The Wellington Files

  • Bad Intent

    Owl Chatter is broadcasting today from the Best Western in Elkridge MD, just south of Charm City (Baltimore), although, again, George and Phil are ensconced in a Third-Best Western nearby, for budgetary reasons. We’re on a short getaway centering on the Orioles/Redsox game Monday at beautiful Camden Yards. Where better to celebrate Linda’s birthday?

    Speaking of the Third-Best Western, did you know there’s a bank in Ohio and Michigan (and other states) named the Fifth Third Bank? What the hell is that about? They couldn’t decide? They merged but insanely kept both names?

    Yes, I’ll have the money for you next week — it’s in my account at Fifth Third.

    What? Where?

    Fifth Third. The Fifth Third Bank.

    What? What bank is that?

    The Fifth Third Bank.

    The Fifth Third Bank?

    Yes.

    Fifth Third?

    Yes.

    What?

    I hereby declare the Fifth Third Bank the official bank of Owl Chatter. There can’t possibly be a more ridiculous bank. George! — See about opening some accounts! Also — while you’re out, I think we’re low on Fresca. We’re having a special guest today. She’s very pretty and she may be thirsty.

    Fresh off a positive review in the NYT on Friday that intriguingly combined the terms “philosophy professor” and “hitman,” we shot down from Elkridge to Silver Spring (not Springs!) for the 6:40 showing of Hit Man, with a cast that was completely new to me, under my rock. Glen Powell was terrif in the starring role, Austin Amelio played a bad guy very broadly and entertainingly, and Adria Arjona was the romantic lead, Madison, with killer looks. Well, maybe killer — don’t wanna spoil it for you. Here’s AA. Could you plotz? She’s Puerto Rican, 32, and divorced. When she was 18, she moved from her family home in Miami to NYC on her own and worked as a waitress while studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Roles followed.

    Adria is dating Jason Momoa now, the actor who played Aquaman. He’s 44, Hawaiian, and is very recently divorced from Lisa Bonet of the old Bill Cosby show.

    Here’s Adria again, smiling this time.

    Hey, Aqualung! Cue the violins!

    At 11D today, the clue was “Claim on a ramen packet,” and the answer was NO MSG. Commenter kitshef, of the American Nitpickers Assn and League (ANAL) posted the following: My Ramen packets say “no added MSG”, not just “no MSG.” And indeed, several ingredients do contain MSG (e.g. yeast extract, hydrolyzed soy protein). I am willing to believe that in some other country there might be packaged ramen that says “no MSG,” but I’d feel better if I could find proof of that.

    We all would, dear — we all would.

    At 13A, the clue was “Academic résumés, for short,” and the answer was CVS. Old buddy egs noted: “I’ve known more than a few losers whose academic CVs only gained them employment at CVS.”  Ha!

    At 63A, “Dude, in lingo” was BRAH. (I had no idea.) But Rebecca said: The slang for dude is “bruh” not “brah.” I’ve got hundreds of texts between my 11-year-old daughter and her friends to prove it.

    Hrummmmmmph!

    Commenter Lewis likes to go back and see what else a constructor has done in the past. Today, he brought up two great clues John Kugelman crafted in an earlier puzzle. Brilliant, IMO. Here’s Lewis:

    This is the man who brought us “I know they’ve had them on all day, but let the kids eat their candy. After all, a Ring Pop is a … “ for WEARABLE THING TO TASTE. And who clued JUNK DRAWER as “Erotic artist?”

    The idea behind the puzzle was to repurpose common phrases as punny insults. So, e.g., at 59A the clue was “My dog could translate an ancient Mesopotamian tablet faster than you,” and the answer was ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG. Get it? A “dig” is an insult, right? And it relates to archeology. [I’ll pause to let you compose yourself.]

    Another one was at 21A: “That rotted old log ain’t even fit for termite food!” The answer there was KNOCK ON WOOD. Rex shared the great Eddie Floyd song with us, sung by Eddie. But this version by some white kids is fun too.

    A member of the Dull Men’s Club posted that he had a dream that he found very valuable binoculars at a flea market and was unhappy when he woke up and realized it was just a dream. But a comment noted that if it was a dream he shouldn’t need binoculars because he could just dream himself closer to whatever he was looking at.

    Great lunch at The Land of Kush, a vegan soul food restaurant in Charm City. The woman taking our order asked Linda if this was our first time there and when Linda said yes she said “I love that!” We had the vegan BBQ ribs with collard greens and potato salad, and the curried vegan chicken with cabbage and rice&beans. Loved it all. Good-sized portions — $36 total for the two of us.

    We headed there after a stop at employee-owned Union Craft Brewing, where I picked up a pair of sixes. Tried a can of their Duckpin Ale — very good! Canned May 21 — just 5 days ago — can’t get much fresher than that! (Burp!) That’s the company that makes Zaydie’s lager. Good stuff.

    The weather is iffy for tomorrow O’s/Bosox game. Fingers crossed (or whatever the equivalent Jewish thing is). We’ll let you know how it goes.

  • Six White Horses

    Hey everybody — it’s Bob Dylan’s birthday today! He’s 83, kinehora. How about opening for us today, buddy? Your choice.

    To 120, old man!

    The Blue Jays have a pitcher named Zach Pop. He’s Canadian. Every out he gets is a Pop out. See this photo? — his eyes are Pop eyes. Any drawing he does is Pop art. His son is named Snap Crackle Pop. A branch of his family lives in Boston. They are the Boston Pops.

    Wretching and Gagging Dept.

    At 57A yesterday, “Food brand with a rabbit mascot” was ANNIE’S. Rex noted: First time I ever saw maggots was in a box of ANNIE’S macaroni + cheese, true story. 

    And commenter Sailor wrote: Here’s another true story: In a January 2024 article titled “The Plastic Chemicals Hiding in Your Food”, Consumer Reports released the results of their testing for phthalates in common food products. Of 85 products tested, the highest level of phthalates per serving was found in Annie’s Organic canned cheesy ravioli (a General Mills brand). Caveat emptor.

