The Wellington Files

  • The Book of A

    Joey Jay signed a contract with the Braves (Milwaukee) in June of 1953 for about $250,000 in today’s money plus a $50K bonus. He was only 17. He was the first ever little leaguer to make it to the majors. It’s not clear if he had already grown into his 6′ 4″, 230 lb frame yet, but he was big. His obit in the NYT today says: “Jay quickly won himself a reputation as an eater and sleeper of championship caliber. He seldom was seen awake without a candy bar or a soft drink, often with both. He would eat in the bullpen during ball games.” Gotta love it, no?

    He pitched seven shutout innings in his first start when he was just 18. But his early years in the majors with Milwaukee were “pretty dreadful.” “I fitted in nowhere. No one was deliberately unkind to me. I was just ignored and felt like the batboy.” He was traded to Cincy before the ’61 season and blossomed, going 21-10. Cincy won the pennant that year, but lost the WS to the Yankees in five games. But get this — Jay won the only game the Reds won. He won 21 games again in ’62 and finished his career at 99-91 with a 3.77 ERA.

    When he retired, he really retired. “I don’t live in the past, like most ballplayers. I don’t wear my World Series rings; my mother has my scrapbooks, and if someone offered me a baseball job, I’d turn it down in a minute. When I made the break, it was clean and forever. It’s infantile to keep thinking about the game. It gets you nowhere. Most ex-ballplayers keep on living in some destructive fantasy world. Not me. I’m happier than ever since I left. And do me a favor. Don’t mention where I live.”

    OK, Mr. Grumpy-pants. Jay is survived by his wife Lois, five kids, and a bunch of grandkids and great-grandkids, who are all pretty good eaters too, I’d bet.

    Rest in peace, Buddy.

    This poem is called “The Book of A.” It’s by Wesley McNair and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Raised during the Depression, my stepfather
    responded to the economic opportunity
    of the 1950s by buying more
    and more cheap, secondhand things
    meant to transform his life.
    I got this for a hundred bucks,
    he said, patting the tractor that listed
    to one side, or the dump truck that started
    with a roar and wouldn’t dump.
    Spreading their parts out on his tarp,
    he’d make the strange whistle
    he said he learned from the birds
    for a whole morning
    before the silence set in.
    Who knows where he picked up
    the complete A-Z encyclopedias
    embossed in gold and published
    in 1921? They were going to take these
    to the dump, he said. Night after night
    he sat up, determined to understand
    everything under the sun
    worth knowing, and falling asleep
    over the book of A. Meanwhile, as the weeks,
    then the months passed, the moon
    went on rising over the junk machines
    in the tall grass of the only
    world my stepfather ever knew,
    and nobody wrote to classify
    his odd, beautiful whistle, formed,
    somehow, in the back of his throat
    when a new thing seemed just about to happen
    and no words he could say expressed his hope.

    If I had to pick one poem to explain why I enjoy including poems in Owl Chatter, I could do worse than pick that one.

    Up for picking a nit or two? In the puzzle on Sunday one of the answers was ALASKA PENINSULA. Rex said he thought it oughta be the Alaskan Peninsula (with an N) (as it appears in the NASA website, hrrrrumph). But he conceded the official name lacks the N, and then Commenter Natasha blew our minds with the following: According to the Alaska edition of the Associated Press Stylebook, “Alaskan” should only be used to describe a person who is from Alaska. If using an adjective to describe anything else related to Alaska you should use “Alaska.”

    Well, I suppose that settles that!

    How about this clue for the word THE: “Word following a comma in an alphabetized list.”  Get it? In a list of books or movies in an index, say, if the first word in the title is “the,” e.g., The Bad and the Beautiful, it will be listed as Bad and the Beautiful, The.

    It’s election night in the U. S. of A. The sentiment in Crossworld, at least as far as the commentariat in Rex Parker’s blog goes, is fully behind Harris.

    Here’s a headline from The Onion: RFK Jr. Demands Secret Service Protection After Finding Cheez-It On Kitchen Floor.

    Word is Trump promised to place RFKJ in charge of the nation’s health. Of course, we know what his promises are worth.

    Hey, get this: Miriam Webster’s Word of the Day today is psephology. WTF, right? So it means “scientific study of elections.” You’re quite the card, MW.

    The puzzle was not election-themed. It did have a nice visit by Aretha though. Let’s hear it girl! (It was supposed to be Carole King’s night.)

    Ain’t gonna top that. See you tomorrow folks.

  • Turning to Paige

    Both the Mets and Yankees may lose sluggers to free agency this winter: Pete Alonso and Juan Soto. Gnat fans will be forever grateful to JS for his brilliant 2019 season culminating in the great WS win against the hated Astros. In the regular season that year, Soto both drove in and scored 110 runs, and batted .282 with 34 dingers. In the WS against the ‘Stros, he hit 3 homers and drove in 7 runs, batting .333. That works out to 69.4 homers and 162 RBI over a full season. He has been quite clear that every team has an equal shot at landing him. He was asked if it has sunk in that he will be signing a contract for $500 million or more. He has a nice smile. He said: “It’s been on my mind for a while now.”

    As for Alonso, the Mets are pulling out all the stops. They even have the Pope working on it. Hmmmm — I hope he doesn’t become a Cardinal. (Soto was a Padre.) Owl Chatter photographer Phil got this nice shot of Pete’s pretty wife Haley joking with the Pontiff about the Church’s child sex abuse scandal.

    This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by C.K. Williams. He was born on this date in 1936 in Newark NJ, and died nine years ago at age 78 in Hopewell NJ. His father introduced him to poetry. He loved to read to him from One Hundred and One Famous Poems. Williams went to HS in Maplewood, NJ, and college at Bucknell and UPenn. He taught creative writing at a bunch of schools, including Princeton University and Brooklyn College. It’s called “Droplets.”

