The Wellington Files

  • Pickle?

    The puzzle today was by one of my favorite constructors: Natan Last. Readers with a young man’s memory may recall I did a bit on his “last” name a while ago. The more puzzles I do (I still consider myself a noob), the more I appreciate the ones that are fresh and wide-ranging. Here are three consecutive down clues/answers that hit us right away today at 2, 3, and 4 down. “Imbecile!” (YOU FOOL); Don (MOB BOSS); and Given name of the first Countess Mountbatten (EDWINA). How’s that for freshness and range?

    And there were so many other good ones sprinkled around the grid. Rex’s favorite was “Pitches low and inside?” That’s a brilliant example of a type of clue called a “misdirect.” It has you thinking baseball, but the answer is SUBWAY ADS. (Get it?)

    Distinguished guests to the grid include BAYARD RUSTIN (“Political activist who organized 1963’s March on Washington”), and Mercedes SOSA, icon of Argentine folk music. How classy is that? “Gertrude, for one” was the clue for DANE. It’s Hamlet’s mom!

    For YOU FOOL! (see above), Rex had the impeccable taste to share a tune by the exquisite McGarrigle sisters with us. These are the same babes whose beautiful song “Heart Like A Wheel” was featured at Welly’s and Wilma’s wedding! Please sit back for a few minutes and enjoy both of these songs (the latter with Linda Ronstadt).

    Some time after the wedding, I asked Wilma and Welly what led them to choose that song. It is, after all, a pretty sad song. They said they were touched by the refrain “It’s only love.” The wedding was in the woods in the Berkshires and was very beautiful. Many of our friends were in attendance. Lianna pushed Wilma up the aisle in her stroller. She was the most beautiful bride, and remains just as beautiful today if not more so, says Welly.

    From tomorrow’s Met Diary:

    Dear Diary:

    I was on an uptown #1 train coming home from my job at a SoHo restaurant.

    As I sat there with my backpack and big black headphones, a man sitting nearby took a jar of pickles out of a plastic shopping bag. He opened the jar, ate two or three pickles and then extended the jar to me.

    “Pickle?” he said.

    I thanked him but declined, gesturing to the meal in my own plastic bag I was bringing home from work.

    He shrugged and continued to eat pickles and sip the juice.

    ABOUT THE PICKLE FESTIVAL:
    Rosendale International Pickle Festival is held once a year, on the 3rd Sunday of October. We host over 100 vendors who sell pickles, groceries, hot food, baked goods, crafts, fashion, jewelry, and more. There’s a home pickling contest and the Pickle Triathlon offers a pickle eating contest, pickle juice drinking and a pickle toss. Up to 5,000 people visit the Pickle Festival every year. All proceeds are donated back into the Rosendale community.

    Ulster County Fairgrounds
    249 Libertyville Rd, New Paltz, NY 12561

    Here’s what the pickle eating contest looks like:

    Back to the puzzle, at 22A the clue was “Midday assignation,” and the answer was NOONER. I knoo it but it was noo to several others. It lead commenter Greg to note:

    “A NOONER is absolutely a thing. Probably goes back to when workmen would go home for lunch and have a quickie with the missus. Nowadays the word usually implies a lunchtime affair with a coworker or side piece.”

    Side piece! Now, that’s new to me.

    At 30A, the clue was “What shells can be filled with,” and the answer was CREW TEAMS.

    It led commenter “I. Scull” to post this irate note:

    CREW TEAM is redundant – the crew IS the team. You may use Crew. You may use Rowing Team. But not Crew Team. This error recurs in the New York Times puzzle, and there is no excuse for it. So there! [Hrrrrumph!]

    But Anony Mouse disagreed. He says “Crew is a specific sport” so CREW TEAM is not redundant.

    This pretty crew team is from South Jersey. Go get ’em girls!

    Headline in The Onion: Scientists Let Defrosted Neanderthal Run Around Shrieking Before Refreezing Him

    Neil Hancox of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes: I went to a well-known DIY store to buy some hinges. They didn’t have the right ones, which shocked me a little.

    Here are a couple of the 39 comments it inspired:

    Sandra Davies: So you became unhinged?

    Bernard Shaw: I’ll never forget where I was when I heard this news.

    Steve Craig: You should have got the left ones then, and just flipped them over.

    Richard Hobson: Hope you find closure.

    Tom Hamilton: Did they have candles? I need four.

    Lori Smith: Fork handles.

    Miguel Vanrail: You shouldn’t get so hung up on it mate.

    I wasn’t going to use any more material from the DMC (UK) today, but I can’t resist this quickie:

    Mark Timms posted (just a few hours ago): Bought some frozen roast potatoes and one looks like a chicken drumstick.

    There’s only one comment so far. Nicholas Crosby: You certainly know how to live life to the full.

    I’m going to close with a bit of personal history, unearthed by Natan Last’s puzzle. At 36D the clue was “Post-Trebek ‘Jeopardy!’ host,” and the answer was BIALIK. It’s Mayim BIALIK.

