The Wellington Files

  • The Perfect Ponytail

    There were runners on first and third for Detroit last night against Philly and nobody was out. The batter swung, and the ball broke his bat and looped its way back to the pitcher, Aaron Nola, who caught it on a fly. The runner on first had taken off for second on the swing and could not get back in time to avoid getting doubled off. Meanwhile, the runner on third had no idea what the hell was going on and ran home. Harper at first softly tossed the ball over to Bohm at third to nail that runner too. A triple play. Three outs on one play. They are pretty rare in general, but this form of triple play is especially rare. A “1-3-5 triple play:” pitcher to first to third. How rare? It had not happened in a major league game since July 11, 1929.

    Now comes the part that I love: a little history. It was the first triple play of the season. It was the first triple play by the Phillies since 2017: a left-fielder, to second, to first triple play. And it was the first triple play by the Phillies involving a pitcher since Aug. 15, 1964. The shortstop in the middle of that play was Ruben Amaro. And his son, Ruben Amaro Jr., was in the ballpark last night broadcasting the game for NBC. Wow.

    Take a look.

    Sticking with baseball for a moment, I was watching Cleveland playing in Baltimore last night (on TV) and thus got to see this outstanding catch by a fan. Apparently seeking solitude, he was sitting all by himself way over in the upper deck, right-field stands. The batter hit a towering foul ball in his direction. With his phone and a drink in his left hand, he reached over with his right and caught the ball bare-handed. Then he soaked up the accolades.

    How fitting that today’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac, by John Updike is called “Baseball.”

    It looks easy from a distance,
    easy and lazy, even,
    until you stand up to the plate
    and see the fastball sailing inside,
    an inch from your chin,
    or circle in the outfield
    straining to get a bead
    on a small black dot
    a city block or more high,
    a dark star that could fall
    on your head like a leaden meteor.

    The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
    between your feet and overeager glove:
    football can be learned,
    and basketball finessed, but
    there is no hiding from baseball
    the fact that some are chosen
    and some are not—those whose mitts
    feel too left-handed,
    who are scared at third base
    of the pulled line drive,
    and at first base are scared
    of the shortstop’s wild throw
    that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

    There is nowhere to hide when the ball’s
    spotlight swivels your way,
    and the chatter around you falls still,
    and the mothers on the sidelines,
    your own among them, hold their breaths,
    and you whiff on a terrible pitch
    or in the infield achieve
    something with the ball so
    ridiculous you blush for years.
    It’s easy to do. Baseball was
    invented in America, where beneath
    the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
    of failure is everybody’s right,
    beginning with baseball.

    Our wonderful college friend Pennsylvania Nancy (nee Delaware Nancy) has long-time friends we met long ago named Wendy and Simon. And they have a son Seth. I mention this because today’s NYTXW is co-constructed by Seth, along with Crossworld heavy-hitter Jeff Chen. Kudos Seth!!

    One of the theme answers is TENNIS BRACELET (“Piece of jewelry consisting of a single line of diamonds”), and I’ll use it to explain the puzzle’s theme.

    The central across answer is TWENTY ONE, meaning the card game, also known as Blackjack. To achieve 21, you need a ten, jack, queen, or king, plus an ace. So Seth and Jeff have the four theme answers getting to 21. TENnis brACElet. (See?) The others are QUEEN anne’s lACE, rACEr JACKet, and sucKING fACE (“Sloppily making out, in slang”). Pretty clever, IMO.

    BTW, veteran Rex commenter Nancy shared this: “The term ‘tennis bracelet’ dates back to the 1987 U.S. Open when Chris Evert’s diamond bracelet fell off her wrist onto the court. The match paused while she searched for and retrieved the bracelet.”

    You can see it on her arm in this shot.

    On the non-theme fill, 50A threw many of us. The clue was “Provide, as with an ability,” and the answer was ENDUE. It was a new word for me. “Endow” is the more common form. Rex had a guest blogger today, so we don’t have his take on the puzzle. Seth may have dodged a bullet, but you never know. I think ENDUE might have set him off.

    A commenter shared this from Genesis: “And Leah said, God hath endued me with a good dowry; now will my husband dwell with me, because I have born him six sons: and she called his name Zebulun.” Zeb, for short, no doubt.

    Hey Nance! — Does Seth have a cat? The clue at 37D was “Tin in a cat owner’s pantry,” and the answer was TUNA CAN. (Meow.)

    That RACER JACKET, btw, was clued with “Sleek leather outerwear.” My tax student Yvette was kind enough to model hers for us. (Phil! Just walk away now — leave the students alone!! No! — don’t help her with anything!)

    This beautiful post is by Nico Laevers of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), accompanied by the photo, below.

    When my then pregnant wife told me we were having a daughter, I feared the day I would be given the task of doing her hair. In my dull mind, this seemed a dreadful task, one which I surely was destined to fail at miserably. However I have made it my personal mission to create the perfect ponytail. It’s not an easy mission for me I must admit. Even to this day it baffles me, the ease with which my wife flings our little girl’s long brown hair into a ponytail, even incorporating a few braids in the process. I think I’m managing quite good though, as when I dropped her off at school the other day, her teacher said to her: “Wooow your hair is looking so pretty, did your mommy do your hair so beautifully?” The pride I felt at that moment, knowing I was the one who did her hair, cannot be described in words. It made me feel like an accomplished father.

    She will turn three years old tomorrow, our little girl. Now I absolutely fear the day she will no longer require or want me to do her hair and tell me: “I’m a big girl now daddy, I can do it myself!” But until that day comes, I will strive for that perfect pony tail.

    It must have hit a nerve (in a good way), because there were 449 comments, including this one by Teddy Eli:

    I’m 27. I promise you, she’ll always want you to do her hair. 😊 Maybe not in them teen years, but we definitely get nice again around 25.

    Alex Lawrence noted: I mean, I want to give you props for the attempt. But there’s a lot of scraggly hair on top. LOL

    With all the grumpiness around, it’s good to read something like this. It’s by Les S. More, a commenter on Rex’s blog.

    It’s a beautiful sunny morning and I did this one while sitting in my favourite crosswording place, on a bench under a group of spruce trees. The birds were crazy active and noisy and that reminded me that I’ve always wanted to download the Merlin app and identify who’s who in this wonderfully unscripted songfest. So I did. It’s mostly sparrows, robins, chickadees with the occasional towhee. Just as I got the app up and running it picked up a fairly loud croaking from the sky above me and identified it as a Great Blue Heron which soon materialized in the blue sky to the north. What a fantastic sight! What a great way to start the day.

    Thanks for stopping in. See you tomorrow!