    Even when the rain falls relatively hard,
    only one leaf at a time of the little tree
    you planted on the balcony last year,
    then another leaf at its time, and one more,
    is set trembling by the constant droplets,

    but the rain, the clouds flocked over the city,
    you at the piano inside, your hesitant music
    mingling with the din of the downpour,
    the gush of rivulets loosed from the eaves,
    the iron railings and flowing gutters,

    all of it fuses in me with such intensity
    that I can’t help wondering why my longing
    to live forever has so abated that it hardly
    comes to me anymore, and never as it did,
    as regret for what I might not live to live,

    but rather as a layering of instants like this,
    transient as the mist drawn from the rooftops,
    yet emphatic as any note of the nocturne
    you practice, and, the storm faltering, fading
    into its own radiant passing, you practice again.

    Ever since I looked up a recipe for something online, I receive roughly ten recipes by email every day for various dishes. Some I make and are pretty good. I just received one from Recipe Rush and originally read the subject line as Human Chicken. Upon a second look, it says Hunan Chicken.

    It’s not an easy life.

    If you are going to be a humorist, you could do worse than be born in Oologah OK. That’s where Will Rogers was born on this date in 1879. He was the last of eight children and never graduated from HS. He once said: “There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don’t even have to exaggerate.”

    He had no idea.

    One of the Commentariat on Rex’s blog told us he’s turning 60 today. So I posted this in his honor:

    Happy 60th GJ. Here’s a joke about old men.

    So old Abe Goldstein is 96 and he’s marrying young, curvaceous Cindy Markowitz who is 23. Abe’s at the doc for a checkup and the doc says, Mazel Tov on the marriage, Abe. Cindy seems like a wonderful girl. But, as your doctor, I must warn you that intense sexual activity places a heavy strain on the heart and in some cases can even cause death.

    Abe leans back on the examining table, sighs, and says “Doc. I’ve lived a wonderful happy life. If she dies, she dies.”

    The front page of the NYT sports section today assures us that women’s college basketball will not skip a beat this year, despite losing Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese to the pros. Paige Bueckers (UConn) and JuJu Watkins (USC) are poised to take their place. Paige is through-the-roof gorgeous and has already dipped her toesies into the fashion world in a front row seat at last year’s New York Fashion Week events. Here she is in her two guises. Case closed.

    Paige is from Minnesota. She is a Christian and attributes her confidence and success on the basketball court to God. Yeah, whatever. She has voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement, in part because her half-brother, Drew, whom she has described as her best friend, is biracial. She devoted her award speech at the ESPYs to highlighting the unfair lack of media attention paid to Black women athletes. So — droolingly gorgeous and a mensch.

    TIL that “noggin, in slang” is NOB. Commenter Andy reminds us it appears in the second verse of Jack and Jill.

    Up Jack got and off did trot
    As fast as he could caper
    To old Dame Dob, who patched his NOB
    With vinegar and brown paper.

    OK, thanks.

    Much ADO About Nothing was in the puzzle too. It inspired Rex to share this song with that title with us. It’s by Waxahatchee, Katie Crutchfield’s band.

    We’ll let Katie’s pretty voice send us off today. Thanks for popping in!

  • We’re Train Chasing, Baby!

    If you’ve seen the 2003 film Station Agent, with Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, and Michelle Williams, you should recall the great scene in which Finn and Joey drive Joey’s food truck alongside a moving train, videotaping it. Finn was a train buff, and train chasing is a thing. It is a joyous scene in a wonderful film, and when Joey exclaims “We’re train chasing baby!” he speaks for us all.

    I thought of it when I read Sam O’Brien’s post in the DMC (UK) today:

    One of the Mrs and my many trips to Heathrow from Sheffield where we book a hotel room to plane spot. Just bought a new toy and must say I’m very impressed.

    [OC note: Plane-spotting is a hobby consisting of observing and tracking aircraft, which is usually accompanied by photography. Besides monitoring aircraft, plane-spotters also record information regarding airports, air traffic control communications, airline routes, and more. Needless to say, these people are utterly insane but harmless.]

    Here are some of the (72) comments on Sam’s post.

    Mark Daniels: OK, you cannot just post a photo of your new telescope and tripod without sharing the details…

    Sam: My apologies. How foolish of me. It’s the Nikon rubber-armoured scope with a Victiv NT70 tripod from Amazon.

    Alex Boucher: Can I please ask which hotel that is?

    Sam: Renaissance, bud. Bloody fantastic for spotting.

    Alex: Awesome. Cheers.

    Sam:  Get the executive room/suite. Then you get access to the lounge with free food and booze.

    Craig Harris:  I’ve seen a few hotel set-ups with tripods, but not for this purpose.

    Angela Stone: Tell me you watch BigJetTV! 

    Sam: Sure do. My 1-year-old loves it.

    Mark Gerrard: How can anyone watch that idiot? He knows nothing about aircraft.

    Mike King: Bit strong. He’s only 1!

    Ray Lee: Ahh The Renaissance. Back in the day, when Concorde still flew, it would set all the car alarms off in the hotel carpark as it took off.

    Wiki Dave: I remember, when I was a lad, we used to go on the roof of the Queen’s Building and tick them off in our Ian Allen books. Happy days and only cost the bus fare.

    Adam Palfrey: This looks great. Amazing to do it as a couple!

    Sam: It’s brill mate. Got a 10-year-old who usually comes and a 1-year-old, but they’re both at my mums so we can have some alone time.

    Paul Sengupta: Just you two and the aeroplanes. How romantic! On a similar note, I once took a date to the top of Car Park Three to watch the Concorde take off. She was impressed.

    Simon Parkes: Sir, I do believe you should be entered for the “lifetime dullness achievement award”.. this is pure dullness, I doff my cap to you.

    Sam: Why, thank you good sir!

    Dave Woodard: It’s posts like this that make me realise I’m still a long, long way from reaching the upper echelon of DMC posters…I literally bow to you sir.

    Another brilliant puzzle today, IMWO. It’s by Sid Sivakumar, whom I think I saw at the tournament I entered last summer in NYC. Seemed like a nice guy. He’s an MD/PhD student at Washington U in St. Louis.