    It’s a great name. Mayim is the Hebrew word for water. And Bialik (Chaim) was a well-known poet, considered a pioneer of modern Hebrew poetry. He died in 1934. The Flatbush Jewish Center in Brooklyn established a Hebrew/English day school in 1946, called The Bialik School. My dad was one of the founders, and the school office was named in his honor after he died. It was the first school I attended, from kindergarten through second grade. I have very little memory of it, but I recall seeing the sign with my dad’s name on it over the school office. The Bialik School closed around 1990.

    Thanks for stopping in. See you tomorrow!

  • Let’s Go Mets!

    Things were looking bad for the Mets last night. Quintana was masterful on the mound, shutting out the Brewers through six innings, but the bats were moribund. It seemed like one of those games in which the first team to score would hold on with their strong bullpen and pull out the squeaker. Diaz was strong in the Mets pen and could go two innings. Milwaukee was even stronger: Devin Williams is essentially unhittable. And Milwaukee was showing more swagger. Their pitchers were roaring off the mound and making ape-like muscle poses heading towards their dugout. I was beginning to hate them.

    And when Quintana was removed after his brilliant six and Butto took the mound, my fears were realized. First, Jake Bauers homered, a Yankee discard. And then, oh no!, Sal Frelick followed with another one! Back-to-back daggers — we’d be going into the eighth down at least 2-0. Ouch!

    At this point the question arose: Is Sal Frelick Jewish? Needless to say, that would put an interesting spin on things: I’ve been rooting for Atlanta these last few years because of Max Fried. But an intensive search by Owl Chatter’s research division concludes that he is not. He is not listed among the Jewish ballplayers catalogued by Wikipedia, and he played for Italy in the last World Baseball Classic. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s Italian. (Duh.)

    So, where were we? Oh, yeah, the Mets game. At this point I fell asleep. I was tired from two hours of driving Lianna around earlier (not complaining: we cherish every moment with her), plus I’m too f*cking old to be staying up so late. So I missed Diaz coming in to quell the revolt in the seventh and keep things quiet in the eighth. The Mets went down 1-2-3 in their eighth. Oy. Now it’s the ninth, and still 2-0. Williams is on the mound. He’s scary good, but Lindor draws a walk. Hope stirs. But Vientos strikes out. Rats! Then, Nimmo somehow puts a solid bat on a pitch and drives it to right for a single, Lindor racing to third. The Mets are in business! Up next was Alonso, the Mets slugger. But he was having such a bad season and such a bad series. He just didn’t look like his old self — the one that hit over 50 homers one year. And then he did. Williams pitched, Alonso swung, and the ball carried to right — an opposite field shot, with just enough on it to make it over the fence cleanly. OMG — the Mets were suddenly up 3-2!

    Williams’ signature pitch is his “airbender” change-up. He threw it 176 times during the season and never gave up a home run with it. Until this one. As Hinch said yesterday: Isn’t baseball great?

    Along with Lindor’s homer on Monday, this was historic. A reporter referenced Alonso’s recent troubles after the game: were your struggles a factor as you approached the plate? And he explained he takes a “next pitch” approach. Block everything in the past out: focus solely on the next pitch. [Easy enough to say.]

    The Mets would still have to shut the Brewers out in their half of the ninth. But ex-Gnat and ex-Brewer Jesse Winker (“Wink”) gave us an insurance run. He was playing angry all week. After a big triple in Game 1 he jawed at shortstop Adames, who shouted right back. We later learned Adames actually went out to the parking lot after the game “to settle things.” But Winker did not attend the meeting.

    Anyway, after Alonso’s blast, Wink was plunked by a pitch and then stole second. A sweet single by darling Starling Marte sent Wink racing around third, and scoring safely ahead of the throw. He then slammed his helmet down on the plate in a furious celebration, breaking the helmet. We got the message fella — good job.

    Peterson, normally a starter, was called on to close. He’s a lefty and good, but he’s never pitched in relief before and the first batter — that goy Frelick again – singled to left center leading off the inning. Oy. After Ortiz struck out (yay) things were still a little dicey. Bryce Turang, who is very speedy and had been having a very good series was up. Even scarier, Chourio was on deck — the kid who hit two homers the night before. Peterson pitched. Turang swung and hit the ball sharply, but right to Lindor at short. Francisco took what seemed like a hundred steps, but reached second in time to step on the base and fire the ball to first for the game-ending double play.

    Sweet. Here’s Alonso, watching his historic shot clear the fence. The Phillies are up next. Tomorrow.

    Speaking of Petes, my Pete Rose autograph arrived. Gorgeous.

    The puzzle knocked me for a loop today. That’s okay. It happens on the odd Friday or Saturday. Of course, I could have done without Rex calling it not only “easy,” but “extremely easy.” Ouch. I missed on LANAI as “Onetime home of the world’s largest pineapple plantation,” forgot the last two letters of LGBTQIA, and, worst of all, had – – – LIANHERO for “Long lunch?” but just couldn’t see ITALIAN HERO. Ridiculous. Also whiffed on GEN Y for “Demo for many parents of Alphas.” (WTF?) Here’s Rex on GEN Y: ugh no one calls it that. Only crosswords call Millennials “GEN Y.” It goes Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and, I guess, Alphas (a default reset so we could start over at the beginning of the (Greek) alphabet??). But GENY? GENY? 

