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Hired Goons
Linda!! Don’t take any more calls from Brad!!
According to a story in the NYT, authorities in Spain announced the arrest of five people for swindling two women out of $350,000 by posing as Brad Pitt online. They contacted the women via an online fan page and posed as Pitt. The women believed they were corresponding directly with Pitt and grew so close that they believed they had a romantic relationship with him. A publicist for Mr. Pitt said he was unaware of the case. He also said Pitt’s frequent references to “my Spanish babes” were not related to these particular women. [Alright, I made the last sentence up.]
Hello Kitty is universally popular, so it’s a frequent guest to the puzzle.
Today, the clue was “Prominent feature of Hello Kitty” and the answer was HAIR BOW. I didn’t have the image in front of me, and had HAIR, so I thought of hair ball first. Anyway, as legend has it, Will Shortz once rejected a puzzle with HELLO KITTY in it because he had never heard of it and didn’t think people would know it. And then he read about it in an in-flight magazine immediately thereafter, and now it’s everywhere, all over the grid.
T.S. Eliot was born on this date in 1888 in St. Louis. I was today years old when I learned those letters stood for Thomas Stearns. Eliot’s first marriage was to Vivienne Haigh-Wood and it was not a good one.
She was often ill and sent away for cures. She eventually died in a mental institution. Eliot wrote of it: “To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.” Ouch.
He married again at the age of 68. Esme Valerie Fletcher was only 30. He had no children from either marriage.
The theme of the puzzle today was the football play, the DOUBLE REVERSE. In each theme answer two sets of letters (helpfully, in shaded squares) had to be switched (reversed) to fit the answer. So, e.g., for the clue at 35A: “Three-time nominee for Best Director (1994, 2009, 2019),” the answer should be TARANTINO. But you need to “reverse” two pairs of letters and write TARNATION into the grid.
On the football play, the “double reverse,” commenter Joe B states:
It is VERY rare to see a DOUBLE REVERSE in football. Most of the time it is a plain reverse that the announcers, fans, everyone in attendance calls and shouts, “DOUBLE REVERSE” which is wrong.
A wide receiver goes in motion, say, from the bottom of the screen to the top, the ball is snapped. QB hands it off to him and the receiver continues running to the top. That is an END AROUND. If the receiver flips it backwards to someone now running down, that is a REVERSE. If, and this rarely, rarely happens, that ball carrier hands it back to someone now running up — the same direction as the initial ball carrier — that is finally your DOUBLE REVERSE. Very, very rarely seen as it requires an amazing amount of precision and has the opportunity to completely go wrong in many ways.
YUP, we concur. This is one of the few players to have pulled it off successfully last year:
At 15D the clue for HIRED was great. It was “Like some goons.” Commenter Nico shared this neat Simpsons clip with us:
Did you know the “final circuit in a track race” is not the last lap? It’s the BELL LAP. And this one was nasty — three letter word ending in AT for “Something found near a trap.” It’s not rat. It’s LAT — referring to muscles: Trap is short for trapezius, which is near your lat. At least it’s near mine. (Linda took this shot of me from the back.)
Cathy Reed Weber, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), after using a butter knife to force something open, asked: Are there actual rules for using a butter knife as a tool, outside of the kitchen? My husband claims there are, but he won’t enhance my knowledge due to it being a “fraternal secret.”
Here are some of the (103) dull comments:
We can’t tell you either. (The Brotherhood of the butter knife.)
No tool box is complete without one.
[My comment] I hope it was a dull knife.
[My comment (another one)] I had an excellent butter knife once but it melted.
A railway station and underground station were once flooded by armed police because a man rushed into a nearby restaurant and stole a butter knife from a table….. there must have been 50 or 60 armed police trying to track him down….
The only legal knife allowed to be carried in the UK is a folding but not locking penknife with a blade no bigger than 3″(75mm). Which makes the old fashioned boy scout knife and the classic “Stanley” knife illegal. There is an exception for the Scottish ceremonial Sgian-dubh worn as part of national dress along with similar ceremonial weapons. But people must be in full regalia to be allowed. Just carrying it would be illegal.
My late husband had every tool imaginable in his out building but I still found knives with the tops bent over. I never could find my kitchen scissors and was amazed how many I found in the garden shed when I cleared it out.
I encourage the use of a sharp knife for household projects. That way, when you slip and cut your hand you will be reminded to find the proper tool in the future. [Ouch — you’re no fun!]
See you tomorrow!
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Scale These Walls
In the puzzle today at 38D the clue was “Senokot alternative” and the answer was EX-LAX. My brother Jay (alav hashalom) told me this joke. I can still see him delivering the punchline.
The pharmacist says to his assistant. “I’m going out for lunch, if anyone comes in, be conservative.”
“OK, Boss.”
He gets back and asks how it went.
“Fine. There was just one customer. A woman came in complaining of a cough. I told her to take five doses of Ex-Lax.”
The pharmacist says, “She came in with a cough and you gave her Ex-Lax!! Are you nuts??!!”
And the assistant said: “No. Look. There she is now, holding on to that post. She’s not going to cough.”
I’ve been quick to lambast The New Yorker for its lousy cartoons. So I need to praise them when they score. I’m including three today that I liked from the current (9/30) issue.
“I don’t get it.”
That one is by Shannon Wheeler who grew up in Berkeley CA. He’s best known for the character Too Much Coffee Man, who rarely sleeps and derives his powers from coffee and cigarettes. He’s been in outer space and a U.S. prison.
Too Much Espresso Guy is his cynical friend. Too Much German White Chocolate Woman With Almonds is their mutual friend. She is pale-skinned, worries a lot, and has large almonds on her face. She is skilled at making cakes, and is able to detach her almonds, which are edible.
This poem, “The Yak,” from today’s Writer’s Almanac, is by Hilaire Belloc.
As a friend to the children, commend me the Yak;
You will find it exactly the thing;
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow),
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich,
He will buy you the creature—or else he will not
(I cannot be positive which).
Wallace Shawn was in the puzzle today, but only in a clue, not in the grid. The clue was “‘Toy Story’ dinosaur voiced by Wallace Shawn,” and the answer was REX. Was it a coincidence that REX was in the grid? It happens to be the 18th anniversary of Rex Parker’s blog.
Do you have fond memories, as I do, of Shawn’s great film with Andre Gregory “My Dinner With Andre” from way back in 1981 (ouch)? It was a film in which absolutely nothing at all happens, yet it was completely absorbing. In honor of Shawn’s appearance today, Rex shared this snippet of the duo that may recall the film for you.
“Do you have to stare at her right in front of me?”
Headlines from today’s Onion:
Biden Rushed Into Surgery After Eating Sock
Dad Insists On Using Pocketknife To Open Can Of Chili.