    The puzzle theme was “pay raise.” So in the theme answers various terms for money were lodged in the answers with a letter in each one jumping, or “rising,” into the word in the line above it. This happened seven times. Then — as the final kicker — the seven letters that were jumped over, when read in order, spell PAYBUMP. I am so impressed when the wordplay works on different levels at the same time.

    So, e.g., at 39A the clue was “Zoë Kravitz, to Marisa Tomei,” and the answer was GOD[DAUGH]TER. The five letters in the brackets spell DOUGH, except the O appeared in the space above the A, and the A was part of PAYBUMP. Have I confused you? Imagine how my students feel. (Chillax, this won’t be on the test.)

    Anyway, did somebody say Marisa Tomei? Hey, Girl! — it’s been too long — how ya been? Grab a Diet Shasta — George is back — the fridge is full. You vote yet? Sit, if that dress will let you.

    And here’s goddaughter Zozo. Another beauty. We’re here in the back, Zo! Grab a Fresca and join us. Hey, readers, did you know Zoe’s folks are Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz, both of whom are half Jewish. The math is too hard for me (Hi Judy!), but she identifies as Jewish (albeit secular) — so let’s claim her! Shalom, Babe!

    It was our first concert of the season and the NJ Symphony was in fine form, as usual. The showpiece was Rimsky-Schmimsky’s Scheherazade, widely regarded as one of the most difficult symphonic pieces to spell. And a piano concerto by Moe Zart was a terrific opener: #17, with Israeli-born Inon Barnatan at the keyboard. Outstanding. The average age of the audience for the Sunday afternoon series is about 95, so I’m sure he would have gotten a standing ovation if the audience had been able to get up. Instead you had the entire concert hall going “Oy, Yetta, help me.”

    The applause at the end was so strong that Barnatan sat back down for an encore. I thought he said he had to go work at a car lot after the concert, but Linda said I misheard him — he said he was playing something by Scarlatti.

    This is something else, but you’ll get a taste, if you’ve got 2:12.

    Thanks for popping in. See you soon!

  • God Bless The Cheerleaders

    When Aaron Judge dropped a routine fly ball in the fifth inning of the last game of the World Series, it reminded me of another famous World Series dropped fly from back in 1966. The Dodgers were involved again, but this time on the losing end against Baltimore. A classic pitching duel pitted Koufax against Jim Palmer in Game 2, and it was scoreless in the fifth inning.

    Willie Davis was in center field for LA and there were few glovemen better. He won the Gold Glove award in 1971, 72, and 73. And here’s some trivia: Davis was the first NL outfielder who threw left-handed to win it, and only the second in MLB history, the first being Vic Davalillo.

    Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so in the Oriole fifth, Boog Powell led off with a single and Paul Blair lifted a fly to Davis in deep center. He circled under it, but lost it in the sun and it dropped. Merv Rettenmund was up next and lifted another fly to Davis, this time in shallow center. He seemed to have a bead on it. He then either signaled for it or indicated he lost it. It hit his glove and dropped. He then overthrew the third baseman and was charged with another error — a total of three in the inning. He disputed the rulings on the two drops, asking how he could catch something he couldn’t see.

    The O’s swept the series in four games, with LA never once having the lead. In fact, they were shut out in Games 2, 3, and 4 (1-0 in Games 3 and 4). Ouch!

    God bless the cheerleaders. At Jets games, they are really the only thing worth watching: They catch your eye and that’s pretty much the only thing that gets caught the whole game. They are called the flight crew. Here’s a pretty crew member.

    Anyway, it was on this date in 1898 that cheerleading made its debut. It has a NJ heritage. Pep clubs had been around and were especially popular at Princeton where they led the crowd in “unified chanting” to motivate the football team. In 1884, Princeton alum Thomas Peebles moved to Minny and introduced the pep club to the U of Minny, where a “team yell” was even devised. But all of this cheering came from the stands.

    Then, in 1898, things grew desperate. The team had lost three in a row and were playing their final game of the season. With the crowd cheering the team on from the stands, one of the “yell leaders,” Johnny Campbell, took the radical step of running out to the playing field with a megaphone. He faced the crowd, whipped them to a frenzy, and got much of the credit for Minny’s victory. Yay!

    Absurdly, cheerleading was male-only until 1923, when the first female cheerleaders took the field. And the ladies only took over in the 1940s, when the male student body was depleted by World War II. Our photographer Phil sent in an inordinate number of shots for this assignment. He tells us he plans to marry this young woman as soon as the restraining order lapses. Good luck Philly! Jewish wedding, we hope? Does she know about the drinking and blackouts?

    In the puzzle today at 37D, the clue was “Hanes brand once sold in ovoid packaging.” (5 letters) Got it? L’EGGS. Remember those?

    Introduced in 1969, they were an immediate success. The egg packaging, the convenience, the celebrity endorsements all combined to make them the largest pantyhose brand in the US through the 1980s. Copycats arose. The Bic company entered the market with Fannyhose (not kidding), but it failed after a few years, costing Bic millions. For one thing, women complained they got ink all over their legs. [No they didn’t.]

    But then everything changed. In the 1990s, office workers adopted casual dress styles, and stopped wearing pantyhose, especially the women.  Sales declined steadily. The heyday of Leggs is well in the past now, though they remain big enough for an occasional appearance in the NYTXW, apparently.

    Today’s award for best clue for a boring word goes to “Certain Thanksgiving dish.” (Four letters.) BOAT (Think gravy boat.) Here’s one that would make a great gift for someone you can do without.

    A weird word: DERATS. At 55A “Cleans up like the Pied Piper” was DERATS. Remember this tune from 1966 kids? Crispian St. Peters?

    The grid was lovely, with its clean symmetry and a minimal number of black squares. The latter was accomplished in part by having six answers that spanned the grid (15 letters): FEARLESS LEADERS, CLASSROOM ROSTER, INTIMATE DETAILS, ROTATE CLOCKWISE, CLASSICAL GUITAR, and my favorite: SLOTTED SPATULAS.

