The Wellington Files

  • Time Machine

    By the time you read this, the World Cup will be in the hands of Spain or ‘Tina. We are rooting slightly for ‘Tina, but we really loved watching both teams make it this far. Spain’s dismantling of France made me start to appreciate how much there is to the sport.

    Learned from Rex today that BRUSCHETTA is pronounced brews-ketta. Not kidding. He also shared this (hysterical) short guide for it:

    From the puzzle, I also learned what a whitesmith is. It’s related to a blacksmith (duh). The puzzle wanted us to know that a whitesmith works with TIN.

    “A whitesmith is a metalworker who does finishing work on iron and steel such as filing, lathing, burnishing or polishing. The term also refers to a person who works with “white” or light-colored metals, and is sometimes used as a synonym for tinsmith. Whitesmithing developed as a speciality of blacksmithing in the 1700s, when extra time was given to filing and polishing certain products.”

    The fellow, below, is tinning a platter. When it’s finished it can be used for serving bruschetta.

    The Gnats kicked serious ass out in Sacramento Friday night, where the A’s play while waiting for Vegas to get a stadium ready for them. The final score was something like 23-4. Andres Chapparo had eight RBI (he had seven all season before Friday). Catching prospect Harry Ford (who played for England in the World Baseball Classic last year) hit his first MLB home run in his first game for DC, and looked good! Jolly good show, old chap! He’ll spell Keibert behind the plate. [OC note: In a stark reversal, the Gnats lost 15-1 last night. Ouch! Argggggh.]

    Notice was taken of Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, rookie third-baseman for the A’s. JKG was born in New Brunswick, the one in Jersey, and played college ball for Rutgers. Looks like the real deal. (I picked up his signed card, below, for the collection: $10.) He was raised by two moms — Sumi Kuroda and Edie Grauer, and signed for a bonus of over $1 million. Not too shabby!

    Special Owl Chatter birthday wishes go out to Edgar Degas, born on this date (7/19) in Paris in 1834, a favorite of our Dirty Old Man Dept, for obvious reasons. Despite his lifelong attention to agile young women, Eddie never married. Critics of his work were know for “stepping on Degas.”

    I am breaking an Owl Chatter poetry rule and only sharing the first few lines of this one. It’s by Brenda Shaughnessy and is called “I Have a Time Machine.” It’s from The Poetry Foundation.

    I Have a Time Machine

    But unfortunately it can only travel into the future
    at a rate of one second per second,
     
    which seems slow to the physicists and to the grant
    committees and even to me.
     
    But I manage to get there, time after time, to the next
    moment and to the next.

    *********

    Brenda lives (from moment to moment) in Verona NJ with hubby and their cute kids, and is a prof at Rutgers-Newark.

    Did you catch Donald Jessica Trump’s great speech on election fraud this week? Kennedy-esque, no? Ask not what your country can do for you. Before you dismiss my next prediction as nonsense (like I do), remember my prediction that we’ll never see the Epstein files? How’s that one working out? Anyway, I predict Federal troops will be used to prevent the Dems from taking control of the House and/or Senate in November. Hope I’m wrong, but don’t bet your World Cup winnings against it. Just sayin’.

    As a sign of the times, many of the posts to my neighborhood newsletter are warnings about this or that scam. I liked how one woman dealt with one. She was told she won a million dollars and just had to buy $500 worth of perfume to claim it. (Seems like a good deal. What am I missing?) Anyway, she says she ordered $700 worth of perfume and told them to take the payment out of her million.

    You talkin’ to me?

    Just read a review of The Odyssey in the NYT. Looks like we should try to see it. I’ll tell you one thing, though — no matter how terrifying some of the scenes may be, they can’t come close to what happens on a regular basis in Caity’s Odyssey. “Raffi — what are you doing to him??!! Stopitthisinstant!!” Isaac — stop screaming — put that down!!

    Here’s a metaphor for you from back in the day. “I’m down to seeds and stems.” In the puzzle today SEEDS was the answer for the (unclever) clue: “They’re often covered with dirt.” It led Son Volt to share this oldie with us (that was new to me).

    Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, lived with his partner and 3-year-old daughter in Biddeford, Maine. The lawyer representing his family stated he was working in the U.S. lawfully. He was shot and killed by ICE agent David Brouillette. It later emerged he was not the intended target of the ICE operation.

    Ho hum, hardly newsworthy. But I like this part of it. According to the NYT, Brouillette called his ex-wife and asked her to defend his character. “He said, ‘You need to tell them I’m a good person,’” and asked her not to tell anyone that he had abused her during their marriage. In fact, Ms. Brouillette said David became abusive after he joined the military. He choked her, slammed her to the floor and pushed her against a wall. She actually moved out of Maine to escape him. Still, he threatened to kill her as recently as November. “I have said to people, ‘If I end up dead, it’s him.’”

    Another former wife of his also accused him of abuse. In a filing for an order of protection, she wrote that he broke her door down, destroyed her belongings and dumped her clothes over a bridge. He spit in her face and cornered her in a room. “I am scared of him coming to my home or sitting in the parking lot of my work until I leave,” she said in the filing.

    Well, exes can be bitter. So it should also be noted that after high school his mom kicked him out of the house. (His mom!) (He was raised by his grandparents.)

    God Bless America.

    See you tomorrow.

  • Erling Haaland

    We are so proud of you Georgie! Owl Chatter’s own staff administrator, in charge of our entire diet soda supply (his only responsibility), was the subject of this CBS News story yesterday:

    In September, Santos will appear on the fifth season of Fox’s “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test,” a grueling contest where participants will be subjected to chemical gassing and other military-themed challenges in a Malaysian jungle, the network announced Wednesday. “I took my fat behind off the coach and tried something new!,” Santos wrote in a post on X. “And it changed EVERYTHING! I can’t wait to share this experience with y’all!”

    “This experience changed my perspective in life and it was the most humbling thing I’ve ever done!” he continued. He will go up against more than a dozen other contestants – including former NBA player Matt Barnes and actor Ruby Rose – in a show Fox has billed as the “ultimate test of physical, mental and emotional resilience.”

