The Wellington Files

  • Pool Chalk

    Fearsome Dominican baseball slugger Rico Carty died at the age of 85 last Saturday. He had 15 brothers and sisters. His dad worked in a sugar mill and his mom was a midwife. His first full season was 1964 and he hit .330, second in the majors only to Roberto Clemente. But his career moved forward in spurts with long absences due to a plethora of injuries, and he missed the entire 1968 season with tuberculosis. His only post-season appearance was in 1969 with Atlanta against the Mets who were on their way to their miracle WS win against Baltimore. They disposed of the Braves in three games. Carty went 3 for 10 with four runs scored.

    In 1970 he started off hotter than hell and was batting .436 at the end of May. He wasn’t included on the All-Star game ballots since they had been made up too early, but fans mounted a write-in campaign for him which garnered over 500,000 votes, and Carty started in the NL outfield alongside Mays and Aaron. It was his only All-Star game.

    His last season was 1979 with Toronto after which he was released at age 40. The last of his many injuries was crazy — he reached into his carry-on bag and stabbed himself with a toothpick. I’m not making that up — it’s from the NYT obit. I guess those little f*ckers can do more harm than you think. He finished with a career BA of .299 and 204 home runs.

    Here’s how the obit ended:

    In 2019, asked about the faster pitching in the modern game, Carty replied: “You think Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Dick Allen, Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda couldn’t hit this pitching?

    “I’d kill it.”

    Rest in peace, Rico.

    OMG, Leonard COHEN is in the puzzle today. Right up there at 2 Down: “Poet Leonard.” The crossing C was from ACHE, and here’s his lyric from “Tower of Song:” Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ache in the places where I used to play.

    This lyric is from his song “Did I Ever Love You?”

    The lemon trees blossom
    The almond trees wither
    Was I ever someone
    Who could love you forever?

    This poem is called “Juke” and it’s by Diane Seuss. It was the poem of the day today from the Poetry Foundation. (Anybody else smell gasoline?)

    What kind of juke do you prefer?
    For me, it’s the kind with three
    songs and thirty-seven blank
    title strips. Three songs, and two
    are “Luckenbach, Texas.”
    The third is beautiful and arcane,
    but the patrons hate it,
    and the record skips.
    I prefer the three-song juke
    and the three-toothed human

    smile. I found the juke of my dreams
    in a bar called “Chums,” no clue
    the origin or meaning
    of the quotation marks. It was a prime
    number of a bar, and now it’s dead.
    One night, drinking half-and-
    halfs, half beer, half tomato juice,
    with schnapps chasers, a cheap
    source of hallucination.
    A soon-to-be-defrocked Catholic

    priest, Vic Jr., my mother, and me,
    our faces streaked blue with pool
    chalk, juke red as a beating heart,
    and just a strip of hollyhocks
    and a tree line between us
    and the northern lights.
    I was young. I looked like a Rubens
    painting of a woman half-eaten
    by moths. What lucky
    debauchery, the ride back

    on a washboard dirt road,
    taking everything for granted,
    flipping off the aurora borealis
    like it was some three-toothed human
    in flashy clothes dancing
    to get my attention.
    I wasn’t a mean drunk then,
    just honest.
    Next morning, mom walked in
    on the naked priest

    in the shack’s garage,
    washing himself with a rag
    and cold water from the well
    in a metal dishpan. I’d later do dishes
    in that pan and wash my hair
    in that pan. We popped popcorn
    on the one-burner wood-burning
    stove and ate it out of that pan.
    I’m talking about a time and a place.
    All I can say of it is that it was real.

    The song choices were limited,
    so the grooves were dug deep.

    Here’s Diane.

    At 40D, for “Maori ceremonial dance” the answer was HAKA. Earlier this month, the New Zealand parliament exploded as Maori members protested proposed changes to a treaty by performing a HAKA on the parliament floor. I mean no disrespect in pointing out that part of the dance involves “jazz hands,” a topic that came up recently in Owl Chatter. Take a look:

    Have you heard the term BEL ESPRIT? It was new to me. The clue was “Clever person.” I generally like learning things from puzzles, but, tbh, I usually forget whatever it is in short order. Next week a clue will be “bel esprit” and I’ll be certain it has something to do with cheese.

    The puzzle’s theme today generated a bit of an uproar. The revealer clue placed across the center of the grid was “Corn, beans and squash, in Mesoamerican tradition,” which, as it turns out, is referred to as THE THREE SISTERS. Then in the top half of the grid, the three Bronte sisters appeared: CHARLOTTE, ANNE, and EMILY, of course, which was fine. But the bottom half was “graced” by the appearance of the three Kardashians: KOURTNEY, KIM, and KHLOE, and the commentariat was outraged!!

    Here’s a sampling:

    First, equating the Brontes with the Kardashians borders on criminal, and, second, calling the Kardashians “Showbiz” implies they have talent which is just wrong!

    Debasing the Brontës by this gratuitous grouping with the Kardashians and causing revulsion in solvers by the very inclusion of the Kardashians does not make for a good puzzle.

    Couldn’t get past the Kardashian thing. This puzzle sucked.

    Pairing the Brontes with the Kardashians?? An outright insult to women everywhere (spoken as a male with three highly accomplished sisters). For shame Joel Fagliano! [Joel is the current NYT puzzle editor.]