    Commenter Lewis reminded us that this constructor, Blake Slonecker, takes great pains to structure his grids with care and finesse. Here’s a previous one of his in the NYT from 3/24/2023. I noticed he had ELABORATE DETAIL in that older one, foreshadowing today’s INTIMATE DETAILS.

    If you wonder what he looks like, wonder no more. (Love the mug, BS.) Blake is a history prof at Heritage U in Washington (the state).

    Martin Wreford-Bush of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted: I understand that Double Diamond beer is being re introduced. Why anyone would want to drink such a disgusting tasting brew again when there is a plethora of real ales, craft beers and international lagers available now, I’ve no idea. Do they expect us to drink from dimpled mugs as well?

    Andy Spragg: Whaddya mean “as well?” All beer tastes better out of a proper dimpled glass.

    Michael Beazley: When I was old enough to be accepted as a customer in my local, most of the locals had a pewter mug hanging behind the bar. I considered myself to be accepted when I was asked to provide my mug and given a hook to hang it on!

    Steve Cook: A dimpled, handled mug is one of the best things to drink beer from, not least because the thick glass and handle keeps it at the right temperature – probably more important for craft beer than real ale. I wish they’d make a comeback, and I’ll use one for cans at home.

    Jonathan Page: Those mugs… like drinking out of a flower pot.

    Adrian Don: There’s only one reason to use them. Potential self defence. No-one gets up again after being cracked by one.

    Alastair Warwick: A trendy pub round here (£6+ per pint trendy) serves every beer in dimpled handle glasses. Lager should be in a straight glass imo, while bitters and real ales can be in the mugs, but maybe that’s just me.

    Andy Spragg: It isn’t.

    Martin Wreford-Bush: let’s face it. There’s only one way to drink from a dimple mug. It has to be held by the handle at upper chest height, with other hand on your hip and your foot up on the bar rail or a stool. You should also be wearing a fine knit polo neck, and check slacks.

    Rob Parritt:  I hate those glasses, awkward to hold and easy to clang your teeth when you had a few.

    Frank Thomas: First pint I ever had, at 16, was a pint of Double D. And while admittedly, it didn’t live up to its slogan of “Working Wonders,” at that age, it was like a prize-winning brew

    Andrew Marshfield: As a teenager I loved asking the buxom barmaid if I could sample the DDs

    Nicholas Kleemann: If I remember correctly DD does work wonders, but only if you’re constipated.

    Andy Spragg: No, I think that was Bass, as in: Is the bottom falling out of your world? Drink Bass, and the world will fall out of your bottom.

    Let’s leave it right there mate. [Burp!] See you tomorrow Chatterheads!

  • Owl Chatter Endorsement: Trump For President

    For a blog devoted entirely to utter nonsense, the choice could not be clearer. In fact, to us, he’s essentially running unopposed. From his priceless suggestion during a Covid press conference that disinfectants be injected into our bodies, to his call for dropping a nuclear bomb in the eye of a hurricane “to disrupt it,” to his praising Washington’s Revolutionary War armies in a July 4th speech for “taking over the airports” . . . What can we say?

    You may recall the Lysol people immediately issued a panicked public warning against drinking Lysol or injecting it.

    As far as nonsense goes, the man is unparalleled. There’s more: He repeatedly asserted that the F-35, a “stealth” fighter plane, is invisible — it can be right next to you: you can’t see it. His citing of a new coal mine for “clean coal.” As he explained: they take out the coal and they clean it: so then it’s clean coal. His observation that the noise from windmills causes cancer.

    Could you plotz?

    Intrepid OC photographer Phil caught Dr. Deborah Birx’s response as Trump was making those statements.

    This poem by Barbara Crocker from The Writer’s Almanac is called “All Saints.”

    It’s one day past the Day of the Dead, and this has been
    a bad year, six funerals already and not done yet.
    But on this blue day of perfect weather, I can’t muster
    sadness, for the trees are radiant, the air thick as Karo
    warmed in a pan. I have my friend’s last book spread
    on the table and a cup of coffee in a white china mug.
    All the leaves are ringing, like the tiny bells of God.
    My mother, too, is ready to leave. All she wants now
    is sugar: penuche fudge, tapioca pudding, pumpkin roll.
    She wants to sit in the sun, pull it around her shoulders
    like an Orlon sweater, and listen to the birds
    in the far-off trees. I want this sweetness to linger
    on her tongue, because the days are growing shorter
    now, and night comes on, so quickly.

    In yesterday’s puzzle, at 32D the clue was “Elizabeth of cosmetics,” and the answer was ARDEN. Commenter Son Volt was moved to share this Van Morrison song with us: “Linden Arden Stole the Highlights.” I’m way too stupid to understand what it’s about. An Irishman on the run, living in SF, a hard drinker, but also churchgoing and sentimental. When some boys from back home come for him, he confronts them violently. That’s a piece of it — take a listen for yourselves for the whole story.

    Today’s puzzle had a little edge to it. At 13A the clue was “Where opposites don’t attract?” and the answer was LESBIAN BAR. Who says the NYT is stodgy? And right above it, we had MOMS Demand Action: a gun control advocacy group.

    At 14D, “Yeah, you’re lying” was a good clue for I CALL BS. And “Watchdog’s warning” was GRR. “Shoes, casually” was KICKS — that’s for the young, I think. And 41A was timely. “November handout” was an I VOTED STICKER. We got ours already! — voted in Morristown yesterday. Here’s what it looked like at our polling place.

    At 24D, “Bench coverings” was the clue for JUDGES ROBES. Did you know the Florida Supreme Court requires its judges to wear black robes? — no colorful or ornamented robes are allowed. Apparently, the U.S. Supreme Court has no similar prohibition.

    Thanks for popping by.

  • Pigeonry

    Kudos to the World Champion Dodgers. They were clearly the better team. Some weird stuff happened this year. Yankee catcher Austin Wells was called for catcher’s interference last night and Ohtani was awarded first base. It’s called when the catcher’s mitt comes in contact with the bat. As long as the batter is in the batter’s box, it’s the catcher’s obligation to avoid the contact.