  • Newt & Cucumber

    Estonia is popular in Crossworld since 4 of its 7 letters are vowels. Still, it is noteworthy that it appeared in three separate NYT puzzles last week. Here they are:

    WEDNESDAY: What’s opposite Finland on the Gulf of Finland.
    SATURDAY: First country to hold elections using internet voting.
    SUNDAY: Country that had a nonviolent “singing revolution” in the late 1980s.

    Interesting clues, especially that last one. The Estonian Singing Revolution lasted over four years, with various protests and acts of defiance, leading eventually to independence. Take a listen for 2 minutes to what it must have felt like.

    And some of you will appreciate this brilliant (IMO) comment on Rex’s blog yesterday:

    ESTONIA when you try to be so good
    ESTONIA just like they said they would

    At 31A today, “Lively get-togethers” was SHINDIGS. Put that together with yesterday’s GREAVES (shin-protecting armor), and you get egs’s quip: I always wear GREAVES to avoid painful SHINDIGS.

    This poem, from Today’s Writer’s Almanac, is called “On the Death of a Colleague,” and it’s by Steve Dunn.

    She taught theater, so we gathered
    in the theater.
    We praised her voice, her knowledge,
    how good she was
    with Godot and just four months later
    with Gigi.
    She was fifty. The problem in the liver.
    Each of us recalled
    an incident in which she’d been kind
    or witty.
    I told about being unable to speak
    from my diaphragm
    and how she made me lie down, placed her hand
    where the failure was
    and showed me how to breathe.
    But afterwards
    I only could do it when I lay down
    and that became a joke
    between us, and I told it as my offering
    to the audience.
    I was on stage and I heard myself
    wishing to be impressive.
    Someone else spoke of her cats
    and no one spoke
    of her face or the last few parties.
    The fact was
    I had avoided her for months.

    It was a student’s turn to speak, a sophomore,
    one of her actors.
    She was a drunk, he said, often came to class
    reeking.
    Sometimes he couldn’t look at her, the blotches,
    the awful puffiness.
    And yet she was a great teacher,
    he loved her,
    but thought someone should say
    what everyone knew
    because she didn’t die by accident.

    Everyone was crying. Everyone was crying and it
    was almost over now.
    The remaining speaker, an historian, said he’d cut
    his speech short.
    And the Chairman stood up as if by habit,
    said something about loss
    and thanked us for coming. None of us moved
    except some students
    to the student who’d spoken, and then others
    moved to him, across dividers,
    down aisles, to his side of the stage.

    For those of you worried about Travis and Tay not getting enough time together these days — relax. They hung out in the puzzle today. TRAVIS appeared as himself at 28A: “Three-time Super Bowl winner Kelce.” And Tay was in the clue for ERAS at 44A: “The ___ Tour (Taylor Swift concert series).” Always good to see you, kids. Eight shows in London — don’t you ever run out of gas, TS?

    Ever hear of The Beths? Me neither. But Rex shared this song of theirs since KNEEPAD appeared in the puzzle and it’s called “Knees Deep.” I’m glad he did. Good tune; neat video.

    Liam Bancroft, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), really stepped into it today when he posted: “What’s the most obscure animals found in pub names? Can’t say I’ve ever seen “Monkey” before today.”

    I won’t bore you with all 282 responses. I’ll bore you with far fewer. Cow & Telescope; The Moor Cock Inn; The Ferret and Radiator (in Dawlish); Slug & Lettuce; The Rat and Pigeon; Drunken Duck; Butterfly & Pig; The Honest Lawyer (wait, what?); Phoenix & Firkin; Newt & Cucumber; Frog & Nightgown;  The Fox and Gynaecologist; The Rampant Badger; Three Pilchers. Enough? Enough. (Pilcher is not an animal, as far as I can tell, but it sounds like one.) And there were quite a few monkeys. This place looks posh.

    Two downers in the puzzle today, albeit both in across clues. “Politico Marco” was RUBIO. Yuck. And “Vehicle in a funeral procession” was HEARSE. Thanks for the reminder! Commenter Gary shared this with us:

    “Three HEARSE related items: Don’t know if this made the national news, but until a month ago, Colorado’s funeral industry was was completely unregulated and one place had 200 dead people rotting inside a house. Another guy left a dead woman in a hearse behind his rental house for two years. So now the state has decided we oughta have some rules, duh. And finally, to this day, I still wish my car was an old hearse (not a cool Harold and Maude hearse, but a plain ole regular one), but my wife does not have the same sense of humor as I do. She also said I couldn’t ask for a gold tooth when I got my front implant. Boring.”

    How’s this for your hearse? Sorry, a hearse.

    Starting to look forward to our Saratoga Springs & Middlebury VT trip on Weds. Hope our favorite coffee/bagel place (Uncommon Grounds) has day-old bagels for me. Also looking to load up on Otter Creek and Fiddlehead ales. Good stuff!

    (Burp!) See you tomorrow!

  • The Holy Birds at the Kitchen Window

    It was one of the great ironies in my little world that the host of WNYC’s Morning Show was Steve Post, alav hashalom. He was the quintessential “not a morning person.” If you made the mistake of wishing him “good morning,” he would bite your head off. “The world is falling part. We had Nixon in it. I had to get out of bed at 5 am to get here. What the hell is good about it!!??” A woman who was a guest on the show once automatically said “Good morning,” realized her mistake immediately, and quickly said: “Oh, no! I’m sorry.” Post chuckled.

    He was so closely associated with crabbiness that he ran a “crabbiest New Yorker” contest from time to time. Listeners would send in stories nominating crabby people they knew and a winner was selected. Of course, we all knew it was a contest for second place, because he was clearly the crabbiest.

    He was acerbically funny. After playing something by Mozart once, he said: “As you know, Mozart was very precocious. He composed that piece as he was being born.” He had to be off the air for a long stretch to fight the stomach cancer that later killed him, and before he came back the promos he ran for his return said “This is Steve Post. Forgotten but not gone.”

    Anyway. All of that is just to explain why I am dedicating this paean to morning joy to him. It’s by Anne Sexton and it’s called “Welcome Morning.” It’s from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. (Just kidding, Post. We miss you! Go back to sleep.)

    There is joy
    in all:
    in the hair I brush each morning,
    in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
    that I rub my body with each morning,
    in the chapel of eggs I cook
    each morning,
    in the outcry from the kettle
    that heats my coffee
    each morning,
    in the spoon and the chair
    that cry “hello there, Anne”
    each morning,
    in the godhead of the table
    that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
    each morning.

