • Blue-Footed Boobies

    Welcome, readers, to Owl Chatter’s 650th post! Yeah, you heard me — Six hundred and f*cking fifty. Who could have imagined when we started cranking out this nonsense that there’d be so much of it around everywhere? Special thanks, as always, to our loyal staff: Our intrepid photographer Phil; Georgie (Santos), whose sole job is to keep the fridge stocked with diet soda; and our stunning style and culture consultant, Ana. Owl Chatter could not function without their tiresome efforts. Oops — I mean tireless.

    Happily, today’s puzzle was one of my favorites, with JAZZ hands up top, and boobies FEET below. And Old Father Knickerbocker favored us with a visit. Wonderful, all of it. According to the puzzle, Father KNICKERBOCKER is the “personification of New York City in old cartoons.” The NBA’s Knicks are named after him. And a beer! Jacob Ruppert’s beer — he owned the Yankees.

    The HORSE’S MOUTH was the theme, revealed near the bottom, and the theme answers all played with the sounds a horse makes. So at 51A, the clue was “Bear who sings ‘I’m so rumbly in my tumbly’” for, of course, WINNIE THE POOH. See? — and a horse “whinnies.” At 26A, for “Vocal skeptics” the answer was NAYSAYERS — so we get “neigh.” And, apparently, horses “nicker.” That one’s from KNICKERBOCKER. “Nicker” was new to me so I checked with our buddy Miriam Webster. Yup, she okayed it. It means to neigh or whinny. D’oh!

    But aside from the fun theme, some of the fill was a gas. At 69A the clue was “Blue parts of boobies,” but don’t get too excited fellas — the booby is a seabird. And it has incredibly bright blue FEET. Look at this guy (or gal). Hysterical.

    My other fave was JAZZ hands, clued with “___ hands (razzle-dazzle display).” C’mon everybody – let’s see those hands flapping!

    We noted that yesterday (11/11) was the birthday of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821). I bet you forgot to send a card, amirite? Well, Owl Chatter friend Riverdale Joe asked us whether that was his Old Style or New Style birth date. What on earth is he talking about?

    Here’s the deal. At one point, mankind’s calendar committee realized that the correct figure for the number of days in a year is not 365.25 (365 days 6 hours) as assumed by the Julian calendar but just a smidge less (365.242 days). So a correction was made and countries switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar at various different times. The Gregorian calendar was implemented in Russia on February 14, 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of February 1 through 13, 1918 under a decree signed by Lenin. The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date for a while. Thus, Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) dates.

    So, to answer Joe’s question, November 11 is the man’s birthday in the New Style. The Old Style date was October 30. But don’t worry, Olga — this won’t be on the exam.

    Sixty-three years ago this week Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was published. That was in 1961. The reviews were mixed, but by 1963 it had become the best-selling book in the U.S. Several years before his death, Heller and a friend were attending an event in some hedge fund manager’s penthouse apartment in NY. Heller’s friend said, “You know, Joe. This fellow makes more money in one day than Catch-22 brought in over your lifetime.” Heller said, “Yeah — but I have one thing he’ll never have.” “What’s that?” the friend asked. And Heller said: “Enough.”

    He came to speak at Brandeis when I was there. I went to hear him straight from studying a bit at the library, so I had my books with me. At the end, students went up to ask him to autograph Catch-22. Dammit! — I hadn’t even thought of that. And, me — an autograph collector. I got on line anyway and when it was my turn, I said I didn’t have a copy of Catch-22 with me — “but can you sign Plato’s Republic?” He chuckled and said “Sure.” It hasn’t survived my many moves since then, but, for a time, I had what was probably the only autographed copy of Plato’s Republic in the world.

    See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.