    In an earlier game, a caught ball was carried into the stands by an outfielder, resulting in the runners being awarded a base. Again, it was Ohtani who was up. He hit a foul pop-up to short left field. Verdugo made an excellent catch in foul territory on the playing field and his momentum carried him into the stands. He flipped over but held onto the ball, so Ohtani was out. But since Verdugo caught the ball on the field and carried it out of bounds, the runners on first and second were each automatically advanced. Had Verdugo reached into the stands to make the catch, there would have been no advance.

    Did the Dodgers win, or was it more a case of the Yankees losing? Well, LA deserved the win. Freddie Freeman was sensational and their pitching was better than NY’s. But Judge’s choking and the team’s general poor play did more to undo the New Yorkers. Take a look at this key moment from last night’s game. Unthinkable.

    This was in Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature this week:

    In The New Yorker, Ben Tarnoff recalled an analog past: “I belong to the last generation of Americans who grew up without the internet in our pocket. We went online, but also, miraculously, we went offline.” He conceded disadvantages to that: “We got lost a lot. We were frequently bored. Factual disputes could not be resolved by consulting Wikipedia on our phones; people remained wrong for hours, even days. But our lives also had a certain specificity. Stoned on a city bus, stumbling through a forest, swaying in a crowded punk club, we were never anywhere other than where we were.”

    This poem by Marge Piercy is called “October nor’easter” and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Leaves rip from the trees
    still green as rain scuds
    off the ocean in broad grey
    scimitars of water hard
    as granite pebbles flung
    in my face.

    Sometimes my days are torn
    from the calendar,
    hardly touched and gone,
    like leaves too fresh
    still to fall littering
    sodden on the bricks.

    But I have had them—
    torrents of days. Who
    am I to complain they
    shorten? I used them
    hard, wore them out
    and down, grabbed

    at what chance offered.
    If I stand stripped
    and bare, my bones
    still shine like opals
    where love rubbed sweetly,
    hard, against them.

    Baseball fans will not be surprised to learn that Stan Musial had 3,630 lifetime hits: a number befitting a great Hall of Fame hitter. But did you know he had exactly half (1,815) at home and half on the road? Pretty neat, eh? I learned that in an article noting that Will Smith has won five World Series in a row, starting in 2020 and running through this year. What? Who? No way! Well, it’s sort of a trick question. A person named Will Smith has won five WS in a row, but there are two different Will Smiths. Catcher Will Smith on the Dodgers won with them this year and back in 2020. And there’s a lefty relief pitcher also named Will Smith who won with Atlanta in 2021, Houston in 2022, and Texas last year.

    Here’s the one who won last night, with his pretty wife Cara.

    The puzzle was a perfect paean to the day: Halloween. The theme revealer in the center was the old classic MONSTER MASH. Then in each quadrant a different monster was “mashed” into a single square. E.g., at 4D the clue was “Othello role,” and the answer had only five letters. Turned out to be DES[DEMON]A with the demon squished into one square. It was crossed by 20A with the clue “June observance” for PRI[DE MON]TH. See the demon in there? The other three monsters that were similarly employed were OGRE, TROLL, and GOLEM.

    One of the co-constructors was Paolo Pasco, who’s great. At 56A, the clue was “Opposite of a jumbo shake?” Answer: TREMOR. At 33A, for the clue “Pigeonry” the answer was COTE. Here’s Rex on it: — “I love the word ‘pigeonry.’ Sounds like the shenanigans that pigeons get up to. You know? Flying. Cooing. Pooping on statues. Your basic pigeonry.”

    Political headlines from The Onion:

    New Trump Ad Shows Montage Of People He’d Kill If Elected

    New Indiana Law Requires Women Voters To Show Husband’s ID

    Tired. Fading. See you next time.

  • Georgie’s Back!

    So your favorite Aunt Betsy is flying to Chicago and arranges for assistance since she uses a wheelchair. How lovely it is when a handsome young man and attractive young woman show up at the gate: airline employees who will assist Aunt Betsy in boarding her flight. But before you know it poor Betsy is splattered all over the floor, shrieking in pain, and the wheelchair goes bounding out of the gate and onto the tarmac. Apparently, scenes like that happen on a regular basis. American Airlines was just fined $50 million by the Department of Transportation in response to a shitload (plane-load?) of complaints.

    Passengers reported being roughly handled, even dropped on the ground, and their wheelchairs, which can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, being damaged beyond repair. At Miami International Airport, a ramp agent reportedly dropped a wheelchair down a baggage ramp, which then ricocheted onto the tarmac. (There it goes! Get it!) At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, American employees dropped a passenger on the floor while transferring her from a wheelchair to her seat on the plane.  Oopsies!

    Aunt Betsy survived her ordeal in one piece. Lookin’ good, Auntie B!

    And speaking of millions of dollars in fines, Owl Chatter is thrilled to welcome our Georgie back! He’ll be on the job again “until they throw me into the f*cking slammer!” The OC fridge is already bulging with diet soda, including some new stuff he says is out of this world. We missed you buddy. Welcome home!

    Where does he find this stuff? He’s, like, a genius.

    As I approach retirement after 38 years of teaching and with my 75th birthday looming, I was sitting in the doctor’s office this morning waiting for my annual checkup, and I realized my entire life has been a charade. Then I remembered that I like charades, so I guess that’s okay.

    Do you like stuffed cabbage? Silly question, right? Who doesn’t? I’ve made it a few times and found the actual assembling of each little cabbage leaf, after softening them, was a pain the neck. But then I got an email with a recipe for a stuffed cabbage “casserole” that avoided those steps so I tried it. Yum! It has all the taste of stuffed cabbage with none of the hassle.

    OK, so cook up some rice: you’ll need one cup (cooked). Then saute an onion in some olive oil with a little garlic and set it aside. Brown a pound of ground beef and drain the fat off. Stir in the onion/garlic, plus: a 15oz can of tomato sauce; a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (undrained); 1 T of Worcestershire sauce; 1 t of paprika; salt and pepper. (You are also supposed to add 1 t of thyme, but I didn’t have the thyme.) Simmer for 5 min, remove from heat and stir in one cup of cooked rice.