    All this is God,
    right here in my pea-green house
    each morning
    and I mean,
    though often forget,
    to give thanks,
    to faint down by the kitchen table
    in a prayer of rejoicing
    as the holy birds at the kitchen window
    peck into their marriage of seeds.

    So while I think of it,
    let me paint a thank-you on my palm
    for this God, this laughter of the morning,
    lest it go unspoken.

    The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
    dies young.

    We’ve gotten some shots back from Phil who’s over in England following Taylor around. Travis, Prince William, and his kids George and Charlotte, popped in on them. Nice shot Philly! Happy Birthday Bill — 42!

    The puzzle yesterday worked me over like a rented mule. I could get nothing going for the longest time, and when I finally inched my way through it, I failed at 37D: “Celebrity gossip site.” Answer EONLINE. Just couldn’t see it and the crosses didn’t help enough. Oh, well.

    But we had some pleasant ballet exercises along the way. 36D: “Ballet exercises done at a barre.” FRAPPES.

    At 51A, “Temporary water provider,” had me thinking of aqueducts and rain dances and who-knows-what. Turned out to be PLANT SITTER.

    All in all, 20A was summing up the experience: “Worsening situation from which there is no escape.” DEATH SPIRAL

    There was a nice pair at 10A and 18A. One was “Locale named in the Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’” (ARUBA), and the other was Emmy winner Uzo (ADUBA).

    3D was “Bung, e.g.” No idea. Turns out it’s a STOPPER like in a sink. Some words, your whole life, they just never come up.

    Rex rated it Medium and, for a change, loved it. Here he is:

    A textbook Saturday, by which I mean something close to a perfect Saturday. Felt very hard, and yet after the typical early flailing, once I got a toehold, I kept making steady progress and never got what you’d call Stuck-stuck. Even places that initially felt intractable eventually opened up once I was able to give them a proper shove, coming at them from a different angle.

    He loved DEATH SPIRAL and PLANT SITTER. And his riff on ARUBA is Rex at his best. To wit,

    From the gods of cheesy late-80s pop music came a golden life preserver, thrown just for me, a cheesy late-80s pop connoisseur. I cannot believe that, after 35 years, having the lyrics to “Kokomo” permanently embedded in my head finally paid off. But if you know the song then ARUBA is probably the very first thing that popped into your head at 10A: Locale named in the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.” I would sing the chorus for you, but it has the phrase “come on, pretty mama” in it, and so I just can’t. Too unbecoming. Oh, what the hell. ARUBA, Jamaica, oooh I’m gonna take ya / Bermuda, Bahama, [whispers] comeonprettymama / Key Largo, Montego, baby why don’t we go etc.” My wife and I (and maybe our friend Lena) once made up a version of this chorus, but with central New York cities instead of tropical islands. “Elmira, Owego, don’t forget Oswego / Deposit, and Conklin, come on Oneonta” etc. Try it with the towns in your area! Anyway, how do you not love a corner that’s giving you ARUBA ADUBA (18A: Emmy winner Uzo). Shooby dooby doo.

    Now, turn it up, readers!

    Have you noticed avocado prices inching up? We don’t make guacamole, but avocados are an important part of our salads. We buy six at a time from Costco. They come rock hard and we wait several days till they are ripe and ready for use. I saw a cartoon once in which a fellow had a time machine and used it to go three or four days into the future to bring a ripe avocado back to the present.

    Anyway, a story in today’s NYT explains that the U.S. suspended its inspections of avocados (and mangos, but who cares?) because two U.S. inspectors were assaulted and detained while performing their duties. (They were later released.) Without the inspections, avocados cannot cross over the border. Mexico provides roughly 90% of the avocados we use, so it’s no surprise the halt has caused prices to soar. The two countries are trying to work things out. But criminal cartels are moving into the avocado business, so there are problems.

    Avocados are essential in many medical procedures. The first woman, below, needs avocados to see. The second, whose lips are already turning blue, needs them to hear. And I can’t even imagine what will happen to the poor third woman if her supply is cut off. But do these ruthless cartels even care? Seriously.

    Derek Jeter’s 100-year-old castle fifty miles north of NYC finally sold after years on the market but for only around $6 million, less than half the $14.25 million original asking price. It has five kitchens (one outdoor), a lagoon, an infinity pool shaped like a baseball diamond, a game room, and turrets. It has six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms.

    Jeter was raised in Kalamazoo, MI, and planned to go to UMich had the pros not beckoned. But I only just now learned that he was born in Pequannock Township, NJ. His grandfather, William “Sonny” Connors, was the adopted son of John and Julia Tiedemann, who previously owned the castle/home, and Derek spent summers there as a kid. So it held sentimental as well as monetary value for him.

    With his baseball playing days behind him, Jeter married model Hannah Davis (Victoria’s Secret, SI Swimsuit edition, etc.) and they have four kids: three girls, pictured below, and a boy born in May of 2023, who was already offered a $15 million signing bonus by the Dodgers. (No he wasn’t.) That’s him sleeping below, no doubt dreaming of the perfect double-play ball. Awwwwwww.

    Rob Taylor of the DMC (UK) says:  “Brad Pitt is seen eating in every film he’s done as he sometimes doesn’t get the chance to eat in between takes. So they write it into a scene.”

    According to a story in Movieweb, it’s true that Pitt eats a lot in movies. In Troy, his character is seen devouring a giant turkey leg. In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, he consumes a pot roast, an olive stick, pancakes, and a Martini. In The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, he has beef stew; in Fury, some ham and eggs; and in Inglourious Basterds, a baguette. But it’s not because he’s hungry.

    Because actors don’t actually eat the food during their takes, there is a specific methodology known as “eat acting.” Some eating scenes may require multiple takes, and for this reason, eating acting is required. It entails the performers biting the food, chewing, and spitting out while the camera is away or a take is wrapped. Interestingly, this is a craft Pitt has perfected. In a story in WAPO, he was called the Laurence Olivier of eating.

    When Pitt is “eating” in a scene, it keeps the audience focused on him and makes him more relatable. Here are 23 seconds of Brad Pitt eating.

    Hold on a sec. I’m going to go grab a sandwich.

    There were some unusual words in the puzzle today. I learned them but they seem useless — perfect!! One was PAWL. It’s a “Mechanical catch,” i.e., a part of one machine that latches on to, or “catches,” part of something else. Another was GREAVES — armor that protects your shins. A post by Anony Mouse said:

    I’ve always liked the moment in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Princess Ida” where Arac can’t remember what shin armor is called:

    These things I treat the same
    I quite forget their name
    They turn one’s legs
    To cribbage pegs
    Their aid I thus disclaim

    …apparently because Gilbert couldn’t think of a good rhyme for “greaves.”