[At press time, the man’s daughter, Jennifer Ballard, was said to have thrown out the partially opened can of chili after determining it had too much blood on it to be edible.]
Woman Reaches Arm Deep Into Purse Like Farmer Artificially Inseminating Cow
It’s a two-poem day! This one was in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s called “The Necessity for Irony,” by Eavan Boland.
On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever—
which was not often—I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,—and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings—reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching—oh irony!—
for beautiful things.
Favorite clue/answer today:
At 21A: “Stock quote?”
Answer: MOO
There were also two sneaky baseball references. At 9D “Fan fare?” was FRANKS (think ballpark franks). And at 39A “Word after double or day,” was the clue for BED. And Abner Doubleday is credited by some with the invention of baseball.
William Faulkner was born on this day in New Albany, MS, in 1897. There was no U in Falkner when he was born. He adopted the U (“bought a vowel”) when applying for the Canadian Royal Air Force, believing it made his name look British. Having already been rejected by the U.S. Army Air Corps because of his height (5′ 6″), he also lied about his birthplace, and adopted a phony British accent.
In my day we did stuff like that to avoid the military.
This one’s my favorite:
Let’s close today with this pretty song by Caroline Spence, who is new to me. If you like your music with strings attached, you’ll find it especially lovely.
Enough.
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A Needle Of Incandescent Wit
Sometimes the puzzle works in subtle, understated ways. At 29A today the clue was “Bruce Springsteen album with a red, white and blue cover,” and the answer, of course, was BORN IN THE USA. And guess what — it’s Bruce’s birthday today! Happy 75th Boss!
Oh Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us.
This pier lights our carnival life forever.
Oh, love me tonight, and I promise I’ll love you foreverThat’s Danny Federici on the accordion, an original member of the E Street Band. Danny passed away on April 17, 2008 from melanoma. He was just 58. When Bruce performed this song in Asbury Park NJ just last week he dedicated it to Danny’s memory.
At 5D the clue was “Fortunate somebody” and the answer was LUCKY ONE. It gave me leave to share this old joke with the Rexites:
Maxie goes to see the Rabbi. Rabbi, he says, I have two girls in love with me: Annie and Rachel. Rabbi, with all your wisdom and foresight — can you tell me which will be the lucky one? The rabbi strokes his beard and closes his eyes and goes into deep thought. When he opens them again he says: You will marry Annie. Rachel will be the lucky one.
As we all know, the moon is made of cheese. But for one week a year it’s converted (pun intended) into matzoh! Need proof?
That painting is by Mark Podwal, who died on Friday at his home in Harrison, NY, at the age of 79. He was a prolific artist and writer (and a dermatologist!) mostly on Jewish themes. In 1977, after the arrest and abrupt release in France of the Palestinian terrorist known as Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the Munich Olympic attacks, Dr. Podwal drew for the NYT the Eiffel Tower dreaming, through a thought bubble, of being an oil well. It caught the eye of Elie Wiesel, who contacted him, and thus began a lifelong friendship with much collaboration.
Dr. Podwal designed the Congressional Gold Medal that President Reagan presented to Mr. Wiesel in 1985. One side is emblazoned, under the words Author, Teacher, Witness, with a likeness of Mr. Wiesel adapted from a photograph by Roman Vishniac; on the other side is an open book with a depiction of Mr. Wiesel’s home in Sighet, Romania, on one page and an image of Jerusalem on the other. Podwal accompanied Wiesel to Oslo, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a preface to one of Podwal’s books, novelist Cynthia Ozick wrote: “Like the Kabbalists, he joins metaphysics to physics: essence to presence; ideas to real objects. Like the Hasidic masters, he owns a needle of incandescent wit.”
Rest in peace Doc.
America had quite a cohort of Olympians in Rome in 1960: Muhammed Ali, Oscar Robertson, Rafer Johnson, Wilma Rudolph, Otis Davis.
Wait — Who? Otis who?
Yeah, you heard me: Otis Davis.
Davis received a basketball scholarship to Oregon after serving in the army, but Bill Bowerman, the school’s track and field coach, tapped him as a runner. (Bowerman later formed Nike with Phil Knight.) Before the Rome Olympics Bowerman said of Davis: “His job is simple to remember. He is supposed to start fast and finish before any of the rest of them. I think he can.”
Davis set world records. In the 400-meter race, he crossed the finish line at the same time Germany’s Carl Kaufmann did: 44.9 seconds, a world record. But the photo finish showed Davis won. Two days later his relay team set the record for the 4 x 400 relay.
Davis died in hospice care in North Bergen NJ on Sept 14. He was 92. He was a phys ed instructor and ran youth sports programs when his competitive running days were over.
In early March 1994, burglars broke into Davis’s apartment in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City and stole his gold medals. Neighbors heard about the theft and raised a banner on the porch of a nearby house that said, “Bring Home Otis Davis’ Gold.” Police recovered the medals about a month later.
Davis handed the baton to his daughters Liza and Diana, and a grandson.
Rest in peace, Davis.
Headlines from The Onion:
Wedding Cake Gets More Compliments Than Bride
NFL Referee Under Fire For Watching Porn On Instant Replay Device
NFL Sunday Ticket Allows Viewers To Simulcast Up To 4 Domestic Violence Trials At Once
If you insist on bringing up the fact to Melanie Hamrick, who is 37, that her boyfriend is 44 years older than her (I’ll do the math for you — 81), you might as well go f*ck yourself. She doesn’t want to hear about it. For one thing, he’s Mick F*cking Jagger, and for another — they are perfectly happy together. They met at a Stones concert in Tokyo in 2014 and have been dating ever since. They have a child: an 8-year-old boy named Deveraux.
Melanie’s a former dancer with the American Ballet Theater and says she wasn’t star struck when she met Mick because all of her idols were in ballet. Hey, I’ve really been out of touch — did you know Jagger had heart surgery five years ago (aortic valve replacement), and has a total of 8 children? I’ve gotta get out more.
Here’s Melanie. Phil caught up with her at K-Mart.
Let’s go back and say goodnight on the boardwalk.
Is this the perfect verse?:
Them boys in their high heels, ah, Sandy
Their skins are so white.Sandy, that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me
I spoke with her last night, she said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore
She worked that joint under the boardwalk
She was always the girl you saw bopping down the beach with the radio
The kids say last night she was dressed like a star
In one of them cheap little seaside bars
And I saw her parked with lover boy out on the KokomoDid you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie
For tellin’ fortunes better than they doFor me this boardwalk life’s through, babe
You oughta quit this scene too.To 120 Bruce!
See you tomorrow.