  • Tom, Dick, and Harry

    Our Vermont friend Robert retired a few years ago after a distinguished legal career up there. He once told me he attended an event honoring a beloved trial attorney who was retiring and who was widely regarded as the best cross-examiner the state had ever seen. And he was going to speak on the art of cross-examination. After going on for about 30 minutes, he told the audience he was going to end by revealing his formula for success. All the lawyers in the audience were poised with pen over paper to jot it down. Then he said: “Keep it short, sit down, you probably fucked up.”

    Today’s Gameplay column in the NYT by Sam Corbin was about that: not cross examination, but how a three-item list is often the most effective way of getting a message across. It’s a rhetorical device known as a tricolon. Corbin says she texted her friend Chandler Dean, who writes speeches for media personalities and politicians, to ask him whether he knew about the device. “Know it, love it, overuse it,” he texted back.

    Dean explained it’s like a tiny story with a beginning, middle, and end. He noted that the most popular adage about the power of the tricolon was, itself, a tricolon: “Tell ’em what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell ’em what you said.”

    Corbin says you need to consider the rhythm too — it should go up-up-down, like a dance in 3/4 time — and its effect is strongest when each item escalates in potency and length. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” wouldn’t be nearly as powerful if liberty had come third.

    It all came up because today’s NYTXW was a tricolon of sorts. The theme’s revealer was TOM DICK AND HARRY (“Trio of average guys”). Then the three theme answers were: CARIBBEAN CRUISE (for TOM Cruise); BIG BAD WOLF (for DICK Wolf); and FREESTYLES (for HARRY Styles).

    Dick Wolf, you probably know, produced Law and Order and other hit shows. He went to college at UPenn (Class of ’69).

    Harry Styles is a popular British singer. He is heavily tattooed, the most prominent of which is a large butterfly. He also has a Green Bay Packers logo tattoo (not kidding).

    His sexuality is sort of up in the air, and he has dated a bevy of knockouts, including our Tay for a while. Here’s one of them, actress/model Camille Rowe. Did he fall for those ocean eyes? How could he not?

    Linda and I attended a concert yesterday in a church in Plainfield NJ performed by the NJ Intergenerational Orchestra (NJIO). True to its name, orchestra members run in age from elementary school to folks in their 80s. The place was packed and it was great. The soloist for the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was 15-year-old Elizabeth Poppy Song, and, forgive me, readers, for resorting to technical music terminology, but she f*cking killed the damn thing. Like, in a good way. Phenomenal.

    Ah, to be young!

    Sometimes a student says “Thank you” after I answer a question. It’s not necessary, I tell them, but I also say I do believe the small courtesies are important. “It doesn’t cost a nickel to say please or thank you, and people will think better of you for it.” I ran into a student of mine years after she was in my class, and she told me that made an impression on her. You never know what will stick. Here’s Tay. (Love the outfit, girl!)

    “Children hate me.”

    So this carrot and celery stalk are walking down the street and they come to an intersection. The carrot stops at the red light, but the celery keeps going and gets hit by a car. He’s rushed to the hospital and the carrot rides along with him in the ambulance. He’s taken in for surgery and the carrot paces nervously in the waiting room. After what seems like forever, the surgeon comes out and walks up to the carrot. He says: Your friend is going to live, but he’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life.

    Last, happy birthday to Jonathan Winters (1925) and Kurt Vonnegut (1922). Oh, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821). If I had to pick one to sit next to on a long train ride, it would be easy. In 1964, Jack Paar gave Winters a stick and told him to do something with it. Winters proceeded to act out a fisherman, violinist, lion tamer, canoeist, diplomat, bullfighter, flutist, psychiatric patient, British headmaster, and Bing Crosby playing golf. He made up characters based on people he knew growing up in Ohio, including Piggy Bladder, the football coach for the State Teachers’ Animal Husbandry Institute for the Blind. If you saw him perform, you’d understand why he was a great influence on Robin Williams and Jim Carrey.

    See you next time!