    And here’s Ruby Rose. Yikes! That’s a lotta ink.

    Headline from The Onion:

    Study Finds Gen Z Telepaths Lack Attention Span To Read Even Single Mind

    You hear about Gabriel Perez? He’s a long-time teleprompter operator for Trump and was caught placing bets (with inside knowledge) on specific words and phrases Trump would say in his speeches. He made tens of thousands of dollars. He’s being investigated for insider trading. Karoline Leavitt announced that he was being suspended. After Perez agreed to give Trump 40% of his winnings, however, the suspension was lifted and he was named Secretary of the Treasury.

    Good to see you, KL! You’re the only blond left with Pam gone. Miss you, PB!

    You like arthropods? Silly question: who doesn’t? I had some fun with the millipede that was in yesterday’s puzzle.

    Customer: Can you break this MILLIPEDE for me?
    Teller: Ten centipedes okay?
    Customer: Sure, I just need them for the pedometer.

    I got lucky at the arthropod wedding I attended recently. I was the one at my table who got to take the centipede home.

    Kudos to Owl Chatter friend Pam on her successful submission to Frank Bruni’s For The Love Of Sentences feature! It’s on the amazing soccer star for Norway. Here it is:

    In The Wall Street Journal, Ben Cohen and Joshua Robinson traced the demigod’s origins: “A soccer dome opening in the hometown of Erling Haaland when he was a toddler was the equivalent of the Cavern Club opening in Liverpool when the Beatles were teenagers.”

    With the above, Pam pulled ahead of me in our, what she aptly termed, “death match.”

    In response, I just submitted the following, regarding the current cyclospora outbreak:

    Brian Beutler of Off Message commented: “I feel like if Biden or Obama had turned America into a diarrhea splatter film, Republicans would’ve made it into a political problem for them.”

    I’ll spare you a photo from mine. Here’s Erling, soaking it all in.

    While we’re on the topic, here’s a shot of soccer mom Caity, with her Raffi.

    Smoke from the Canadian fires hit Jersey yesterday. You could look directly at the sun through the haze without hurting your eyes, that’s how thick it was. And the smell of smoke was pretty strong. Up in Canada now, 40% of the salmon is smoked salmon. Bagel shops are unable to keep up with the demand. Today’s better. The wind shifted.

    This poem, which should have appeared on Mother’s Day, is by Wo Chan. It’s dedicated to her mother. It’s called “Roller Coaster, Lightning Storm,” and is from Poets.org.

    This one moment I loved: you
    in the air, permed hair flying
    wild in the rain, around and through
    and not a thought of us dying

    in the air, permed hair flying
    against the storm, lashing hot rain
    and not a thought of us dying,
    strapped in the plastic car, chained

    against the storm lashing hot rain
    on our faces as we’re hurled up,
    strapped in the plastic car, chain
    clouds glowing, whirling—the gust

    on our faces as we’re hurled up,
    launched into the electric
    clouds glowing whirling, the gust
    as you laughed and laughed. It’s

    launched into the electric,
    wild in the rain, around and through
    as you laughed and laughed—it’s
    this one moment I loved you.

    This is what Wo said about it: “I wrote this poem in 2012 and never published it. My mother passed away on Christmas Eve, 2025. When we went to China for a funeral once, we took a week to go to Macau (my birthplace) and we rode a roller coaster. As soon as we launched up, it started pouring rain and crackling lightning in the visible distance. We were trapped in this raucous insanity, flying through rain and clouds and storms. I had never seen my mother have fun like this.”

    Let’s close today with a cat picture. The clue was “They typically come in sets of four,” and the answer was PAWS. Rex is a serious cat lover and shared this shot of Ida and Alfie high-fiving.

    See you tomorrow!

  • We The Pizza

    Reporting today [Sat.] from The District, a great hotel “find” of mine near Dupont Circle in Our Nation’s Capitol. Clean, comfortable, quiet, and incredibly cheap. Parking not a problem on weekends; would be tricky Mon-Fri. We’re in town to catch a rare Nats-Yankees game. I think they only play each other one series a year, alternating sites. Today’s game has become a must win for the boys as the Bombers embarrassed us with come-from-behinds in both of the first two games. Ouch.

    Last night’s dinner plans went up in smoke. We were drooling over the thought of Chicago-style dogs and cheap beer (for me, burp!) at Ivy and Coney, a highly rated dive bar in the Shaw District, about a mile walk from our hotel. But when we got there, there was literally a line down the block. Instead we ended up at the Shaw Tavern, a very lively spot where we shared a generous and tasty Jambalaya. I was itching to try the Shaw Tavern Lager, at only $6.50 a pint, but they were out! Godammit! So I blew $8 on a decent IPA, but get this! — about halfway through our meal, a lovely young women came by with two glasses of beer and asked if we wanted free beer. AYKM? Of course! They were Stellas and all we had to do for them is let her take a photo of us for some promo they were doing. Little did she know, I’d strip and do a jig for it, if she asked. That more than made up for the lager they were out of. I staggered out drunk, but since we walked, we’re still alive and no police had to be involved.

    Here is the wordplay I came up from the NYTXW. The words in all CAPS are the answers from the puzzle I played with. Except the last one was a play on IN JEST.

    Where a buttinsky trains: MEDDLE school

    Asimov’s failed precursor to “I, Robot:” EYEDOC.

    Henri, Hans, are you both on board? OUI, JA.

    Your dog’s or cat’s DAD: PETSPA.

    On Japanese beef, KOBE or not KOBE. That is the question.

    Sigourney Weaver horror film about a woman unable to pay her mortgage: ALIEN.

    The feeling you get after reading these jokes: Indijestion.

    One of our more repulsive public figures, Lindsey Graham, died this week at the age of 71. I don’t wish for anyone’s death, but he will not be missed. The only passing marks I’d give him are for Ukraine and a sense of humor. I saw him interviewed after he flipped and became a Trump sycophant after savaging him during the primaries. He said something complimentary, then paused, smiled, and said: “I’m working on it. I’ll get better.” He sure did. Utterly unprincipled. He never married or had children. He consistently denied rumors that he was gay and was certainly no LGBTQ ally, as far as his dreadful voting record goes.

    Wrapping up the material above, the Nats suffered a crushing defeat in the game we attended and were swept by the Bombers, blowing a late lead and squandering oppterous numertunities. Highlights were a leadoff HR by James Wood and a later clutch pinch-hit HR by Aussie Curtis Mead. We also saw the first MLB hit, a well-driven double, by prospect Abimelec Ortiz. (He has a bro named Elimelec.) He was returned to Rochester after the game. Hope we see him again. Looks like a nice kid. And we must mention a great give-away that surprised us: T-shirts honoring Wood and Abrams for All-Starring this year. Top quality shirts in sizes that fit!

    After the game, we chilled in our room for a bit, and then shot across town for an excellent pie at the brilliantly named We The Pizza. Monday it was back to our miserable lives after a stop at the Holy Hound Taproom in York PA for some excellent Hound Burgers and a pint of pale ale (Tap #29 out of 30: South County Fakie, from Fawn Grove PA). Woof Woof.

    This poem from Poets.org is called “The Bricklayer” and is by Luis Chaves, translated from Spanish by Julia Guez.

    One brick at a time
    one beside the next
    then a row of them on
    this mortar, a fine mix.

    This is how you rebuild a house
    with bricks from the one before it.

    Out of order but
    the same bricks
    cement sand water.

    Every house is built around
    a brick that’s indispensable:
    the bricklayer in search of the philosopher’s stone.

    Like someone whose house
    begins with smoke,
    let’s put a brick
    in the shape of our girls
    on each pillow,
    one the cat’s weight on the quilt,
    on top of that goes one made of windblown
    rosemary and one from summer for the shower
    on the patio.

    Each wall holds up a ruin
    or receives shade from the tree.

    Every house needs that capital
    brick, if it’s not there
    light from the nightstands left on at night
    can be seen
    from outside.

    One brick at a time
    if it’s worth the effort little by little
    every house is built
    around that brick
    no house has.

    Tumbling out of the sports pages today is Chase Bellinger, All-Star MVP Cody’s bride. She’s a model and they have two daughters, both gorgeous, to no surprise. Belli’s trying to hold down the fort in Judge’s absence. Good luck with that, CB.

    The theme for Monday’s puzzle was PLAYTHINGS and the theme answers all ended with things related to plays, you know, the theater. So there was ORALSTAGE, TURBOPROP, IRONCURTAIN, and ERECTORSET. Egs gave us this in his comment: (He just spent a week at a cabin in Montana.) “. . . less pleasing was the list of things to do when leaving. Take out garbage, strip beds and clean fridge seemed fine, but IRONCURTAIN? I mean c’mon.”

    And I chipped in with:

    {Viagra, Cialis, Levitra}: ERECTOR SET.

    Rex shared this great oldie, justified with “plaything” in the lyrics.

    How can you tell me how much you miss me
    When the last time I saw you, you wouldn’t even kiss me?
    That rich guy you’ve been seein’ must have put you down
    So, welcome back, baby, to the poor side of town

    And, speaking of the poor side of town — thanks for stopping by. See you next time!

  • I’m Becoming Spongy!

    As in any “world,” Crossworld has its own acronyms, terminology, etc. WOE is a cleaned-up version of WTF. It stands for “what on earth?” Here’s a plea for help from an anony mouse, followed by my response.

    Anon: I’ve been reading this blog for a while, and I still can’t figure out what WOE is. Help, please?

    Liveprof (me): Sure. It stands for What Owls Eat, and is a handy way to refer to mice and similar small rodents.

    I didn’t hesitate to offer my nonsense, thinking five or six non-lunatics would help the poor fellow (or gal) out with the real answer in short order. As of now (about 3 hours later), of course, mine is still the only response. Gulp.

    If you knew what a tarsier is, as I did not, you would have been able to fill in the answer at 45A noting its “prominent features.” EYES. Here’s the little fella.

    Yup. Looks like me when the high school girls walk by the house.

    Here’s the “title” of an email I deleted without opening: PAYMENT_DECLIENED. I’ll have to give this to them, though — I like the underscore.

    Can you like a poem without understanding it? I think so. Amy Gerstler wrote this one and it became The Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day recently. It’s called “Bon Courage.”

    Why are the woods so alluring? A forest appears
    to a young girl one morning as she combs
    the dreams out of   her hair. The trees rustle
    and whisper, shimmer and hiss. The forest
    opens and closes, a door loose on its hinges,
    banging in a strong wind. Everything in the dim
    kitchen: the basin, the jug, the skillet, the churn,
    snickers scornfully. In this way a maiden
    is driven toward the dangers of a forest,
    but the forest is our subject, not this young girl.

    She’s glad to lie down with trees towering all around.
    A certain euphoria sets in. She feels molecular,
    bedeviled, senses someone gently pulling her hair,
    tingles with kisses she won’t receive for years.
    Three felled trees, a sort of chorus, narrate
    her thoughts, or rather channel theirs through her,
    or rather subject her to their peculiar verbal
    restlessness …    our deepening need for non-being intones
    the largest and most decayed tree, mid-sentence.
    I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling,

    blackened by lightning. Their words become metallic
    spangles shivering the air. Will I forget the way home?
    the third blurts. Why do I feel like I’m hiding in a giant’s nostril?
    the oldest prone pine wants to know. Are we being   freed
    from matter?     the sapling asks. Insects are well-intentioned,
    offers the third tree, by way of consolation. Will it grow
    impossible to think a thought through to its end?     gasps the sapling,
    adding in a panicky voice, I’m becoming spongy! The girl
    feels her hands attach to some distant body. She rises
    to leave, relieved these trees are not talking about her.

    July 4th thoughts via Paul Krugman. He discussed Trump’s announcement that he was simply cutting off all trade with Spain. He can’t do that of course, and, for one thing, we run a trade surplus with them, but it just goes by unnoticed. Per PK: “We cannot leave the fate of the US or the world in the hands of somebody who is completely irrational, who is making demands and believing himself to have powers that he does not.