    A couple of us didn’t get our panties in a bunch. [First time I’ve used that phrase — it’s great!] Here’s what I posted:

    I’m going to try to be charitable (not in the sense of donating money, perish the thought) — perhaps the constructor was going after the humorous effect of juxtaposing the more refined trio of sisters with the far less refined ones. Like the NYer cartoon in the fancy dining room of the ocean liner. Seated at the table are all the diners dressed to the nines and one fellow shirtless, sweaty, and covered in coal dust. He’s saying: “The captain couldn’t make it this evening. I’m the stoker.”

    Leonard — Can you send us off tonight?

    See you tomorrow everybody. Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Alice Doesn’t Live Anymore

    On this date in 1835 Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. Known now mostly for his role in the famous joke: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice,” he was in fact a well-known industrialist and philanthropist in his day. His dad was a weaver and political radical and instilled in Andrew strong feelings for social justice and equality.

    When he was twelve, Andrew worked as a milkhand for $1.20 a week, roughly equivalent to what a CUNY professor makes today. He amassed a fortune in the steel industry, then sold his business and gave it all away, establishing, among many other things, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and 2,811 libraries. He also donated 7,689 organs to churches to, as he put it, “lessen the pain of the sermons,” thus putting a different slant on the term “organ donor.” (OK, OK, I’ll pipe down. (Hi Carl!))

    This poem by Max Early is called “Delayza’s Necklace.” It’s today’s “Poem-A-Day” from Poets.org.

    We enter to sounds of bells.
    The hall’s warmth evokes
    an imprint of my small self
    standing by my grandparents.
    Their presence I sense
    in drums and singers’ voices.

    Collective breath of all colors
    hovers above the leaping herd.
    Eagle and hawk feathers adorn
    the deer dance’s rhythmic scent—
    forest evergreen, damp earth.

    Delayza puts her hand in mine.
    The seated crowd hinders her view.
    I lift her above the masses—
    a butterfly beyond reach.

    Her irises bloom to the choir
    and drumbeats rumbling
    nearby snowflakes.

    I set her among the gold straw flecks
    glistening on the mud plastered floor.
    Her body sways back and forth,
    she stands on tiptoe
    to see over the crowd.

    A charcoal faced hunter
    in camouflage shirt and jeans
    trots towards the small child.
    He places a coral bead necklace
    over her head as she smiles
    at her new delight.

    In the puzzle today, “*to wrangle, per an idiom” was LIKE HERDING CATS. I don’t recall seeing this ad on TV, but veteran Rexblog commenter Nancy shared it. (Love the lint roller.)

    Here’s some personal material Rex posted today. I’m sharing it because it’s about a dad and his daughter and it’s sweet.

    Daughter’s home for Thanksgiving week—we saw Wicked yesterday (starring Cynthia ERIVO of last Sunday’s puzzle fame). I don’t think I’d been out to the movies alone with my kid, just me and her, since … like, Madagascar (2005)? No, Happy Feet (2006)? Something like that. So fun. She’s taller now, and has a bigger vocabulary, so the experience is slightly different, but still a joy. I think the thing I’m proudest of though, is that when I asked her what snacks she wanted from the concession stand, her unhesitating reply was “Popcorn, Junior Mints.” That’s … that’s my movie snack order [single tear rolls down my cheek]. “She’d grown up just like me / My girl was just like me…”

    Headline in The Onion: Billionaire Who Bought Banana Duct-Taped To Wall for $6.2 Million Plans To Eat It.

    Pardon my crowing, readers, but a post of mine in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) generated 8 “likes,” one “wow,” and 67 comments! There’ll be no talking to me for a while, not that anyone talks to me anyway.

    Here’s the post with the photo I attached:

    I have this mug that I like. For one thing, it has a bunny on it. But if I’m drinking coffee and it has cooled down, when I go to zap it in the microwave it says on the bottom Do Not Microwave. I saw online that this may be because it has little bits of metal in it and can spark, or is too thick and may heat unevenly. But it hasn’t sparked and seems to heat well enough. Can I ignore the warning or will something horrible happen, like I’ll be poisoned somehow? (Apologies if you deem this insufficiently dull.)

    Andy Spragg: Definitely sufficiently dull.

    Andy Lucas: The bunny will slide off the mug down the plug hole if using a microwave, maybe put it in the freezer for an hour to confuse it.

    My reply: The bunny or the mug?

    Murray Atkinson: If it says it on the bottom, how did you read it when full of coffee?

    My reply: I was doing arm-lift exercises while holding it, glanced up and noticed it. Good question, though.

    Tony Ross: Only the bottom can’t be microwaved. So just use a bottomless mug.

    My reply: Some diners in the US offer a “bottomless cup of coffee.” I’ve never taken it literally before.

    Igly Mark Harris: It will hold the radiation and release it into your bloodstream causing mutant growths all over your body.

    My reply: Is that bad?

    Matt McCree: Live life on the edge, ignore all warning labels and tread your own path.

    Allister Rushforth: The blue paint contains lead and if you nuke it it softens and may turn the bunny green.

    Finally, from Debbie Vogel:

    Wear oven mitts when you remove it from the microwave. The cup will be hotter than the contents. Let it sit until the heat transfers out of the pottery and into the liquid. Stirring makes this happen faster. If it is not some type of pottery and is instead a plastic it has the potential to either melt or catch fire. I microwave my stoneware cups all the time. I have found the longer they have had to dry since last washing, the less hot they get. I assume the unglazed area on the bottom rim absorbs moisture when washed. That retained moisture then reacts under microwaving to heat the cup and create a burn hazard.

    What?