    At 43A “Once, for one,” was a very hard clue. You had to realize that “once” is Spanish for the number eleven. So once = a number, and in Spanish the word for number is NUMERO. (I just got that from the crosses.) Here’s a Tommy Tutone song about a number Rex shared and the owls wanted me to re-share because it references their special friend Newton Jenny (Hi Jelly!).

    At 5A, “Tablet that’s impossible to swallow?” was IPAD.

    But egs begged to differ: Check out this guy. Michel Lotito, known as ‘Monsieur Mangetout,’ was born on June 15, 1950, in Grenoble, France. He was famous for deliberately eating indigestible objects.

    Lotito began eating unusual material at age 9 and performed publicly beginning in 1966, around the age of 16. He had an eating disorder known as pica, which is characterized by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive. Doctors determined that he also had a thick lining in his stomach and intestines which allowed his consumption of sharp metal without suffering injury. Lotito also had digestive juices that were unusually powerful, meaning that he could digest the unusual materials. However, it also meant that soft foods, such as bananas and hard-boiled eggs, made him sick.

    Lotito’s performances involved the consumption of metal, glass, rubber and other materials. He disassembled, cut up, and consumed items such as bicycles, shopping carts, televisions, beds and a Cessna 150. It took him roughly two years, from 1978 to 1980, to eat the Cessna 150. He drank a lot of mineral oil and water to help things go down. Between 1959 and 1997, he ate around nine tons of metal. OK egs — we get it — he could swallow an IPAD.

    He was awarded a brass plaque by the Guinness Book of Records. He ate the award. [Not kidding.]

    Let’s finish up tonight with OC fave Larissa Liveir playing Johnny B. Goode. She’s from Brazil.

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads!

  • A Rolling Donut

    My dear friend and colleague Toshi taught an accounting course at Hunter for a few years that was supposed to have an ethics component. He has a doctorate in Accounting and was of the laughable, absurd opinion that ethics belongs more to the legal field. So, in exchange for taking me to lunch, he asked me to cover that session for him. I could better teach Yiddish than ethics (and I don’t speak Yiddish), but a free lunch is a free lunch, so there I was in front of the students. My theme was that everyone knows what the ethical thing to do is — the issue is, can you find the fortitude to do it? If I have access to the right equipment, I play Al Pacino’s Oscar-winning scene from Scent of a Woman as part of the class. The relevant lines for my presentation come when Pacino grows a little subdued and says:

    Now, I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was — without exception I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.

    In keeping with that thought, it’s Emily Post’s birthday today. She was born in Baltimore in 1873. You know, — the etiquette lady. This nice quote of hers was in The Writer’s Almanac today: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

    In the puzzle today at 6A the clue was “Animal cry that sounds like a Greek letter,” and the answer was MEW, the Greek letter being MU. And it is a diphthong, i.e., MU is pronounced ME-YOU.

    It prompted a commenter to share this great math joke: As opposed to Mu, the Greek letter Nu is not a diphthong (it’s pronounced NEW), letting people hilariously respond to the inquiry “What’s new?” with the rakish answer, “C over lambda.” [I know — hysterical, right?]

    (Explanation: the equation for converting between the frequency, nu, and the wavelength, lambda, of a wave traveling at the speed of light, which is “c,” is c = lambda times nu. So, dividing each side by lambda gives you Nu = c/lambda.)

    Even Al Pacino thought it was funny.

    Stuart Davidson of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes:

    Every thing I buy I do the maths to see how long I need to own and use the item to bring the cost down below £1 per month. £30 pair of jeans must last 30 months or more to be value for money.

    Our TV cost £389 on an Amazon deal 9 years 2 months ago. It’s cost me £3.53 per month to date. I need to continue using it for another 279 months or just over 23 years to be “value for money.”

    I am now developing a spreadsheet with all items in my house, date purchased and cost to show visually when an item can be replaced.

    Now obviously food, cleaning supplies other disposable items are not included. [Obviously.]

    I have another 5 days before I return to work. I should be able to complete this task before then.

    Jamie Lee chimed in:

    I always do cost effectiveness / value for money, but nowhere near this extent, and personally feel aiming for £1 a month is a bit low, especially due to inflation, and some items need a different scale altogether, such as a car or bike, hiking boots for instance are generally a lot more expensive than trainers, yet used less, but wear quicker per mile, as is the design, so items may need their own categories to correctly scale them, but I like it, and hope you get it all done in time.

    Neill Birch: Can’t wait to see the spreadsheet!

    Jonathan James Guscott: I truly am impressed by the abhorrently dull nature of this post. I take my rather dull tweed flat cap off to you (bought from M&S ( already below £1 per wear)).

    Pauline Fleming: Your poor wife!!

    Clem Williams: I’ve been noting date of purchase on some items for a while now – petrol and diesel in storage containers, elementary footwear (double pluggers in Australian terminology), shaving gel, and other aerosol products. Car servicing records need such data anyway, I don’t see anything odd about this practice. Besides, I’ve reached an age where I really don’t care what anybody thinks of what I do, they can all go take a running (&@$ at a rolling donut.