  • The Welcome Grace of the Air

    Penultimate, of course, means next to last. A lot of people think it means last, because of that ultimate in there. Maybe they think the pen is a way of emphasizing the last — it’s really last! But, no, it means next to last: ninth in a list of ten. If it’s supposed to be a shortcut, it may not really be a shortcut. Next to last is three syllables and penultimate is four. Next to last is ten letters and penultimate eleven. The Car Talk guys used to be amused that the shortcut for World Wide Web: WWW, when spoken, is nine syllables compared to three. Whatever. I like that there is a special word for “next to last.”

    And I was today years old when I learned that there’s a word for “next to next to last,” or third from the end. It’s antepenultimate. Eighth in a list of ten. I learned it from the puzzle today, but I won’t bore you with the details. Instead, I’ll bore you with the eclectic list of the folks who popped into the puzzle today: Kenneth BRANAGH, for his role in Oppenheimer. It held me up a bit because I tried to stick a U in it. TINA Turner, clued as “backed by the Ikettes.” The painter EL GRECO, young disciple of an old Titian. Jacques CHIRAC, former prez of France. PHIL: groundhog of renown. KOWALSKI, Brando’s role in Streetcar. COLMAN Domingo, Best Actor nominee for 2023’s Rustin. LUANN de Lesseps of the “Real Housewives” franchise. EDGAR LEE Masters. The clue for him was good: “Masters of the written word?” Here’s Luann.

    At 35D, the clue was “‘Save the ___’ (modern conservation slogan),” and the answer was BEES. I think I’ve played this Laura Cantrell song before for us, but it’s so beautiful, it’s worth a reprise, IMO. I don’t know how you’re doing with your cholesterol levels, but this song is definitely good for your heart. It’s the penultimate song on her album Humming by the Flowered Vine.

    My time is short now, I feel it coming
    I’ll see you darling in the morning light

    Whoa, hey — did someone mention Stanley Kowalski? In this scene, Elaine has taken some painkillers for her back.

    This poem by Jack Ridl is from today’s Writer’s Almanac and is called “The Heron.”

    Whenever we noticed her
    standing in the stream, still
    as a branch in dead air, we
    would grab our binoculars,
    watch her watching,
    her eye fixed on the water
    slowly making its own way
    around stumps, over a boulder,
    under some leaves matted against
    a fallen log. She seemed
    to appear, stand, peer, then
    lift one leg, stretch it, let
    a foot quietly settle into the mud
    then pull up her other foot, settle
    it, and stare again, each step
    tendered, an ideogram at the end
    of a calligrapher’s brush.
    Every time she arrived, we watched
    until, as if she had suddenly heard
    a call in the sky, she would bend
    her knees, raise her wide wings,
    and lift into the welcome grace
    of the air, her legs extending
    back behind her, wings rising
    and falling elegant under the clouds:
    For more than a week now
    we have not seen her. We watch
    the sky, hoping to catch her great
    feathered cross moving above the trees.

    A comment posted late yesterday weighed in on whether the third plague in Egypt was GNATS, as the puzzle posited, or lice. The Hebrew word is kinnim, which yesterday’s comment strongly maintained translates to lice. Here’s what commenter Sailor says:

    “Old translations of ancient texts were often made on thin evidence, and current scholarly consensus has trended away from translating kinnim as lice. The English translation gnats is now much more common. Along the way, various translators and faith traditions have also used flies, sand flies, and mosquitos.

    “But if this were a Jeopardy clue, the correct answer would definitely be lice because that’s the translation used in the King James Version, which they specify as their standard reference.”

    Whatever it is, let’s move on — I’m starting to itch.

    You history buffs may have known that the “length of William Henry Harrison’s presidency” was ONE MONTH, but it was news to me. Wha’ hoppin? He got sick and died is wha’ hoppin. He was 68 years old. At least it was a long month: March 4 to April 4 in 1841. Remember “Tippecanoe and Tyler too?” Well, Harrison was Old Tippecanoe (his nickname after his exploits in the Battle of Tippecanoe), and Tyler was his running mate who took office after Harrison died. Harrison was the 9th U.S. President.