    If you’re like me, you think Arlo Guthrie’s famous song was called “Alice’s Restaurant.” You know — where you can get anything you want. That was the name of the album it was on, his first. But the song was actually “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” I mention it because Alice was Alice Brock, and she passed away last Thursday in Wellfleet MA (Hi Don and Jenny!) at the age of 83. It was a song/story combo plate, of course. Arlo was visiting Alice and her husband Ray for Thanksgiving and went to take some trash out to the city dump with a friend, actually quite a lot of trash. But the dump was closed so they added it to trash they saw was dumped in a ravine. It was traced back to them via some mail it contained, resulting in their arrest. Alice bailed them out, and they were fined $50 the next day in court. Much later, Arlo was able to avoid the draft due to his criminal record. This line in the song, a question Arlo asked at the induction center, sums up those crazy days as well as anything: “You want to know if I’m moral enough to join the Army, and burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug?”

    But this should be about Alice. She helped write the first half of the song. Arlo wrote the draft part. She was born in Brooklyn and attended Sarah Lawrence College but left during her sophomore year “to support unpopular causes.” She married and moved to Stockbridge MA with her husband and worked as a librarian in a private school. She was the shusher. (No she wasn’t.) She opened the restaurant, the “Back Room,” having been nagged into doing so by her mom. It was only open for a few years.

    Director Arthur Penn made a film based on the song in 1968. Alice was a consultant and made a cameo appearance. Patricia Quinn played Alice in the movie. In one of those little twists life enjoys throwing at us, on the day the wedding of Alice and her husband was filmed for the movie, the actual couple’s divorce became official. This is Pat Quinn.

    Her last years were marked by financial and health problems. A friend set up a GoFundMe site and it was mentioned in a story on NPR. More than $170,000 poured in from fans of the song in just a few days.

    Alice is survived by three step-children, two grandchildren, one great-granddaughter, and two great-great-grandchildren, all of whom get anything they want.

    Here are Alice and Arlo in 1977.

    And here’s what it’s all about. If you’ve never heard it, it’s certainly worth 16 and a half minutes of your time. I’ve heard it a bunch of times, including just a few years ago when I saw Arlo perform in Newark with his beautiful daughter opening for him. Still enjoy it.

    Rest in peace, Alice.

    Thanks for dropping in.

  • Onion Rings

    Isaac Bashevis Singer was probably born 120 years ago this week in Poland. There’s some question about his birthdate since he may have made one up to avoid the draft. (Was it that easy?) He wrote in Yiddish on a Yiddish typewriter, and then translated his writings into English himself. On Yiddish being a dying language, he said, Yiddish has been dying for 100 years and I’m confident it will go on dying for another 100 years. Upon being asked if he believed in free will, he famously said “We must believe in it — we have no choice.”

    When Singer received the Nobel Prize in 1978, he delivered part of his acceptance speech in Yiddish, and said, “Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not yet been revealed to the eyes of the world.”

    There is a collection of Yiddish typewriters in the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst MA which Linda and I saw last July when we were up for the Klezmer festival, Yidstock. Here’s one. It must work from right to left.

    I heard Singer speak once, I forget where. He was wonderful (vu den?). If you’d like a taste, seek out his short story “The Admirer.” It’s a real hoot. (It appeared in The New Yorker of 1/6/1975.)

    Barry Howard, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes: The gritter/salt spreading truck goes past our house at precisely 21:30 every time it’s needed. [OC note: By my calculations, that’s 9:30 PM].

    Roger Allen: Sounds like the only time it’s needed is 21.30.

    Barry replied to Roger: It’s a very small truck.

    And I wrote to Barry: I fail to see the relevance.

    Steven Henry: Personally, I’d wait up for that.

    Paul Bryant: I got knocked off my bike by one of those lorries once. I yelled at them through gritted teeth. [OC: Ha! Gritted teeth!]

    David Fisher: We had a competition a while ago to name a new gritter our council had just got. And Gary won.

    I asked David what some of the other entries were. Am awaiting his reply.

    Barry didn’t include a photo with his post. So we sent Phil over to England to look into it. It might have looked like this, he reported.

    I’m not sure why I love this story from today’s Met Diary. It’s by Carrie Klein. I do remember that for my second year in law school I was sharing grad housing with several friends. We bought groceries as needed and then the year ended and we had to clear out. The only item left on the last morning was some pancake mix we bought the very first day and never used the whole year. So for our last breakfast there we made pancakes and they were good.

    Dear Diary:

    In 1966, when I was still in high school, my older sister and I were allowed to go to New York on our own for the summer. It was the first time we had flown on a plane.

    The only advice we were given was to stay at the Martha Washington Hotel because it was only for women and to send home every day one of the stamped postcards we had been given to prove we were alive.

    The hotel was dark, old and hot, but it had what was described as a “roof garden.” There was no actual garden, but the roof offered us our first glimpse of the city’s skyline.

    My sister had heard that the “happening” place in the city that summer was Greenwich Village. So after one night in the hotel, we walked down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square and then onto Sullivan Street.

    We struck up a conversation with a man who was fixing a doorknob. We asked if there were any apartments available in the building. He said someone had just left a fully furnished place a few days earlier. The rent was $30 a week.

    We dragged our suitcases 30 blocks downtown and moved in. “Summer in the City” was the big song that year, and this was going to be ours.

    After settling in, we were hungry. We searched the kitchen to see whether anything edible had been left behind. All we found was a greasy bottle of oil, a half-full bag of flour and a few onions. My sister had a eureka moment.

    “Let’s make onion rings!” she said.