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Chickens Are Calm, Friendly
Let’s start today with this poem called “Wedding Cake” by Naomi Shihab Nye from today’s Writer’s Almanac, even though it will be all downhill from here, for sure.
Once on a plane
a woman asked me to hold her baby
and disappeared.
I figured it was safe,
our being on a plane and all.
How far could she go?She returned one hour later,
having changed her clothes
and washed her hair.
I didn’t recognize her.By this time the baby
and I had examined
each other’s necks.
We had cried a little.
I had a silver bracelet
and a watch.
Gold studs glittered
in the baby’s ears.
She wore a tiny white dress
leafed with layers
like a wedding cake.I did not want
to give her back.The baby’s curls coiled tightly
against her scalp,
another alphabet.
I read new new new.
My mother gets tired.
I’ll chew your hand.The baby left my skirt crumpled,
my lap aching.
Now I’m her secret guardian,
the little nub of dream
that rises slightly
but won’t come clear.As she grows,
as she feels ill at ease,
I’ll bob my knee.What will she forget?
Whom will she marry?
He’d better check with me.
I’ll say once she flew
dressed like a cake
between two doilies of cloud.
She could slip the card into a pocket,
pull it out.
Already she knew the small finger
was funnier than the whole arm.
I am guilty of a terrible sin. I abandoned the Michigan footballers after their fourth quarter fumble. I couldn’t stand to watch what was clearly unfolding: a dreadful collapse and certain defeat to USC. We were dominant in the first half but only led 14-3, and all the pop went out of our balloon in the second half — we sucked and the lead was down to 20-17 and we fumbled at around our own 25. Argggggh! I couldn’t take it anymore and turned off the TV.
When the game had to be over, I said to Linda — should we check on what happened?, only to discover that we were still up 27-24 and there were 37 seconds left. We turned it back on. USC was out of time outs but driving and they had a good kicker and only needed a field goal to tie. (Goddamn that missed extra point!!) After a few short gains and a few incompletes, USC completed a sideline pass on 4th down with 8 seconds left. But the receiver went out of bounds a half yard short of the first-down marker — so close, but clearly short. With 8 frickin seconds left, the game was finally over. Linda!! Get me my heart pills!!
I’m not going to make it through the season.
Here’s former ‘Rine coach Jim Harbaugh nailing a brilliant ad for something weird. Give it a look — it’s just a minute long and it’s hysterical.
Men! — brace yourselves for a joyless future. A story the NYT devoted nearly the entire front page of its Style section to today starts: “The women walk into the surgeons’ offices with photos cued up on their phones. Miley Cyrus. Keira Knightley. Bella Hadid. I want my breasts to look like this, they say. They’ve already spent hours on YouTube where an army of ordinary women post about their breast reductions.”
According to The Times, in 2023, more than 76,000 American women had elective breast-reduction surgery, a 64% increase since 2019, according to the Plastic Society of American Surgeons. Oops, sorry, that should be American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The increase is reflected across all age groups, but especially among women under 30 — exactly the group we spend all of our waking hours drooling over!!
Where’s Harris on this? [We can guess where Trump is.]
Sarah Thornton, a sociologist, has done extensive research in the area and says: For a woman to withdraw from the male gaze, to assert herself in her refusal to be ogled, to relieve her own pain, to be able to comfortably train for a marathon or dance at her own birthday party — that is liberation. “If women are going to have an emancipated rack,” she said, “then men need to change.”
Yup — get used to it fellas.
Here’s Bella Hadid, mentioned above:
In the puzzle today, at 64A “Brainy bunch” was MENSANS. Commenter Rich shared this: Funny thing about ‘MENSA’. I live in Mexico and in this country, ‘mensa’ means stupid woman or stupid girl. No wonder MENSA Mexico has trouble recruiting members.
97D — Did you know that an AGAPE is an “Early Christian meal of love and fellowship?” News to me. What’s on the menu?
At 80D, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!” was a good clue for WATCH IT.
The puzzle was all about the escape from prison in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. That was a theme answer, as was TIM ROBBINS, and ANDY DUFRESNE, the character Robbins plays. The bottom of the grid contains a little box representing jail, with shaded squares spelling TUNNEL, VENT, SHAFT, etc. leading out of it. And the letters spelling ANDY DUFRESNE proceeding (via spaced-out circled squares) out of the prison and through the tunnels to freedom. Pretty neat.
Rex noted the absence of even the slightest nod to Morgan Freeman, “Red” in the film, who played a key role. He says: This movie has been accused (on more than one occasion) of indulging in the “Magical Negro” stereotype, where the Black character exists primarily to impart wisdom to the white protagonist and help him on his journey. In this puzzle … well, we get a white man’s journey, and the Black guy … he’s not even in the picture. Not even on that beach or wherever Andy ends up meeting him at the end of the movie … [looks it up] … ZIHUATANEJO! Why isn’t that in the puzzle!? And where’s Red, man? What happened to Red? You can’t spell REDEMPTION without “Red.”
To clue UKULELE, the constructors referenced the song “Hey Soul Sister” by Train. I know the song (duh), but don’t recall having heard of the band. Here’s a different tune of theirs Rex shared. Sounds like David Bowie to me, not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s “Drops of Jupiter” and it won a Grammy for Best Song in 2002. Pat Monahan (lead singer) says it was inspired by the death of his mom, but it’s joyous and beautiful.
But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?
Lindsay Cook, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes: At a venue watching a show and I decided to splash out and buy an over-priced fizzy drink. Upon paying, I was informed they would need to take my lid. Apart from being rather annoying I can’t see why it is necessary. Does anyone know the reason? (She describes herself as: “Female, 35, size 6 feet. Wants my lid back.”)
There have been 103 comments (so far).
“It’s to stop you from using a full bottle as a missile.”
“And also stop the cap being thrown.”
“Throwing the cap isn’t going to do any harm though.”
“Put a coin in it and see if you still feel that way.”
“Or just throw the coin. Jeez!”
“Hey I’m just telling you what they do with the cap at games, hence they take them. Jeez!
“So you bought the bottle of drink. They then want the bottle top, but that now belongs to you. Was that established in the contract when you bought the bottle?. Maybe you could sell the bottle top back to them. Or drink the drink and then say the bottle is not fit for purpose as a bottle as it doesn’t have a lid. By rights you should get a refund.”
“You sound really fun.”
“From my understanding it’s that you cannot throw a full bottle if the lid is off.”
“You can with a bit of knowledge and application of practical physics. Hold the neck of the bottle and allow it to rotate while using a wide swinging motion to throw, centrifugal force will keep it in the bottle until you release.”
“But the likelihood of you getting the space to wind up and have it hit on target drops dramatically – especially as it will have to be a forceful direct shot to stop the liquid escaping.”