    Just in case you’re as ignorant as I am (God forbid) — Phthalates are colorless, odorless, oily chemical compounds that are used as plasticizers to make plastic products more flexible, durable, and transparent. They are also used as solvents and additives in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), also known as vinyl. I.e., they don’t belong in your child’s ravioli.

    Here is the same girl, three weeks after eating that ravioli.

    I was looking through one of the poems for the day and didn’t like it. Not Kooserish enough for us: too poem-y. But the word curlew was in it. So it reminded me of this song by Irishman Christy Moore. I shared it on OC a long time ago. So it’s about time for a replay. It’s “So Do I” and it’s about a day the fisherman likes.

    These goddamn college presidents just don’t love the Jews enough!! What gives? In the third hearing the Repubs called to shriek themselves hoarse loving the Jews, Michael Schill of Northwestern U was given an F for tepidness in his Jew-loving by right-wing lunatic and Trump sycophant Elise Stefanik. (For those of you who are not in academia, an F is the lowest grade that can be given. It means you failed and are a stupid Jew-hating moron.)

    Schill was accused of “unilateral capitulation to the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic” protesters. Ginny Foxx of NC said he should be ashamed of endangering Jewish students. Whom we love to pieces!! More than we love our own goyishe children!! She later corrected herself and said he should be “doubly ashamed.” Thanks for clearing that up, Ginny. It was a little ambiguous.

    Hmmmmm, and isn’t Schill a German name? Just wonderin’.

    No, he’s Jewish and a descendant of Holocaust survivors.

    Wait, what?

    The shrieking grew so intense, the self-hating Jew Schill at one point stated: “I really am offended by you telling me what my views are.”

    Well, somebody has to!!

    Jonathan Holloway of Rutgers raised this insane and clearly anti-Semitic point regarding the protesters: “They were not, as some have characterized them, terrorists. They were our students.”

    Not good enough, Holloway!! We love the Jews so much more than you do, it’s ridiculous, Foxx screamed into her mic.

    The Republicans have vowed to call more hearings. [Yay.]

    Wow, who’s this?

    She’s Aerin Frankel, 24, and she’s the goalie for Boston in the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Her height is an issue — she’s 5′ 5″ — but she’s been incredible. In the semifinals against Montreal, Frankel made 109 saves on 111 shots in the first two games alone. Her 57 saves in Boston’s 2-1 triple-overtime victory set a new PWHL record for saves in a single game. Boston was outshot 145-102 in the series, but Frankel only yielded four goals for an outstanding .972 save percentage. [Georgie — check the math on that.]

    Phil used his magic to get that shot of her, above, that has us all drooling, but she usually looks like this.

    In a story by NBC News that, insanely, did not mention Taylor Swift once, Travis Kelce commented on the anti-gay speech teammate Harrison Butker gave at a Catholic college.

    “When it comes down to his views and what he said at Saint Benedict’s commencement speech, those are his. I can’t say I agree with the majority of it or just about any of it outside of just him loving his family and his kids. And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life, that’s just not who I am.” (My emphasis.)

    But Trav essentially knocked Butker by comparison when he said:

    “I grew up in a beautiful upbringing of different social classes, different religions, different races and ethnicities, in Cleveland Heights. It showed me a broad spectrum, just a broad view of a lot of different walks of life. And I appreciated every single one of those people for different reasons, and I never once had to feel like I needed to judge them, based off of their beliefs.

    Well-said Trav.

    Here’s the girlfriend, at work. Wedding bells in the offing, TK?

    BTW, the answer at 16A today was SWIFTIES.

    This poem is called “To a Daughter Leaving Home.” It’s by Linda Pastan and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    When I taught you
    at eight to ride
    a bicycle, loping along
    beside you
    as you wobbled away
    on two round wheels,
    my own mouth rounding
    in surprise when you pulled
    ahead down the curved
    path of the park,
    I kept waiting
    for the thud
    of your crash as I
    sprinted to catch up,
    while you grew
    smaller, more breakable
    with distance,
    pumping, pumping
    for your life, screaming
    with laughter,
    the hair flapping
    behind you like a
    handkerchief waving
    goodbye.

    OK, let’s end today with a good foot-stomper. At 19D, the clue was: Wedding staple with the line “Take it back now, y’all” and the answer was CHA CHA SLIDE. What? I heard of the electric slide, but not this. Anyway, it was gettable from the crosses. It was new to Rex too, and he shared this song with us, about yet a different slide. We’re heading down to Charm City tomorrow for a weekend away. Ball game versus the Bosox in Camden Yards on Monday. Hope we can post from there.

    Thanks for stopping by!

  • Nickels and Dimes

    Let’s open with a nice tune today. At 34D, “Spanish grandmother” is ABUELA. My Lianna, who is half Peruvian, has one. This song was shared by Rex commenter Son Volt. It’s called “Abuelita.”

    With all this nonsense coming up around Supreme Court Justice Alito and those silly flags, Owl Chatter sent Phil over to meet with him to clear things up. Apparently, it’s all a ridiculous mixup, Alito explained. He is completely neutral on all issues coming up before the Court and any aspersions cast to the contrary are just hateful gossip. Alito was gracious enough to invite Phil into his private office for the meeting.

    Who doesn’t love Dolly Parton? Not me! I love her to pieces. The puzzle today at 30A had the clue “Tiniest change,” and the answer was DIMES (get it?). So Rex treated us to this song of Dolly’s called “Nickels and Dimes.”

    Remember the story from a few days ago of the baseball fan who got two foul balls on two consecutive pitches at a game in Seattle? Well, Liz McGuire didn’t do too well on the foul ball hit her way Friday night in Toronto. She turned away from the action for just long enough to miss the swing. The ball came screaming towards her at 110 mph, and, well, it did a little damage.

    Fortunately, she’s okay. And when word got out (via her post, see below), the Topps Baseball people thought she was worthy of a baseball card! They produced 110 copies of the card pictured above, one for each MPH. Liz didn’t recover the ball that hit her, but the Jays gave her one signed by Bo Bichette (the batter). Get this — after receiving medical attention for getting bonked, she returned to her seat and watched the rest of the game.