    Harrison met his wife Anna when he was 22, but when he asked her dad for permission to marry her, he said no. Don’t you hate when that happens? So they eloped when Dad was away on business. They had ten children, and one of their grandchildren was Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the U.S.

    Here’s a photo of Harrison’s wife, Anna.

    David Dibb asked his fellow members of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) for help. Here’s his post:

    My father in law is trying to decipher this note left to him. His night heater in his lorry was not working and the engineer left him this note after working on it. We can’t fully decipher it to make any sense. Can anyone help?

    Tony Clark: I read the ending as “no summer fruit.”

    Tim Fardell: Davie used to unlock night heater elue to too many iogs OR never twit – covered for luncheon – NO flume & twit.

    Sam Bessie Morgan: He fixed it. That’s all you need to know.

    Paul Wain: It says “Take two paracetamol twice a day for two weeks. If you don’t feel any better come back and see me”

    Larry Greenfield: Davie used to unlucky night neater else 10 too many ivy’s or heavier. Quit checkered der luncheon

    Dave Wilmott: The night heater unit failed to start too many times, so the electronic control unit blocked it from working. The engineer used his diagnostic computer to clear the trouble codes and restore heater function. The engineer then tried the heater, which starts and runs correctly and has signed it off as No Fault Found. Heater will almost certainly fail to start after tomorrow’s shift when it’s needed.

    The Jets were favored to beat ‘Zona today by 1.5 points. As it happens, they lost a real nail-biter 31-6. Ouch! D’oh!

    Here’s the only shot Phil sent us before blacking out.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Alex Trebek’s Stamp

    From tomorrow’s Met Diary, by Joe Giordano:

    Dear Diary:

    A buddy from my life drawing class brought me a small jar of fig marmalade made from the bountiful fig tree in his yard. At the end of class I placed the jar in my portfolio and headed to the Museum of Modern Art for back-to-back screenings of the first two Godfather films.

    The person checking bags at the entrance asked me what was in the jar.

    Figs, I said.

    After checking at the desk, he told me that I couldn’t bring the jar inside and that they couldn’t hold it for me.

    “It was a gift,” I pleaded. “I can’t throw it away.”

    As I stood there trying to figure out what to do, a man behind me in the line spoke up. “You have to find a place to hide it and pick it up later,” he said.

    I went outside. Looking across the street, I saw several large planters holding good-sized bushes in front of a hotel entrance. I chose one that was away from any traffic. While pretending to make a call, I placed the jar well out of sight behind the bush.

    When the movies were over hours later, I returned to find the jar untouched. I picked it up and headed home.

    That story reminded me of the time I stayed in the city after class to attend a lecture at a synagogue in the evening. I treated myself to dinner at Dallas BBQ near Hunter, ordering the pulled-pork burger with cole slaw, a baked potato, and a beer. I only ate half of it and asked the waiter to box up what I didn’t finish, and I placed the box in my backpack.

    As I approached the synagogue, I noticed that guards were inspecting bags on the way in. I envisioned the following scene.

    Guard: Good evening, Sir. Please open your backpack.

    Me: Sure, and good evening to you too.

    Guard: What’s in that box?

    Me: Half of a pulled-pork burger. It was pretty big and I couldn’t finish it.

    Guard: Pork is not kosher, sir.

    Me: Yes, I know. My parents kept a kosher home when I was young, but my wife and I don’t. Many Jews don’t keep kosher.

    Guard: I am aware of that, but this is a synagogue. Would it have killed you to order the brisket burger?

    Me: Sometimes the brisket is a little leathery. I didn’t want to take the chance.

    Guard: So you bring pork to a synagogue?

    Me: Well, that’s true, but you know what Jews believe about not wasting food. It’s sorta the Eleventh Commandment.

    Guard: Of course. Okay, go in, but keep it in your bag, and if anyone asks, I wasn’t the guard who let you in.