    There was also AMBIVERTS. The clue was “They’re comfortable alone or in a crowd.” It’s someone who combines the traits of both introverts and extroverts.

    Ted Lasso fans should be pleased to see Jamie TARTT visit the grid, clued as himself (“Ted Lasso footballer Jamie”). George! Get our guest a Diet Sprite! Cheers, Tartt!

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by.

  • Doe, a Mouse

    I was aware of the term mansplaining before it appeared in the puzzle today. It’s defined as: the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. It has branched out from men/women to cover a condescending explanation in general.

    The term was coined in response to a 2008 essay by Rebecca Solnit (“Men Explain Things To Me”). Here’s the origin story, in her words: The word mansplaining was coined by an anonymous person in response to my 2008 essay and has had a lively time of it ever since. It was a NYT word of the year in 2010, and entered the OED in 2018. People often recount the opening incident in which a man explained a book to me, too busy holding forth to notice that I was its author, as my friend was trying to tell him.

    Here’s the essayist, Ms. Solnit. No doubt Phil was mansplaining something to her, which is why she is covering her ears.

    At 8D, we had a grid-spanning (15-letter) answer for the clue “Serious situation developing!” The answer was THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

    At 54A the clue was “Rare shots” for HOLES IN ONE.

    Which led commenter egs to note: I asks Mrs. Egs to grab me something from my shop to put two HOLESINONE of her cupboards for cup hooks. She brings me a hammer, so I MANSPLAINS that THISISNOTADRILL.

    At 51A the very good clue “Sign of sluggishness?” was for the answer SLIME TRAIL. Get it? If you’ve ever seen a slug make its way across your tent floor, e.g., you’ll see that it leaves a trail of slime.

    Commener kitshef shared: I once dressed up as a slug for Hallowe’en. Trailing out the back was forty feet of plastic wrap to give the appearance of a SLIME TRAIL.

    “Roughly half of mice” are DOES. Did you know a female mouse is a doe? A male mouse is a buck, and a baby is a kitten or pinkie.

    Sarah Day posted this photo in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) with the note: “Who’s with me?”

    Liz Colclough commented: I hate pants and love cheese. It’s like they know me…

    Ross Landale: You gouda be kidding.

    Paul Ver: Only way.

    Jessica Allyn: It’s a thief deterrent key ring. No one will want to steal your keys and risk breaking in to find you there eating cheese with no pants on.

    Several comments understood the reference to mean it is the cheese that is not wearing pants. Sarah then posted this picture of cheese wearing pants.

    I learned via the comments that “pants” means different things in the US and Britain. What we think of as pants in the US, like a pair of jeans, is called trousers over there. And pants, in Britain, refers to underpants, panties, etc.

    Yet another example of crucial information which has eluded you all these years (maybe?), clarified and mansplained by Owl Chatter.

    This poem by Louise Erdrich is called “Walking in the Breakdown Lane.” It appeared in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Wind has stripped
    the young plum trees
    to a thin howl.
    They are planted in squares
    to keep the loose dirt from wandering.
    Everything around me is crying to be gone.
    The fields, the crops humming to be cut and done with.

    Walking in the breakdown lane, margin of gravel,
    between the cut swaths and the road to Fargo,
    I want to stop, to lie down
    in standing wheat or standing water.

    Behind me thunder mounts as trucks of cattle
    roar over, faces pressed to slats for air.
    They go on, they go on without me.
    They pound, pound and bawl,
    until the road closes over them farther on.

    This photo of Justin Timberlake appeared on AOL’s newsfeed in connection with the celebrity’s recent DWI arrest. (Burp!) Owl Chatter: Wow — now we know whom to cast for Volodymyr Zelensky when it’s time.

    (BTW, VZ — George says he shipped out those 500 rocket launchers you asked for a couple of days ago to your Kyiv address. Make sure the doorman knows to look for them.)

    Here’s JT’s wife of ten years, Jessica Biel. We discussed bed head a while back. This is another good example.

    They have two sons, Silas and Phineas.

    Nick Scotty of the DMC (UK) posted: I’ve decided on trying a few new hobbies and chosen both transcendental meditation and wood turning. Does anyone have any experience on either?

    Tim Robinson: No.

    Adrian Blount: Try not to combine them would be my advice.

    Robert Sinclair: Once asked a bloke if he had any recommendations regarding transcendental meditation. He said he’d think about it and get back to himself.

    Wait, what?

    And we’ll leave you with that. See you tomorrow.

  • More on Willie

    Say Hey! Willie got that nickname when he was new to the big leagues. He didn’t know people’s names yet, so he’d go up to someone and say “Say hey.” We’ll devote some more space today to this remarkable man and ballplayer starting with this from Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature in his newsletter this week:

    In a Substack post, Joe Posnanski described Willie Mays’s relationship with his own acclaim and fame: “Even Mays himself couldn’t quite understand it. ‘All I did was play baseball,’ he would say when approached by another fan with tears in his eyes. On one level, this was true. All he did was play baseball. All Robert Frost did was write poetry. All Grace Kelly did was play in movies. All Albert Einstein did was think about the universe.”

    Willie was Willie, Jr. His dad, Willie, Sr., was named after Pres. William Taft who was considered sympathetic to Blacks. They both also shared Taft’s middle name Howard. Willie Sr. was a steelworker and Pullman porter, but our concern centers more on his graceful play in semipro baseball which earned him the nickname Cat. Willie’s mom Annie Satterwhite was athletic too: high school track and basketball. So he had the genes. But his parents were unmarried teenagers and his mom left him in the care of his dad and her two sisters and went off, married, and had ten more children. Willie stayed in touch with her into his major league ballplaying days.

    Some of Willie’s stats are common knowledge for baseball fans, e.g., the 660 homers and the string of 24 All-Star games. He was NL MVP twice, eleven years apart: 1954 and 1965. But I only learned from his obit in the NYT that his 7,112 putouts (catches) as an outfielder ranks #1 in MLB history. And he had another 657 playing first base. His iconic “basket” catches were not for show — by catching the ball near his hip, he was in a better position to make the ensuing throw. And btw, if you delete the steroid users, his 660 lifetime homers place him fourth behind Aaron (755), Ruth (714), and Pujols (703). Consider as well that he missed the entire 1953 season and most of 1952 because he was in the army. The serious rankings compiled by players, writers, historians, etc., place Willie second only to Babe Ruth, as the greatest player of all-time.

    [I have to correct myself on one point. Yesterday I stated that Willie’s throw after “The Catch” just missed nailing a runner, but in fact, it was a throw to second base that prevented the runner from first from advancing to second.]