    Here’s the message and photo she posted on X: Hey @BlueJays I got my face mashed in by a 110mph foul off Bo Bichette’s bat. I didn’t even get the ball. I even stayed till the end of the game. Any way you can hook a girl up?

    Any single Jay would be crazy not to call her, amirite? She’s quite a catch, IMO. Oops, maybe not the best word.

    Speaking of crazy, did you see the piece on Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan? It’s squarely in the You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Dept. Here she is.

    So in 2011 she began dating a guy named Kranz, and told her friends she converted to Judaism for him. They planned to marry in August of 2014 and he bought a penthouse in SF for them for $2.7 mil in July. During that same July, however, she attended a yoga festival in Lake Tahoe, and you know how crazy those things can get — right, Georgie? Well, she meets a guy named Sergey Brin there — the founder of Google! — and they become very very very friendly in no time. [He googled her.] Kranz finds out about the affair just a few days after the wedding. Ouch. So they get divorced.

    Shanahan’s memory of those early days with Brin are “magical” (her word). According to The Times she recounted wandering around the campus at Stanford with Brin “and discussing quantum physics.” [Owl Chatter readers know quite well what a turn-on that can be.] They married in 2018 and had a daughter they named Echo. But the pandemic was hard on them and they drifted apart. Reports surfaced that she had an affair with Elon Musk, but she denies it. In any event, she and Brin are through. She’s hanging out with a guy named Strumwasser now and working on the campaign.

    Here’s how the article ends. “She announced she gave another $8 mil to the campaign and said. ‘I think I know what they are going to say — that Bobby only picked me for my money.’ Her remark drew laughter from the crowd.”

    Oy.

    A 11A today, the clue is “Quirky bit of running footwear,” and the answer was TOE SHOE. You ever see these? They are like gloves, but for your feet.

    Gotta go! Sitting for the g’kids tonight. If I’m not back by tomorrow, call for help.

  • A Hand Held Overlong

    Clara Schumann was pretty hot.

    And that’s when she’s just sitting. Imagine when she’s banging away at the piano. So hubby Robert was a pretty lucky guy. He may have suspected that, since they had 8 children. But it’s not a happy story. Four of the kids pre-deceased Clara, and Robert suffered from mental illness, was institutionalized, and died young (46). Brahms was a close friend and great support to the Schupeople. It was said his relationship with Clara fell somewhere between friendship and love. All of that is to introduce today’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Lisel Mueller and is called “Romantics.”

    Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann
    The modern biographers worry
    “how far it went,” their tender friendship.
    They wonder just what it means
    when he writes he thinks of her constantly,
    his guardian angel, beloved friend.
    The modern biographers ask
    the rude, irrelevant question
    of our age, as if the event
    of two bodies meshing together
    establishes the degree of love,
    forgetting how softly Eros walked
    in the nineteenth century, how a hand
    held overlong or a gaze anchored
    in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart,
    and nuances of address, not known
    in our egalitarian language
    could make the redolent air
    tremble and shimmer with the heat
    of possibility. Each time I hear
    the Intermezzi, sad
    and lavish in their tenderness,
    I imagine the two of them
    sitting in a garden
    among late-blooming roses
    and dark cascades of leaves,
    letting the landscape speak for them,
    leaving nothing to overhear.

    We passed this bush on our morning stroll today. Pine Street in Chatham (NJ).

    I think of Clara Barton (fondly) in connection with nursing, of course, but her first gig was as a teacher. She was an excellent teacher and ahead of her time in feminist thinking. She said: “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay.”

    After 11 years at the chalkboard in Massachusetts, she moved to DC and worked in the U.S. Patent Office, quickly rising via promotions and earning the pay of a man. But at age ten she had nursed her brother for two years after he fell off the roof, so there was nursing in her blood. And when the Civil War broke out she saw how much help the wounded needed (and were not getting). Starting with the Battle of Bull Run, a devastating Union loss, she rode around the battlefield in an ambulance offering aid.

    After the war, she fought for the establishment of the American Red Cross, having learned about the International Red Cross on a trip to Geneva. It was established on this date in 1881. Barton said:  “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and nobody’s business is my business.”

    She was proposed to by several men, but remained unmarried her entire life. Too busy for that business. Here’s a nice shot of her on her stamp from a series on the Civil War.

    At 27A in the puzzle today, “Fruit also known as calabash” was BOTTLE GOURD, and it reminded some of us of Jimmy Durante who was just heading out as I was entering. His famous “good night” always included a “goodnight to Mrs. Calabash wherever you are.” No one ever knew for sure who that was. JD never said.

    According to legend in Calabash, NC, Durante passed through the town sometime in the 1940s and made friends with a young restaurant owner, Lucy Coleman. But not everyone agrees that she’s Mrs. C. According to the Internet Movie Database, “Mrs. Calabash” was a tribute to Durante’s first wife, Jeanne Olsen; supposedly, “Calabash” was an in-joke for them. Durante started using the “Mrs. Calabash” line about the time Jeanne died in 1943.

    Tomorrow, my students take their final exams. That will wrap up my penultimate semester. A summer class, and then the Fall, and then my ride into the sunset. It’s about time. Here’s a calabash.

    See you next time!

  • Hold On Tight To Your Dream

    The puzzle was funny today. Three long answers were famous nonmilitary people with military titles: SERGEANT PEPPER, COLONEL SANDERS, and CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. Then, at 49A the clue was “Unfazed response to a threat” from any of them, and the answer was YOU AND WHAT ARMY?

    Pabloinnh said he also liked the expression “you’d better bring a lunch,” when someone threatened to beat you up and you were assuring them that it would be an all day job.

    Sanders was awarded his honorary colonelcy by Kentucky “for noteworthy accomplishments, contributions to civil society, remarkable deeds, or outstanding service to the community, state, or a nation.” [OC friend Miriam tells us “colonelcy” is a legit word.]

    And, get this: “Sgt. Pepper” really was a military leader—that is, the gentleman in the photo used to represent him on the album was a real military leader, though James Melvin Babington was a Lieutenant General and not a Sergeant.