    “The problem is a lot bigger than Trump. Something is fundamentally wrong with America, and at this point you don’t have to go through complicated justifications. You can just say something is wrong with a country and a system that lets this guy remain in a position of power.”

    Well, we have come to this after 250 years.

    Let’s stick with DJT a bit. Per historian Heather Cox Richardson, here’s his take on the sensitive negotiations with Iran. Iranian leaders are “scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re, they’re vicious, violent people,” Trump said. “Far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars.… There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, [negotiations are] over.”

    Of course, oil prices spiked, and Trump walked it all back. As Tom Nichols noted in The Atlantic, the Iranians are calling the shots in the war and “are routinely humiliating the American president.” Like many other observers, Nichols noted that Trump was “incoherent.” He referred to Iran as the “Islamic Republic of Japan” and referred to President Zelensky as “President Putin.”

    A German official stated: “Europeans don’t take Trump seriously any longer.”

    Ya think?

    At 57D in the puzzle yesterday, the clue was “Benin neighbor,” and the answer was TOGO.

    It reminded me of the time I ordered a sandwich at a deli in Benin and the guy behind the counter asked: “Is it for here or TOGO.”

    It was a good exercise in wordplay yesterday, the NYTXW. The theme “revealer” clue was “Renounced … or a phonetic hint to reading the answers to the starred clues.” And the answer was FORGONE, which phonetically is “four gone.” It meant we had to remove four letters (all the same) from the theme answers to make sense of them.

    E.g., at 17A, for the clue “Honeybunch,” the answer in the grid: STUTTGART, made no sense. But if the four Ts are removed (“gone”), you’re left with SUGAR.

    Similarly, at 49A, you might wonder how BASSISTS is the answer for “Worms or flies, often.” But, take the Ss out and you’re left with BAIT.

    [Side note: I separately suggested “bassists” might be a good clue for “infielders.”]

    BTW, we sent Phil out to TOGO to put a human face on the story, above. I’m not sure he charmed these three young women. The one on the right, especially. If looks could kill . . . run, Philly!

    Wow, beautiful shot, Buddy. Much better.

    We bid farewell to Louise Lasser, 87, whom we absolutely loved so long ago in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” the very funny late-night soap opera parody. According to the NYT obit, “Ms. Lasser — somehow simultaneously neurotic and girlish — appeared on the covers of major magazines, including People, Newsweek, Ms. and Rolling Stone. The show ran only a year and a half, from January 1976 to July 1977, but that was 325 episodes.”

    “She’s a survivor,” Ms. Lasser said very aptly of Mary. “But that makes me sad. Because she’s a survivor in a world I wonder if it’s worth surviving in.” (The character eventually had a nervous breakdown.)

    I was “working” at a law firm in Norristown PA back then and my favorite secretary (of many wonderful ones), was Sandy. We’d go over the episodes each day, roaring. That was a dark time for me but Sandy was a kindred spirit, laugh-wise, which was important. I didn’t keep up with her after I left, but I should have. I just learned she passed away back in 2011. She was only 65.

    I rode an elevator at Hunter with Louise Lasser once maybe ten years after the show ended. Four or five of us in the car. I didn’t say anything. Probably should have. Her dad was the Lasser of popular tax guide fame. Get this! –Louise studied Political Science at Brandeis for three years in the early 60s. Both her parents committed suicide, separately. Ouch.

    Rest in peace Louise. As the saying goes, they broke the mold. . . Thank you for all the great, if unusual, laughs.

    There were some complaints today about 38D. The clue was simply “On.” And the answer was ENABLED. I can see it. Here’s how one comment explained it: “If your WiFi is enabled, it’s on. If your cruise control is enabled, it’s on. Etc.”

    But I liked this one better: “In Silicon Valley, they’re synonyms. For example, you flip the lights enabled when you walk in the door, turn enabled the tv. It’s used in idioms the same way too, for example, ‘you really turn me enabled.’”

    “Relative of a bandeau,” was TUBE TOP. It made me realize that what this poor battered world of ours really needs now is a paean to the tube top. Happily, Rex shared this with us. See you tomorrow!

  • Cats Claw Bats

    Sunday’s chamberpot music program at T’wood was as unusual as it was wonderful. Six separate groups with, among them all, only one violinist in only one of the groups. How could that be?

    It opened with a sextet of percussionists. Can you beat that? All young men. Brilliant. And it closed with a 16-piece brass ensemble that blew the roof off the Ozawa, with three works by Gabrieli from around the turn of the 16th century, you know, the late 1500’s, early 1600’s, right?

    My favorite may have been a septet (seven, right?) of double basses (bassi?). You heard me: seven. First bass, second bass, third bass, shortstop, home plate, left field, and seventh bass. They performed a piece by Liane J. Kang, 33, called Viriditas, commissioned by the T’wood Music Center. For much of it, the seven of them were doing their own things, but always for a unified effect. Here’s how the piece is described in the program:

    Viriditas is a sonic depiction of life and vitality, a shimmering, luminous green. The work weaves threads of sound exploring the unique, tactile, spectral, and spacious sonic qualities of the double bass, with gestures expanding, slipping away, and then at times aligning as harmonies. Melodic lines emerge among multiple instruments, sometimes faintly, sometimes clearly. The continuous movement, endlessly evolving while preserving its essence, gives rise to an organic evolution within its complex inner structure, evoking rich gradients of brilliant color, from which splashes of green spring forth.

    Yeah, whatever.

    The night before, we took in a New England Collegiate Baseball League game at Joe Wolfe Field in North Adams, MA. “Cats Claw Bats,” the headline could have been. The North Adams SteepleCats took on the Keene (NH) Swamp Bats. Could we have been expecting much? The Cats were cellared at 4-18, while the Bats were in second place at 12-7. But there we were, up 2-0 after one. The Bats quickly tied it in the second. D’oh! But, wow, the Cats were up again by two after 3! Awfully early, could we hold on? My favorite kind of game, clinging to a slim lead as the innings grind on. A big double play helped, and then a little insurance in the fifth put us up by three. The lead stretched to five in the seventh and the heavens showed their approval with a lovely rainbow! How neat is that! We hadn’t seen one in ages.