    Willie is survived by his only child, his adopted son Michael. Michael has been exceedingly private and almost nothing is known about him, such as family or profession. He is a good-looking gentleman, though, we’ll give him that much. And he often appeared at events honoring Willie.

    The NYT obit was written by Richard Goldstein. Here’s how it ends:

    Mays evoked the image of a “natural,” a superb athlete who needed to do little to hone his skills. But that was not the case. “I studied the pitchers,” Mays said. “I knew what every single pitcher’s best pitch was. You wonder why? Because in a tight spot, with the game on the line, what’s the pitcher going to throw? His best pitch. Curve, slider, fastball, whatever. His best pitch. Because I’d studied and memorized that, I’d be ready.”

    When he was selected for the Hall of Fame, Mays was asked to name the best ballplayer he had ever seen. “I think I was the best ballplayer I’ve ever seen,” he replied. “I feel nobody in the world could do what I could do on a baseball field.”

    Rest in peace, Willie.

    The puzzle killed me today. I died at 7D: “Process of cell division.” Had to be mitosis, no? It fit. And I confirmed the OSIS. But it’s MEIOSIS. What!! Gimme a break. And one of the crosses was “Lead-in to normative,” which I couldn’t figure out was HETERO. And next to MEIOSIS was “Inspiration for an essay writer,” which I had no idea was PROMPT. It turns out when a teacher assigns an essay and suggests some topics, they are called prompts. Who knew?

    It was a very clever and intelligent puzzle with clues/answers like: “Kind of electrons on the outermost shell of an atom.” Ans: VALENCE. And how about: “Dancer’s haul?” Answer: SLEIGH. (Think reindeer.)

    Even Rex rated it “Challenging.” Get this — the constructor was Ella Dershowitz, an actress, and lawyer Alan’s daughter. Thankfully, she’s prettier than him. (BTW, my brother went to college (Columbia) with AD.)

    Maybe you got your head caught in a ditch last night. That’s the opening line in this song by Ivy Tripp. Rex shared it because of the clue “Certain Ivy leaguer,” with the answer ELI, of course. Rex hates what he sees as a pro-Yale bias in the Times puzzles. I forget why. (Turn it up — it’s a rocker.)

    From the Dull Men’s Club (UK), which is by no means limited to men, this post is by Naomi Ross, who wrote: Saw this in Asda today. Wondered if anyone has tried it!

    OMG. Too funny. She’s covering up an O. It’s Chili sauce from Ghana.

    That’ll do for a close. See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in.

  • Goodbye Willie

    Simon Mott of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes: I have a Spiced Dhal soup container on which I have written ‘COCOA’, but which actually contains crispy fried onions. He described himself as Male, 54, living life on the edge.

    Here are some comments:

    Dave Blackburn: Never let them know your next move.

    Patrick Towers: Had me fooled.

    Lou Helms: Why?

    Livia Lange: You living on a boat?

    Suz Kravitz: Rebel.

    Vuyo Hlubi: This is how trust issues develop.

    Victoria Ferrer: My mum had a Yorkshire tea tin labelled “fancy biscuits” which contained cutlery.

    And my favorite from Martin Smith: I usually don’t bother writing on them what they are, with predictable consequences. Though I do put blue food colouring in the herbicide that I carry around in a tomato sauce container.

    [Has this club won you over yet? I can’t get enough of it.]

    George Will has a book about baseball called Men at Work. He features several individual players and goes into them in depth. One was Willie Mays. I read it a long time ago but I remember this story about Mays. If he was facing a young pitcher for the first time late in a game that was pretty much over (so the at-bat didn’t matter very much) he would “on purpose” let the pitcher strike him out. And he’d remember the strike-out pitch. Inevitably, years later he’d face the pitcher again in a crucial situation. And he knew the pitcher would remember the pitch he once used to strike out the great Willie Mays. And he’d use it again. Bye bye.

    When he came back to NY he lived for years in a big white building in Riverdale in the Bronx. The Whitehall. It was just a block or two from where my brother lived. It’s hard to explain, but knowing that was a small point of warmth in my heart.

    I have a few items signed by Willie in my collection. He lived a long time so his autograph is not particularly rare. It may be worth in the low hundreds. But, of course, the emotional value is what we collect for. To have a piece of living history, in a way. Here’s the best one I have.

    About his famous catch off of Vic Wertz in the 1954 WS (“The Catch”), he said he had ten catches he thought were better than that. Many people forget the throw that followed the catch. It almost nailed the runner who should have scored easily. When the umpire made the call, he very unusually exclaimed “just safe.”

    Rest in peace, 24. Rest in peace, Willie.

    Rex began his writeup today with “About as boring a puzzle as I’ve ever done.” He later noted: “It’s not that this puzzle is badly made. It’s not. But like dry toast, it really needs butter, or peanut butter, or (as I prefer) butter and then peanut butter (Me to my wife the first time I saw her do this: ‘Geez, how much fat do you need?’ Boy did I eat (and re-eat) those words).”

    It was the opening I needed to share this little personal story with the gang:

    I couldn’t eat peanut butter or strawberries when I was growing up, because of my older brother, Jay. I was like a child in Appalachia who has never seen an orange. My mother couldn’t bring peanut butter into the house because Jay loved it too much. He would binge it all up and get sick. He was powerless to resist, even though he had no other addictive tendencies.

    Strawberries were another matter. My brother left home for college but had an apartment in NYC while my mom and I lived in Brooklyn. And whenever I found strawberries in the fridge and went to take some, my mother would say — “Don’t touch the strawberries. Jay will be home soon and they’re his favorite.” OK. So I never had strawberries either. Peanut butter
    and strawberries.

    Years later, with both of us much older and mom gone, my brother was visiting me and it occurred to me that I happened to have some strawberries. So I said to him, Hey – we have some strawberries — your favorite!. And he said, I don’t know why mom thought they were my favorite. One time I ate one and said it was good, but they were never particularly special to me.

    And I said, What!! My whole childhood I couldn’t have strawberries because of you!!

    My mother was crazy, for sure, but in such a good way.

    At 63A today the clue was “Big name in ketchup” and the answer had five letters. It had to be Heinz, no? But it didn’t work. Turned out to be HUNT’S. An angry comment noted that Hunt’s made “catsup,” not “ketchup,” which Heinz made. It was by an angry Pittsburgher, where Heinz is based. But Hunt’s changed the name of its product from catsup to ketchup in 1988. And Heinz originally called it catsup too.