    Me: Thanks! Will do!

    As Owl Chatter readers know, I have a baseball autograph collection that I am proud of, and some baseball cards. My brother, alav hashalom, collected Israeli stamps. He was born in 1937, so he started when Israel first came into existence in 1948, and had some rare and valuable stamps. I don’t collect stamps. But I love how some of them look, or whom they honor, so I buy a sheet or two from time to time just to stick in my desk drawer. A nice one honoring RBG was issued this year, and Yogi. I checked the website yesterday and was very pleased to see this nice stamp design, honoring healthcare professionals, including RNs like my Caitlin.

    They also had this neat one for Alex Trebek:

    In his comments on the puzzle today, for some reason I can’t divine, commenter Son Volt shared this song (by the band Son Volt!) with us, and it’s so pretty I’m shamelessly stealing it for OC.

    At 24A, the clue was “Place for a mind or a ball,” and the answer was GUTTER. It could also have been clued with “Louis Farrakhan adjective for the Jewish religion.” Remember him? LF is still alive at 91, but, thankfully, seems to have stayed out of the news for some time. He has repeatedly claimed he never referred to Judaism as a gutter religion. Yeah, whatever.

    Hey Jude (OC math dept) — the puzzle had two serious math clues. First, at 6D, “sin/cos” was TAN, for tangent. All gibberish to me. And, even better, at 41A, the clue was “Like i, say.” I didn’t even realize it was a math clue — that’s how far gone I am. The answer was NONREAL, and it was explained that i is a symbol for an imaginary (i.e., unreal) number representing the square root of -1.

    One commenter noted: Somewhat ironically, REAL numbers are no more or less imaginary than any other numbers.

    Ouch, my brain is starting to hurt. I’m just going to tiptoe away from this, throw in a sexy math teacher and a separator bar, and move on.

    Having a rough day? Maybe you took a ride on the STRUGGLE BUS. That expression was new to me. The clue for it at 10D was “Something the floundering are said to be on.” But you can take it, right? At 14A the clue was “Give me your worst!,” and the answer was I CAN TAKE IT. Sure you can!

    At 54A, the clue was “Very short story?” and the answer was CRAWL SPACE. (Get it?) And at 47A, “Accomplish with precision” was DOTOAT. What? DOT OAT? No, silly — it’s DO TO A T.

    Two great sports figures visited the grid: Remember Ed “Too Tall” Jones? Best nickname ever. His clue was “Moniker for 6’9″ N.F.L. star Ed Jones.” And ICHIRO, clued with “Mononymous baseball star who played 28 seasons professionally.” That includes his time in Japan, of course.

    I was watching a game idly one day, having just flipped on the TV randomly. There was a runner or two on base and the batter laced a single to right. Well, you know baseball — suddenly, from nothing happening, everything was happening — runners running, fielders racing into position, the pitcher running to back up somewhere. And then, like a missile, the ball came tearing in on a low line straight from right field into the third baseman’s mitt. It was from Ichiro out in right. The man had an unbelievable arm.

    Here’s his pretty wife Yumiko:

    Speaking of mononyms, Anony Mouse shared this with us today:

    One fun fact about Pelé is that his mononym is not a component of his legal name. He was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Per Wikipedia:
    “In his autobiography released in 2006, Pelé stated he had no idea what the name means, nor did his old friends, and the word has no meaning in Portuguese.”

    BTW, someone who is monogamonymous only sleeps with people who have one name.

    The clue at 48D was “Creatures in God’s third plague in Exodus,” and the answer was GNATS. But Commenter BMA tells us that answer is gnot correct! As he or she put it:

    Having sat through (and sometimes even enjoyed) dozens of Passover Seders, I know that the third plague was LICE. So many times, I have spilled a drop of wine for “kinim”—the Hebrew word for LICE. There are no GNATS among any of the ten plagues. That basic and so readily verifiable error totally ruined the puzzle for me.