    On the outbreak of WWI Babington was given the command of the 23rd Division, part of Kitchener’s Army. He was described as “an elderly but fearless man who was universally popular.” Under him, the 23rd became known as “a remarkably hard-fighting and efficient division.” He was one of only a few commanding officers who saw to it that his men were properly kitted out, obtaining approval to spend £17,000 on clothing, and sending two officers to buy 20,000 sets of underclothes and boots. After the war he was Commander of the British Forces in Italy.

    Yup — this is the guy. Love the ‘stache, Sir!

    Back to Sanders, he began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky, during the Depression. He developed his “secret recipe” and patented method of cooking chicken in a pressure fryer. The first KFC franchise opened in South Salt Lake, Utah, in 1952. He eventually sold the US operations for $20 million (in today’s dollars). In his later years, he became highly critical of the food served by KFC restaurants, believing they had cut costs and allowed quality to deteriorate. He never got over the scandal that arose when he was caught sneaking ketchup packets out of a KFC location in his jacket pockets. [Let it go, Sir — we’ve all been there. An entire generation of Jewish mothers brazenly stole Sweet ‘n’ Low packets.]

    Here’s the good Colonel with his wife Claudia at their wedding. Under the icing, that cake is made entirely out of fried chicken! (No it’s not.) They met when she was a waitress at his roadside restaurant. As men have known since Biblical times, there’s nothing sexier than a pretty waitress.

    Claudia developed a fried chicken recipe of her own and several other dishes. She later had a restaurant too: Claudia Sanders Dinner House. Parking was never a problem.

    On Kentucky Colonelcies, commenter PH wrote: “Some notable Kentucky Colonels: Ali, Arthur Ashe, Wayne Gretzky, Elvis, Ringo Starr, Johnny Depp, Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Benedict XVI. Wiki says the total # of inductees is around 350,000. So maybe not that amusing. I just like the idea of the Pope eating chicken from a KFC bucket on his lap.”

    I checked out the website. It’s a helluva list. It includes Daryl Strawberry, and Jimmie Crutchfield (Negro Leagues), and Tiger Woods. Comic Norm Crosby, Phyllis Diller, and Walt Disney.

    My Spelling Bee (weekend version) buddy Larry shared this neat trivia with me in connection with my noting that the word GROAT had not been accepted. Dick Groat played for the Pirates back in the ’60s. He died last year and I chattered about him in this space. Well, it turns out (per Larry) that he is one of only two players to have defeated the Yankees twice in a Game 7 of the World Series. Groat did in with the 1960 Pirates and the 1964 Cardinals. Don Hoak did it with the same Pirate team, and with Brooklyn in 1955.

    In a scene in the film City Slickers starring Billy Crystal, the character Bonnie Rayburn, played by Helen Slater, expressed her incredulity that men could discuss baseball at great length. She said “I’ve been to games, but I don’t memorize who played third base for Pittsburgh in 1960,” at which point Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby immediately reply “Don Hoak.”

    After his playing career, Hoak managed in the minors and expected to land the Pirates’ gig in 1969. But he was passed over in favor of Danny Murtaugh. Hoak’s wife delivered the news to him.

    Less than two hours later, Hoak witnessed his brother-in-law’s car being stolen from the driveway of the Hoak house. He got into his own car and gave chase. He suffered a heart attack during the pursuit, but managed to stop his vehicle just before collapsing. He lay in his car for 20 minutes without anyone’s interceding. A doctor driving behind Hoak eventually got out of his own car and performed cardiac massage before an ambulance transported Hoak to the hospital. He died 10 minutes after arrival.  Hoak’s wife Jill claimed that he died of a broken heart because the Pirates passed him over.

    Ouch. Imagine what she would have said if she were bitter about it.

    I do not have Hoak in my autograph collection. Dammit! Since he died so young, even a plain index card signed by him is selling for over $100 on eBay. This photo is off the internet.

    If you believe every story has a moral, here it goes: If it’s your brother-in-law’s car, to hell with it.

    At 46D, “Holds tightly onto” was GRIPS. Here’s the Electric Light Orchestra, singing “Hold On Tight,” a nice tune to end on today.

    Thanks for popping by!

  • Let The Waves Crash In

    Today is the birthday of Malcolm X, born in Omaha, NE, in 1925. X was not his actual last name, of course. I think it was Ten, no? (Actually, it was Little.) It’s also a big date in Oscar Wilde’s life: in 1897 on this date he was released from jail, having been sentenced to two years of hard labor for being gay. Upon his release, he immediately left England for France where he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, under the pseudonym C.3.3: his prison number. I guess he grew attached to it. He died alone and penniless in France three years later. He said, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

    There was an oddity in the puzzle today at 101A, and Rex put his finger on it for me. The clue was “What ‘Eat’ stands for in the mnemonic ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles.’” The answer: EAST. Here’s Rex:

    “Who is it, exactly, that needs a mnemonic for the basic cardinal directions? ROYGBIV, I get. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos, LOL, not gonna remember that one, but I respect it. Every Good Boy Does Fine, sure. But ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles?’ How hard is it to remember North South EAST and West. And if it is hard, why didn’t you just go with NEWS? Is the idea that ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles’ puts the directions in clockwise order? 54 years old and never heard of anyone needing a mnemonic for the directions. Crazy.”

    (BTW, the educated mom serving nachos is for the planets. I hadn’t known that one.)

    But, guess what — a commenter replied:

    “48 years old and cannot, CANNOT, get the directions in order without Never Eat Shredded Wheat (I am a Brit so No to soggy waffles and Yes to bizarre, unpleasant yet passively aggressively much consumed breakfast cereals). I have learned to live with this inadequacy of mine.”

    And another comment explained:

    I only know this because I was married to a former Boy Scout: It’s not about remembering *what* the compass direction are; it’s a matter of knowing *where* the compass directions are with relation to your current position. It’s so that when you are on foot or on a bike or whatever, you can determine which way you need to turn based on which way you are going. See, usually, when you rattle off the directions, you say “north, south, east, west,” but when you are navigating—yes, as Rex suggested in his write-up—you need to have the compass directions in clockwise order. Hence, “never eat shredded wheat,” so if I’m headed north, east is to my right, south is behind me, and west is to my left. It’s very handy.