“Guy on trial for assault. Victim has massive bruise on his cheek. The defendant is charged with throwing a tomato at the victim. Judge: ‘But you can’t do that much damage with a tomato!’ Defendant: ‘It was still in the can.’”
“I normally keep a spare lid in my bag.”
“They let you hit someone with a 90% full bottle. If anything they should let you keep the lid but confiscate the bottle.”
Here’s Lindsay’s lidless bottle. (Note she’s careful to prevent us from confirming those “size 6 feet.” Could use one of those foot-sizing fluoroscopes,)
With the mainstream media completely in the dark on whether Taylor will be in attendance at Trav’s game in Atlanta tonight, we asked Phil to use his connections with Taylor to find out. He assured us the lovebirds are in Atlanta together but he sounded more drunk than usual, which is saying a lot. So we asked him for proof and he sent us this confirming photo. Thanks Buddy! Never really doubted you.
See you tomorrow Chatterheads!
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Flexitarianism
Do you know the difference between cottage pie and shepherds pie? They both use minced meat but the former uses beef and the latter lamb (hence the shepherd). In a vegetarian version of either, a nonmeat substitute is used. As to whether it’s a vegetarian shepherds pie or vegetarian cottage pie, it depends on which meat is left out.
Wait, what?
A discussion arose in the Dull Men’s Club (UK). Jerry Davies opined: “You can’t have a vegan shepherds pie. Never heard of a shepherd tending to his flock of tofu.”
It brought fond memories up for Ruth Hunt: “Ahh the tofu herds of ancient memory, dotting the hillsides with cubes of white blubber.”
But Jason Thomas was having none of it: “Farmers do tend to tofu like any other product that needs growing or rearing. I know you were trying to be funny. Try harder.”
Ouch! Take it easy, JT — life’s too short. Here, have a look at American actress Bella Thorne, who visited our puzzle this week. I had never heard of her and she’s very pretty. Maybe that will take the edge off.
Bella was born in Pembroke Pines, FL, and had a rough upbringing. She was abused from ages 6 to 14 by someone close to her and bullied at school for her dyslexia. She overcame the dyslexia by aggressively reading everything she could get her hands on. She began acting as a child to earn some money for her impoverished family. Wow — impressive, B. She’ll be 27 in two weeks and her career is going very well — well enough to earn her an appearance in the goddamn New York Times Crossword Puzzle!
In June 2019, Thorne had nude photos stolen by hackers who subsequently threatened her with extortion; she instead released the photos herself. Owl Chatter will respect her privacy and not reproduce any of them here, mainly because we can’t find them online in under a minute and are too lazy to search harder. But for those of you who have a special place in your heart for redheads, here she is again, fully dressed, and apparently pretending to be amused by one of Phil’s ridiculous jokes.
Today’s puzzle announced right at the start that it wasn’t f*cking around. At 1A the clue was: “Namesake of the channel separating Madagascar from the African mainland” (ten letters). Go ahead — fill it right in. Turned out to be MOZAMBIQUE. Have a listen to the Dylan tune. (That’s Emmy Lou Harris singing with Bob.)
The song began as a game between Dylan and co-writer Jacques Levy to find as many rhymes for Mozambique as possible:
- cheek to cheek
- stop and speak
- a final peek
Rhymes not used:
- antique
- technique
- Byzantine Greek
- take a leak
- calendar week
- hide and go seek
- japanese leek
At 36D the clue was “Box office?,” and the answer was CUBICLE. Good one!
At 49A, the clue was “Custardy French dessert,” and the answer was POT DE CREME. But Anony Mouse says: No French person will say “pot de crème” for a dessert. It would be “crème renversée” or “crème caramel” or “flan.” A “pot de crème” is a cream jar as in milk jar.
OK, thanks.
At 14D, the clue for LOS ALAMOS was “U.S. city with the motto ‘Where Discoveries are Made.’” Guest blogger Eli opined: I suppose that’s better than “If You Had Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds, You’d Be Home By Now.”
The association of one of the most delicious fruits — the peach — with the tuchas seems very unfair to us here at OC. And yet, at 64A, where the clue was “Butt text?” the answer was PEACH EMOJI. The following is from emojipedia.org (not kidding): Thanks to its distinctive cleft, the peach emoji is most commonly used for “buttocks.” In 2016 Apple unveiled a new design that would have deemphasized its distinctive cleft, leading to criticism from Apple users. Ultimately this change was not implemented.
Here’s a cleaned-up peach/butt our legal department has allowed us to post:
Hop-scotching the news:
A story in the NYT today starts out:
The Justice Department announced that it has expanded its investigation into the suburban Mississippi sheriff’s department where a self-described “Goon Squad” of deputies has been accused of torturing people for nearly two decades.
Owl Chatter wants to know: What’s the hurry fellas? Can’t this wait another five or ten years?
Also from the Times today:
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said on Wednesday that he would continue to describe Haitian residents in Springfield, Ohio, as “illegal aliens” even though they are in the country legally.
OK. Makes sense.
Headline in The Onion: American Black Nazi Party Worried Mark Robinson Could Hurt Other Candidates Down Ballot.
Here are two stories for your reading displeasure. The first is from tomorrow’s Met Diary and is by Mitchell Chwatt. The second is by me. Mitch’s story jarred it loose in my memory. I submitted it to the Diary.
Dear Diary:
It was rush hour and I just boarded a packed E train at Penn Station.
I noticed an empty seat next to an extremely large and intimidating-looking man. He was wearing a weathered motorcycle-type jacket, and his hair was rather wild, matching the expression on his face.
I told myself not to judge a book by its cover and sat down next to him. I did my best not to brush up against him and kept my eyes straight ahead.
After a few moments, I felt my mouth getting dry. I pulled out my Chapstick and applied it to my lips.
A moment later, the giant of a man next to me reached into his pocket and pulled out his own Chapstick.
“I prefer cherry myself,” he said.
Here’s mine:
I got onto the F train years ago, heading home to Brooklyn from my job in Manhattan. I was exhausted but assumed there were no seats because folks were standing. An available seat not far from me caught my eye, but I immediately saw why. A poor homeless fellow was seated next to the space and nobody wanted to sit near him. He looked pretty bad and hadn’t bathed in a while. But I was so tired I studied that open seat carefully and determined it was wide enough that I could sit down and still leave a little bit of room between me and the poor fellow. So I did so, and it felt good to sit down. I closed my eyes for a few moments to deepen the relaxation. When I opened them a bit later, I glanced over at the homeless man. It was then that I noticed that he and I were wearing the exact same pants.
Note to self: Work on wardrobe when you get the chance.