    You tell ’em Clem!!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Not In My House!

    How could anyone not love Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo? He was Congolese and came to the U.S. to play basketball at Georgetown before his Hall of Fame NBA career. He is recognized as one of the greatest defensive players and shot blockers of all time. He passed away on Monday from a brain tumor. He was only 58.

    Dikembe became a U.S. citizen in 2006. We could not begin to do justice to the scope and depth of his extraordinary humanitarian work. The Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital sits on a 12-acre site on the outskirts of Kinshasa. It’s named in honor of his mother. He provided $15 million of the $29 million needed to bring it into existence.

    Dikembe and his wife Rose lived in Atlanta. They had three children and adopted four more from Rose’s deceased brothers.

    A very good man. Rest in peace.

    The puzzle was pretty amazing today. Running down the center was ANIMAL CROSSING, clued by “Nintendo video game series.” And then every answer that crossed it (14) was a different animal. They included a TREE FROG (“Jungle peeper”), an ANTEATER, and a NEMATODE (“Worm found in every ecosystem on Earth, even the deepest oceans”).

    I also learned a new funny-sounding word: TEASEL. It’s a “spiny plant.”

    Kirk Daniels of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asked for ideas on how to stop a toddler from climbing the bannister:

    Rick Bedford: Adoption.

    Sean Turnbull, barbed wire.

    Sam Graves, goose fat

    Emma Devey, electric fence.

    Matthew Rose, Superglue

    Davis Fernsby:

    Matt Gilley: “Amputation worked with mine.”

    Claire Hutch: Sniper towers.

    Anita Bushnell Bartlett: tape

    Ever hear of this stuff? It was also recommended.

    Anti-climb paint is thick and oily in consistency, similar to petroleum jelly, designed to make walls, fences and other surfaces slippery and hard to climb. The anti climb paint will form a thin skin helping to prevent leaves and the like from sticking to it but because it is thixotropic any pressure applied to it will make it return to liquid making it difficult for an intruder to gain a hand or foot hold.

    Sh*t! I’ve got this crap all over my hands now. Phil!! Put the stupid camera down and get some towels!!

    That’s Jamie McGregor, CEO of McGregor Metal Company in Springfield, Ohio. Looks like a pretty big operation. The company employs 330. McGregor is a real mensch. We’ve got a spot for him in the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame.

    A few years ago he had trouble finding people to hire. So he drew on the Haitian community and has about 35 Haitians working for him now. He was interviewed by the NYT and PBS and praised his workers. He said they helped revitalize the town. “They come to work every day. They don’t cause drama. They’re on time. They are drug-free. I wish I had 30 more.”

    Jamie is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and voted for Trump twice. His family has been in Springfield for five generations. But none of that prevented the sh*t from hitting the fan. Big time.

    A flood of threats was directed at him, his family, and his business. They came by the hundreds — phone calls, emails and letters from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others.

    “The owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100 percent justified,” said one message. “Why are you importing Third World savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over U.S. citizens?” another asked. [OC note: Don’t most of us eat animals? Just sayin’.]

    McGregor’s children and his 80-year-old mother began receiving hateful calls. The FBI visited and said some of the threats were credible. They advised locking the lobby doors at McGregor Metal along with other safety protocols.

    Security experts also sat the family down. Vary your driving routes to work, school and other places, they advised. Don gloves and use tongs when handling and opening mail. Keep the blinds drawn at your house. They were also advised to install cameras, motion sensors and alarms, and start parking rear-first in the garage, keeping the car in drive until the door is all the way down. They acquired firearms. They picked up anti-climb paint. [No they didn’t.]

    “I can’t imagine living my whole life like this,” Ms. McGregor said. “You know, it’s got to end. It’s got to stop — hopefully after the election.’’

    McGregor said he will not be voting for Trump again.

    You see? — People can change their minds. Didn’t take much.

    Let’s end on a lighter note.

    The Tigers just swept their way into the next round of the playoffs! Woo-hoo! Manager A.J. Hinch was asked if it was particularly satisfying to beat Houston — for whom he managed before and who fired him after the sign-stealing scandal. You know the canned answer: “No, that wasn’t a factor at all; I’m just glad for the players that we won.” But that wasn’t what he said. His eyes lit up and he smiled. He said: “Isn’t baseball great?”

    See you tomorrow!

  • A Home Run for the Ages

    In the puzzle yesterday, at 49A the clue for BUFFALO BILL was “Football player in upstate NY.” It opened a can of worms. Here’s Rex:

    “No Buffalonian (I think that’s what they’re called?) (just kidding, folks), I say no resident of Buffalo would ever say they live in ‘upstate New York.’ That is some provincial NYC crap right there. I know, I know, anything north of 96th is ‘upstate’ to you all, but Buffalo is decidedly ‘western New York.’ It’s nowhere near, say, Poughkeepsie (also, don’t tell people from Poughkeepsie that they live ‘upstate,’ they hate it … well, my students from there hate it, anyway). I generally think ‘upstate’ is fine for most of non-NYC New York (including where I live, which is technically Central New York, or, more specifically, the Southern Tier), but Buffalo really is an entirely different ecosystem. It’s the heart of western New York. Just ask any Buffaloer (I think that’s what they’re called).”