    Now use your head. That is, chop up a medium-sized head of cabbage. Take your casserole thingie and put 60% of the chopped cabbage across the bottom. Top it with all of the meat mixture and top that with the rest of the cabbage.

    Cover and bake at 350 for 45 min. Uncover, sprinkle with your favorite cheese and return to oven for 15 minutes.

    Voila — all the enjoyment of stuffed cabbage with much less work — tastes just like it! (Philly — amirite?)

    In the NYTXW today at 47D, the clue was “Rock singer Shirley.” Word of Shirley MANSON had not reached me under my rock, so I was lucky the crosses were easy. She’s the singer with the band Garbage, which I also hadn’t heard of. Apparently, Manson suffers from an unusual condition causing her to only be happy when it rains. She only smiles in the dark. Take a listen.

    Do you lava lava lamp? They were invented in1963 by Edwin Craven Walker, British founder of a lighting company, Mathmos. At 21A we were asked what the lava really is. Three letters. Did you know it’s WAX? The heat from the lamp causes the wax mixture to become less dense and rise. Here’s an original Mathmos lamp.

    Crossworld was saddened by the death of Teri Garr, who was (and should remain) a popular puzzle answer. Rex shared this lovely note: “RIP to my favorite crosswordese—the only TERI I’m interested in, the only GARR there is, my beloved TERI GARR. Best comic actress of my lifetime. xoxo”

    He also shared this wonderful scene of hers (with Dustin Hoffman), which I will shamelessly steal for Owl Chatter.

    A numerologist told her that having double letters in both her first and last names (Terry Garr) was not propitious, so Terry became Teri. “It was the best $35 I ever spent,” she said. She dismissed the adage about being nice to people on your way up because you’ll see them again on your way down. “Not true, really,” she said. “I find that as I gently descend the ladder of fame (the same one I viciously clawed my way up), I’m meeting an entirely different set of people.”

    Garr suffered from MS for many years and was 79 when it led to her death. She had aged, of course, but the gleam in her eyes never dimmed. She is survived by a daughter and a grandson.

    Rest in peace, Teri.

    I don’t think Alice Ahearn of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) meant for her inquiry to be as funny as it turned out to be, in which case she’s a natural. Here’s her post: “I’m staying near sir pancreas London. Anything nice and dull nearby?”

    It’s funny because she meant she was staying near the Saint Pancras railway station: not Sir Pancreas. Here are some comments:

    Mark Daniels: I think you’ll find the stomach nearby and a couple of kidneys around the corner.

    Dennis Low: If you’re prepared to travel, there’s the Breadboard Museum.

    Alice: That sounds brilliant.

    Dennis: Yeah, not dull at all. Six hundred years of breadboards and you get to pick one from the collection and eat off it at the end.

    Alice: Wow do you get to eat bread?

    Dennis: Totally.

    David Wilkinson: Sir Pancreas!!! Was he a knight of the round table or has he been ennobled more recently?

    Benjamin Bavardi replied to David with this odd verse:

    When a knight won his spleen in the torsos of old,
    His intestine was blocked and his liver was cold.
    With a splint on his arm, an IV in his hand,
    In intensive care waiting til covered in sand.

    The actual St. Pancras station features this statue of John Betjeman,  a lifelong advocate of Victorian architecture who led the campaign to save the station from demolition in the 1960s.

    Go ahead – amaze your friends and your creepy relatives with all of this knowledge. What do you think they thought the lava was — actual lava?

    See you tomorrow.

  • Dental Hygiene

    An 8-armed creature would be an octopus, of course. But the puzzle asked for the plural, which is a point of contention for some. The answer for the puzzle was OCTOPUSES. This helpful discussion is from The Ocean Conservancy.

    Octopi ❌

    While “octopi” has become popular in modern usage, it’s wrong. Octopi is the oldest plural form of octopus, coming from the belief that Latin origins should have Latin endings. However, octopus is not a simple Latin word, but a Latinized form of the Greek word októpus. Consequently, its “correct” plural form would logically be octopodes.

    Octopodes ❌

    “Octopodes” stems from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek, it should have a Greek ending. This term might be technically correct, but it is the least-used incorrect form of the word for more than one octopus. Using “octopodes” might cause more confusion than it’s worth.

    Octopuses ✅

    “Octopuses” gives the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Generally, when a noun enters into English, it is pluralized as an English word rather than in its original form. Octopuses may sound peculiar to some, but this is the preferred plural.

    Today’s puzzle was a nod to the World Series. The main theme answer was FALL CLASSIC. And the joke was the other theme answers were all classic nursery rhymes involving “falls:” HUMPTY DUMPTY, JACK AND JILL, and LONDON BRIDGE.

    At 5D, the clue was “How often many people brush their teeth (avert your eyes, dentists!).” The answer was ONLY ONCE. Commenter Conrad came up with some data from a dental organization. 55% brush twice a day, 29% once a day, 2% don’t brush at all, and, get this — 14% (the clinically insane) brush 3 or more time a day.

    Have I told this joke before? The wife is coming out of the shower and the husband is going in, and just then the doorbell rings. The husband says: Go see who that is, so she wraps herself up in a big towel and goes down to open the door. It’s their neighbor Ned and he takes one look at her and says: “I’ll give you $300 if you let that towel drop.” Boom, she lets it go. He pays her the money, she wraps herself back up and goes back upstairs. She tells her husband it was Ned from next door. He says, “Good. Did he say anything about the $300 he owes me?”

    Then she brushed her teeth.

    At 50D the clue was “___ Island (historic entry point for immigrants)” and the answer, of course, was ELLIS. An anonymous commenter said he was doing the puzzle on the ferry on the way to work and filled in Ellis Island and then looked up and saw it. Neat!