    [Yikes — chillax BMA — it’s just a puzzle.]

    I posted the following:

    In the spirit of Ogden Nash:

    Lice
    Aren’t nice.

    Wow. It just occurred to me that would be a great idea for a postage stamp design: The ten plagues, to be issued around Passover. The math works out perfectly for a 20-stamp sheet. I’m going to suggest it to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee. (Info on how to do it is on the USPS website.)

    This poem is called “Greenwich.” It’s by Kirsten Dierking and was in The Writer’s Almanac today.

    At the naval museum I look at Nelson’s uniform, the one
    he was wearing the day he was killed, and the bullet’s damage
    to the blue coat is surprisingly slight.

    Just before he died he said thank God I have done my duty.
    He must have been a little afraid of not being able to do
    the heroic work required of him.

    It’s a lovely day in late March, the sun and daffodils are out.
    We walk to the observatory, straddle the prime meridian,
    try to feel our blood flowing back and forth between hemispheres.

    There’s a lot of laughter, young people clowning around,
    adults striking silly poses for photographs. And why not?
    One day, won’t we all have to be brave?

    On this date 35 years ago (1989), the Berlin Wall came down. Six weeks later, on Xmas morning, Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance in Berlin of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with the words “Ode to Joy” changed to “Ode to Freedom.” His orchestra and choir were made up of citizens from East and West Germany, France, the Soviet Union, England, and the U.S. It was the first Christmas in decades that East and West Berliners could cross freely between the sides of the city. East Berliners enjoyed sausages from street vendors in West Berlin.

    Stacey Elverstone, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asks:

    How many men in here write in capitals and why? Was talking to the ex husband about it as he does, the post man and delivery drivers (I do know they r male lol) our 5 yr is learning to read and gets confused with capitals and cant always work out Dad’s writing 😆 Never seen women do it, unless u wanna prove me wrong lol

    Most of the comments were from men who said they do write in all caps because their handwriting is so bad only caps can be understood.

    John Castleford asked: SHOULD IT NOT BE “UPPER CASE”? Capitals are cities. Incidentally, uppercase and lowercase originally referred to the location in the printer’s case said letters were kept.

    [Wow. Neat.]

    Shaun Gisbey: When I’m working, I cut out capitals from newspapers and magazines and stick them on a card. Sometimes I enclose a finger too. Hope this helps.

    Zita Stirbys: I suppose your work is writing threats? Or ransom notes?

    Shaun: Damn! I thought I’d covered my tracks better.

    Here’s Shaun: Cheers!

    I added the following: I write everything upside down. Unless I’m in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s just easier.

    More than enough nonsense for today. See you tomorrow, Chatterheads. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Seismo

    The clue at 1D today was Midwest city known as the “Capital of Route 66” and it’s TULSA. Who knew? Remember The Byrds?

    JL Cauvin is my favorite Trump impersonator. Does that give him special insight? Who knows? Here’s his take on you know what.

    Jason Kelce, Travis’s brother, was at the Penn State game last Saturday as an analyst for ESPN and was accosted by a homophobic fan. The fan said:  “Kelce, how does it feel that your brother is a fa**ot for dating Taylor Swift?”

    First, as to the premise, will someone please explain to me — like I’m a three-year old — how sleeping with one of the most beautiful women on the planet makes an NFL superstar gay? What am I missing?

    But let’s put that aside. Jason “reasoned” with the young man by grabbing his phone out of his hands, smashing it to the ground, and asking him “Who’s the fa**ot now?” As you may recall, Jason was an offensive lineman for the Eagles for twelve years. In a collision with a truck, I would not put my money on the truck. That fellow is lucky he can still move his limbs.

    Jason later apologized for, and feels terrible about, his use of the slur, even in a “flinging it back in your face” context. “Listen, I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it. In a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate, and I just don’t think that’s a productive thing. I really don’t. I don’t think it leads to discourse and is the right way to go about things.”