    First of all, commenters chimed in noting that folks from Buffalo are indeed called Buffalonians. The Urban Dictionary agrees. Several also took the position that all parts of the state, no matter how distant from NYC, constitute “upstate.” They maintained that breaking “western NY” off from “upstate” is a johnny-come-lately maneuver. Excuse me, personeuver.

    According to Wikipedia, “Upstate New York is a geographic region of NY that lies north and northwest of the NYC metropolitan area. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley region, Central NY, the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes region, Western NY, and the North Country. Major cities across upstate NY from east to west include Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.”

    We’ll also check with Owl Chatter friend Riverdale Joe on the matter and report back to you.

    Here’s a Tiny Love Story by Julianne Reid from yesterday’s NYT.

    Until the spring of sixth grade, my daily routine included brushing my teeth and reminding my disabled younger sister that she and her all-consuming disease ruined my life: my parents’ limited attention, the missed trips, the way others stared. Then one day, the seizures wouldn’t stop and Olivia went into a coma. On nights in the I.C.U., I tried but couldn’t remember the last time I told her I loved her. Weeks passed until, one day, she woke up. And I had a second chance. I wonder how many sisters out there are given that. 

    The first Mets game yesterday was historic. It was game one of a doubleheader and the Mets had to win at least one to make it into the playoffs. But the Atlanta pitcher, a mouthful — Spencer Schwellenbach, whose name barely fit on his jersey, stymied them for 7 innings and it was 3-0 Braves going into the 8th. But suddenly the dead woke up and rallied for six big runs — amazing! They were up 6-3!

    They called on their closer, Edwin Diaz, to shut the Braves down for the last two innings, so that should be that. But the roller coaster took another deep dive. Inexplicably, Diaz forgot to cover first on a grounder to the right side and the Braves were in business. Visibly rattled, Diaz yielded hit after hit until the lead was gone. The Mets limped into the ninth shocked and demoralized and down by a run.

    The first batter flew out weakly to left. But Starling Marte hit a sharp grounder past the shortstop for a single. Gary Cohen remarked that it was Atlanta’s back-up shortstop, but Keith Hernandez said it would have been a hit no matter who was playing short. It was key because Francisco Lindor came up next and lofted a ball to deep right. It didn’t seem all that powerful a shot but you could watch the fielders drifting back, and then the ball sailed over the fence. With Marte on first, it was good for two runs and the Mets got the lead back.

    With Diaz having imploded in the 8th, the Mets had another reliever, Stanek, warm. But they kept Diaz in. They later showed Diaz in the dugout after his bad inning. He was devastated. Nearly in tears. But once they got the lead back, he was determined to finish the job. He was raving that he was going back out on the mound no matter what anyone said. He was right. Mendoza left him in. He had regained his composure and finished up nicely.

    Lindor’s HR earned him an indelible place in Mets history, no question.

    Taylor showed up in the puzzle today. At 62A, the clue was “Word repeated four times in the chorus of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off.’” C’mon Swifties — that’s a gimme, right? It’s HATE. But doesn’t the word appear 5 times in the song? Is the clue wrong? Not at all — the clue says it’s “repeated” 4 times, not that it’s “said” 4 times. So calm down everybody.

    Well, we don’t have Pete Rose to kick around anymore. He died yesterday at the age of 83. Was there ever a more controversial ballplayer? In Bruce Weber’s obit in the NYT, he writes: “Had Shakespeare written about baseball, he might well have seized on the case of Rose.”

    Rose finished with 4,256 hits — the most ever in baseball history. His 4,192nd put him past Ty Cobb. (It was off of Eric Show of the Padres, if you’re a trivia buff. And did you know Cobb’s total was later reduced to 4,189?) He also got on base more often (5,929 times), played in more big-league games (3,852) and came to bat more times (15,890) than anyone else. DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak is unsurpassed, of course, but Rose’s 44-game streak is the second-longest.

    Rose came out of the womb ready to stroke a single to right. Get this — he was born on April 14, 1941 — Opening Day of the 1941 season. 

    As a rookie, Rose didn’t kowtow to the older players as was the custom back then. It rubbed people the wrong way and he was not liked by his teammates. Except for the Blacks — they knew what it meant to be shunned and took him in. Rose had many negative qualities — he was a terrible husband, and his gambling addiction led to his downfall. But he was never a racist. He felt there was nothing dumber than to care about what color a person is — what the hell difference does that make?

    Despite his place in baseball history, his autograph is not very valuable because he signed often to make money at autograph shows. But I do have a ball signed by him, and I just picked up a nice item on eBay to honor his memory. It only cost $20. I’ll share it with you when it comes in.

    Rest in peace, Rose.

    See you tomorrow.