    Speaking of Ellis Island, here’s an item from today’s Writer’s Almanac:

    It was on this day in 1886 that the Statue of Liberty was officially unveiled and opened to the public. It was shipped to the U.S. in pieces packed into 214 crates. Workers put it back together in New York. Huge crowds came out for the celebration. The statue was under veil, and the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was alone in the statue’s crown, waiting for the signal to drop the veil. A boy down below was supposed to wave a white handkerchief at the end of the big speech. The boy accidentally waved his handkerchief before the speech was over and Bartholdi let the curtain drop, revealing the huge bronze lady, and gunshots rang out from all the ships in the harbor. The speaker, who had been boring everybody, just sat down.

    At 14A the clue was “Friend of Mickey and Goofy,” which, of course, was DONALD. Right above it, at 4A, the clue was “Animal on the state seal of Maine,” which was MOOSE. It made me vaguely remember an old ballplayer who I thought was named Don Moose, but it was Don Mossi. Remember him? He had enormous ears and a face made out of rubber.

    Mossi was called up to join the Indians in their pennant-winning year of 1954. The rotation included four eventual Hall of Famers, Early Wynn, Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, and Hal Newhouser. Mossi was used in relief by Cleveland but was traded to Detroit in 1958 and became a starter. He retired after a 12-year career with a record of 101-80 and an ERA of 3.43. He pitched 55 complete games. Upon his retirement he had the highest fielding percentage among pitchers in MLB history (311 chances; 3 errors). Mossi died on July 19, 2019, at age 90. He had been the oldest living member of the 1954 Cleveland pitching staff.

    Turns out I was thinking of Bob Moose, who pitched for the Pirates from 1967 to 1976. He was born in Mooscow. [No he wasn’t.] His best year was 1969 when he went 14-3 with an ERA of 2.91 and pitched a no-hitter against the Mets. In 1974, a blood clot formed under the shoulder of his throwing arm. He underwent surgery to remove the clot along with one of his ribs. God later used the rib to create a female moose. Tragically, Moose died in a car crash on his 29th birthday. [Headline might have been Car Strikes Moose.]

    Last, the plural of moose is mooses — not moosopods.

    See you next time!

  • You’ll Feel This Unless You Are Dead

    Did you know about this “rule?” This story is by Kerry Martin and it’s from today’s Met Diary in the NYT:

    Dear Diary:

    I was on a moms’ night out during the daytime because it was the only time our group could get away.

    After sitting in a Ridgewood bar exchanging stories about our children, talking about New York City schools and comparing our work schedules, we decided to treat ourselves to ice cream.

    After getting some, we were standing on the sidewalk enjoying our pastel-colored treats when my scoop fell on the sidewalk.

    My friends urged me to ask for a replacement, but I was embarrassed and just stood there blushing and giggling.

    Other people joined the chorus, saying it was a rule at ice cream windows that you get a replacement if your scoop falls. Someone’s dog was eyeing mine as it melted on the pavement.

    Finally, a man in a paper hat approached us and asked who had dropped the matcha scoop that was now trickling into a crack in the sidewalk.

    It only took about five seconds for him to bring me a new cone. This one had sprinkles.

    And of course there’s the famous Ed Koren cartoon (Hi Bob!). A little boy or girl has dropped his or her ice cream cone —splat — on the ground and is crying. The mom leans down sympathetically and says: “Do you want to talk about it?”

    In yesterday’s NYTXW, at 1A the clue was “Hotel room staple,” and the answer was TV SET. A couple of folks said they thought of “Bible” first. And jberg noted: “A couple of years ago I wanted to look something up so I checked my hotel room drawers for the Gideon Bible, but there wasn’t any. Since then I usually do a quick search, and often find none; sometimes there is a sign saying that you can ask the front desk for religious texts. So I guess it’s no longer a staple.”

    In 2006, 95% of hotels in the US provided a Bible in the bedside drawer. By 2016, that number had dropped to 79%. In 2018, only 72% of economy hotels and 46% of luxury hotels provided religious materials, in some cases a Hindu or Buddhist text as an option.

    Readers have been requesting dental cartoons.

    “The last moments of Dr. Steven Puckett, D.D.S.”

    Today’s puzzle was brilliant, IMWO. It was called “Working the Night Shift” which was a pun because it’s about the phases (shifts) of the moon. A ring of circled squares placed in an orbit around the grid represented phases of the moon. The phases are represented by waxing and waning spellings of “MOON”—from a blacked out circle representing a new moon, through “M” “MO” “MOO” “MOON” (for full moon) then “OON” “ON” “N” and back to the blacked out circle again. Check it out, below.

    The earth appears at 66A, so the moons are circling it. You can see that one of the constructor credits goes to Jeff Chen — he’s a giant in Crossworld. Hey, here he is! — glad you could stop by Jeff!

    How’s that blood thing going? Jeff has a goal of donating 20 gallons of blood (“not all at once,” he reminds us), and is about 2/3 of the way there.

    Take a load off, buddy. George is still away, but there should be some Diet Coke and Doritos around here somewhere.

    BTW, our Georgie (Santos, if you’re new to OC) was in the news, sorta, a bit, this week. He tweeted that some bombshell is going to land soon tying Kamala to the Diddy Combs scandal. A photo came out last month linking the two and went viral, but it turned out to be Montel Williams with the Veep, with the pic doctored to look like Diddy. Oopsies.

    George ended his tweet with: I’m alive and plan to stay that way.

    Sounds like a plan GS!! Hurry back — We miss you!! Running dreadfully low on Fresca, big fella.

    Best clue today: 28A: “Do-to-do delivery?” The answer is OCTAVE. Get it? “Do” is the musical note here, as in “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do.”

    You ever hear of this? At 63A the clue was “Hair-lightening brand,” and the answer was SUN-IN. Huh? Rex nominated this ad for it for the “Worst Use of Rap in a TV Commercial, Ever” award.

    It’s an off day for the World Series today. Game 3 is in the Bronx tomorrow. I don’t see the Yanks turning it around. Judge is reeling, and the bottom third of their lineup is dreadful. Their #2 starter (Rodon) got pelted. LA is showing a winning spirit: Ohtani, Betts, and Freddie — look at their faces — they are beaming.