    On this date in 1632 the philosopher and mathematician Baruch (or Benedict) de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam. He was Jewish and received a Jewish education in a Talmud Torah. However, like many Jews, he got in big trouble for his affinity for Bacon. In his case, it was Francis Bacon. Also Rene Descartes. He was accused of putting Descartes before des horse. So the rabbis gave him the boot for thinking outside the box. And stay out! He supported himself as a lens grinder. Did you hear about the optician who backed into the lens grinder and made a spectacle of himself?

    Spinoza’s most important idea was that everything in the universe is made of a single material: gabardine. [No, not gabardine.] Also, that everything in the universe is subject to natural laws. He said that the soul and the body are not separate, but two parts of the same thing. He believed that God did not stand outside the universe, but rather that the universe itself was God, and that everything in the universe was perfect and divine.

    OK. Whatever. I am way too stupid to come near any of that. Here’s Benny:

    This poem is called “Permission Granted.” It’s by David Allen Sullivan and was in The Writer’s Almanac earlier this week.

    You do not have to choose the bruised peach
    or misshapen pepper others pass over.
    You don’t have to bury
    your grandmother’s keys underneath
    her camellia bush as the will states.

    You don’t need to write a poem about
    your grandfather coughing up his lung
    into that plastic tube—the machine’s wheezing
    almost masking the kvetching sisters
    in their Brooklyn kitchen.

    You can let the crows amaze your son
    without your translation of their cries.
    You can lie so long under this
    summer shower your imprint
    will be left when you rise.

    You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
    Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
    Revel in the flight of birds without
    dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
    raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

    Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
    yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
    Each beat of the world’s pulse demands
    only that you feel it. No thoughts.
    Just the single syllable: Yes …

    See the homeless woman following
    the tunings of a dead composer?
    She closes her eyes and sways
    with the subways. Follow her down,
    inside, where the singing resides.

    Special kudos to our gorgeous granddaughter Robin (nee Lianna) who crewed for the Morristown HS production of Shakespeare in Love. We saw the show last night and loved how much fun the cast was having with it. The girl who played Gwyneth Paltrow was beautiful (and talented) and Will was great too. A swordfight had us worried someone might actually get hurt. Zoey and Leon saw it with mom and dad too.

    “Will you join the crew again for the Spring musical (Les Miz)?” we asked Robin. Yes! she answered without hesitation. Kinehora – can’t wait!

    Hey, GP — you’ve got some competition down in Mo-town.

    Mark Cairns of the DMC (UK) asks: “Should we ban the use of the exclamation mark? In denoting excitement it surely sets itself against our very creed?”

    Wow. Unsurprisingly, it generated quite a hubbub: close to 70 comments.

    John David Salt opined: If we do, it’s going to cause minor inconvenience every time anyone wants to discuss the !Kung people of the Kalahari, or refer to the Devonian village of Westward Ho! It will also be mildly inconvenient for mathematicians to have to write out “factorial” in full.

    Tim Lockley added: particularly as matters ferroequinological are a popular subject here, and the only railway with an exclamation mark in its title would be excluded (the BA&WH!)

    Ian Smith: No, but we should frown upon its excessive use. Only use one, and where the situation clearly excuses it. And don’t get me started on the near-criminal random use of apostrophes..

    Laura Wilson: I’m a proponent of bringing back the interrobang.

    OC note: The interrobang is new to me. Here’s one:

    Ronnie Dykes makes an excellent point: We’re not dull because we don’t get excited; we’re dull because we’re excited by things that others consider to be dull.

    Murray Atkinson: Should we ban all punctuation used incorrectly? In doing so we would surely improve literacy.

    Andy Spragg: in the same way as, e.g., banning driving faster than the speed limit prevents that from happening, you mean?

    Murray: Yes.

    Dave Greenslade: Banning it will screw up thousands of passwords on accounts as many people use it as the special character now increasingly required in passwords.

    To which Mark Cairns replied: I just mean banning it here, Dave — not in the whole world.

    I suggested not banning it outright, but requiring that it only be used horizontally.

    OMG, readers — is it just me? I find that entire discussion hilarious. (Okay — George and Phil say it’s just me. Still.)

    See you tomorrow!!!!!

  • Who’s Taylor Swift?

    Well, it looks like we don’t have Matt Gaetz to kick around any more. Next up for AG is Florida’s Pam Bondi. I remember her from a set-to she had with Anderson Cooper a few years ago — she set off his bullshit detector and he didn’t hold back. But first, let’s have a look at her — we understand a president’s cabinet appointments are expected to act as cheerleaders for the administration — but in this case Trump picked an actual cheerleader.

    Give me a T! Give me an R!

    The Anderson Cooper flap occurred after the terrible killings in the gay nightclub in Orlando. With public sympathy soaring for the gay community, Bondi came out as their legal champion. Cooper started getting calls from gays in Florida pointing out that she was full of shit — she had done nothing but actively oppose gay rights from Day One. So he called her blatant hypocrisy out on live TV on CNN. Here’s how one report on it went:

    Bondi, of course, is an utterly unprincipled toady who has not hesitated to parrot Trump’s nonsense about the 2020 election and immigrants.

    OLIVIA RODRIGO was the centipede of the puzzle yesterday — she ran right down the middle with her full name, boringly clued with “youngest artist blah blah blah something.” She is half-deaf in one ear? I think that means she has no hearing in that ear or it’s very weak. Certainly hasn’t held her back. She’s 21, an only child, born in California to a school teacher mom and family therapist dad. She identifies as a Filipina-American. Taylor Swift’s songs inspired her to begin songwriting. (Tay is 13 years her senior.) Wow — she’s pretty too. Trump should appoint her Sec’y of the Treasury or something.

    At 54D, the clue was “Part of OOO.” I had no idea why the answer turned out to be TAC. Do you? (Think TIC-TAC-TOE.)

    Do you know what “bêtise” is? Its origin is French, but it’s an English word that means foolishness. The answer for the puzzle was IDIOCY.

    Did you know “Google’s former motto” was DON’T BE EVIL? I had no idea. I didn’t even know it had a motto. It’s current motto is “Do the right thing.” Does every corporation have a motto? I looked up a few. IBM’s is “Think.” Mott’s motto is referred to as a slogan. Is that different from a motto? Anyway, it’s a little clunky: “Feel Seen — Real Apples Make Real Good Applesauce.”  (Needs work, amirite?)

    “Where small plates are served?” was a cute clue for KID’S TABLE.

    At 4D, the clue was “[Hey! The light turned green!]. Answer: TOOT TOOT.

    And this one had me flummoxed: “Makeup brand known for its risqué product names.” NARS. (Some in Crossworld would call that a WOE, for “What on Earth?”) Its product names include: Orgasm, Adults Only, Take Me Home, Start Me Up, and No Shame.

    I’ve started marketing some cosmetics too. Mine are called: Help Me Up, Take Me To The ER, Seniors Only, and No Prostate.

    It is amazing what these cosmetics can do. Here’s what this woman, above, looked like when she started.

    I am certain I finished today’s puzzle in my fastest time ever for a Saturday. It’s not that I’m getting smarter, believe me. It was just way too easy for a Saturday. They generally take me 30 to 40 minutes and today was under 15. When I entered the tournament last summer I asked them what category I should apply for: local or express. I told them I am routinely able to finish the Saturday puzzle. They said express is for people who can finish the Saturday puzzle in around ten minutes. Yikes.

    At 46A today, the clue was “Easily stacked pet food,” and the answer was TUNA CANS. Rex commented: “Pet food,” you say? I’ve been eating “pet food” all these years?

    I can’t recall a puzzle that had a sweeter opening than today’s. At 1A the clue was “In need of a trim, say,” and the answer was SCRUFFY, and right below it was “Romance language?” for I LOVE YOU. Awwwww. We love you too!

    16A was “Something that may be passed down in a family.” I had no idea. It took me almost all of the crosses to see RECIPE. Of course! Good clue.

    Hey Taylor! Guess who made it into the grid today? “One of football’s Kelce brothers.” It’s Travis’s brother JASON! Whodathunkit? Jason’s 37 and he and wife Kylie are expecting baby #4.

    And speaking of Ms. Swift, she graces the cover of tomorrow’s NYT Book Review. It’s for a review of a book about her by Rob Sheffield called “Heartbreak Is The National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music.” Not to dis the Times, but the photo isn’t nearly as nice as the shots of TS our Phil sends in to us. (Love you, Philly!)

    A sad note, for our Brandeis friends. Barney Schwalberg passed away last Sunday night. He was an Economics professor who had a great influence on me. We had been in regular touch via email from around 2013 to 2018. When I received a teaching award from Hunter in 2013, I mentioned him in my speech, so I reached out to him to share my good news. I never took him down from the pedestal I placed him on years ago, so it was quite a thrill when we started a regular correspondence. Mr. Schwalberg and Mr. Liveson became Barney and Avi. He had retired by then and advised me: “Don’t retire!” When it fit the topic, I’d share one of my ridiculous jokes with him and he told me once he repeated them at dinner to his friends at his senior living facility. You can imagine how that made me feel.

    His health took a downturn and his notes stopped coming. I reached out several times, even trying through Brandeis or his daughter. It was she who passed the news on to me and several others via an email yesterday. But I hadn’t heard from him since 2018.

    It’s funny that I’m writing this after that short item on Taylor Swift. When Barney and I reconnected he reminded me of a moment in one of his classes when he used Sophia Loren in an example, as a beautiful woman. But he called her “Sophie Loren” and a student yelled out “Sophie?” Schwalberg shot right back — “Well, to her friends.” He was proud of that. I noted that each generation has its own icons. I said if I had to pick a beautiful woman to use in an example in my class, I wouldn’t be able to use Sophia Loren. I would probably use Taylor Swift. And he wrote back: “Who’s Taylor Swift?”

    The note from his daughter included links to several obituaries but I have been too emotionally afraid to look at them. I guess I’ll force myself to after a while. She mentioned that a memorial service will be arranged at some point and she’ll send the details.

    In his honor, I am posting this poem by Ted Kooser from Winter Morning Walks.

    I saw the season’s first bluebird
    this morning one month ahead
    of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
    to go off to my cancer appointment
    having been given a bluebird, and,
    for a lifetime, having been given
    this world.

  • Give Me the Cat

    This searing poem is from the “poem-a-day” feature of poets.org. Thanks again, Pam! Hey, wait a minute — anybody else smell gasoline?

    Poems are bullshit unless they are broken 
    like a horse, like a dog kicked in the ribs, 
    Like your favorite toy that’s missing an arm.

    Love can make you feel used.
    I want the poem that limps back to me.
    Poems should hurt like love,
    like ice water on your teeth
    like a massage to smooth out a cramped muscle.

    Give me the poem that’s like leather.
    Give me the poem that smells like gasoline.
    I want a poem that is a warning,
    a poem that makes me check to see
    if I left the shotgun by the door,
    a poem that’s a runny nose, a sneeze, a poem
    that’s the moment the sky turns green.

    By Kenyatta Rogers (after Amiri Baraka and Stefania Gomez)

    This woman, below, is a bigot. Phil refused to photograph her, so I had to get it off the internet. Take a good look. They don’t make ’em much more repulsive than this.

    She is Nancy Mace (R-Bigot, SC). Upon learning that Sarah McBride was elected from Delaware as the first openly trans Congressmember, Mace sprung into action and introduced a resolution that would bar her from using the women’s bathroom. Speaker Johnson, of course, supports it.

    “Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say,” Mace told reporters. “I mean, this is a biological man.” She said that Ms. McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms — period, full stop.”

    Like her supporters in the GOP, Mace is a moral degenerate who traffics in hate. Blacks, Jews, and gays are harder to target, so thank God for the transgenders. Otherwise, what would the GOP do? Never mind that trans children are committing suicide at horrifying rates – who the f*ck cares about them? Pile on! [The NIH reports: 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.]

    Here’s what the NYT article states:

    “In the House, Republicans have spent the last two years routinely proposing legislation seeking to roll back the rights of transgender people. And across the country, Republican-led state legislatures have tried to pass laws requiring people in government buildings to use bathrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth.

    “But with Ms. McBride’s arrival in Washington, House Republicans for the first time have a transgender colleague to target in their own workplace.”

    McBride’s reply, of course, was gracious:

    “Each of us were sent here because voters saw in us something that they value. I have loved seeing those qualities in the future colleagues that I’ve met and I look forward to seeing those qualities in every member come January. I hope all of my colleagues will seek to do the same with me.”

    Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, chair of the congressional equality caucus, issued a statement saying: “Speaker Johnson’s holier-than-thou decree to ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their identity is a cruel and unnecessary rule that puts countless staff, interns, and visitors to the Capitol at risk. How will this even be enforced? Will the Sergeant at Arms post officers in bathrooms? Will everyone who works at the Capitol have to carry around their birth certificate or undergo a genetic test?” 

    LPAC issued this statement:  “If this was truly about creating safe spaces for women, why isn’t there more of an uproar from Mace and her colleagues about the fact that a man found liable of sexual abuse is our president-elect, and that several of his high-level appointees have been accused of sexual assault?”

    Here’s Sarah, below, holding it in.

    We love you, Babe – Owl Chatter has your back. Stop by anytime for a cold Fresca — and you can pee anywhere you want around here. That’s what we do. Which reminds me — George!! We need more TP!! Can you run out to Shoprite? The keys are near the door; here’s a twenty.

    Have you seen the initialism TL:DR? It’s for “too long; didn’t read.” Someone sends you a text or an email that is just too f*cking long. You reply: TL:DR. The former chair of my dept, whom I loved, Marjorie, aleha hashalom, once forwarded to me a grade appeal that a student submitted. It made War and Peace seem terse. I told Marjorie I was setting up a meeting with the student and then I asked: Is it me, or does she seem a bit wordy? Marjorie’s response had me laughing out loud. She wrote back: “Wear a hat.” (I took it mean the sh*t’s gonna fly.)

    Anyway, today’s puzzle used TL;DR as its theme. It had three long novels as theme answers: DAVID COPPERFIELD, ATLAS SHRUGGED, and LES MISERABLES, and at 56A the “revealer” clue was “Cheeky review” of those books, with the answer: TOO LONG DIDN’T READ.

    Separately, at 5D, the clue was “Cry over spilled milk, perhaps?” and the answer was BAD KITTY. Well, Rex is a serious cat lover and a literature prof, so all of this was just too much for him to bear. Here’s the rant:

    Wow. A puzzle for people who hate reading. And cats. I am … neither of those people. The entire puzzle seems to exist so that the revealer can sneer at the idea of reading long books, which is to say, sneer at the idea of reading in general. You know what’s TOO LONG and I wish I DIDN’T READ? That revealer. That “review” isn’t “cheeky,” it’s idiotic. Nobody writes it out like that. It’s TL;DR, and only TL;DR. Plus, are these books really so “long?” They don’t strike me as iconically long. Not like War and Peace or Infinite Jest or, if you really want a doorstop, Clarissa (~950,000 words!). DAVID COPPERFIELD is just … a novel by Dickens. I read it earlier this year. It’s normal Dickens novel length—roughly the same length as [deep breath] Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Little Dorritt, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend (all 340,000+ words). And while it’s true that I have not read LES MISERABLES or ATLAS SHRUGGED, it ain’t because they’re “TOO LONG,” for god’s sake. I don’t demand Reverence of Literature from my crosswords, but this kind of shallow sneering nonsense can … let’s be unprofane and say “take a hike.” Oh, is the book long? Is reading hard? Are you tired? Do you want a lollipop? Grow up. You don’t have to read books if you don’t want to, but your inability or unwillingness to read anything longer than a Tweet is a You problem. Don’t blame the books. The books are exactly the length they’re supposed to be. Also, if you’re shouting “BAD KITTY!” at your actual kitten for any reason, let alone for the mere fact of “spilling milk,” I’m taking your kitten away from you. Why are you giving the kitten milk, anyway? You clearly shouldn’t own a cat. Give me the cat. You go manage your anger. Kitty and I are gonna curl up with a long book.

    [Ouch.]

    At 25D, “Character in a classic whodunit” was MISS SCARLET. Remember her . . . in the library with a rope, maybe?

    Did you know the model for that image of Miss S was Kedakai Turner, wife of the late James Lipton, of Inside the Actors Studio? JL was also from Detroit.