  • The Hard Knuckle of the Year

    On gloomy days like today, we take it upon ourselves at Owl Chatter to bring sunshine into your lives. Here’s a Tiny Love Story by Christine Chernikoff from today’s NYT:

    She twirls the rings on my fingers as we snuggle in bed. Newly 4 and full of questions, my daughter seeks to know the world. “Mommy, why do you wear these rings?” We move effortlessly through her birthstone, my engagement and wedding rings. But how to explain the other three gold bands? Each is a marker of a pregnancy lost, embryos that didn’t grow. These are the siblings I dreamed for you, the babies I longed to hold. Someday we’ll grapple with loss, but today, I share a simple truth: These rings, my darling girl, they are all about love.

    This poem by Barbara Crooker is called “Ordinary Life.” It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    This was a day when nothing happened,
    the children went off to school
    without a murmur, remembering
    their books, lunches, gloves.
    All morning, the baby and I built block stacks
    in the squares of light on the floor.
    And lunch blended into naptime,
    I cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
    one of those jobs that never gets done,
    then sat in a circle of sunlight
    and drank ginger tea,
    watched the birds at the feeder
    jostle over lunch’s little scraps.
    A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
    preened and flashed his jeweled head.
    Now a chicken roasts in the pan,
    and the children return,
    the murmur of their stories dappling the air.
    I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
    We listen together for your wheels on the drive.
    Grace before bread.
    And at the table, actual conversation,
    no bickering or pokes.
    And then, the drift into homework.
    The baby goes to his cars, drives them
    along the sofa’s ridges and hills.
    Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
    tasting of coffee and cream.
    The chicken’s diminished to skin & skeleton,
    the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
    but this has been a day of grace
    in the dead of winter,
    the hard knuckle of the year,
    a day that unwrapped itself
    like an unexpected gift,
    and the stars turn on,
    order themselves
    into the winter night.

    Have you heard of, or tasted, Marmite? Me neither. It’s British: a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavor and heady aroma. The distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: “Love it or hate it.” Such is its prominence in British popular culture that Marmite is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or polarizes opinion.

    It came up because Steve Craig of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted: “Just tried beans on toast but with Marmite instead of butter.” He called it a “game changer.”

    Here’s Steve. (Looks a little like Adam Schiff, no?)

    Well, you can imagine the commotion Steve’s post caused in the Club. Well over 100 comments. Tim Davis started things off with “I’d still have butter — and grated cheese too,” and Alex Bostock concurred: “Who doesn’t put cheese on beans?”

    Vernon Maldoom went off on a bit of a tangent with: “I think we are witnessing the demise of personal pronouns.”

    But Gareth Llewellyn Armstrong wrote: “Nonsense. The start of this sentence has been accepted English for decades – especially in informal journal-style sentences. What’s the point of using the pronoun here when it’s obvious who is talking?”

    Maldoom was having none of it: “Your proposal is clunky, clumsy and lazy.”

    Ouch!

    Sunday Simmons agreed with Gareth: “No, this is a completely acceptable sentence when used informally.”

    Getting back to the matter at hand, Adrian Scott suggested adding a couple of fried eggs. [OC note: We’ve noticed fried eggs getting added to sandwiches and burgers lately. On a hot dog once, even. We’re in favor of it!]

    It brought up a painful memory for Jess CB who posted: “And to think I had my post deleted when I used normal Bisto [gravy] for a chicken-based meal. You’re walking a thin line there Marmite Boy.”

    [Marmite Boy!]

    Andrew Turner, clearly not a fan, wrote: “It might be game-changing, but it’s changing the game to something terrible like monopoly.”

    I’m going to let Carlo DeCianti have the last word: “What kind of lunatic doesn’t put butter on his toast?”

    In the puzzle today, 1A started us off wonderfully. The clue was “Establishment where you might eat a muffin while petting a ragamuffin,” and the answer was CAT CAFE. The Ragamuffin is a breed of cat notable for a friendly personality and thick fur. Ragamuffin kittens are usually born white and develop a color pattern as they mature. Every color and pattern is allowable, with or without white.

    SALADS was clued by letting us know McDonalds stopped offering them in 2020. The puzzle was otherwise not very noteworthy, except that our style and culture consultant, Ana, sent this very nice shot in for our Dirty Old Man Dept to address 125A: NYLONS. Thanks, Babe! You’re too much!

    Taylor passed up the Chiefs game this week. At halftime, the Jim-Harbaugh-led Chargers were up 10-7. Travis has been active, catching 5 of 6 passes thrown his way, for 74 yards. The Jets suffered an excruciating last-minute loss. Oy, don’t ask. Too painful.

    See you tomorrow, kids.

  • Horchata

    Tarik Skubal is not the name of a spicy Moroccan stew, at least not that I’m aware of. He’s a pitcher for Detroit and pretty much the only Tiger I’ve heard of — I haven’t been following them — my bad. Skubal is a leading candidate for this year’s AL Cy Young award. His record is 18-4 with an ERA of 2.39 and he struck out 228 batters in 192 innings. He will be opening for Detroit in the playoffs on Tuesday — either in Baltimore or Houston.