    Learned a new word at 89D: FONDANT. “Frosting alternative.” At first, I thought it might relate to frosting as something a woman does to her hair. But it’s cake frosting: “A thick paste made of sugar and water and often flavored or colored, used in the icing and decoration of cakes.” It’s like the topping on a black-and-white cookie: heavier than regular icing.

    And here’s a frosted hair product Georgie recommends from his time spent as a woman down in Brazil. I don’t think he looked like that, though.

    Did you know that POP OFF can mean “Perform very well, in modern slang?” News to me. It more generally means:  “speak spontaneously and at length, typically angrily.” It inspired Rex to share this unusual song by the Idles called “Pop Pop Pop.”

    Hold me to the bunsen burner
    And let the waves
    Crash in

    This snippet is from the John McPhee story I referred to yesterday.

    In college, I had written, as a “creative thesis,” a stillborn novel that was little more than an academic exercise. Whatever life it might have had expired as it was written. But of course, at the time, I did not assess it as such, and I sent it to several New York publishers, who rejected it seriatim—Random House, Charles Scribner’s Sons, Alfred A. Knopf. Dudley Johnson, one of my professors in the English department, competing with me in naïveté, suggested that I write to Alfred Knopf himself, asking for the readers’ reports. From them, said Johnson, I might glean thoughts that would serve me well in future efforts.

    Alfred himself wrote back to me, saying that his company never released its readers’ reports, adding, gratuitously, this:

    The readers’ reports in the case of your manuscript would not be very helpful, and I think might discourage you completely.

    This was the letter that caused my mother to say, “Someone should go in there and k-nock his block off.”

    Here’s McPhee.

    This was fun. As you may know, the cookie of Crossworld is OREO because it’s 75% vowels. It appears so often, it’s a challenge to come up with an original way of clueing it. Here’s its clue from today: “Treats that Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith picked as runner-up to Doritos for ‘best snack in America.’” Well I googled those names with the word snack and watched a ten-minute video on the Bon Appetit site in which these two British food critics (Paul and Prue), compare about 15 American snacks. They hated Pop Tarts, Twinkies, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Simple Lay’s potato chips were spoken of well. But Oreos and Doritos (Cool Ranch) came out on top, with Doritos coming in first. Paul noticed that the American Snickers was inferior to ones he’s had in England. The chocolate wasn’t as good. One GS cookie was in the mix — thin mints. They liked them, but not as much as Oreos. This young lady is f*cking organized about it.

    Let’s see what’s in the Owl Chatter mailbag today. Here’s a note from Evelyn Gurewitz in Montvale NJ.

    Dear Owl Chatter, At 62D today, the clue “Nincompoop, more vulgarly” came out to be ASSHAT. I love it, of course, but I don’t recall hearing it when I was growing up in the 1990s. What gives?

    Well, Ev. First of all, thanks for reaching out! And you are correct! As a popular alternative to asshole and similar terms, asshat only emerged in the early 2000s. The first entry in Urban Dictionary appears in 2002, defining the term as “One who has their head up their ass. Thus wearing their ass as a hat.” The term alludes to other expressions like “pull your head out of your own ass” or “your head is so far up your ass,” ways of saying a person is too self-absorbed or oblivious to their surroundings, hence “stupid.”

    Hope that helps clarify the issue for you, Evy! Hope to hear from you again.

    That wraps up this Sunday chatter. We’ll catch you next time around.

  • Nina Gilbert Raised Her Hand

    I see the Phillies have the best record in baseball as of this morning, and that’s with their star SS Trea Turner injured. The Yankees sit atop the AL, just a smidge above the O’s. Our Gnats briefly surfaced above .500 about a week ago, but have slipped to 20-23 now and the lineup is looking pretty weak. Here’s manager Davey Martinez, after a good cry.

    This piece by Blake Ward is from tomorrow’s Met Diary.

    When the tenth anniversary of my move to NYC came around, I selected a Friday evening in June to celebrate with a barbecue at my Gowanus apartment.

    String lights swayed in the breeze. The coals glowed white hot in the grill. The popsicles were organized in the freezer.

    One thing was missing: a cooler for drinks.

    I walked to the nearby grocery store to pick up one of those inexpensive foam coolers that seem to be ubiquitous in the summer.

    But after a fruitless lap around the aisles and a series of head shakes from store workers, I felt defeated and turned toward the door.

    “Amigo!” a voice from the storeroom in back yelled.

    I walked over to find a young man grinning and gesturing toward some empty cardboard boxes. He quickly fortified one with some layers of discarded Styrofoam and added a big black trash bag as a liner.

    Together, we emptied some beer and two bags of ice into our new makeshift cooler, and I carried it proudly back to the party.

    The drinks stayed ice cold all night.

    Today’s puzzle headed right for the Dirty-Old-Man Department — our favorite! The clue at 1A was “Where you might shop for the sheer fun of it?” and when I saw it fit, I filled in VICTORIA’S SECRET right away. It led me to post this story on Rex’s blog:

    “My daughter just turned 38, kinehora, has five children of her own (all gorgeous), and is an excellent RN in oncology. But back when she was in her nursing program there were a few rough periods, to put it mildly. During one, the State of NJ, in its wisdom, took away her driver’s license. So I became her father/driver.

    “I got a call from her in school one day saying she forgot her notebook on her desk at home and really needed it, so could I drive it over? She gave me the classroom location and said I should just walk in through the door and she’d see me and come get it. I found the notebook, drove to the school, and located the classroom.

    “I opened the door and stepped in. The professor stopped talking, and about 25 exquisitely beautiful 19-year-old women all turned to look at me. I became a stammering Ralph Kramden: ‘Homina, homina, homina,’ I explained. Finally, my daughter (enjoying the scene enormously) rescued me by coming over and taking the notebook. I later described the experience as stepping into the VICTORIA’S SECRET catalog.”

    Phil! Get out of there! What the hell is wrong with you??