    In the end, the Cats held on for a great 7-3 win and were jubilant. Hugs all around and leaping high fives. Then something unusual happened that I’ve never seen before at a game. As the team moved to exit the field towards the first base dugout, several players looked up and applauded the fans. I had seen that at some World Cup matches and thought it was nice that it carried over in this way. But that wasn’t it. As the team reached the dugout, they didn’t leave for the clubhouse. They climbed into the stands and paraded through among us! Big smiles, more hugs, high fives — the joy was infectious. It was beautiful to behold. I couldn’t capture it with this shot, but it was impossible not to be moved, as silly as it may sound.

    Nice job, North Adams! Good game, boys.

    Several items of note from The Onion:

    Mom Packs Son’s Lunch Box With Leftover Fireworks

    And, on the big wedding:

    Travis Kelce Wins Coin Flip To Kick Off Vows

    Credit-Where-Due Dept. Having lambasted the New Yorker cartoons in the past, it’s only fair that I praise some recents that I liked:

    “Hamlet! I am thy father’s ghost. Avenge me!”

    “Wait . . . what did you want again?”

    The following are snippets from a larger grouping of verses by Marilyn Chin called “Two Goats,” The Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day today.

    Two goats ascending
       Mt. Fuji
    Wearing flip flops

    Woman Warrior
    4 ft 9 inches tall
    Teetering on kitten heels

    Brave Orchid walks into a bar
      He says: we don’t serve cymbidiums here

    Moon Orchid walks into a bar
      How can you pay? You are scentless

    I had two things to say on the puzzle today. First, for the clue “Vanish into thin air” (Hi Joe!), the answer was GO POOF. And for “Like a feeling of tender happiness,” the answer was WARM AND FUZZY. So I got:

    GOP. OOF.

    and

    “WARMAN D. FUZZY, Car Talk Sec’y of Defense

    At 4D today, “Fruit from a tree that can self-pollinate,” was AVOCADO. Commenter Seth shared the following:

    “As a Californian with several fruit trees (including two AVOCADOs) in my yard and dozens more in my neighborhood, the cluing on AVOCADO is a really odd choice. Lots of fruit trees are self-pollinating, citrus and stonefruit being two obvious examples.

    “But while it’s technically true that AVOCADO trees can self-pollinate, they have a much harder time doing it. Some varietals of AVOCADO either release their pollen in the morning and open their flowers in the afternoon. Other varietals do the opposite. One is called type A and the other is type B, though I can never remember which is which. But the point is you’ll have a much easier time pollinating your AVOCADO trees if you have at least one of each. Otherwise you’re relying on pollinators to gather pollen in the morning and still stick around to drop it in the flowers in the afternoon. Which does happen especially with bigger trees.

    “But the point is that while AVOCADO trees can self-pollinate, they are very fussy about it, and are absolutely not a good example of a self-pollinating tree. Literally I read the clue and had AVO and thought ‘it wouldn’t be AVOCADO, it must be some scientific term I don’t know.’

    “I should add that some varietals of AVOCADO have been selectively bred to be better at self-pollination, but they aren’t (to my knowledge) common commercially. Hass AVOCADOs, by far the most common AVOCADO in the US, is a type A, for example.”

    Phil — those are very pretty eyes, but she’s creeping me out a little.

    On Sunday, for the clue “Kind of costume that includes a round hat and kerchief,” the answer was SAILOR. Commenter Gary: They forgot the miniskirt on the SAILOR costume.

    Well, Trump stuck his fat ass into the World Cup, to no surprise. Did his boorish act taint the souls of the USA players? Something waylaid them. Belgium sliced them up like a ripe avocado, see above.

    Here’s a happy Belgian fan who caught Phil’s eye.

    Yesterday, “Nuthatch or nightingale” was the clue for SONGBIRD. We’ll let Emmylou close for us. Thanks for popping by! See you tomorrow.

  • Tavern 23

    Holy Sh*t! Did you see the end of the Portugal-Croatia match? With seconds to go, the Crows’ tying goal was disallowed on a hairline ruling. Heartbreaking even tho I was rooting for the Ports. But dems da breaks.

    Special shoutout to the great folks (and chef) at Tavern 23 in Poughkeepsie. It’s a must if you’re in the area. So friendly. Great burgers and fish tacos. Great craft beer selection (burp!).

    After we settled up, I told the waitress we were up from Jersey and always stop in when we’re nearby because we love it so much. She said, Hold on a sec, and went behind the bar and got us two tokens for free drinks. How great is that!

    Snuck in a nice walk after bkfst, before the temp hit 90. On to the B’shires today. Can’t wait to see Emma the owl, newly fixed up by owl-meistress Jenny.

    Great puzzle today. Fave: “Item that’s not on the list, say.” IMPULSE BUY.

    More on it next time.

    Thanks for dropping in!

  • Yankee Doodle

    America’s 250th birthday is akin to what my 25th was awhile back: fat, job I hated, no girlfriend. Let’s hope the country pulls out of this at least as well as I did.

    As some of you know, we’ll be heading up to the Berkshires for the weekend: our annual retreat (and surrender) with (very, oy) long-time friends. It will include some nice chamber pot music at T-Wood, good eats at the Water Street Grill (on Water Street), and (maybe) a ballgame (Collegiate league) in North Adams, MA, the Steeple Cats, all kicked off with the traditional whiny and cheesy fest at the infamous Berkshire Valley Motel, infamous, in this case, meaning “not famous.”

    We’re heading up a day early and staying over tonight in Poughkeepsie, dining at Tavern 23, and cranking the AC up as far as it goes at the Third-Best Western Hotel.

    All of which is to say, broadcasting may be spotty these next few days.

    When I say “we,” above, that’s just Linda and me. The rest of our staff: Ana, Sarah, Phil, and George, will be at “The Wedding,” of course — full report to follow. (Hope Phil gets some good shots for us before blacking out.) Mazel Tov, kids! Trav — take good care of her.

    Keep cool, chatterheads!