    There’s was a nice crossing today: The clue at 53A was “‘Fiddler on the Roof’ setting.” Answer: RUSSIA, although someone noted it was actually set in Ukraine, which was part of the Russian empire at the time. And it was crossed by 9D: “Fixer-uppers, of a sort,” with the answer MATCHMAKERS.

    There was a good deal of hrummmmphing about 40D where the clue was “Wounded knee site, for short,” for the answer ACL. Folks thought it was disrespectful of the massacre of Indians that took place at Wounded Knee to treat it sort of jokingly like that.

    3D was a cute clue: “Cubs manager?” Answer: LIONESS.

    The abolitionist senator Charles SUMNER was in the puzzle. He became a symbol of the anti-slavery cause when he was beaten nearly to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by Preston Brooks, a slaveholding senator from South Carolina. Sumner must have hit a nerve. During the Civil War, Sumner was a critic of Lincoln’s, feeling Abe was too moderate towards the south.

    Of course, our Phil was in the Senate gallery at the time of the beating and was able to get this shot for us.

    We can’t send you off with such a terrible image. So let’s bid farewell as well to French actress Anouk Aimee, who passed away in Paris at age 92. Many of us remember her for “A Man and a Woman.” Aimee earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the film, and it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

    Reposez en paix, Anouk.

    That’s much better. See you tomorrow!

  • The Greatest Invention Of All Time

    The puzzle was nice and breezy today. The theme was a play on “kinda,” meaning “kind of,” using phrases that contained parts that could double as a suffix or prefix. [I know, I know — what the hell is he talking about?]

    So at 16A the clue was “Kinda comedic and saucy?” and the answer was BURLESQUE-ESQUE. Get it?

    At 39A the clue was “Kinda squishy and sting-y?” and the answer was JELLYFISH-ISH. (My favorite.)

    28A: “Kinda religious institution?” SEMI-SEMINARY.

    50A: “Kinda hunchbacked figure?” QUASI-QUASIMODO. (Also my favorite.)

    Here’s the clue from 9D: “Kind of accent heard in ‘Pahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd.’” BOSTON, of course. Son Volt posted this rocker for us. I’ve heard of the group but the tune was new to me. There’s a reference to Van Morrison’s “Cypress Avenue” in it. Turn it up!

    I don’t recall ever sharing more than one Met Diary story from a Sunday, but the writing in this one is so good, it left me no choice. It’s also a small part of my own youth. It’s by Vincent Barkley.

    Dear Diary:

    If I had a few bucks and the weather wasn’t terrible, I would bundle up and take the subway from Bay Ridge to Coney Island.

    Truthfully, this was about all I could manage. I was 17, and my mother had just died. Soon, I would be on my own.

    At some point along the way, the train exited the tunnel’s darkness into dazzling daylight. Then on to Coney Island and Stillwell Avenue, the end of the line.

    Downstairs, Philip’s Candy was my source for chocolate licorice. The windows were darkened with dust from the station above.

    Across the street was the Cyclone. According to a childhood legend: “Once kids were playing with the controls in the first car, and the coaster left the track and got chopped up in the Wonder Wheel!”

    To the right was the original Nathan’s. They had crinkle cut French fries and hot dogs with snap. My mom once bought a crinkle cut potato slicer to make us fries like the ones at Nathan’s.

    To the left was Eldorado Auto Skooter: bumper cars with disco lighting and a body-slamming sound system. Possibly the greatest invention of all time.

    Further down was the carousel. Majestic and fast-moving, a menagerie of surging, vivid animals amid a harrumphing organ with castanets and cymbals. It was operated by the world’s saddest-looking man.

    On the boardwalk, if the sun was shining, people of every stripe would be out and about. Some were ancient residents, their skin like leather from years baking in the sun.

    Coney Island is best in winter, when it’s in quiet repose. It’s soulful and shabby and old. And timeless like those residents in their sun-blasted skin.

    It was all there for me.

    From The Onion last Friday:

    Trump Family Takes Adorable Birthday Pictures Of Donald’s Face Covered In Cake

    A nice combo in the puzzle was 37D where “Singer Lauper” was CYNDI, and 38D, “Playful term for one’s female friends” was GIRLIES. Here you go. One of the great pop tunes of all time.

    Mark Amos of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted this yesterday:

    “My son has just informed me that something must be wrong with the gloss paint I recently used to paint the inside of his bedroom door. He explained that the sunlight had caused a dull patch to appear behind the mirror he hung on the back of it. Worried and believing the paint used was inferior, I immediately went upstairs thinking about what I was going to say to the local hardware store I purchased it from. Removing the mirror, I couldn’t see anything wrong and then realised he had been looking at the shadow cast by said mirror. I won’t say anything to him for the time being but may show him this post and read out all the informative comments at a later date.”

    You would think a post like that would generate some comments, but there were only 117 (so far). Here are a few:

    1. Judging by the number of posts you make on here, I’m surprised you found time to have a son 🙄😉

      2. I love these stories. Aged 7 and 5 me and my brother were sent to bed early without supper and banished to an upstairs bedroom on pain of absolute silence. I wrote a note and found a piece of string and dangled the note down the stairwell. It said: “We are haggry, if you do not feed us we will die”.

      My mum has kept this note for 63 years in her black “essential documents” briefcase, and likes to tell the story over and over again.

      3. Get him paint. Tell him it may take a few coats. Get popcorn for yourself

      My comment was: How can sunlight reach “behind the mirror?”

      Are you familiar with the term FUBAR? It was at 21A with the clue: “Extremely damaged, in military lingo.” According to Wikipedia: It means ‘Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition,” referring to unpaid military personnel with erroneous paperwork. Another version of FUBAR, said to have originated in the military, gives its meaning as “Fucked Up By Assholes in the Rear”. This version has at least surface validity in that it is a common belief among enlistees that most problems are created by the military brass (officers, especially those bearing the rank of general, from one to four stars). This version is also most likely to have had its origin in the U.S. Army, where the senior officers command from the rear, as opposed to the Navy or Air Force, where it is common for generals to command alongside their forces.

      Our Dirty Old Man Dept received several complaints about the photo we posted recently of our style consultant Ana with her dog. “C’mon, man,” one read, “can’t you get anything more exciting than that on the topic?” We put Phil on the case and his extensive research (two six-packs) came up with this. (Wow.) Looking good AdA!

      Can’t top that as a send-off. See you tomorrow!

    1. All Five Fingers

      This is our 537th post. I thought that might be a prime number, but it’s not. The closest prime numbers are 523, below it, and 541, above. In all, there are 168 prime numbers between 1 and 1000, with 997 the highest.