    One funny feature of the puzzle was at 3D the clue was “Nun’s habit?” and the answer was CELIBACY. So it had celibacy crossing Victoria’s Secret. Make up your mind!! Maybe the nun was reaffirming her commitment after a visit to the store, because the answer at 16A was I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

    In John McPhee’s piece in the New Yorker of 5/20/24, Tabula Rasa, he writes about a faux final exam he tortures his students with.

    O.K., I would say, this is your final exam. Everything rides on it. Write these twenty words and spell them correctly. Moccasin.

    I gave them plenty of time to wonder if there were two “c”s and two “s”s or one “c” and two “s”s or two “c”s and one “s.” Next?

    Asinine.

    Braggadocio.

    Rarefy, liquefy, pavilion, vermilion, impostor, accommodate. By now, they were flunking out. Years before I even started to teach, I had clipped the test from Esquire, where T. K. Brown III, compiler of the twenty words, wrote that “impostor” is the most misspelled word in the English language and “accommodate” is the word misspelled in the greatest variety of ways.

    Mayonnaise.

    Impresario.

    Supersede, desiccate, titillate, resuscitate, inoculate, rococo, consensus, sacrilegious, obbligato.

    Raise your hand if you spelled all twenty correctly.

    No hands.

    Nineteen?

    In 1975, Nina Gilbert raised her hand.

    Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen . . . Across the years, zero to very few hands would go up until the countdown got into the twelve-to-six range. After six, for humanitarian reasons, I stopped asking for hands. At Nina Gilbert’s level, in five decades, no one else would raise a hand.

    Nina Gilbert was a music major. She became an arranger and composer of choral music, ran education programs for the Boston Lyric Opera, and taught sequentially at Hamilton, Lafayette, U.C. Irvine, and the Webb Schools, in Claremont, California.

    Moccasins: two Cs, one S.

    Happy Birthday Tina Fey, born on this date in 1970 in Upper Darby PA. She’s been married to hubby Jeff Richmond for 23 years and they have two kids. He’s also in show biz. Tina can get pretty sexy. Love the stilettos, girl! Could she be hitting on Phil? Nah. I mean he’s cute. And he’s got that blind thing working for him. But, nah. Not Tina Fey. You might have better luck with that moccasin girl, Philly. Just sayin’.

    “I got into medicine because I have a passion for confirming people’s birthdays.”

    OK. I think that’s enough nonsense for today. Georgie — let’s post and then kick back and relax. How are we fixed for Diet Cokes? Do we have any without the caffeine? — it’s almost five.

  • The Chynna Syndrome

    To our Jewish readers: Do you feel the love? Have you ever felt it more? The House Republicans are falling all over themselves with love for us. Speaker Johnson travels all the way up from DC to save us from the anti-Semites at Columbia. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) was with him and a shouting match erupted at one point. “I love the Jews more!,” she shrieked. “No — I do! I love the Jews more!,” Johnson countered. Back in DC, Foxx’s committee (Education) sent a blistering warning to Harvard as well: “We love the Jews!,” it said. “Like, totally.”

    Johnson, of course, shares the views of Christian Nationalists, and Foxx is stridently anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, pro-Trump, and on and on. She even voted against Hurricane Katrina aid. And Owl Chatter doesn’t recall them speaking up at the time of the Charlottesville “Jews will not replace us” rally. But that’s okay — all is forgiven. We love you too, Ginny and Mike! We love you!

    I thought a TANGRAM was what you get when you leave your grandmother out in the sun too long. But according to 40A today, it’s a seven-piece puzzle.

    It’s a “dissection” puzzle, meaning you dissect the puzzle pieces and use them to form other shapes. The tangram’s historical Chinese inventor is unknown except through the pen name Yang-cho-chu-shih (dim-witted recluse). (Not kidding.)

    Over 6500 different tangram problems have been created from 19th century texts alone, and the current number is ever-growing. Fu Traing Wang and Chuan-Chih Hsiung proved in 1942 that there are only thirteen convex tangram configurations (configurations with no recesses in the outline). Here they are:

    And here are some popular tangram configurations. That shark is not the shark from the Jaws discussion from yesterday.

    3D: “Pleated garment.” KILT.

    This semester, every now and then, on my walk between Penn Station in NY and the subway on Sixth Avenue, I pass by a man walking towards me wearing a kilt. He has a serious don’t-mess-with-me look on his face, and walks with great assurance. I take it as a good omen when I see him. The dictionary defines kilt as a knee-length skirt of pleated tartan cloth. It was traditionally worn by men, but is worn by women now too. Needless to say, Phil was eager to take on this assignment.

    Here are some lasses helping him out of some ditch he fell into. C’mon girls — put your backs into it!

    And what did you say to upset this one, Philly? Can’t you see she’s armed?

    Does she look like her mom? Or should I say her “MAMA?” This is Owen Elliot-Kugell, (Mama) Cass Elliot’s daughter.

    Cass and Michelle Phillips were in the puzzle today as MAMAS. Michelle, I am happy to see, is still among us, and will be turning 80 in a few weeks, kinehora. She has 3 children, including Chynna Phillips. Here’s Chynna with hubby William Baldwin. They have 3 kids too.

    I’m closing the shop now — that woman in the green kilt with the sword is scaring me. See you tomorrow.

  • Overcaffeinated Roosters

    I saw the movie Jaws by mistake. I thought I was going to see “Jews.” But I stayed anyway and it was pretty gripping. I bet you all remember that first girl that was eaten? The actress was Susan Backlinie and she’s finally dead for real, at the age of 77, from a different but no less deadly kind of attack — a heart attack.

    You may not have realized you saw her again, about ten years later, in a falling elevator in The Towering Inferno. As you can see in the first photo, above, she was fitted with a harness in the shark scene and tugged to shore by ten men on each side, giving the effect of being dragged by a shark. Spielberg called it one of the most dangerous stunts he ever filmed. It took three days to shoot. When Richard Dreyfuss saw how the scene turned out he told Susan he was absolutely terrified. The screams were actually Susan screaming but were recorded later. For authenticity, Spielberg poured water down her throat as she was screaming — what later was termed waterboarding in another context. (Not kidding.)