  • The Air’s Accomplices

    Let’s get this out of the way. It’s disgusting. Per historian Heather Cox Richardson: Observers are noting that the reflecting pool fiasco, in which Trump created the idea there was an emergency, ignored experts, bypassed normal procedures to give a wildly inflated contract to a crony, bragged about his success, ignored the problems, claimed his enemies had sabotaged him, and finally stationed troops around the landmark he had turned into a swamp, represents the Trump administration perfectly.

    But there are many many many other candidates.

    Trump redirected taxpayer money from national parks around the country to his own projects, leaving the parks unable to make needed repairs or hire staff. Expected funding for more than 900 Park Service projects never arrived—including $424,000 to replace a guardrail on the edge of a cliff in Colorado’s Gunnison National Park identified as “a significant safety hazard for visitors.” For some parks, nearly 70% of approved funds have been pulled back.

    Early this year, the Interior Department instructed its employees they could not share information about serious injuries or deaths on public lands. Over 300 million people visit America’s national parks each year, and about 350 of them die (not always from accidents). In the past, park service employees could identify deaths or injuries from unsafe conditions, warning others from the area. Now the Interior Department controls that information and does not always release it.

    It did not release the information that a 72-year-old man died of extreme heat on a popular trail in the Grand Canyon on June 12 of this year. NPS employees wanted to warn other visitors, but the Interior Department did not release the information. Four days later a couple aged 67 and 68 also died of extreme heat on the same trail.

    Linda! I’m turning on the AC!

    We sent Phil out on assignment for the above story. He apparently learned that National Parks are great for surreptitiously photographing cute girls from behind. (We’re not complaining.)

    Phil! Don’ t you dare follow her!! We talked about that!!

    For a puzzle earlier this week, here’s my ridiculous wordplay and some “adjustments.”

    Once he cleared the wading birds off the property, the developer said he had no EGRETs.

    Julianne’s gender: Moore is LASS.

    Skye’s hubby: IONE have eyes for you.

    For the Jewish version of the puzzle, please make the following adjustments:

    SMEAR — schmear

    CBGB (Punk rock club) — Temple Beth Shalom

    GIMLET — Manischewitz

    CAVER — You go. I’ll stay here on the tour bus.

    THONG — Seriously? You can’t go with us to the beach like that. AUNT Estelle will have another stroke.

    The previous day’s nonsense:

    When a whale gets the munchies he’ll move in for the KRILL.

    What you wait for after stubbing it: Toe to HEAL.

    What you see after dropping your bar of Lifebuoy and slamming your head into the shower wall bending over to retrieve it: SOAPSTARS.

    When I’m driving in town and pass a buddy on the street, I will often use my horn to TOOTHY.

    This “tiny love story” from the NYT yesterday cut straight to my heart. It’s by Corey Gerard Lambert.

    I came out to my mom at 24, drunk and crying after a night with friends who already knew I was gay. I asked her not to tell my father. The next morning I awoke, hung over, to my dad rubbing my back. “Bud, that’s not the sort of thing you keep from your parents,” he said. “We’ll love you no matter what.” My mom, a vocal ally, outwardly carried the flag for the rest of her life. My dad offers equal, though quieter, support. I smile seeing him in the background of photos at my hometown’s Pride parades.

    Look at these gorgeous punim!

    The reason it got to me is we confronted the exact opposite in Robin’s dad two years ago. Robin’s not gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but she is an ally, keeps a pride flag in her room, and has trans friends. This was unacceptable to him and he began to abuse her psychologically: “to ‘beat’ the gay out of her,” as Caity put it. Long story short — the schmuck lost his daughter.

    We love you Robin — that’s our tiny love story. As long as we live, we will never let anyone hurt you. George! Get off your fat ass and get the girl a fresca!

    We’ve been enjoying the World Cup very much so far. Not so much that we stay up for the 9 pm games, but a lot. Watched all of Paraguay’s upset of Germany — yikes! And caught the end of Norway’s squeaker over Ivory Soap.

    Generally not a soccer fan, but this is so compelling. And an insightful report just came in from our Owl Chatter sports consultant, the brilliant women’s ice hockey star, Sarah Fillier, noting that, except for goaltenders, soccer players cannot touch the ball with their hands. Thanks Babe! Appreciate the report! Love you!

    In the puzzle yesterday, for the clue “Peter ____, physicist with a field and a particle named for him,” the answer, of course, was HIGGS. (Just kidding. Didn’t have the foggiest. Or figgiest.) He died two years ago. Won the Nobel in Physics for his work on the mass of subatomic particles. The Higgs Boson is named for him.

    Hey, I bet you agree with us that it’s about time we added a bad physics joke to the repertoire. This is from Anony Mouse:

    Did you hear about the Higgs Boson that walked into a Catholic Church? The priest said, “Hey, we don’t allow Higgs Bosons in here.” The Boson said, “ Hey … without me, you can’t have mass.”

    Yesterday’s grid contained a lot of “empty words,” i.e., two-word phrases starting with the letters M and T. One of the theme answers was MAGIC TOUCH. Remember this one?

    Back to you-know-whom and his henchpeople for just a sec before we close with a poem.

    If you are among those who maintain an analogy of Trump to Hitler is apt, then, surely, Musk is his Eichmann.

    Here’s Paul Krugman on Musk: Rep. Ro Khanna said there are credible estimates that the destruction by DOGE of USAID has led to millions of unnecessary deaths, including millions of children — which is exactly true. There are studies that say that there is both in the field evidence of widespread death as a result of the cancellation and, of course, reasonable health models. Because what do you think happens when you cut away tens of billions of dollars of aid to people who are living right on the edge? So of course it’s a reasonable thing to say.

    Musk, of course, responded not by saying, no, it’s not true or something like that. (He did say that not a single person has died because of those cuts, which is utterly implausible.) But he went on to say that he was going to sue Khanna, not even for saying that Musk killed people, but that there are studies that say that he killed people. It’s quite evil and so much for free speech.

    It’s not just that Musk more or less personally set out to destroy this aid agency, set out to cut off healthcare, nutritional assistance, just basic necessities of life for millions and millions of extremely desperate people. But he did so callously, carelessly, he even actually tweeted out, oh, “I just fed USAID to the wood chipper and I could have gone to some great parties instead.” What can you say? This is an extraordinarily evil act.