    He also explained that he’s always been taught to live life “by the Golden Rule,” adding, “I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m gonna keep doing that moving forward, even though I fell short this week. I’m gonna do that moving forward and continue to do that.”

    Taylor and Travis remain firmly entrenched in Jason’s corner, as are we here at OC. The guy’s just a big teddy bear without a hateful bone in his body.

    Philly! What do you have on Tay for this story?

    Yowch. We can use that. Thanks.

    At 69A, the clue was “Shaky start?” and the answer was SEISMO. It’s a prefix like for a seismograph, which measures tremors. Get it? A prefix (start) that is “shaky.” Rex was having none of it:

    SEISMO is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in the grid. I exaggerate, but not by much. Certainly the stupidest-looking standalone prefix. SEISMO sounds like the name of the mascot at a seismology convention. Imagine someone running around in a furry cartoonish Richter scale costume, trying to get the seismologists hyped about their jobs—that’s SEISMO! “Oh, SEISMO, you lovable scamp! You make my knees shake and my heart tremble!” 

    At 41D the clue was “One might require a higher prescription,” and the answer was BAD EYE.

    Commenter Anony Mouse 1 asked: Can someone please explain to me what “Bad Eye” is? I’m stumped.

    Anony Mouse 2 replied: It’s just the one of your two eyes that has worse vision than the other.

    I felt compelled to chime in with this clarification: It’s not related to the Evil Eye which must be respected and feared.

    Here is a hamsa — a charm that will ward off the evil eye.

    As a goodwill gesture towards the incoming administration, Owl Chatter proposes that outgoing Pres. Biden preemptively pardon all of the Jan. 6 patriots that have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. We’re also having George look into which local sport stadiums and arenas can best serve as temporary alien deportation centers until permanent concentration camps are up and running. Met Life Stadium, where both the Jets and Giants play, should be available at the close of the regular season (before inauguration). Neither team has a snowball’s chance in Amarillo of making it into the playoffs. (Might wanna get that flag out of there.)

    Bitter? Moi?

    Russ Morgan posted this photo in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) today with the note: Now I know how it feels to win the lottery.

    It made no sense to me until I read the comments. Apparently, it is impossible to open these packages without implements and a struggle.

    James Barton: Nope. Not possible.

    Nigel Cad: What sorcery is this?

    Dave Budd: Don’t overthink it. Just wallow in your glory.

    Isabelle Shelley: That is as rare as rocking horse shit.

    Russ Morgan later noted: I didn’t eat any, I’m still in shock from being able to open it without a chainsaw.

    Here’s Russ:

    Godric Wilkie posted a note to the band The Clash that must have been percolating for him for 42 years.

    The Clash – and I’m addressing you collectively – in your 1982 hit you delivered, with great gusto, it must be said, the famous interrogative:

    “Should I stay, or should I go now?

    Should I stay, or should I go now?

    If I go, there will be trouble

    And if I stay, it will be double

    So come on and let me know:

    I believe I may have answers to your conundrum:

    If it is the intention of all concerned to reduce trouble to a minimum, then by your lights you should go since to remain will double the quantity of trouble, defeating the object of the exercise.

    If, on the other hand, one enjoys a bit of trouble, then surely, the recommendation must be that you remain.

    Comments:

    Michael Clare: This indecision’s bugging me.

    Paul Moorhouse: I find that if I go, no one really cares.

    Debbie Mackay: See ya.

    Martin Lacey: They also sang ‘let fury have the hour, anger can be power’ so I’m guessing they probably would have stuck around.

    Robbie Robb: Joe went.

    Bryan Crosby: I like cheese. [What??]

    Shaun Gisbey: Double Gloucester?

    Turn it up.

    See you next time!

  • Yikes! Wha Hoppin Mon?