In that cottage/shepherd pie discussion one fellow referred to himself as a flexitarian, a term that was new to me. It means someone who is primarily a vegetarian but who occasionally has meat. He was taken to task by a member who replied: “wtf on this earth is a flexaterian. If you eat meat then you’re a carnivore whether you eat it once a week or not.” And the flexitarian shot back: Google search it and you might learn how to spell it correctly. [Hrrrrumph!]
But I’ll close tonight with my favorite post on that issue, by Keith Sherry who wrote:
I had a friend who called himself a “huntetarian” – he only ate whatever meat he could catch himself! He was always quite thin, but less translucent than a vegan.
See you tomorrow!
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The Business of Caring
Sometimes you learn the weirdest things in puzzles. Did you ever have your feet X-rayed in a shoe store when you were little? Yeah, you heard me! The clue at 13D was: “Diagnostics done with “Foot-o-scopes” in old shoe stores,” and the answer was XRAYS. Rex was equally surprised and wondered if they used those lead aprons like dentists do. But then commenter BonitaBill posted: “I remember having my feet x-rayed at the shoe store in the 1950’s and there was no protection available.”
Could that be where the expression “twinkle toes” comes from?
Nah.
Wikipedia tells us all about these shoe-fitting fluoroscopes that were used from the ’20s to the ’70s. They were considered useful in sizing for kids shoes bccause kids’ sizes change so often. They were phased out when people started worrying about radiation. In 1999, Time included them in “the worst ideas of the 20th century.” [It came in right behind our friend X’s “golf with a defense.”] In the novel It by Stephen King, a character recalls using one.
I posted about it in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asking if any members recall having their feet x-rayed when they were little. A good 20 or so said they remember it clearly! Maybe it was used more in the UK.
At 64D, the clue for CAT was: “Abraham Lincoln was the first to keep one at the White House.” Lincoln’s Sec’y of State William Seward gave Linc two kittens as a gift and he named them Tabby and Dixie.
I am lifting the following material from the Smithsonian magazine:
Lincoln’s love of felines was legendary. “Supposedly he was feeding a cat from a plate and Mary Lincoln said, ‘You know, that’s not really respectful, this is a very proper house and seat of government and you shouldn’t feed the cats from the dishes.’ [In response,] Lincoln said, ‘Well if it was good enough for James Buchanan it’s good enough for this cat.’” When asked if her husband had a hobby, Mary simply responded “cats.” “I have seen him fondle one for an hour,” wrote Maunsell B. Field, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
You know our Phil. Once we unleashed him on the topic, there was no stopping him. The following are Susan Ford with Shan, Amy Carter with Misty Malarky Ying Yang, Clinton with Socks, and, last, W’s cat India.
And don’t forget Willow who currently resides in the White House.
Finally (on this topic), Rutherford B. Hayes’ wife, Lucy was a cat lover and received a gift of what is believed to be the first Siamese cat to reach the U.S. It was named Siam, but, sadly, contracted a mysterious illness and did not live long. Today, the Hayes presidential library sells (plush) stuffed cats.
[Note: No animals have been harmed or eaten by Haitians in the production of this blog post.]
Today’s puzzle was a marvel of gimmicks and tricks. The theme clues all had warnings about things we shouldn’t do, but the theme answers did them all. E.g., one clue referenced the state slogan “Don’t mess with Texas,” but the answer was AESTX: the letters in TEXAS are messed with.
My favorite was at 41A where the clue was: “A tip in the working world: Don’t …” So you’d think the answer is don’t “mix business with pleasure,” but the answer has the letters of the two words “mixed,” i.e., they alternate: PBLUESAISNUERSES
The puzzle adjures us not to cry over spilled milk. And here’s an unusual song, “Milk,” by a band called Garbage.
Tom McMahon posed the following question for the membership of the DMC(UK):
I’ve just bought another pair of the same trousers that I already have four pairs of, just in case they stop making them.
The question is whether to leave them untouched until one of trousers 1-4 are too worn to be wearable, or to introduce the new pair to the existing trouser cycle and therefore extend the life of all 5.
Sandra Davies inquired whether they are all the same color, and Tom replied: “Of course, what sort of loose-moraled dandy do you think I am? (Grey, btw.)”
Marie Diesel-Dyer wrote: I have this with everything I like. Spare backups. Shoes, clothes, husbands….
Dave Henderson noted: You now have the full set. A pair of trousers, an old pair, an old old pair, a new pair and your new new pair.
Suzanne Knowles counseled: Wait for a trouser to die
Paul Murphy wrote: To answer this question we need to know the lifetime of a pair of the trousers, the current ages of the current trousers, your own life expectancy, the minimum number of pairs of trousers that are needed to be able to wash them when needed/desired, your risk aversion levels to either running out of trousers near the end of your life or have remaining wear in your trousers after your death. (I might have over-thought this.)
A number of members introduced the fear that his pants size might change, most likely upwards.
Theo noted: ‘The clothes I used to buy were nice, why don’t they still sell those? With what I’m buying now, I can’t bend down and reach my toes.’ And I replied: Are you sure it’s because of the clothes? I haven’t reached mine since the Clinton administration, but it’s from all the beer, burgers, etc.
From Frank Bruni: In The Baltimore Sun, Dan Rodricks quipped: “Donald Trump saying he won’t debate Kamala Harris a second time is like the Thanksgiving turkey saying he won’t be available for Christmas dinner.”
Roger Angell was born on this date in 1920. He passed away at 101 in ’22. Along with Bart Giamatti’s brilliant essay “The Green Fields of the Mind,” Angell’s writing on baseball is the best we have. His annual write-up of the season came out in late November (in The New Yorker), and I gobbled it down immediately. His finest work may have been on the Boston-Cincy World Series that ended heartbreakingly for Boston, but not until Fisk struck his heroic historic blow to win Game 6. The homer made Angell think of all of his many long-suffering Red Sox fan friends and picture each of them exulting in the moment. And then he wrote:
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring—which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté—the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball—seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”
It still sends chills down my spine, nearly 50 years later.
He also wrote:
“Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. Sitting in the stands, we sense this, if only dimly. The players below us—Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass—swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come.”
Last Sunday, my Caitlin and Danny took my grandson Leon to his first major league game: Boston was visiting Yankee Stadium. Danny splurged on good seats and the weather was perfect, but they were driving so I worried about traffic, parking, etc. So how was it? — Awesome. The Yanks won a good game, and Aaron Judge hit a mammoth home run!
There is nothing like the first time you emerge from the little tunnel and the field spreads itself out before you with the crowd noises and the smells. I wanted it to be as defining an experience for Leon as it had been for me, sixty five or so years ago. Good job Danny and Caity — he will never forget that moment.