    This poem by Brendan Galvin will close up for us today on a gentler note. It’s called “Two Birds in the Evening,” and is from today’s Writer’s Almanac. It took me several readings to absorb it. But I’m thick.

    When that oriole whistled from the orchard
    it seemed to be frankly asking, You got
    a problem with that?     Its orange and black
    was brash as a high-school letter sweater.
    No problem, no problem, except it seemed
    like Saturday night under the old Rialto’s
    marquee again. At least until a rubythroat
    running a quality-control check
    on a trumpetvine drew nearer and I thought,
    This is what I’d like next time around,
    to be one of the air’s accomplices,
    too quick for boredom and
    acrobatic in love.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for dropping by.

  • Dress Code

    It’s hard to imagine Texans any dumber than they are now, but you can’t fault the state for not trying. The Texas Board of Ed just mandated Bible studies for their schools. You know, the same schools that are required to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Rachel Laser, the head of Americans United for Separation of ​Church and State, ​said the decision sought to “misuse public schools to impose one narrow set ​of religious beliefs ‌and indoctrinate a new generation of Americans in the lie ​that America is a Christian country.” Blah, blah, blah. Complain, complain, complain.

    Here’s Rachel discussing Constitutional rights with Owl Chatter’s Phil before he fell over on the couch, asleep.

    Speaking of rights, what the hell’s going on with the airlines these days? Half-naked women turned away at the gates? WTF!! Edda Pilz, 25, was heeding weather advisories regarding the deadly heatwave coursing through Europe when she dressed for her transatlantic flight. But she was prevented from boarding by Lufthansa at the gate. Which side of this are you on? (Note: much of this report, below, is in Yiddish.)

    Edda posted her story online expecting an outpouring of support. But she was surprised to find many folks took the airline’s side. “Save it for the beach,” one commenter wrote. Or for Owl Chatter! If you’ve seen our George, below, you know we have no dress codes here. Stop by when you’re back in the states, Babe.

    Upon finishing the first half of the season above .500 (at 41-40), the Gnats haven’t exactly hit the ground running. It’s more like they hit the ground after the parachute failed to open. Three late blown leads to the red-hot Philadelphians, followed by a less painful loss to the O’s. Ouch! We are sorely in need of bullpen help. Let’s see what happens. We’ll be catching the Yanks down there right before the All-Star break. Blake Butera, 33, was hailed as one of the youngest managers in the history of the game when he took the reins. Poor guy is aging pretty quickly.

    Who doesn’t like LEGOS? Oops, I mean LEGO blocks. The company discourages the use of LEGOS, as the plural form for some legal reason or other. So yesterday, for the verboten answer LEGOS, the clue was “Popular toys, in a plural form officially discouraged by their maker.” Today, the product popped up again in the form of LEGO BATMAN: “Toy adorned with a tiny rubber cape.”

    It led guest poster Rafa to share this photo of the largest LEGO set ever produced: the Sagrada Familia, comprised of 12,060 pieces. (I just counted mine and it came to 12,059. Better check again.)

    Available November 1, for $800 (or, if you mention Owl Chatter, $850).

    Guess who popped into the grid today at 28A: RINGO STARR! “He’s credited as the director of photography for the 1967 film ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’” Thanks to Son Volt for this sweet tune you can play for your special someone (Hi Linda!).

    Commenter to Rex Parker’s blog, Whatsername, shared the following with us yesterday:

    NOTE TO COMMENTARIAT

    “Yesterday I learned the very sad news that a long-time member of our crossword community has passed away. @GILL (Jill McMahon) lost her battle with throat cancer earlier this month. She had been absent from the blog for some time due to her illness, but she had continued to keep tabs on all of us. She had told me in an email earlier this year that she was still working the puzzles and reading the blog when she was able.

    “Jill’s trademark sense of humor and off-the-wall comments were usually spot-on and always entertaining. Although I never met her, she struck me as a woman of strong character and charisma who genuinely cared about others. She was devoted to her husband, Paul, and her children and grandchildren who survive. Godspeed Jill. You will be missed.”

    I remember Jill for the stories she weaved using as many entries from the puzzle as she could plausibly connect into a narrative. The announcement elicited many responses. One of them led us to a movie poster she appeared in. That’s her puffing, bottom right, in the green dress.

    The review states: “House of 1000 Dolls is a not-great, not-totally-awful suspense movie from 1967 that only rarely works as a straight-faced thriller and even more rarely works as salacious exploitation.” I’m guessing she loved the “not-totally-awful” tag. (It’s what we shoot for here at OC.)

    Commenter Nancy wrote:

    I, too, knew she had been batting throat cancer since at least last October. Her last email to me was brave and cheerful and determined — not an ounce of either pessimism or self-pity. She was going to beat this thing — no doubt about it. But then when she failed to reappear on the blog and her off-blog communications with me also went dark, I feared the worst.

    I never met her — although we talked about getting together in NYC all the time. We discussed where we would go for dinner and what we would order. We had similar tastes in food. And we were both pretty good at bending the elbow as they like to say in the drinking biz. We would have had great fun.

    I considered her a cherished friend and I will miss her terribly.

    The usually caustic Gary wrote:

    Omigosh … I am SO SAD to hear about this. She was a towering figure here and one of my favorite people ever. So funny and smart. Obviously I never met her, but she was as real in my mind as my next door neighbor. Her Monday silly stories will always be my favorite example of how you can take ideas from a puzzle and put them to use for something artistic and fun. Safe voyages @Gill I.

    Kitshef:

    Jill lived an amazing life and had she written an autobiography, it would have been a hoot and a half. Among other things, she grew up in Cuba in the early Castro/Che Guevara years, was in The Valley of Gwangi as an extra, worked as a nightclub cage dancer, and acted with (and absolutely adored) Vincent Price. In a world where it often seems everything is taken too seriously, she was a high-grade injection of vivacity and levity.