    When Sarah, Sam, and I saw James Taylor at Tanglewood some years ago he told a story about performing in Jamaica after not being there for decades. He was wearing a cap and at one point removed it to reveal his entirely bald head. And a man in the front row gasped and said “Wha hoppin mon?”

    Well, it’s time to hunker down, readers, and brace for a long, dark four years. We will need our puzzles and our poets, and our ballgames and our art more than ever now. Here at Owl Chatter, Phil, George, the owls and I are determined not to give in to despair. (Well at least Phil, I, and the owls are determined. George has that prison thing to worry about.) And Ana, our style and culture consultant: It’s impossible to despair whenever she pops by.

    Here’s a poem called “The Nuthatch” from today’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Kirsten Dierking and strikes just the right tone.

    What if a sleek, grey-feathered nuthatch
    flew from a tree and offered to perch
    on your left shoulder, accompany you

    on all your journeys? Nowhere fancy,
    just the brief everyday walks, from garage
    to house, from house to mailbox, from
    the store to your car in the parking lot.

    The slight pressure of small claws
    clasping your skin, a flutter of wings
    every so often at the edge of vision.

    And what if he never asked you to be
    anything? Wouldn’t that be so much
    nicer than being alone? So much easier
    than trying to think of something to say?

    And whoa! — look who dropped by to make sure we’re all okay! We just mentioned you, Armas. Georgie’s back, — hope you can stay a while. Grab something from the fridge, and there’s some Toblerone, below.

    Today’s puzzle featured some cool wordplay. The theme was the LONG AND SHORT OF IT. And each theme answer contained two answers — one long, and one short, built in to the long! So, e.g., at 53A for the clue “Bird with a distinctive call,” the answers were meadowlark and owl: meadOWLark. At 29A, “Band in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” was both Black Sabbath and Abba: BlacksABBAth.

    I was flummoxed at 67D: “Midwesterner’s embarrassed interjection.” Ever hear of OPE? For me, nope. Here’s what I found on it from Chicago Magazine: This magical, monosyllabic exclamation applies to a whole slew of circumstances: Accidentally pulling on a push door; trying to flag down a waiter; realizing you were served the wrong dish; hearing a mildly juicy piece of gossip; realizing a car is coming when you’re about to cross the street; thanking someone for opening a door for you; feeling the first drops of rain. “Ope!” works for all of ‘em. It’s a way to announce your presence in the most passive, non-intrusive way possible.

    I was also at a loss at 11D: “Actress Tracee ___ Ross of “American Fiction.” Turns out it’s Tracee ELLIS Ross, and, get this — she’s Diana Ross’s daughter. Her last name is actually Silberstein, after her dad, Robert Ellis Silberstein, her mom’s music business manager. Tracee is 45 and proudly unmarried and childless. Does she have her mom’s eyes? I think so.

    When the kids were little and I had to scramble to come up with 8 days of gifts for Chanukah (Linda was in charge of Xmas), I would give them large bars of Toblerone to cover one of the days. No complaints.

    It’s named in part for Theodore Tobler, part-owner of the chocolate factory that produced it, and it was he who came up with the distinctive triangular shape, believed to have been inspired by the Matterhorn. But maybe not: Tobler’s sons say the shape originates from a pyramid shape that dancers at the Folies Bergere created as the finale of a show that Tobler saw. FWIW, there is a picture of the Matterhorn on the package.

    Toblerone was the first patented milk chocolate bar. Albert Einstein was working as a clerk in the patent office when the application was filed and might have processed it. Medical records show that Einstein developed a case of acne at the time. [No they don’t.]

    The distinct pyramidal shape of the bar lent its name to the “Toblerone line,” a series of anti-tank emplacements from WWII, prevalent in Switzerland’s border areas.

    The interior of the Tobler factory in Switzerland was where the title sequence of Willy Wonka was filmed. I mention all of this because the clue for ALP today was “Inspiration for Toblerone’s shape.”

    Oy, I’m tired from sleeping through meetings all day at school. Glad I’m retiring. See you next time!