See you tomorrow!
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A Tulip Too Heavy For Its Stem
Peter Dellingham of the Dull Men’s Club writes: On a road trip to London a few years ago, the Gerry Rafferty song “Baker Street” started playing on the car radio just as I turned in to the famous London thoroughfare, forever immortalised in the song. Does anybody else have any equally dull coincidences they would like to share?
So Gordon Ward posted: I was in the Lord Delamere Bar of the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi waiting for a mate to turn up. I was reading a Wilbur Smith book and as I turned the page, the hero walked into the Lord Delamere bar of the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi. Wilbur had described it exactly.
But this coincidence, shared by Richard Aug, will really blow your socks off:
I have a loud noise in my bedroom that starts everyday at the same time, just before I wake up.
It’s been a while since I ran across a poem I felt was just right for Owl Chatter. Today’s selection from The Writer’s Almanac is called “Old Age Home,” and it’s by Burt Kimmelman.
The ride from Manhattan — slipping her
into the passenger seat, swinging
in her legs, shutting the door — to the
suburbs of New Jersey, its trees and
freshly-painted houses, was as neat
as her empty apartment. We placed
some photos on her table, hung up
a few paintings on the walls, arranged
some of her sculptures here and there, plugged
in lamps and the television set.We made our way along the hallway
to a room full of sun, where people
were gathered to talk a little, though
she had nothing to say. There was a
stereo playing music, and once
in a while someone sang the lyrics,
which had returned from some dim region —
a man seated in an easy chair
had wanted, years ago, “a girl just
like the girl who married dear old Dad.”We went to dinner. Someone poured her
a glass of juice. She ate, spilling food,
with a sudden hunger. Afterward
we sat on some couches. Someone asked
her to dance. The music played. She danced
with slight, tentative steps, a tulip
too heavy for its stem. When we had
to go we kissed goodnight, and left her
to lie down in her soft bed, her head
on her pillow, to slip into sleep.
The puzzle today was a tribute to THE SPANISH STEPS in Rome. They spanned the grid as an answer as did TRINITA DEI MONTI, the church that sits at the top of the steps.
Things I learned from comments: There are 39 steps leading up to the church, representing the 39 lashes JC received before he was crucified. Also, John Keats lived his last days in a house that bordered the Spanish Steps, where he died at age 25. Too bad Keats wasn’t worked into the puzzle alongside the steps.
Salvador Dali was worked in instead. We had LIMP, “like the watches in Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory.’” And San “Salvador” showed up separately in a clue. (Coincidence?)
Hello Dali!
ciaolenora shared this tale of good fortune, which could fit into the coincidence material, above:
“I was helped immensely by a recent attempt to clear out my attic. I came across a very old scarf I’d purchased years ago in Italy on which was depicted several attractions, one of which was La Trinitá dei Monti. I googled La Trinità and learned it was situated above The Spanish Steps. A very lucky and timely find indeed.”
This comment, by JJK, made me happy:
“I’ve been to the Spanish Steps – my sister and I, both traveling in Europe with our boyfriends in 1980, planned to meet on the Spanish Steps on a certain day at a certain time. Since it was pre-cell phones and we had no way to be in touch, we just had to hope it would work out. It did, we met, it was summer in Rome, and we both eventually married those boyfriends.”
NORA was in the puzzle, not Nick: “Half of a Dashiell Hammett detective couple.” Did you know a type of cocktail glass is named after them? Nick and Nora cocktail glasses. They look like this. Cheers!
When “Unfilled space” turned out to be a six-letter word with CU in the center, it had to be vacuum, no? But it turned out to be LACUNA, a new word for me. It means blank space or missing part. It comes from lagoon or lake, in the sense of a pit or gap.
The Wise Men of Chelm will live forever in Jewish folklore. Their “wisdom” is carefully arrived at but is the wisdom of fools. Thus, when they arranged the trial of a fish that committed the crime of slapping a Chelmite’s face with its tail (the man was carrying the live fish under his coat), they found the fish guilty and sentenced it to death by drowning.
But this story, reported by CBS News, is from the actual town of Chelm in Poland. According to the Culture Ministry, workers removing tree branches near a historic cathedral in Chelm, came upon two children’s skeletons in a shallow burial pit where no gravesites are marked.
Neither skeleton was buried in a coffin and one of the children was buried with the characteristics of an anti-vampire burial. The head was separated from its body, and the skull was facing down into the ground arranged on a stone. This is consistent with ancient burial methods used to prevent a person thought to be a demonic entity from exiting the grave.
Makes perfect sense.
In 2022, Polish researchers found the remains of a woman at a gravesite in the village of Pień with a sickle around her neck and a triangular padlock on her foot. The padlock was supposed to prevent a deceased person thought to be a vampire from returning from the dead. The sickle was thought to cut the neck if the corpse tried to rise from the grave.
You can’t be too careful.
Research for this story was provided by Owl Chatter Special Correspondent for Demonic Affairs, Chava Abramowitz.
Love the smoky eyes, Chav.
See you tomorrow, everybody.
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Taylor and Brittany
I’m pretty slow on picking up stuff. I’d be really pathetic if it weren’t for the puzzles teaching me new things all the time. So it was only recently that I learned what the prefix “cis” means. It’s to distinguish trans folks from nontrans folks. So in the puzzle today, the clue at 14A was “One assigned female at birth and identifying as such,” and the answer was CISGENDER. So someone who is a woman having transitioned to that gender is a trans woman, and women who have not transitioned are cisgender women.
And that’s what caused a flare up among the commentariat in Rex’s blog. Longtime commenter Nancy, as big a curmudgeon as Rex, took strong exception to being given this new classification: cisgender woman. She wants to just be called a woman. This caused several in the community to charge her with transphobia, i.e., being anti-trans. And then, of course, came the defense.
Here’s how Nancy started things out:
You are not allowed to go mucking around with my identity — an identity I’ve had for my entire life which, btw, adds up to a lotta, I mean a lotta years. You can have any identity you prefer for yourself and I will completely respect it, but you cannot go mucking around with mine. You may not re-define me, however “convenient” you may find your new definition. My identity does not exist for your convenience.
Anony mouse chimed in with: These are transphobic comments. Please talk to a younger person once in a while so you can see how off base you are here.
Nancy’s rejoinder: I don’t remotely care how a trans person wants to identify themselves — as a “trans woman” or as simply just ” a woman” or any other way they want to describe themselves. That’s totally their prerogative and privilege. But I’m damned if I will permit them or journalists or anyone else to describe me as a CIS WOMAN. I’m a woman, period.. Make up as many new terms for the trans community as you wish, but not for me. That is not your right. And, no, you cannot call me transphobic because I insist on defining MY OWN bleeping identity. I am perfectly willing to respect your chosen terms of reference, so please afford me the same courtesy.