      Our Father’s Day message was written by Hannah Sward as a Tiny Love Story in the NYT:

      “How will I know?” I asked my father before he died. “Talk to me like we are now and listen,” he said. Months passed. I was scared to talk to him. What if I didn’t hear him? On Father’s Day, running barefoot on the beach, I called out “Dad?” The sharp edge of a shell sliced my foot. My father’s father was a podiatrist. My father was a poet who wrote endlessly about feet. He believed, “The soul is rooted in the foot.” Seven stitches, a beautiful scar. I feel hollow with loss, but my father is still with me.

      Who doesn’t like haiku? The Poetry Foundation yesterday sent us a poem by Robert Hass called “After the Gentle Poet Kabayashi Issa.” It’s a collection of haiku. Yesterday was the date of birth of Issa, back in 1763.

      New Year’s morning—
      everything is in blossom!
      I feel about average.

      A huge frog and I
      staring at each other,
      neither of us moves.

      This moth saw brightness
      in a woman’s chamber—
      burned to a crisp.

      Asked how old he was
      the boy in the new kimono
      stretched out all five fingers.

      Blossoms at night,
      like people
      moved by music

      Napped half the day;
      no one
      punished me!

      Fiftieth birthday:

      From now on,
      It’s all clear profit,
      every sky.

      Don’t worry, spiders,
      I keep house
      casually.

      These sea slugs,
      they just don’t seem
      Japanese.

      Hell:

      Bright autumn moon;
      pond snails crying
      in the saucepan.

      FYI, our friend Miriam says the plural of haiku can be either haiku or haikus.

      I visited the Dull Men’s Club (UK) this morning and found this photo of a British postal box posted by Joe Westy.

      And here’s what he wrote: The rare golden postbox in the UK. There are a great many red boxes, as any Brit will tell you, but did you know that there are a few golden ones dotted around? These postboxes are painted gold in honour of an Olympic gold medalist who lives in the area. This postbox is in Wimbledon, in honour of Andy Murray.

      There were 103 comments, most pointing out other gold postboxes in other areas, along with the Olympians (or para-Olympians) whom they honor. One gent pointed out a rare blue box in Manchester, which is blue for other historic reasons: blue used to be for airmail postal boxes, but that was only temporary and they were repainted red, except for the one in Manchester because it’s outside the air and space museum.

      Here’s your basic red one, which has become iconic. Many people use them as lawn decorations or for other non-postal reasons. This one goes for $900, but there are many much cheaper models.

      The typical box was once green, but they were difficult to locate because of the drabness of the color. Hence, the shift to red.

      I’m not sure how this matter got by the Dull Men’s Club guardians. Is it dull enough? Borderline, I guess.

      Neil Dorman posted this photo and wrote:

      “It’s mid June and I have had to light the fire. I promise I am not burning a beast’s head 🙂“

      I guess it’s been a cold spring over there. I commented: “Sure looks like a beast’s head. Not that I’m doubting you.” There were over 100 other comments — mostly on the weather.

      The Gnats are doing well, kinehora. They won their series against the Braves and Tigers and swept three from Miami. Brilliant young pitching augurs well for the future. But major league baseball is stressful. And things exploded two nights ago between Mackenzie Gore and Nick Senzel. Gore was on the mound when a grounder was hit to deep third by a speedy batter. Senzel’s throw to first was just late and a run scored. Gore thought he should have nailed him and told him so in the dugout. Senzel didn’t appreciate the lecture and shoved Gore. They were quickly separated. Gore later admitted he was wrong, under baseball etiquette. You don’t deride your teammates for their misplays. At the least, it was noted, they should have discussed it in the runway off the dugout and not in full view of the public and the press. BTW, Gore had a brilliant night and the Gnats coasted to an easy win.

      But let’s get to the merits of Gore’s claim. Could Senzel have made the play? Amazingly, we have data on it. Senzel entered the game with an 83.9 mph average arm strength, but threw the ball to first at a 72.7 mph arm strength. The runner beat out the play, running at 28.0 feet per second (the Major League average is 27.0 feet/second).

      “I’ve probably got to do a better job of getting rid of it with a better throw,” said Senzel. “Maybe a little lackadaisical so that one’s on me.” Still, Gore should not have incited the shove.

      There was a bit of a hoo-hah over the clue/answer at 103A today. All it’s doing for me is making my brain hurt. The clue is “Lives as lovers,” and the answer is SHACKS UP. Rex himself didn’t mention a problem, but several nitpickers noted that a lover (singular) “shacks” up, but lovers (plural, as in the clue) “shack” up. I guess these folks think the clue should be “Lives as a lover” (SHACKS UP), or “Live as lovers” with the answer SHACK UP. Arggggh!! My feeling is: SHUT UP!!

      Rex commenter Andrew has always been a bit crusty but his recent adoption of a rescue dog has turned him into a teddy bear, and the gang is enjoying his conversion. Today, he shared this song with us by Alun Davies, who produced a solo album after playing with Cat Stevens.

      And here’s our style consultant Ana with one of her pups.

      Woof woof. See you tomorrow!

    2. Nonchalant Plumage

      Owl Chatter’s first impression of Caitlin Clark’s boyfriend is that he may be worthy of her — they seem like a good pair. His name is Connor McCaffrey and they started dating a year ago April. He’s a U of Iowa grad, like Caitlin, (Class of ’23), and was on their basketball and baseball teams. He currently works as a team assistant for the NBA’s Pacers. He double dribbled, sorry, double majored in Finance and Poli Sci. Needless to say, OC was hoping to see Caitlin wind up with a Yid, but Connor seems like a very decent second best. His pet name for Caitlin is her uniform number: 22. “Love you 22!”

      Get this — Connor’s dad is Fran McCaffery, the head coach of Iowa’s men’s basketball team. Fran played college ball at UPenn — Go Quakers! And he coached previously at Siena College, Linda’s alma — Go Saints!

      Here’s a shot of Connor and his dad, followed by a slightly sexier shot of the young lovebirds, although it’s not nearly racy enough for our Dirty Old Man Dept. Rats!

      This piece from tomorrow’s Met Diary was written by Marla Jacobson.

      Dear Diary:

      I had just moved to NYC from LA in June 1981 and had a studio on 106th Street and West End Avenue. It came with no furniture, dishes, pots or pans — nothing.

      I was to start a teaching job in the fall but unemployed until then. I found a matching comforter-pillow-curtain set at Macy’s that fit my budget.

      A few days later, on a weekend trip to the Lower East Side, I found the exact set for half the price. So of course I bought it and returned the other set to Macy’s.