    Susan was a state freestyle swimming champion in high school. In her later years, she sometimes attended “Jawfests” and said many fans blamed her for their fear of swimming. The comment she heard most often, she said, was “You know you kept me out of the water.” Susan is not in the famous Jaws poster that has Susan’s character Chrissie swimming on the water’s surface while the huge shark looms below. It’s a different swimmer, from the book cover, a model named Allison Maher. Here’s Allison, with her little baby shark.

    Susan is survived by her husband, Harvey Swindall, who learned early in the marriage not to grab at her legs. “And no biting, sweetheart.”

    This poem is from today’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s called “Walking Distance,” and it’s by Connie Wanek.

    for Stanley Dentinger (1922-2004)

    Walking distance used to be much farther,
    miles and miles.

    Your grandfather, as a young man
    with a wife and new baby son,

    walked to and from
    his job, which was in the next town.

    That was Iowa, 1946,
    and it was not a hardship

    but “an opportunity,” which is youth speaking,
    and also a particular man

    of German descent, walking on good legs
    on white gravel roads,

    smoking cigarettes which were cheap
    though not free as they’d been

    during the war. Tobacco
    burned toward his fingers, but never

    reached them. The fire was small and personal,
    almost intimate, glowing bright

    when he put the cigarette to his lips
    and breathed through it.

    So many cigarettes before bombing runs
    and none had been his last,

    a great surprise. Sometimes he passed
    a farmer burning field grass in the spring,

    the smoldering line advancing toward the fence.
    He had to know what he was doing,

    so near the barn. You had to be close
    to see the way

    blades of dry grass passed the flame along
    at a truly individual level,

    very close to see how delicious a meal
    the field was to the fire

    on a damp, calm, almost English morning
    ideal for walking.

    In the puzzle today the clue at 67A was “Where to find a very wet sponge,” and the answer was REEF. Rex commented: “My theory is that things that live their entire lives under water are not, in fact, wet. You can only be wet on land. In the ocean, you just … are.”

    Hmmmmmm.

    The theme was very clever, IMO. It led to a nice “aha moment,” as the expression goes, when you finally grok it. (BTW, my good friend Miriam Webster assures me that grok is a legit word (a perfectly cromulent word): it means to understand profoundly and intuitively.) There was a series of starred clues for which the answers made no sense. E.g., Why is “Gone” SOME NERVE? And why is “Scoop received in a call” ICE CREAM?

    Well, the revealer appears at 63A: ALL FOR ONE. The expression “all for one and one for all” tells you you need to substitute “one” for “all” in the clues, and vicey-versey. So “gone” becomes “gall” and SOME NERVE makes sense then. And “scoop received in a call” becomes “scoop received in a cone” so ICE CREAM makes sense.

    Unrelated to the theme, at 37D the clue was “Head of lettuce?” and the answer was CFO (chief financial officer). You had to think of lettuce as the old slang term for money. And what was nice was the F from CFO intersected with the last letter of RED LEAF, which is a variety of real lettuce. The clue for RED LEAF was “Colorful variety of lettuce,” but Mr. Grumpypants felt the need to note: Red leaf lettuce is colorful in name only. It’s probably 95% green!!

    Hrummmmph!

    Another nice touch was at 48A “A notable Guinness” was ALEC, of course, and the clue at 6D was “Some Guinness records” which was FIRSTS.

    Jean Arp’s sculpture “Shirt Front and Fork” was cited as the clue for ARP. Here it is:

    At 45A the clue was “With every detail perfect,” and the answer was TOAT (to be read: TO A T). I wrote: If I were the constructor, I would bag TOAT. (No response yet, thank goodness.)

    One of the clues was “It gets the ball rolling.” It inspired the NYT, in its Wordplay column, to include this photo:

    Those are bowling pins made of ice from a summer festival in Tokyo.

    Speaking of getting eaten (above), do you know who said the following recently?

    “Has anyone ever seen “The Silence of the Lambs?” The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? “Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,” as this poor doctor walked by. “I’m about to have a friend for dinner.” But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter.”

    That was Trump, at a rally in NJ. Frank Bruni cites it in his newsletter noting that Trump has been unusually unhinged of late, even by his own standards. For one thing, Bruni notes that Lector has not died in any of the novels he’s in. So why call him the “late” great Hannibal? Here’s JF from the film.

    From Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature:

    In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols wrote: “Democracies have always had conspiracy theorists and other cranks wandering about the public square, sneezing and coughing various forms of weirdness on their fellow citizens. But even in the recent past, most people with a basic level of education and a healthy dollop of common sense had no trouble resisting the contagion of idiocy.”

    In the NYT, J Wortham studied Brittney Griner’s technique and admired “the way she lifts the ball over the rim and into the net as gently as if she were returning a lost child to a parent.”

    And, last, my favorite: In The Arizona Republic, Ed Masley appraised a recent Rolling Stones concert and wrote that Mick Jagger’s physicality “invites you to imagine Mikhail Baryshnikov raised by a family of overcaffeinated roosters.”

    egs posted this today on Rex’s blog: “Wanna know how to feel young at age 70? Go to the Rolling Stones Hackney Diamonds tour sponsored by AARP! I was one of the younger of the 75,000 boomers watching Mick strut his stuff in Seattle last night. I mean, if you’re going to have AARP sponsor your tour, couldn’t you make it a series of matinees? We got home at 1:15 am! But Mick still puts on a great show. Go if you get a chance.”

    Dylan fans will recognize this photo from the album cover of “Bringing It All Back Home.”

    It was taken by one of Phil’s heroes, Daniel Kramer, who died late last month at the age of 91. It was shot in the living room of the home of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, near Woodstock, NY. The woman in red is Sally Grossman, Albert’s wife. That’s a cat on Dylan’s lap, and Kramer explained that he took only ten shots that day and the one you see was chosen because it’s the only one with the cat looking at the lens. It earned Kramer a Grammy nomination. He also shot the cover of “Highway 61 Revisited.”

    Dylan had already released three albums before he caught Kramer’s attention. In February 1964 Kramer heard him singing “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on the Steve Allen show and “was riveted by the power of the song’s message.”