    When the MLB trading deadline approaches in July, teams have to decide if they are buyers or sellers. If you believe you have a good chance to make the playoffs, you try to acquire good established players to help, and you grudgingly trade away prospects to get them. If you have abandoned all hope of making the playoffs, you toss your better players overboard (what the hell good were they?) and pick up some hot prospects. The Gnats, for example, are well-stocked with young phenoms, after going through several hopeless (but fun) seasons. This year, Detroit was a seller. That is, at the trading deadline they were under .500 and looking to the future. They dumped a few of their established players. And then something happened. They started winning games and kept on winning games until, yesterday, they improbably clinched a playoff spot. Wow. First time in ten years. As it happens, they clinched by beating the White Sox. And it was the 121st loss for Chicago — thus breaking the single-season loss record held since 1962 by the Mets.

    Here’s Tarik. Is that a real baseball? It looks so tiny.

    Tarik has three brothers named Treyvor, Tyler, and Trent. He went to the University of Seattle. Here’s his pretty wife, Jessica — she has a Masters degree in Taxation and works as a tax accountant. They were high school sweethearts and have one dependent, their son Kasen Tyler Skubal. He’s turning one in October.

    This poem is by David Citino and is called “Hair.” It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    One by one the children,
    large cartoon eyes shining,
    push away from the table,
    rise and walk away from us
    into their rooms. Doors slam
    hard. Loud music, the bass
    throbbing deep in our teeth,
    dark rooms of the heart.
    Oooo Baby … Oooo Baby …
    Years pass, time enough
    for something grand,
    something terrible to happen.
    When they come out, our sons
    have wild, unearthly voices.
    Our daughter has budded, mastered
    the art of embarrassment.
    She won’t look us in the eye.
    Oh, Daddy, she says, corners
    of her mouth turning down,
    Oh, Daddy. And everywhere
    there is hair. Such hair.

    Well, the puzzle today gave me a good workout, appropriate for a Saturday. How hard? Well at 26A the clue was “Drink made with rice milk and cinnamon.” 8 letters. When the crossing answers gave me HORCHATA, I figured something had to be wrong. But it’s HORCHATA. D’oh!

    28D was no picnic either. (What’s the opposite of a picnic? I think the opposite of a picnic is also a picnic — it’s just a different picnic.) The clue was “First name for the third second-in-command.” WTF? Translation: I needed to know who the third Vice President (like, of the U.S.) was, and I had to know his first name. Turned out to be Burr — AARON Burr. That’s a Saturday clue alright. On a Monday we’d have gotten “Slugger Hank.”

    A member of the American Nitpickers Assn & League (ANAL) posted the following:

    The Vice President of the United States is not second in command. She has no command authority; the Constitution gives her no command authority. None. Zero. As Vice President, she is: first in line of succession to the presidency; and President of the Senate with authority to cast a deciding vote in case of a tie. That’s it. There is nothing else. Any “authority” the president may personally and contingently give to her is political and not bound by any law and is not in anyway inherent in her office as Vice President.

    At the end of his post he added: “I should know,” and I noticed he posted under the name “Henry Wilson.” That was a sly joke. Henry Wilson was the VP from 1873 until his death in 1875. (U.S. Grant was Prez at the time.) (Bit o’ trivia: seven VPs have died in office.)

    I’m turning 24A over to our math department. Judy — this make any sense to you? — “Variable in Euler’s polyhedron formula (V − E + F = 2).” (From the crosses, it turned out to be EDGES. (Of course! How could I not see that immediately? “Polyhedron” was the giveaway.))

    It was nice to see that Detroit made it into a clue, given the Tigers’ clinching a playoff spot (see above). It was at 16A: “Military leader who helped capture Detroit in 1812.” The answer: TECUMSEH.

    Son Volt shared this very pretty but sad song by Townes Van Zandt with us, called “Tecumseh Valley.” It opens and closes with:

    The name she gave was Caroline
    The daughter of a miner
    And her ways were free
    And it seemed to me
    The sunshine walked beside her.

    At 44D, “Brand of vegetable oil” was WESSON, and at 50D, “One of the Seven Sisters” was SMITH. Smith & Wesson? Coincidence? Hmmmmm.

    At 11D, “Intercessor for the frequently forgetful” was STANTHONY. Several commenters thought stanthony was just some fakakte word like horchata. But it’s just St. Anthony. (Rex was miffed there was no “abbr” indicator in the clue, since ST is an abbreviation. He thinks on Saturdays they just throw “basic decorum” like that out the window.)

    Best clue ever (at 33A) for MOE: “Tucker who played drums for the Velvet Underground.” Moe (Maureen) is in the Rock and Roll HOF as a member of the VU and was one of the few female drummers of her era. She played standing up and used mallets instead of drumsticks. Critic Robert Christgau said of her: “Mo was a great drummer in a minimalist, limited, autodidactic way that I think changed musical history. She is where the punk notion of how the beat works begins.”

    Moe just turned 80, was born in Queens, and lives in Georgia. She has five kids. Her politics are pretty extreme-right. On the Tea Party website she posted that she believed Obama’s plan was to destroy the U.S. from within.

    Whew. Thank goodness he was stopped!

    Special thanks to Chatter-friend Chris whose magic guitar fingers entertained us with the East Branch Revival Band at the Mohican Outdoor Center’s Fall Festival today.