Anony Mouse (likely a different one) added:
“Cis is merely a Latin prefix with the opposite meaning of trans- . Applying the prefix cis- isn’t an act of redefining you against your will. It’s just a clarification that may seem unnecessary in your life (which is a privilege).
“I recently learned that people in the autistic community refer to non-autistic people as allistic. It makes a lot of sense to me that terms need to evolve so that language can identify members of particular groups (when necessary, in context) without resorting to hierarchical distinctions like ‘normal.’
“At any rate, since the crossword wasn’t asking for the gender of Nancy, and since many people ‘assigned female at birth and identifying as such’ do choose to identify as cis, the clue fits the answer without needing to be seen as an attack on you as an individual.”
Commenter dgd said: I think it is destructive and self defeating to assume someone is transphobic just because certain terminology bothers them. Language can be a very personal thing. I am gay. I fully understand why people in the community use queer but it is not something at 72 I can say easily.
The problem is when progressives become dogmatic and sad to say a bit like their enemies. Taking control of what people call you is a good thing. Imposing new words describing other people not so much. And you are imposing the term ciswoman if you call Nancy transphobic simply because she doesn’t like it.
And look progressives seem to me to spend too much energy on terminology. Changing terminology can be very important ( Black, Latino/a, First Nations, gay – now queer- trans) but an ever expanding list of subcategories that the mass of people find confusing and on this occasion insulting is counterproductive.The final post on the issue came from Anony Mouse:
It would be one thing if someone had said it was transphobic for Nancy to define herself as something other than cisgendered. Nancy can call herself whatever she wants. But the crossword had nothing to do with her, and what appears transphobic is her strong objection to CISWOMAN as an answer in the crossword at all (or perhaps, an answer as clued).
Cis is part of the language that has developed and become normalized in order to allow trans people to self actualize and have language that describes their experience of the world, at times in contrast to non-trans (ie, cis) people. No part of that is an insult to Nancy.
Personally, on whether Nancy should be charged with being transphobic — I grant her a special curmudgeon exemption. It’s one hell of a broad-ass exemption.
Let’s just move on.
“It’s finally Taylor Swift Watching Football season.”
In the ongoing saga of Taylor and Travis, there was concern last week of a rift between Taylor and Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Travis’s buddy, QB Patrick Mahomes. Brit had come out supporting Trump, and Taylor, of course, is with Kamala. But the latest word is B may be souring on Trump. She was quite miffed at his attack on Taylor. Here they are, a while ago, mugging for our Phil.
Two short notes on baseball, and then we’ll close early tonight — I’m tired from teaching my classes.
I love the little nooks and crannies in baseball — little oddities that seem to pop up all the time. I was watching the Gnats play the Mets tonight (the Gnats have slipped behind just a bit, 9-1 in the sixth. Ouch.), and announcer Gary Cohen noted that the Mets had an “all-righty” line up. It is an accepted baseball fact that you would prefer to have a right-handed batter facing a left-handed pitcher (and vicey-versey). So the Mets stacked their lineup with all righties to face Gnat pitcher Parker, a lefty. (It was all “pure” right-handed batters — no switch hitters.) And Cohen noted it was only the third time in twenty years that the Mets did that. Neat.
Second, I learned a new rule last night — how often does that happen after so many decades of watching? First, let me explain the infield fly rule. It applies when there are less then two outs, and runners on first and second, or the bases are loaded. If an infield fly is hit by the batter — i.e., a pop-up in the infield — the umpire will call the batter automatically out, whether the ball is caught by the defense or not. The rule is designed to prevent the fielder from dropping the ball on purpose and going for a double play.
In last night’s game, the Gnats had runners on first and second, with no outs. The batter bunted the ball, but poorly — he bunted it into a soft popup to the third baseman who was charging in. The third baseman caught it. But the announcers (Cohen and Keith Hernandez) were saying maybe he should have let it fall, intentionally, to go for the double play. I thought — but shouldn’t the infield fly rule have been called to prevent that? And that’s when I learned it does not apply when the ball is bunted. Wow.
Then one of them said, maybe the third baseman couldn’t have done that, because he vacated his position at third to field the bunt. So a third-to-second DP could not have been executed. So they showed the replay to check. Amazingly — you could see the catcher racing from home to third to be able to take the throw there if the ball had been intentionally dropped to go for the DP. Again, wow. Apparently, however, the third baseman just didn’t think quickly enough or didn’t know the rule (hard to imagine).
Gary Cohen (left, below), asked Keith Hernandez, who was a brilliant first baseman in his day, if infielders were generally aware of that bunt rule. And Keith said, “You know, Gary, it’s been so long since I’ve played, I just don’t remember.” D’oh!
See you tomorrow!
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Small Hope
Those three delicious As in MALALA make her a natural as a puzzle answer, but who’d be crazy enough to center a puzzle around her full name: MALALA YOUSEFZAI? Robert Corridan would — today’s constructor. And on a Monday, no less. The clue was “Youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner,” and she was used for her “lala.” The theme was LA LA LAND, and the theme answers all sported lalas: RURAL ALABAMA, LA LAKERS, and VANILLA LATTE, along with Malala. The clue for RURAL ALABAMA was fun: “Setting for ‘My Cousin Vinny.’”
It inspired Rex to share an oldie with us, which happens to be the only single I ever bought when I was young. “La La Means I Love You,” by the Delphonics. I don’t associate it with any school girls I had a crush on — I just loved the song.
Listen to me!! La la la la la la la la la means I love you. Oh, you’ll have to understand now. La la la la la la la la la means I love you. Come on and take my hand.
Shakespeare!
Was there a not so subtle anti-South theme in the grid? In addition to RURAL ALABAMA, GWBUSH (a Texan) made an appearance, along with “Dummies” as the clue for IDIOTS. (I would have preferred “doofuses.”) Also, for the clue “What ‘muffin top’ and ‘spare tire’ are euphemisms for,” the answer was FLAB. Ouch! — that last one hits a little close to home. F*ck you Corridan! I don’t need to be fat-shamed in my daily puzzle!
This poem by Ted Kooser is called “Screech Owl.” I snared it off of his website.
All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness,
it calls out again and again.
That’s a picture of jellyfish that have washed up on Ayr beach in England, posted for the Dull Men’s Club (UK) by Andrew Torchy Appleby. I don’t know if “Torchy” is his middle name, or if he is an arsonist. He stated that he is 62, and has a son who is 32, who pokes them with a stick. He also said, they populate the beach “as far as the eye can see.”