    He harangued Grossman’s office for six months trying to arrange a photo shoot. Finally, Grossman himself took the call and said OK. A one-hour shoot turned into a five hour shoot, and for the next year Kramer was Dylan’s shadow. Photos began appearing in publications and Kramer eventually published one collection in 1967 and another in 2018, containing hundreds of shots.

    It was during this period that Dylan shocked the world by going electric at the Newport Folk Festival. As Kramer put it, “Bob didn’t really want to be Woody Guthrie. He wanted to be Elvis Presley.” Kramer said the significance of the Newport moment was overblown. He saw Dylan make the conversion months earlier at a photo shoot in the recording studio for “Bringing It All Back Home.”

    In October 1964, Dylan was slated to perform in Lincoln Center, and its management told Kramer he was restricted to a glass-enclosed balcony during the performance. Dylan told Grossman to let Lincoln Center know that if Kramer couldn’t go wherever he wanted to go, the concert was off.

    In late 1965, Kramer moved on from Dylan, not wanting to be limited. He continued to connect on an intimate level with luminaries. “I had a writing lesson from Norman Mailer, and boxing lessons from Frazier and Ali,” he told The Times.

    Kramer is survived by no immediate family members. He was married to his wife Arline for 48 years until her death in 2016. The last word on her lips was “Cheese.”

    Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.

  • Foul, Out of Play

    Ever feel lucky? Maybe when looking for a parking spot? Throwing money out on a lottery ticket? Josh George said he used up all of the luck for his life on Monday at a Royals/Mariners game in Seattle. You hear about this?

    It was a normal-sized crowd for a Monday — 15,000 fans. And, in fact, George was packed in with quite a few others in his section down the left field line. Maybe there was some karma at play because the batter was also named Josh: Josh Rojas. Brady Singer was on the mound and there was nothing at all unusual at play when Rojas sent a foul ball sailing out to left. Josh George made a damn good play on it — reaching out, snaring it, and bringing it in to his chest. He was thrilled and held the ball up to show it off. Who wouldn’t?

    Singer was tossed a new ball and Rojas resettled himself into the batter’s box. He fouled the next pitch off too, also down the left field line, and OMG — pretty much to the same spot. George didn’t catch this one on the fly, but it hit his arm, and fell to the ground. He bent over and got it. Two foul balls on two consecutive pitches. Jesus F*cking Christ!

    According to a report by Josh Kirshenbaum for MLB.com — OMG — another Josh! — this is starting to freak me out — George was invited back to the stadium the next night where he arrived wearing the same teal Mariners jersey and navy Seattle Kraken cap that is apparently the luckiest outfit in the Pacific Northwest.

    Rojas autographed the two balls for him, and he was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch. Actually — the first two pitches! — how cool is that?

    Special thanks to Owl Chatter reader villawash for a correction to yesterday’s post. It originally went out stating that the Doc was holding a cicada — but it’s not a cicada! Not sure what it is? A butterfly? Here’s a cicada, on its upward climb:

    This poem is a little long, but what else are you going to do with your time? Seriously. It’s by Denise Duhamel and is called “I Have Slept in Many Places.” It’s the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation.

    After Diane Seuss

    First in the womb, my own space capsule
    in my mother’s universe, my eyelids sticky with pre-birth,
    then the incubator and crib, which I didn’t recognize
    as a prison until years later when my sister stood inside it
    and I, rising from my first big-girl bed, unlatched her
    because she was hungry for breakfast. Then my grammy’s
    four-poster, kiddie sleeping bag, the hospital bed,
    where I was hoarse after I relinquished my tonsils. A mat
    during kindergarten naptime, the backseat of my mother’s car,
    another hospital bed with silver bars on the side
    where I wrote my first stories. The double bed I shared
    with my sister when our twins gave out. A college dorm
    mattress with another girl’s period stain, a damp study-abroad
    bed in Wales, Eurail seats where I could sleep overnight
    and save money on a hostel if I picked the right schedule.
    Hostel bunk beds with bathrooms down the hall. A friend’s
    waterbed, another friend’s bed on her father’s boat.
    Then my cousin’s hand-me-down mattress
    in my first apartment in Boston, a boyfriend’s bed
    in Revere, a bed of another boy hoping to make
    my Revere boyfriend jealous. Sublet beds,
    a bed in a furnished studio apartment in Tucson
    where there was no way of knowing who’d slept on it
    before me. Futon in the East Village right on the floor.
    Same futon on a used loft bed to suspend me above the mice.
    Then a lavender pullout Mary Richards couch.
    Vacation beds, hotel beds. More boyfriend beds
    in Brooklyn and Alphabet City. Hotel beds.
    Florida marital bed and another hospital bed—
    this time surgery. Divorce bed (same as marital bed
    with mattress flipped for good luck). Evacuation beds
    during hurricanes. My true-love’s bed with its magic
    mattress topper. I know I am forgetting so many places—
    subways, lounge chairs in the sand, Amtrak seats,
    movie theaters, hammocks, my niece’s college graduation
    (I had taken a Vicodin), conference beds, beds at colleges
    or hotels after I’d given poetry readings, emergency row
    plane seats, on my mother’s breast when I was an
    infant, in my father’s arms after a childhood asthma attack.
    My parents’ bed after their deaths. I’m heading
    for the hard coffin bed myself, my eyes sewn shut
    against insomnia. I’ve asked the undertaker
    to press glow-in-the-dark stars inside the lid.

    The puzzle today might have been neat if it were your birthday. The theme was Happy B-Day! There were four long answers with at least 3 Bs in them. The best was clued well with “Brewer’s implement.” Answer: BASEBALL BAT. But I hadn’t even noticed the best part — every single clue started with the letter B. It was impressive that the constructor could accomplish that in a way that did not call attention to itself. It would have been “cleaner” had there been no other Bs in the grid (other than the ones used for the theme), but there were several scattered about.

    Caitlin Clark scored 20 in her debut, but the team lost pretty badly, her shooting wasn’t crisp, and she had a lot of turnovers. Inauspicious, but so what? She’s great. It’ll work out.

    See you tomorrow.