    You just drive up the road a bit after passing this sign. The trees are barely a teensy bit starting to think about their fall colors.

    Thanks for popping in. See you tomorrow!

  • Three Simchas

    Sometimes a reputable news source like The Onion hits a matter of grave national importance so squarely on the head that we feel compelled to lead off our Owl Chatter post with it. Clearly, this is not one of those times. Here are two of today’s Onion headlines:

    Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult

    Trump Forced To Play Glockenspiel At Rally After Every Artist Bars Use Of Songs

    This short item was in the NYT today.

    As part of the annual festival Jivitputrika Vrat, celebrated mostly in northern India and some parts of Nepal, women fast for 24 hours and offer special prayers for the long life and good health of their children. Mothers travel to rivers and ponds to bathe, sometimes accompanied by their children.

    Across northern India during the festival, the authorities typically deploy police and divers to monitor devotees as they go into the water. Deadly stampedes during religious festivals are common in India, but widespread drownings are not. It was unclear on Thursday what safety measures were taken in Bihar.

    At least 46 people drowned in Bihar as millions of Hindu devotees celebrated the three-day festival for the well-being of children, officials said on Thursday. Thirty-seven of those who died were children.

    C’mon guys — Seriously?

    The Times also reported on an interview Fox News conducted with Trump’s wife Melatonin, in connection with the upcoming publication of her memoir “Melanie.” When asked how she felt about Trump’s running for office again, Magnolia made it clear she supported him. On the topic of the recent assassination attempts, Magnetite shared her husband’s view that hateful rhetoric spewed by the Democrats played a role. When the search the FBI conducted of her home came up, Mifepristone’s personal side came out:

    “I saw unpleasant stuff that nobody wants to see it. And you get angry because, you know, nobody should be putting up with that kind of stuff. Some person — I don’t even know who or how many people — they, you know, they went through my stuff.”

    Yup. Can’t be fun. Still lookin’ good, though, Babe.

    At 9D today, the puzzle refers to EGO death, a concept associated with LSD trips. Rex made it his “word of the day” and included the following: “In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one’s sense of self due to the use of drugs. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a ‘complete transcendence’ of the self occurs.”

    It led to this exchange between two commenters:

    First, Anony Mouse wrote:

    I’m not comfortable with the NYT puzzles constantly normalizing the use of LSD. You wanna go trip on acid, enjoy. But it feels like the Times is trying to normalize its use. I’ve had more than one person in my life ruin their life from continued use. It is generally illegal, and wisely so, although there is some medical research being done to use it to treat certain psychological conditions. But it’s extremely dangerous unregulated stuff that shouldn’t be normalized in something as accessible as a puzzle. IMO, of course.

    Commenter Kenny replied:

    Your moralizing is out of place. I am a recovering alcoholic who has had life changing experiences using LSD, and am among the many people who have been helped by its effects on negative thought processes. Alcohol, on the other hand, nearly ruined my life (and here again I’m far from alone) by leading me into deep debt and deep depression, but is cheerfully promoted by puzzles on a near daily basis.

    Commenter Nancy lamented that she is simply unable to remember how ATTILA is spelled, no matter how many times he pops into the puzzle. She asked us to come up with a mnemonic for her. I couldn’t, but I wrote this short recollection, which I love:

    On tricks to remember things — My wife and I (both in our 70s) were driving our granddaughter Lianna (14) to her first day of 8th grade. I asked her who her homeroom teacher was. She said “Mrs. Mackey.” I said, “Okay, to remember that, you can think of a Mack truck.” And my wife added “and then a key, like to unlock a door.” And Lianna looked at us funny and said “Why don’t I just remember Mackey?” Oh, to be young.

    Rex has had three major simchas (joys) in his life just this week: His daughter’s 24th birthday; the 18th anniversary of his blog; and he and his wife’s wedding anniversary which he announced as follows:  Happy [counts on fingers … runs out of fingers … twice] 21st anniversary to my beautiful wife, Penelope, without whom … well, I don’t like to think about it. It’s not pretty. Love you, honey.

    It moved me to share two of my favorite marital tips with the gang. I posted the following:

    Happy Anniversary RP!

    My wife and I celebrated our 40th in June. When we were getting married we read an article that said that what causes problems for couples are decisions. Disagreements over decisions can be very stressful. So we agreed early on that I’d be in charge of all the major, important decisions, and my wife would make all the smaller, minor ones. For example, she decides minor issues like where should we live? what schools should the kids go to? And I’m in charge of important matters like should we invade Iraq? Should we cut the defense budget? It’s worked out well for us.

    We also agreed early on that no matter how stressful our lives became — with work, with the kids, etc. — no matter what — we would go out once a week for a romantic, candlelight dinner. It’s been great — she goes on Tuesdays and I go on Fridays.

    It was very well received — four nice notes, thanking me for the laughs.

    Hey — almost forgot — Scarlett Johansson popped in (for her role in HER). It’s her first visit to Owl Chatter and, we hope, not her last. Don’t be a stranger, S! We’re running low with Georgie gone for so long, but I think I can still dig up a cold Fresca for you. Sit down — take a load off.

    See you tomorrow!

  • 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!

  • 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.