Thomas McChristie shared: Happens around the same time every year… Jelly fish in the waters in the summer are a good thing, they eat plankton and help purify our waters. Between September and October they die off and you’ll find them washed up on our shores. They’re known as barrel jellyfish or to local fishermen as the blob.
Jen Jo says: JELLYFISH HAVE A NERVOUS SYSTEM. Sorry for shouting. Don’t care about poking them with a stick, but I care that people know they have nervous systems, so they can feel right down to the ends of their tentacles. If they didn’t, how would they know prey was caught in them?
[Apparently, it would be okay to poke these, since they are dead, so a little poke would be the least of their problems.]
Dave Fritzler, no doubt a comedian, asked where the peanut butter fish were.
Hey, here’s one!
You know those disgusting grey bin things at the airport you put your shoes, keys, phone, change, wallet, etc. into before going through that X-ray machine? Well, first of all, a study in 2018 showed that those bins carry more cold germs than airport toilets. Second, they were the subject of a front page article in the NYT today even though, clearly, it’s a story of such nonsense it’s far more appropriate for Owl Chatter.
It turns out people have started arranging their crap in the bins in an aesthetically pleasing manner and then photographing it and posting it on TikTok and other such sites. TSA is okay with it, as long as it doesn’t cause delays. Some folks wait to photograph their bins until after they’ve been zapped. The Times article cited this short video.
And here’s a nice one.
The puzzle today contained a P TRAP (letter-shaped plumbing piece), and IAMB (poetic foot). Here’s egs:
How do you catch a Pterodactyl? With a PTRAP!
After breaking several toes tripping over a volume of his sonnets, Shakespeare reportedly said “IAMB suffering from a poetic foot.”
Commenter Les S. More shared two stories today that were behind little doors the puzzle opened up for him. At 14A, the clue was “One assigned female at birth and identifying as such,” for CISWOMAN. And at 56A, the clue was “Fruit that’s a citrus, not a hybrid of a pomegranate and melon,” for POMELO. Here’s the post:
Reminds me of the days when I still worked downtown and took the train home and when I transferred from train to bus there was a person who was quite obviously in the process of gender transformation. There was always an empty seat beside her and she looked so sad. People would stand rather than sit by her. They were uncomfortable in her presence. I’d take the empty seat. We would chat about trivial stuff; the weather, that sort of lightweight stuff. Not her gender, not her decision to change (she probably got enough of that shit), not the fact that people were standing and holding onto straps, afraid to get near her, shunning her. She was very brave. I can’t forget her.
On a lighter note: POMELOs. On a trip to China in 2002, one of our travelling companions got a tip on how to access the old, unreconstructed part of the Great Wall and after a harrowing crossing of a high weir-like structure approximately 2 feet wide and 25 to 30 feet above a small river (my wife and I are both very nervous about being in high places but, at least, should we fall, she, unlike me, is a swimmer), we found ourselves hiking along this fantastic structure. We had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and some bread and cheese and the six of us stopped for lunch at a suitably scenic point where we were approached by a young woman (Kiwi or Aussie, I can’t remember and I’m shit with accents) with what looked like a bunch of grapefruits in a backpack. She peeled a few, distributed them, and when I said they didn’t really taste like grapefruit, she said they were, in fact, POMELOs, grapefruit ancestors. Perfect picnic.
Think I’ll pop downstairs for a snack. See you tomorrow!
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Avoiding Condiment Fraud
Today’s puzzle wasn’t very exciting, but it did have book titles in it, and one was “The Giving Tree.” Remember that one, mom and dad? The US Postal Service issued a stamp honoring it, and Shel Silverstein, the author.
There was a cartoon in the New Yorker (I think) that had the little boy looking up at the tree, just like in the book. It was called “The Re-Giving Tree,” and the tree tossed a gift box down to the boy and is saying “It’s a blender.”
I found it!
Farrah Fawcett was in the puzzle too. Here’s a shot of her that Andy Warhol took. She was only 62 when she died of cancer back in 2009.
In last Wednesday’s puzzle, for the clue “Part of a club,” I put down MEMBER, but it turned out to be TOMATO. The “club” was a club sandwich. D’oh! And Rex shared this unusual music video by Tierra Whack.
Miriam Webster’s “word of the day” today is LIMINAL. I don’t think I’ve ever used it. It describes an intermediate, or in-between, state — like those brief moments between sleep and wakefulness. It also describes something barely perceptible. The word comes from the noun “limen,” which refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced, a threshold. And, thus, “subliminal” means below a threshold: something inadequate to produce a sensation.
The root is also present in “eliminate,” “sublime,” and “preliminary.”
Right off the bat, the clue at 1A mystified me: “‘Here’s looking at you, kid’ or ‘You can’t handle the truth!,’ famously.” I wrote in LINES, but that seemed unworthy. I worked around it and it turned out to be AD LIB. Really? Jack Nicholson came up with that on his own? He did. So did DeNiro with “You talking to me?” in Taxi Driver, and Richard Castellano (Clemenza) with “Take the cannoli,” in The Godfather.
So get this: Simon Hammett of the DMC (UK) posted this: The Heinz people are so tired of restaurants and cafés refilling their bottles with non-Heinz ketchup to ‘fool customers’ that they’ve developed a label sticker where the outer border matches the exact colour of genuine Heinz ketchup. If it matches (left), it’s the real deal. If it doesn’t (right), it’s condiment fraud.
Condiment fraud!
Frazer Martin says: Heinz is crap anyway try Wilkin & Sons Ltd Tiptree and you will never go back!
But Lewis Main said it’s not a fair comparison because Wilkin & Sons costs so much more. It’s like saying buy a Porsche instead of a smart car.
Then it got a little testy. Martin said: Seriously dude what are you rabbiting on about ffs [which I take to mean “for fuck’s sake”].
And Main shot back: Don’t cry. I’m just saying you’re saying Heinz is crap go to this and it’s not a fair comparison.
Martin had the last word (as of now): “There’s only one person crying and that’s yourself. I don’t see how comparing spending £2 extra for a bottle of ketchup is the same as saying spending an extra £50.000 on a Porsche.”
[I cannot begin to express how deeply I love this club.]
The roughly 5 hours of football I watched today, like a beached whale, covered a sweet Jets victory, a crappy Giants loss, and an exciting KC win over Cincy. The internet was mum on whether Tay would be in attendance, but she showed, and was suitably elated at the win. She was dressed in a Chiefs t-shirty sort of dress and black thigh-high boots. Oh, wait — Phil just sent this in — you don’t need my description:
Lookin’ good, babe. Have fun in KC tonight. If Travis takes you out to one of those steak places, be very careful with the ketchup.
See you tomorrow!
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The Wellington Files 