      A month went by and the charge was still on my account. I made several calls to arrange the credit. Two months went by and the credit still had not showed up. More calls.

      When the third month came, my account was credited twice. I took the bills, the receipt, and everything else I had connected to the purchase to Macy’s in person to try to straighten things out. When I got there, I explained the entire situation to the clerk.

      He looked at me like I was from another planet.

      “Lady,” he said. “Buy a dress.”

      The Four Tops were a leading Motown group back in the day. Reach Out, It’s the Same Old Song, Bernadette, Baby I Need Y our Loving. Classics, all, just to name a few. Anyway, over the years individual members had to be replaced as the group soldiered on. Its only surviving original member is Abdul Fakir. He’s 88.

      Back in 2018, Abdul invited Alexander Morris to join the group. They were in Michigan touring with an equally great group, The Temptations, when Morris felt pain in his chest and had difficulty breathing. He was taken to a hospital. This is where the craziness begins, and it wasn’t Morris’s. He mentioned that he was with The Four Tops and the staff took that to mean he was mentally ill. He was placed in restraints and ordered to undergo a psych evaluation. He offered to show his ID to security but was instructed to “sit his Black ass down.” He was denied oxygen and held in restraints for 90 minutes. Finally, he was able to show a nurse a video of him performing and the hospital realized its error.

      We are now transferring you to our “you-cannot-make-this-stuff-up” department.

      When the hospital realized its blunder, it offered Morris a $25 gift card to a local supermarket as compensation for its actions. (I am not kidding.) “The hospital denied my identity and my basic human dignity and then offered me a gift card,” Morris said through his lawyers. Then he cried out: Bernadette!

      Greg Delanty wrote this poem and it appeared in today’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s called “From Woody’s Restaurant, Middlebury.”

      Today, noon, a young macho friendly waiter and three diners,
                     business types—two males, one female—
      are in a quandary about the name of the duck paddling
                     Otter Creek,
      the duck being brown, but too large to be a female mallard.
                     They really
      want to know, and I’m the human-watcher behind the nook
                     of my table,
      camouflaged by my stillness and nonchalant plumage.
                     They really want to know.
      This sighting I record in the back of my Field Guide to People.

      Here’s a female mallard. The duck in the poem was too big to be that.

      OK, readers — here’s the scoop. I entered this week’s New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest. The scene is a lab of some sort and two technicians are standing and looking at a giant toaster in the middle of the lab, plugged in.

      And my caption entry is “What do we get if we open an IRA?”

      Okay, not exactly a knee-slapper, but here’s what you can do to help. Go to the New Yorker website in a few days and to the caption contest area. They let you review the entries and rate them not funny, somewhat funny, or very funny. The ratings help them select three finalists from which a winner is chosen by voting. (You have to wait a few days until this week’s contest closes.)

      We’ll end today with our AIMEE section. The actress AIMEE Lou Wood from “Sex Education” was in the puzzle at 17A: a knockout. She’s 30 years old, and British. And Son Volt took the occasion to share an Aimee Mann song: “Coming Up Close,” by ‘Til Tuesday.

      See you tomorrow. Thanks for popping in!

    3. Che Guevara’s Haftorah Portion

      Some of you may remember John Ciardi. Decades ago, NPR featured a short item on language by him in the morning. This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by him. It’s called “Bees and Morning Glories.”

      Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,
      fade from the heat of the day, but already
      hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg
      hooks have found and are boarding them.

      This could do for the sack of the imaginary
      fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they
      one by one vanish and leave still real
      only what has been snatched out of the spell.

      I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except
      when the hive is threatened. They know
      the good of it must be grabbed and hauled
      before the whole feast wisps off.

      They swarm in light and, fast, dive in,
      then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy
      with gold and sunlight. The line of them,
      like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.

      And back again to find the fleet gone.
      Well, they got this day’s good of it. Off
      they cruise to what stays open longer.
      Nothing green gives honey. And by now

      you’d have to look twice to see more than green
      where all those white sails trembled
      when the world was misty and open
      and the prize was there to be taken.

      On this date in Dublin Ireland in 1865, William Butler Yeats was born. The Writer’s Almanac shares this quote of his:

      “Now that my ladder’s gone / I must lie down where all the ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”

      C’mon Bill — lighten up. It’s a lovely Spring day out there.

      In the puzzle today, at 45A for the lovely clue “Emulates Niobe” the answer was MOURNS. You know how I like the say the puzzle sometimes opens little doors to walk through? Well, Rex shared this with us today related to Niobe. I first ran into this actor, Andrew Scott, when he played the role of the priest in Fleabag, a show I enjoyed very much. You could tell how good he is.

      Che Guevara was born on this date in 1928 in Argentina. He died young, at 39, executed by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces.

      You’ve all seen the iconic pictures of Che, but our incredible photographer Phil was at Che’s bar mitzvah and has this family shot from the event for us. That’s Che way on the left, next to his mom.

      On the topic of Che Guevara’s bar mitzvah, we had George dig out Che’s haftorah portion. It relates the story of how an angel of the Lord appeared to this guy Manoah’s wife, who was having trouble having a child, and told her she’d be pregnant soon and to not drink alcohol or eat unclean foods. The angel didn’t say anything about getting enough exercise and keeping an eye on her blood pressure. Anyway, the kid was born and they named him Samson.

      [Where else but in Owl Chatter will you learn about Che Guevara’s haftorah portion, I ask you? TBH, Che was not actually Jewish, but he did go to medical school. (George tells us he was Jew-ish.)]

      Let’s face it, folks, it’s harder to be cool as an American than if we were, say, French, right? It’s been that way for, like, hmmmm, forever? And back in the 60s, French cool was pretty much defined by Francoise Hardy, through her moody ballads and her looks. She died at age 80 on Tuesday. Her death was announced by her son Thomas via an Instagram post that said simply “Mom is gone.”

      She looked like this when she was here and young.

      Bob Dylan fell for her, writing about her in the liner notes of “Another Side of Bob Dylan.” He began, “For Françoise Hardy/At the Seine’s edge/A giant shadow/Of Notre-Dame.” When he held his first concert in Paris, in May 1966, he refused to return to the stage after an intermission unless she came to see him in his dressing room. She did.

      She was the only French singer on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 200 best singers of all time. She is survived by her son Thomas, who is, undoubtedly, very cool.

      Rest in peace, Francoise.

      Ethel Barrymore popped in on us today, right off the bat at 1 down.

      What’s up, EB? Lookin’ good! George! Get the lady a Fresca!

      Winston Churchill proposed to her in 1900, but she married Russell Griswold Colt instead and they had three kids.