    Commenter “A” included a link to the website containing her artwork: https://1-jill-mcmahon.pixels.com/#sectionDivAbout. It’s substantial and very impressive. Here’s one of her prints:

    It warms me to think some of the nonsense I throw onto Rex’s blog may have coaxed a smile out of her. Rest in peace, friend.

    I haven’t been keeping a close eye on the White Sox — sorry Pope! — other than to note their place atop the standings. But they deserve closer attention. They pounded the Royals last night 22-1. That’s going to happen now and then — massive drubbings. But one play betrayed (in a good sense) the team’s character. It was the seventh inning. There were runners on first and third with one out. Miguel Vargas was batting and the Sox already had a 20-run lead. Vargas hit a grounder and ran his ass off to first like it was tie game. He was called out as the second out of a double play to end the inning without the run scoring. But Vargas and Manager Will Venable thought he beat the throw. They challenged the call and it was overturned. Safe at first, runner scores from third. It didn’t matter that the lead increased to 21. It mattered that the game was played right, regardless of the circumstances.

    Here’s Vargas.

    Elena Kagan (Hunter College HS, ’77) let loose this week on the corrupt and dishonest Supreme Court majority. There are two ways the Court bends over to kiss Trump’s ass and f*ck the country. They can simply make ridiculous new law, like when they granted him king-like immunity. That’s the “honest” way. Or they can reach dishonest decisions. That’s what happened in the Haitian immigrants case this week. For the Court to hold in Trump’s favor it had to find that he was not racially motivated, an utterly absurd position.

    Kagan blew the whistle in her acerbic dissent. She noted Trump’s language on the issue was so vile, the majority steered clear of it in its opinion. “The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print,” Kagan wrote.

    So she did it for them, recounting how Trump repeated nonsense about Haitians eating household pets, and saying they “probably have AIDS,” and are “poisoning the blood” of America. She quoted him saying “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries” like “Haiti and Somalia” and “Why can’t we have some people from Norway and Sweden?”

    Ridiculous.

    November can’t come soon enough. See you tomorrow.

  • An Utterly Illiterate Work

    An emergency session of Owl Chatter’s Dirty Old Man Dept. was convened this morning. How had we not heard of Begoña Gomez, the pulchritudinous first lady of Spain, adored the world over by drooling accordionists?

    Begoña, 55(!), has been married to President Pedro Sanchez of Spain for twenty years. They have two daughters. She comes to our attention via a NYT article on corruption charges she’s facing from her business activities. It may be politically motivated: “a deeply flawed hit job by an obsessed judge,” and President Sanchez is attempting to turn it to his advantage. Who cares? Here she is again. Hubba hubba.

    It was a dreadful loss for the Gnats last night, seeking to rebound from an even dreadfuller one the night before. Oy. Double Oy. In each case they had a lead going into the ninth only to watch in horror as the rival Phils snatched up wins. It put a bit of a damper on the first half of the season that ended with the Gnats just peeking out over the .500 mark at 41-40. We soldier on. Amirite CJ?

    A running gag Sam and I had last year was creatively misspelling “Odyssey” (as in Honda) when texting one another. It came up a lot because we sold our 2015 black one to friends of Sam and Sarah in Chicago. I drove it out to Detroit where they picked it up. Anyway, the New Yorker article I read at our pool today was about the film version of the epic that is coming out soon, and which I doubt I will see. It made me question whether I got my tuition-money’s worth out of Brandeis since I realized I remember almost nothing of it, despite studying it and writing at least one paper on it as a freshman in Allen Grossman’s then-famous Humanities class. What I do remember from that class was his assessment of the first college paper I ever wrote: “An utterly illiterate work.” (Are there degrees of illiterateness? Was that “utterly” really necessary?) He also once caught me napping (with my eyes open) in class and charged me with “sitting there like a bump on a log.” But I don’t remember squat about the poem. E.g., it was only via the article that I was reminded that Telemachus was O’s son.

    The article is by David Denby and here’s a small piece of it I liked. It’s about O’s encounter with Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla, Denby reminds us, was a sea monster that ate men. O lost some of his in this horrifying scene.

    . . . In agony they cried
    to me and called my name—their final words.
    As when a fisherman out on a cliff
    casts his long rod and line set round with oxhorn
    to trick the little fishes with his bait;
    when one is caught, he flings it gasping back
    onto the shore—so those men gasped as Scylla
    lifted them up high to her rocky cave
    and at the entrance ate them up—still screaming,
    still reaching out to me in their death throes.

    “Agony is hard to watch in a movie. As for the simile of the little fishes, the cinema can hardly match it; the medium is mostly wedded to what it shows. An image may resonate with deeper meanings (that’s what great directors can bring about), but the compression and displacement that make the simile devastating on the page have no cinematic equivalent. Sometimes poetry leaves the cinema behind, gasping for breath.”

    Anne Hathaway plays Penelope, the football widow on the Sunday that lasted twenty years. Matt Damon plays the O-Man. Did you know he’s 55? Anne’s 43. We agree with Phil: She’s looked better.

    Speaking of football, Phil just sent in this shot he got for us of Taylor’s engagement ring. The Knicks are a hard act to follow, but Tay and Trav will be tying the knot at The Garden next week. Mazel Tov, kids.

    In the NYTXW today, at 15D, “‘Bye Bye Bye’ boy band” was NSYNC. It reminded me of the time Linda and I had tix for a concert but it was such a nice day out, we had trouble tearing ourselves away from the pool. It was a question of NSYNC or swim?

    The wordplay in the puzzle was impressive. The theme was “insider trading” and in the theme answers, letters “inside” were “traded” to come up with the answer while the post-trade word was also a word, albeit unclued. (I know, WTF, right?)

    Here’s how it worked: For the clue “Advocate of women’s equality” you filled in the squares with FINE MIST. Then, by having the EM and IN “trade” places, you wind up with FEMINIST. (See?) F*cking brilliant, IMO. That happened six times! The sexiest one was BRA PADS clued with “They may result in people being wrongly sent to jail.” Trade the AD with the RAP to get BAD RAPS.

    Bravo, Tarun Krishnamurthy. TK is a sophomore at San Diego State.

    Thanks for dropping in, Chatterheads!