    Or was it in the conservatory with a knife?

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads.

  • A Quiet Soundtrack

    Headline from The Onion: Trump Locks Bathroom Door So Elon Musk Can’t Follow Him In.

    Ravel’s Bolero premiered on this date 96 years ago. I know — seems like just yesterday, amirite? This poem is also called “Bolero.” It’s from The Poetry Foundation and is by Keith Leonard.

    From the kitchen, I catch the neighbor
    cross the street to switch off my car’s interior lights.
    He returns to his house without announcing the favor.
    For the last three years, a friend has woken early
    and walked the beach, combing for bottle caps
    and frayed fishing line. She mentions this
    only casually at lunch, after I’ve asked
    what she did that morning.
    Care has a quiet soundtrack: the sycamore’s
    rustling leaves, your nails tracing my shoulder blades.
    A melody that repeats—a bit like Ravel’s Boléro.
    When it was first performed, a woman shouted,
    Rubbish! from the balcony. She called Ravel
    a madman. I think I understand. I wish I didn’t.
    I’ve been taught that art must have conflict,
    that reason must meet resistance.

    Special thanks to OC reader Pam for sending in a poem we’ll be sharing tomorrow, and for sharing a new source of verse for us to plunder. You da bomb, Pam!

    In Contract Law, when a contract right is assigned (transferred), the assignee “steps into the shoes” of the assignor. So he or she (the assignee) is subject to any defenses that can be raised against the assignor. On my law midterm, I presented a situation involving that principle and the question was whether the assignee should get paid. Most students got it right, explaining that the assignee “steps into the shoes” of the assignor. But my favorite answer was the student who wrote — the assignee does not get paid “because she stepped on the assignor’s feet.”

    You cannot make this stuff up, folks.

    At 2D in the puzzle today the clue was “Reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws.” Needless to say, I had no f*cking idea. It turned out to MORAY EEL. Commenter Conrad posted: “When the reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s a moray.”

    And Rex noted: It’s very fun to say “extendable pharyngeal” over and over again. It’s like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan: “In short, in matters vegetable, extendable, pharyngeal, / I am the very model of a model Major-General!” Then he shared this clip which I have watched over and over with no diminution in pleasure. What has happened to mankind in between Gilbert & Sullivan and our movies like Dumb and Dumber? Is it any wonder the election turned out as it did?

    At 54A, the clue was “Domesticated” (five letters) and I correctly slapped in TAMED right away. But it got one commentator’s goat, so to speak. Here’s what he or she (probably he) posted: TAMED and “domesticated” are two different things. NYTimes repeatedly allows this erroneous conflation to appear in its Crossword. And, no, they are not “close enough” for a crossword. Persisting in this error just contributes to dumbing-down in general.

    But he didn’t explain the difference, so I looked it up. Then I posted this reply:

    “I see the distinction — thanks! ‘Taming is conditioned behavioral modification of an individual; domestication is permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to, among other things, a heritable predisposition toward human association.’ Either the distinction is blurring in popular usage over time, as sometimes happens, or the NYT deems it close enough for Xwords, even if many of us don’t. As for the ‘general dumbing down,’ we’ve passed this point long ago.”

    There was no further discussion.

    According to the NYT, Texas education officials backed on Tuesday a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons. Texas was the first state to allow public schools to hire religious chaplains as school counselors, and the Republican-controlled legislature is expected to try once again to require public-school classrooms to display the Nine Commandments (Trump removed the one on adultery, you may recall).

    In Oklahoma, the state superintendent has begun buying Bibles for classroom use, and sent a video to schools last week inviting students to pray for Mr. Trump. [What?? Not kidding.]

    Gov. Greg Abbott said the lessons would “allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution.” You know how hepped up he gets on the Civil Rights movement.

    An effort to reject the Biblical curriculum lost by only one vote 7-8, with, amazingly, three Republicans among the magnificent seven. Now, that’s a miracle.

    The Oklahoma business, above, piqued my interest. Here’s what I was able to uncover after extensive research (you know, a minute or two online). It’s a story by the public radio station down there (KGOU).

    State Education Superintendent Ryan Walters sent superintendents an email Thursday afternoon mandating districts show students a video of him announcing the new “Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism” and inviting students into a prayer for President-elect Donald Trump, among other topics.

    The email said districts are also required to send the video to all students’ parents.

    In the video, Walters says the “radical left” is attacking religious liberty in schools, patriotism is being “mocked,” and there is “a hatred for this country pushed by woke teachers’ unions.” [Of course!!]

    He invites the students to pray with him, clarifying they don’t have to join in. [Well, that’s a relief.]

    “I pray for our leaders to make the right decisions,” Walters said. “I pray in particular for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country.” [Yes, in particular — those prayers give God a little extra nudge.]

    Walters also prays schools “continue to teach love of country to our young people, and that our students understand what makes America great.” [Right! And what is that again?]

    In the video, Walters sits next to a Bible and a mug that reads in Latin, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

    The attorney general’s office did not immediately return a request for clarification on whether the State Department of Education has the authority to mandate the video be shown to students and sent to parents. Hmmmm — that could put a crimp in it, no?

    Here’s Da Supe with his war mug. God bless America.

    Yuck. We can’t close with that creep. Here are Caity’s four “littles.” And out in Michigan Morris turned three today, kinahora. Good stuff!!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Happy Birthday Mickey!

    “The Captain,” a song by Kasey Chambers, may be familiar to you. It was played on Episode 8, Season 3, of The Sopranos. Chambers is 48 and Australian. She lives in Copacabana — not the famous nightclub — it’s a suburb in New South Wales, Australia. She has three kids from two different dads: a son, Talon, who is 22, another son, Arlo Ray, who is 17, and a daughter, Poet Poppin, 13. Poet Poppin!

    Things are so random in Crossworld. We’re only meeting Kasey because the clue yesterday at 11D was “Iconic landmark in Yosemite Valley.” It’s EL CAPITAN, of course, which naturally led commenter Son Volt to share Kasey’s song with us. Here’s a shot of Kasey Phil got by sneaking into her bedroom, followed by the song.

    Jane Kenyon wrote this poem, “The Painters,” and it appeared in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac.

    A hot dry day in early fall….
    The men have cut the vines
    from the shutters, and scraped
    the clapboards clean, and now
    their heads appear all day
    in all the windows …
    their arms or shirtless torsos,
    or a rainbow-speckled rag
    swinging from a belt.

    They work in earnest—
    these are the last warm days.
    Flies bump and buzz
    between the screens and panes,
    torpid from last night’s frost:
    the brittle months advance …
    ruts frozen in the icy drive,
    and the deeply black and soundless
    nights. But now the painters

    lean out from their ladders, squint
    against the light, and lay on
    the thick white paint.
    From the lawn their radio predicts rain,
    then cold Canadian air ….
    One of them works way up
    on the dormer peak,
    where a few wasps levitate
    near the vestige of a nest.

    Should we consider yesterday Mickey Mouse’s birthday? It was on 11/18 in 1928 that the first sound-synchronized cartoon to attract widespread public notice, Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” premiered in New York. The black and white cartoon featured Mickey, Minnie, and Pegleg Pete and lasted seven minutes. With Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey, the cartoon was a big hit.

    I’m picking her first for my team — whatever the sport. Thank you puzzle for introducing us to this incredible athlete: SHA’CARRI Richardson. Word of her exploits hadn’t reached me under my rock. Just look at these pics:

    Sha’carri won the Silver Medal in the 2024 Olympics in the 100 meter race and anchored the U.S. relay team which won the Gold in the 4 x 100. She ranked #1 in the world in the 100 meters in 2023. She ran for LSU in college, identifies as bisexual and has a girlfriend. She is known for her colorful hair and long nails and was inspired by the late Flo-Jo (Florence Griffith Joyner). Just one more shot, if you will — she’s spellbinding. Here’s the shot of her Vogue used for one of its covers.

    The puzzle was by an excellent constructor, Erik Agard, and was a paean to Black female athletes. Besides Sha’carri, Brittany GRINER and SIMONE Biles were featured. It was African-American in general with VIVECA A. Fox and OCTAVIA Butler tossed in, along with MLK and Carlos Santana. And Whites were excluded — even GAGA wasn’t clued via Lady G, its clue was “Head over heels.” As Rex noted, there are many puzzles with no Blacks, so this may have been intended as sort of a corrective.

    At 51D, the clue was “Quintet found in a supervocalic word.” It’s AEIOU. Supervocalics are words that contain all five non-Y vowels. Supervocalic is one itself. In “facetious” and “abstemious” the fivesome appears in order. In others they are rearranged via, [drum roll], a vowel movement.

    A supervocalic tree is the SEQUOIA. Personal fave: cauliflower. I was today years old when I learned about EUNOIA — the shortest supervocalic. You know when a comic says, “Wow, this is a great crowd?” Well, eunoia is the good will that speakers cultivate between themselves and their audiences, a condition of receptivity. The one time I saw George Carlin perform, he played with that — he encouraged us all to get together again for reunions, and appointed “row monitors.”

    At 20A, the clue was “Like content that causes secondhand embarrassment.” The answer was CRINGE and it set off a flurry of complaints. People didn’t like it used as an adjective: they wanted the answer to be cringey or cringy. Commenter Digital Dan expressed himself in verse.

    CRINGE as an adjective: Hate it.
    SPEND as a noun. Detest it.
    COMPUTE as a noun. Abhor it.
    CLICHE as an adjective. No. Just no.
    FRAUGHT without an object to be with (preferably PERIL). Perish the thaught.

    My bro-in-law Mitch had a brother-in-law via his sister, Arden. His name was Marv. Marv was not well-liked, especially, and most importantly, by Arden. They eventually divorced. My brother Jay famously remarked about him: “Marv you can harve.”

    I gave exams in both of my classes today. They went well — no obvious cheating. That’s all I ask. I’ll be grading them for the next few days. There’s an exercise I won’t miss in retirement. One more to go in each class.

    At 22D today, “First name in civil rights history,” wasn’t Medgar — it was the big one — MARTIN. Son Volt, who seems to be in charge of musical references for The Commentariat, shared this tune by the Jayhawks with us. See you tomorrow!

  • A Foundation of Fevered Mendacity

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

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

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

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

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

    And, while we’re on the topic:

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

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

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

    Dear Diary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Here they are. What the hell is she wearing?

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

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

    Murray Atkinson: Sounds about right.

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

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

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

    Mark Allcroft: Stand well back.

    Murray Atkinson: Have numbers near the middle?

    Tony Moran: Please show us your “workings.”

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

    Tony Moran: Thank you. I concur.

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

    Tony Moran then posted this:

    .

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

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

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

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

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

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

    See you tomorrow!

  • God Wills It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Thanks for popping by.

  • Backsliding

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

    This is from the NYT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Hop-scotching the news:

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

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

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

    Ya think?

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

    Next.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    See you tomorrow!