    David Baker wrote this poem to send us off tonight. It’s called “Neighbors in October,” and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon
    with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting
    chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.
    Down the block we bend with the season:
    shoes to polish for a big game,
    storm windows to batten or patch.
    And how like a field is the whole sky now
    that the maples have shed their leaves, too.
    It makes us believers—stationed in groups,
    leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters
    over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,
    bagging gold for the cold days to come.

    Thanks for dropping in. See you tomorrow!

  • Beyond Reach of Whispered Amends

    The first game of the World Series was disappointing (wrenching, actually) to me as a Yankee fan, but was such a damn good game it’s hard to be too upset.

    Jazz Chisholm Jr., the Yankee third-bagger, stole the show, as far as I was concerned, well, at least until Freddie Freeman stole everything at the very end. Jazz made a spectacular play on a hot shot to him when he was playing in to cut off a runner on third from scoring. And in the tenth inning he stole second and third before scoring the lead run on an infield hit. Black lightening. Here’s The Jazzman. So glad he’s in NY.

    Little things made such a difference. LA shortstop Tommy Edman dove and stretched as far as he could and needed every inch to stop a grounder up the middle from escaping the infield. It saved a run. In the other direction, Yankee second-baseman Torres couldn’t handle the bounce on the throw from Soto in right when Ohtani doubled off the wall. (Catch the fucking ball, Torres!!) It skipped away towards the mound that was vacated by the pitcher backing up third. Oh no! Ohtani darted alertly to third and scored a moment later on Mookie Betts’s searing drive to deep center. Two plays that made a difference of two runs in LA’s favor.

    With Judge still in his post-season funk, the Dodger lineup deeper than New York’s, and Yankee ace Cole “wasted,” the Dodgers are in the catbird seat. But anything can happen.

    Today’s award for best clue for a boring word went easily to the clue at 10A: “Freshly pressed grapes before fermentation.” Answer: MUST.

    At 27D, the clue was “Vessel that hasn’t crossed the Canadian border since 1993.” You have to think of a cup as the vessel. Then you have to realize a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup since ’93. Hence the answer STANLEY CUP. Rex took the occasion to share this exquisite song with us. How in the world have I not heard of Nadia Reid before?

    Novelist Anne Tyler was born on this date in Minneapolis in 1941. Most of her novels are set in Baltimore where she’s lived since 1967, but she lived in a Quaker commune in the mountains of North Carolina when she was little and attended a one-room school for all the children who lived on the mountain. There weren’t a lot of books so she read Little Women 22 times. If you’ve read any of her books, she looks exactly how you would imagine she looks.  

    This poem by Robyn Sarah is called “Nursery, 11 p.m.”

    Asleep, the two of you,
    daughter and son, in separate cribs,
    what does it matter to you
    that I stand watching you now,
    I, the mother who did not smile all day,
    who yelled, Go away, get out, leave me alone
    when the soup-pot tipped over on the stove,
    the mother who burned the muffins
    and hustled bedtime, tight-lipped.
    You are far away,
    beyond reach of whispered
    amends. Yet your calm
    breathing seems to forgive,
    unwinding
    into the air to mesh
    like lace, knitting together
    the holes in the dark.
    It makes of this dark
    one whole covering
    to shawl around me.
    How warm it is, I think,
    how much softer
    than my deserving.

    Taylor popped up again in the puzzle today, smack in the middle at 30D: TAY: “When doubled, a pop nickname.” Rex shared this little XW history with us:

    One of the weirdest things about TAY, as a crossword answer, is its mysterious 11-year disappearance. The TAY is a Scottish river, and it appeared in pre-Will-Shortz era puzzles with reasonable regularity, but once Shortz took over, it just vanished. Then, suddenly, eleven years later, in 2004, it came back, and has since appeared eighteen times as the Scottish river. The first appearance of this more current pop star clue was just this year back in June, so the TAY-TAY frame of reference is solely a Joel Fagliano post-Shortz-era phenomenon. 

    Here are the two Tays.

    Gordon McGoochan of the DMC (UK) writes: This is our cutlery drawer, there are 4 teaspoons, 14 spoons, 10 knives and 39 forks. Only two people live in this house and I have no idea how this happened. Also, I have never bought a piece of cutlery in my life.

    Nick Wallis: They’re in the wrong order: It should be from left to right, knife, fork, spoon, tea spoon.

    Debbie Mackay: Teaspoons are with your missing socks.

    Robin Lawrenson: I have just counted 42 mugs/teacups in our kitchen, and yes, just two of us; I have never bought one either.

    Paul Mandel: Teaspoons are mysterious things, like socks. They do disappear. Where and how, no clue. I recently had to top up with a dozen.

    Paul Mandel also cited a study that appeared in The BMJ (British Medical Journal):

    Introduction

    In January 2004 the authors found their tearoom bereft of teaspoons. Although a flunky (MSCL) was rapidly dispatched to purchase a new batch, these replacements in turn disappeared within a few months. Exasperated by our consequent inability to stir in our sugar and to accurately dispense instant coffee, we decided to respond in time-honoured epidemiologists’ fashion and measure the phenomenon.

    A search of the medical and other scientific literature through Google, Google Scholar, and Medline using the keywords “teaspoon”, “spoon”, “workplace”, “loss” and “attrition” revealed nothing about the phenomenon of teaspoon loss. Lacking any guidance from previous researchers, we set out to answer the age old question “Where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?” We aimed to determine the overall rate of loss of teaspoons and the half life of teaspoons in our institute, whether teaspoons placed in communal tearooms were lost at a different rate from teaspoons placed in individual tearooms, and whether better quality teaspoons would be more attractive to spoon shifters or be more highly valued and respected and therefore move and disappear more slowly.

    Abstract

    Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom.

    Design Longitudinal cohort study.

    Setting Research institute employing about 140 people.

    Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months.

    Main outcome measures Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.

    Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons’ value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

    Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.

    OMG, if that’s not enough nonsense for you for the day, I give up.

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads!