The Wellington Files

  • Canephori

    This “Tiny Love Story” from today’s NYT is by David Shock.

    My wife died in 1991. Her best friend and I grew close in mourning. That blossomed into love. But was it a good match? And so soon, just months later? After a Chinese dinner, we opened our fortune cookies. Hers: “He likes to flirt, but toward you his intentions are honorable.” Mine: “You or a close friend will be married within a year.” Married 32 years now, she struggles with cognition, and has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. On a trip before that diagnosis, I stopped alone at a Thai diner. My fortune: “Embrace the change that is coming.” Love abides.

    Here’s a shot Phil took of the two of them outside of Yankee Stadium. (Well, very very very far outside.)

    With the Russian army taking an approach in Ukraine akin to feeding paper (i.e., its own men), into a shredder, it’s no surprise that Russia is running out of soldiers. So a front page piece in the NYT today revealed that it’s encouraging women to join up. Of course, on March 8th Putin said: “The most important thing for every woman, no matter what profession she has chosen and what heights she has reached, is the family.” But upon being informed that all the men are dead, he said “Fu*k that sh*t. Sign ’em up.”

    Recruiting officers are circulating through Russian prisons offering women inmates a pardon and $2,000 a month — 10 times the national minimum wage — in return for serving in frontline roles for a year, no military experience required. Hmmmmmm. There’s a catch there somewhere — sounds like too good a deal.

    Can you find the lady in this platoon?

    Ouch. That has to hurt — Phil! Help her up! That’s Sunisa “Suni” LEE. She was chosen for the puzzle today over Ang, Robert E., and Spike. Good choice! Her last name at birth was Phabsomphou, which is a smidge less crossword friendly than LEE.

    Suni was the 2020 Olympic all-around champion, and the 2019 world championship silver medalist on the floor. She was a member of the teams that won gold at the 2019 World Championships and silver at the 2020 Summer Olympics. In 2021, she was named Female Athlete of the Year by Sports Illustrated. Lee is the first Hmong-American Olympian, and the first woman of Asian descent and first Asian-American woman to win the Olympic all-around title. After Suni’s spectacular wins, her team adopted the motto “A giant walks Hmong us.” [No it didn’t.]

    Suni is not related to the gymnasts Ginger Lee or Hungra Lee. Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee once said “Kansas is so flat you can stand on a chair and watch your dog leave you for three days.”

    Crossworld bids a sad goodbye to Nancy Schuster, crossword solver, constructor, and editor, who passed away at age 90 in Newburgh, NY on April 26. Nancy “burst onto the scene” in 1978 when she won the first ever American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford CT, and walked off with a whopping $125 in prize money. (The grand prize this year is $7,500.) She said the hardest clue was in puzzle #3 (of 5) and was  “Greek festival maidens with baskets on their heads.” The answer, of course, is CANEPHORI.

    Nancy was born in the Bronx and went to the Bronx High School of Science (Hi Joe!), and then earned a BS degree in chemistry at Adelphi. The editor of the PTA rag at her son’s elementary school asked her to write XW puzzles to jazz up the publication. She was quickly hooked and jokingly said “my house never got cleaned, my dinners never got made, my children were filthy, and my husband was furious.”

    She graduated to more serious publications and was one of three candidates to replace Eugene T. Maleska in 1993 as the XW editor of The Times. But she believed Will Shortz was more deserving of the job because he could dedicate himself more completely to it than she could have. For most of the past 30 years — until her 90th birthday last year — Mrs. Schuster tested and proofread The Times’s crosswords for Will Shortz. [BTW, that’s Shortz in the white shirt behind Nancy, below.]

    Nancy had 12 puzzles published in the NYT and recalled in particular one that was rejected by Margaret Farrar, the first NYT editor. The theme was the “kissing bug,” or mononucleosis. “She definitely did not approve of that,” Nancy recalled. “She was horrified!” [As a measure of how times (and The Times) have changed, today’s puzzle contains two “feminine hygiene product” clues for TAMPON and PAD, and, separately, BRA and TEAT.]

    Nancy is survived by her daughter and son and four grandchildren. Irwin Schuster, a songwriter and music publisher whom she married in 1955, died in 1984. She left instructions for her burial to be carried out six down and twelve across.

    Rest in peace, Nance. Crossworld is richer for your good work.

    And we will let that shayna punim send us off tonight. So joyous! See you tomorrow.

  • Gas Station Sushi

    Here’s a headline from The Onion: Trump Watching Movie On iPad During Trial Without Using Headphones. The story goes on to state: “According to court transcripts, Judge Juan Merchan repeatedly attempted to get Trump’s attention to ask him to turn off the 1994 Harrison Ford CIA thriller Clear And Present Danger, but the former commander-in-chief’s eyes remained locked on the screen, seemingly unbothered by the disturbance he was causing.

    This is a terrible poem that was submitted to Met Diary by Lou Craft. Or maybe it’s not terrible after all. You decide.

    Anything is possible in Coney.
    Everyone believes that dreams come true.
    It’s an Eden of Illusion,
    That indulges your confusion,
    A mystery without a clue.

    Everything is wonderful in Coney.
    The Ferris wheel will bring you to the sky.
    As you gaze across the ocean,
    You can somehow get the notion,
    You will soar and you will fly.

    I found my love, she’s gone now, in Coney.
    In Coney.

    Everything is possible in Coney.
    In Coney Island all your dreams come true.
    You must never ask what is it,
    But just know that it’s exquisite,
    And all you’d ever want
    Is there for you.

    In today’s puzzle the clue at 31D was “Ball handler?” and I was about to fill in POINT GUARD which would fit. But that question mark tells us it’s got to have something cutesy about it. So I waited for some crossing letters to appear, grudgingly — it was a hard puzzle. It turned out to be PODIATRIST. I guess it’s the ball of your foot that’s being handled. (UROLOGIST wouldn’t fit.)

    My favorite was 17A: “Iconic line on 1950s TV.” Remember it? — LUCY I’M HOME. Actually, however, in the entire series, Desi only said “Lucy I’m home” once (in the fur coat episode). He typically said “Honey I’m home.” People think he said “Lucy.” It’s an example of the Mandela Effect (discussed in earlier OC posts).

    35D was new to me. The clue was “Japanese aesthetic that embraces imperfection,” and the answer was WABI-SABI. From Wikipedia: It’s a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It appreciates beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature. It’s derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, and emptiness or absence of self-nature. [The Jewish version adds the ungratefulness of children.] Characteristics include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature.

    Rex noted that Wikipedia includes a warning not to confuse WABI-SABI with wasabi, the spicy sushi condiment. He writes: “WABI-SABI is obviously a term that is getting used carelessly by non-Japanese speakers; otherwise, why would Wikipedia warn me ‘Not to be confused with wasabi?’ Hey, Wikipedia, you’re not the boss of me. If I wanna apply WABI-SABI to my tuna roll, I’m gonna apply WABI-SABI to my tuna roll.”

    Hrrrrrrumph!

    But never mind all that. Very sexy TARA REID paid her first visit to Owl Chatter in today’s puzzle. Hey TR!

    She was clued with her role of Bunny Lebowski in “The Big Lebowski.” You may also remember her from “Sharknado.” I missed “Sharknado,” but this trailer is pretty informative. It’s sort of a cross between Jaws and Singin’ in the Rain.

    How’s this for a pairing? Rainer Maria RILKE with MR T. They crossed in the grid at their shared R.

    Jeez Louise — lighten up, guys. Rilke said the following:

    “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”

    Amen to that, Bro. I’m sure T is with you on that, RMR.

    You hear of Dan Bern? Word of him had not reached me under my rock until yesterday. In yesterday’s puzzle, at 42A the clue was “Pip’s love in ‘Great Expectations’” and the answer was ESTELLA. It led Son Volt to share this pretty amazing (IMO) Dan Burn song called “Estelle.” Before we hear it, this is the first para in his Wikipedia entry: “Dan Bern (also known as Bernstein; born July 27, 1959) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, novelist, and painter. His music has been compared to that of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Ochs and Elvis Costello.”

    This song is very much ala Dylan; the words reward close attention, if, you know, you like Dylan.

    Everybody’s favorite clue/answer yesterday was “Shell fish?” The answer was GAS STATION SUSHI. (It’s probably not too bad with wabi-sabi on it, amirite?)

    Rex wished that the Japanese beer ASAHI which appeared elsewhere in the grid, were more closely paired with the sushi. He wrote: “After that GAS STATION SUSHI you are definitely gonna want something to wash it down, and ASAHI seems fitting. The SUSHI / ASAHI crossing would’ve been the cherry on top (which, coincidentally, is how they serve GAS STATION SUSHI. Me: [looks dubiously at plastic container of sushi next to the beef jerky jar] “Maraschino cherry?” Cashier: “Yup. It’s sweet. Kinda hides the fishy taste, you know? You want a Miller Lite with that?” “Uh … you got any ASAHI?”). 

    Now, that is some goddamn Grade A puzzle commentary. I can’t top that sh*t.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Offices Closed; Private Party

    Hi everybody. Owl Chatter offices are closed today so we can celebrate our 500th post. In lieu of normal broadcasting, we are posting brief thumbnails of our staff, without whose tiresome, I mean tireless, dedication, none of this nonsense would be possible.

    First, our wonderful owls: Wellington, bottom right; Wilma, up top; and their beautiful son Worthington, the owls behind Owl Chatter and our constant inspiration. Hi guys!

    `Z

    Next, a very exciting announcement! Owl Chatter fave, the exquisite Ana de Armas, has joined our staff as Beauty and Style Coordinator. Welcome aboard AdA! Lord knows, our beauty and style can use some coordinating. Also, she’ll lend a little class to the place — the rest of us slobs are pretty pathetic.

    Ana is 5′ 6″, 36 years old, was born in Havana, Cuba, and lives in Vermont now. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress for her performance in Blonde, and for a Razzle as Worst Actress for her role in Ghosted.

    Former Congressman George (“Georgie”) Santos is Owl Chatter’s General Administrator, mainly responsible for keeping the refrigerator stocked with diet soda. George has earned degrees from both Baruch College and NYU, and prior to his election to Congress worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

    Here’s George at a sober moment, considering how much Diet Sprite we need.

    Last, Owl Chatter’s intrepid photographer, Phil. Phil is from St. Louis, studied photography at Lighthouse’s School for the Blind, and has received innumerable awards for his extraordinary work. Well, four. Looking good Philly!

    OK, George should be back with the cake and champagne soon so we’ll be starting the festering, — I mean festivities. See you tomorrow! Thanks for stopping in!

  • Tamora Today

    I learned about Mimouna yesterday, a festival celebrated in Morocco, Israel, France, Canada, and wherever Maghrebi Jews live. It takes place at sundown on the last day of Passover and celebrates the return to eating the usual diet, as opposed to kosher-for-Passover foods. One of the customs is to eat mofletta, a thin crepe made from water, flour and oil. The dough is rolled out thinly and cooked in a greased frying pan until it is yellow-brown in color. It is usually eaten warm, spread with butter, honey, syrup, jam, walnut, pistachios or dried fruits.

    OMG, Georgie! — look who’s here!! ANA! A day early! Readers, our favorite guest, ANA de Armas is in today’s puzzle at 53A (Actress de Armas) a day ahead of our 500th-post celebration. We have a special announcement to make about Ana, but let’s wait until tomorrow for that. Settle in upstairs, Babe — we won’t tell Phil you’re here so he won’t bother you. Chinese okay for dinner? George is picking up. Great — see you later!

    Did you know that Black Japan varnish is a thing? As LMS used to say: I was today years old when I learned about it. It’s a dark varnish/stain. So at 1D, “Covers with a glossy black varnish” was JAPANS.

    Aside from our ANA, we were also visited by KIRI Te Kanawa, SERENA Williams, HEIDI, and fantasy writer TAMORA Pierce. Hi Ladies! George — Frescas all around please!

    Here’s Tamora today! Bet you never heard that one before, amirite?

    And Kiri — looking pretty hot, KTK! No one has to know you just turned 80! Kinahora!

    The puzzle was all about flowers today. Flowers entirely surrounded the edges of the grid, mostly clued non-florally. JASMINE was the Disney princess, and DAISY was out of The Great Gatsby. The cleverest clue was for VIOLET: “Rainbow’s end,” purple being the last color of the rainbow.

    The only one that was new to me was FREESIA, “Scented ingredient in some hand creams and shampoos.” Here’s what they look like:

    And thus concludes Owl Chatter Post #499. Tomorrow we’ll be closed for a staff party for Post #500 — we’ll just be stopping in briefly to say hi and to share some nice news. Good night, everybody!

  • Test Results

    As long-time readers of Owl Chatter are aware, our photographer Phil’s close relationship to Taylor Swift makes us privy to her thoughts on many important issues. Here’s her take on boypal Travis’s team’s performance in last week’s NFL draft.

    According to Phil, Tay is very pleased. The Chiefs’ first pick was wide receiver Xavier Worthy from Texas. She says he’ll be an excellent deep threat for Mahomes, drawing the defense away, and opening up the middle for Trav. “Look at this boy fly,” Swift said. “I’d kill for those legs.”

    Their second pick was a bruising offensive lineman from BYU, Kingsley Suamataia. “If he buys Patty [Mahomes] a little extra time against the rush, it can only redound to Trav’s benefit. He’s a big teddy bear. We love him! His hair has muscles.”

    Phil asked Tay how Trav feels about KC’s third pick: Tight End Jared Wiley from TCU. Is he miffed about their pick of a potential replacement for him? Taylor just laughed. “Not in the least,” she said. “Travis has made it clear he’s starting to think about retirement. Plus, he sits out a lot of snaps as it is. There are no hard feelings at all. Go Chiefs!“

    Thanks Taylor! — Knock ’em dead in Paris next week!

    Yesterday’s puzzle’s theme was the phrase “hue and cry.” Three long answers were comprised of a color (a “hue”) and a homophone of a cry. So the first one was BLACKBALL, ball being a homophone of “bawl.” And there was BLUE WHALE (“wail”), and WHITE WINE (“whine”).

    egsforbreakfast shared the following: “I once had a painful case of BLACKBALL. Thank god it didn’t progress to the other one.”

    Which led me to share the following today:

    Re: egs’s case of BLACKBALL from yesterday. (Glad you’re okay!)

    I heard Jay Leno tell this joke during the pandemic about how masking can make it hard to understand speech.

    A nurse comes in to a patient’s room. Of course, the patient is wearing a mask. He says to her, “Nurse, can you please check to see if my testicles are black.” She says, “I’m sorry, I’m not assigned to this floor, let me call another nurse for you.”

    He says: “Please, it shouldn’t take long — I just want to know if my testicles are black.” She says, “That’s not my area — let me call someone else for you.”

    And he says, “Please, I’m really nervous about this — can’t you just take a second and see if my testicles are black?”

    Finally, she relents and says okay. She reaches under his robe and gown, peers in, and says: “They look fine.” And he takes off his mask and says: “No, I’m trying to find out if my test results are back.”

    Here’s the poor nurse:

    And I’m delighted to note that commenter Gill posted:  “Liveprof: I’m still laughing. A morning (really funny) joke to start this Tuesday….HAH!”

    Little things like that make my day — that’s how shallow and insecure I am.

    Remember The Moody Blues? Their lush, “mellow” sound was generated in part by their innovative use of the Mellotron. And it was thanks to keyboardist Mike Pinder that that occurred. He had worked as a tester in the Mellotron factory before the band formed. Mike passed away last Wednesday at the age of 82. In addition to his work with the band, he and his wife recorded two albums for children: “Planet With One Mind,” and “People With One Heart.”

    The Moody Blues were inducted into the Rock & Roll HOF only nearly 30 years after becoming eligible. “All the band brought their children and grandchildren and that was magic,” Mike wrote.

    I liked the Moody Blues, but I’m going to share a different song: The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It was on Mike’s recommendation that Paul played the mellotron on the song. Rest in peace Mike.

    I don’t know why I love this so much. Maybe because it reminds us how far and wide the puzzle’s reach is, and how precious any human connection is. Rex had a guest blogger today: Clare. And she noted at the start of her writeup: “Hope everyone stays cool as the heat ratchets up. We already had a high of 90 degrees here in D.C. today.”

    And “Jim in Canada” copied that quote and added: “It’s snowing like hell right now here in Calgary.”

    Hey! —- this might be him!

    Here’s a funny comment from an Anony-mouse:

    “As I was doing the puzzle, I was annoyed by the bad fill and a less-than-thrilling theme. Then I finished in record time for a Tuesday, and now believe it to be a brilliantly constructed puzzle with wit and verve.”

    You ever eat breadfruit? Me neither. It was clued today as “Crop named for its doughy texture when cooked.” Breadfruit is a staple food in many tropical regions. When cooked, the taste of moderately ripe breadfruit is described as potato-like, or similar to freshly baked bread.

    You can find it in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but otherwise it’s hard to find in the U.S. Here it is, first raw, and then pan-fried:

    A quick baseball note: After being swept by the Dodgers, our Gnats turned around and swept Miami — four straight, including overcoming a 7-run deficit in one game. Remember this date: 4/30/24. The boys are at .500: 14-14!

    Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow (maybe not — long teaching day).

  • Listen Anyway

    In Paul Krugman’s NYT article on Ukraine yesterday he used a word that was new to me: innumerate. It’s the arithmetical equivalent of illiterate. How had I missed it all these years? It does double duty as both an adjective (He is an innumerate moron (lacking a basic knowledge of math and arithmetic)), and a noun (He’s an innumerate). It’s completely different from “to enumerate,” of course.

    The NFL draft took place this week in Detroit. 700,000 fans showed up (over three days) to watch. My heart goes out to the poor folks drafted by the Jets. So young. Actually, we are happy with their first pick — an offensive lineman from Penn State whose name sounds like Hebrew: Olu Fashanu. Their second pick was Yisgadal Ve’Yiskadash. Olu is 6’6″ and weighs 312 pounds. Born in Maryland. Looks like a nice guy.

    The memorable quote of the day was by Javon Baker, 4th round pick of the Patriots, a wide receiver from Central Florida. “Bring your popcorn,” he told New England fans. “I make people in wheelchairs stand up.”

    OK. That’s good. I guess. Maybe just a tad awkward. He does look exciting.

    This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called “One Place to Begin” and it’s by John Daniel.

    You need a reason, any reason—skiing, a job in movies,
    the Golden Gate Bridge.
    Take your reason and drive west, past the Rockies.
    When you’re bored with bare hills, dry flats, and distance,
    stop anywhere.
    Forget where you thought you were going.

    Rattle through the beer cans in the ditch.
    If there’s a fence, try your luck—they don’t stop cows.
    Follow the first hawk you see, and when the sagebrush
    trips you, take a good look before you get up.
    The desert gets by without government.

    Crush juniper berries, breathe the smell, smear your face.
    When you wonder why you’re here, yell as loud
    as you can and don’t look behind.
    Walk. Your feet are learning.

    Admit you’re afraid of the dark.
    Soak the warmth from scabrock, cheek to lichen.
    The wind isn’t talking to you. Listen anyway.
    Let the cries of coyotes light a fire in your heart.
    Remember the terrible song of stars—you knew it once,
    before you were born.

    Tell a story about why the sun comes back.
    Sit still until the itches give up, lizards ignore you,
    a mule deer holds you in her eyes.
    Explain yourself over and over. Forget it all
    when a scrub jay shrieks.
    Imagine sun, sky, and wind the same, over your
    scattered white bones.

    My beautiful and amazing daughter Caity alerted me to a club that I joined immediately. It’s called the Dull Men’s Club. Here’s an example of the items members post. I signed up for the newsletter but haven’t gotten one yet.

    Here is a coffee cup that reminds you why you should not have a donut with your coffee. Ouch. Note the belly-button.

    I can’t imagine any NFL fan not knowing who Jerry Rice is: Hall of Fame receiver for the Niners, perhaps the greatest football player of all time. But I had forgotten or never knew where he played college ball. It was at Mississippi Valley State U in Itta Bena, MS, a Choctaw term meaning “forest camp.” Actually, MVSU is a mile northwest of Itta Bena. (Owl Chatter is a stickler for accuracy.)

    Rice was mentioned in the NYT today because his college coach, Archie Cooley, passed away on April 18th at the age of 85. He was described as “the exuberant architect of a passing-crazy offense,” perfect for showing off Rice’s skills. The team was the Delta Devils. Cooley lined up his receivers in all sorts of configurations and dared the defense to catch up with them.

    Willie Totten was the QB. In 1984, Totten and Rice teamed up for 27 TDs. Rice caught over 100 passes in both 1983 and 1984 and was drafted by the Niners in 1985. Rice called Cooley “a great friend, coach, mentor, and father figure.”

    One of Cooley’s proudest moments was Mississippi Valley’s 49-32 victory over his alma mater, Jackson State, in 1984 — its first over its rival in 30 years. As the game ended, he paraded along the sideline joyfully, waving a school banner. “Jackson State said they had to score 30 points to win,” he said. “They had to score 50, because we scored 49. I’m going to talk now ’cause they’ve got to live with it for a year.”

    Cooley was survived by his wife, Georgia; his son and two daughters; six grandchildren; many great-grandchildren; and two sisters and two brothers, every one of whom goes deep on every snap.

    Sometimes it’s hard to tell a great joke with a straight face. You anticipate the reaction and start laughing too hard mid-joke to continue. The best example of this took place about 50 years ago when I was visiting friends Susie and Marc in Princeton. Susie has since passed away, may she rest in peace. They had a heard a joke they loved and knew I would love. (They were right.) They decided Susie would tell it. She started, but about halfway through she convulsed in laughter and could no longer talk. She could barely manage to gasp out to Marc — “you finish.” And he did. And I loved it. It was the only time I witnessed a joke being “lateraled off,” like a pass in football. [I can’t tell the joke here because it would not “work” in writing. The next time I see you, remind me about the Marc and Susie joke, and I’ll try to do it justice.]

    And, . . . speaking of justice, that’s what this OC note is about. I was very impressed with the right-wing Justices’ ability to express their views on Trump’s immunity claim last week with straight faces. What they were saying was hysterical, yet they were able to present it in all seriousness.

    As I understand it, their “fear” is if a President is not immune from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office, then when he leaves office the opposition could falsely charge him with criminal acts. So to avoid that, he might mount an insurrection to prevent the next lawful president from succeeding him. If he were given immunity, there would be no need for him to stand in the way of succession.

    The attorney representing sanity pointed out that their fear had in fact been realized in the very case that was before them — that in fact was what Trump was being charged with: interference with lawful succession via an insurrection. But they said they were not concerned with the case that was before them: they were concerned with the future.

    If you have the feeling that you have hurtled off somewhere and have left Planet Earth — yup. Welcome aboard.

    An amazing thing happened that I simply cannot explain. As usual, I completed today’s NYTXW and tuned in to see what Rex Parker’s blog had to say about it. As you know, Rex often shares songs that relate to the puzzle in some way. Today, he shared a song called “I’d Go Anywhere With Hugh” by The Magnetic Fields. The very tenuous (IMO) link to the puzzle was with 46D where the clue was “Dealer’s ‘Wanna play?,’” and the answer was YOU IN? But none of that was what floored me. Take a look at it, below. That is a photo of my owl Wellington — the inspiration for Owl Chatter. It’s Welly in his original incarnation — right off the shelf brand new. I have no idea what’s going on, but isn’t he beautiful? I read the Wikipedia entries on the band and the album, but nothing about the owl photo emerged.

    Robert Gottlieb was born in NYC on this date in 1931. He died last June at the age of 92, also in NYC. He was the editor at Simon & Schuster who accepted, and worked with Joe Heller on, Catch-22, pounding it out sentence by sentence for years. It was going to be Catch-18 originally, but when Leon Uris’s Mila 18 came out, they decided to pick a different number. Heller wanted 14, but Gottlieb didn’t think it was funny enough. After many sleepless nights, 22 suddenly came to him and Heller agreed. Of course, he was also the editor for other authors and other books, but who cares.

    In 1987, Gottlieb succeeded William Shawn as editor of The New Yorker and held that position until 1992. Get this — his middle name was Adams, in honor of his uncle Arthur Adams who is now known to have been a Soviet spy.

    He was survived by his second wife, actress Maria Tucci, and 3 children, every one of whom would happily read him back his last line.

    From the Whatever Can-Wrong-Will-Go-Wrong Dept., I just this minute received this email from CUNY:

    Our new CISCO phone system allows you to make Emergency 911 calls without first pressing “9” to reach an outside line, in compliance with FCC regulations. Because of this, in the last few weeks there have been a number of reports of 911 calls from users on the main campus and at the Silberman School of Social Work attempting to make outgoing calls and accidentally reaching the 911 emergency service.

    To avoid this, please exercise caution when making calls with the new system, and if you inadvertently dial 911, please don’t hang up. Stay on the call to inform the 911 responder that it was an accidental call. Please refer to the dialing instructions for clarifications on how to make calls with the CISCO phone system.

    Thank you for attention to this matter.

    It reminded of the scene in The Simpsons where Homer is panicking about something, and picks up the phone and screams: “Operator! What’s the number for 9-1-1?”

    Thanks for popping by, and, if you made it this far, for sticking it out. See you tomorrow!

  • Josefin’s Waltz

    Once you let hatred into your heart, it’s over. It’s heart cancer. And so Kristi Noem, South Dakota gov and possible Trump VP pick, can write in her memoir (like she’s proud of it) that she shot her dog because it was “untrainable” and she “hated” it. It attacked some chickens. She also mentions that she shot and killed a goat. Can you hate a goat?

    Colleen O’Brien of PETA criticized Noem for allowing “this rambunctious puppy loose on chickens and then punishing her by deciding to personally blow her brains out rather than attempting to train her or find a more responsible guardian who would provide her with a proper home.”

    We have a spot for you in Owl Chatter’s Hall of Shame, Noem. Settle in.

    Art Schallock is the oldest living former major leaguer. Kinahora, he’s turning 100 this month! He came up with the Yankees and pitched for the Orioles too. He played just before my time of baseball consciousness — I didn’t recall his name. He roomed with Yogi: the hope was Yogi would share wisdom on how to pitch to opposing batters. Schallock remembers Yogi was a genius on batter weaknesses, but on some he just said “try to hold him to a single.”

    He was only with the Yanks from ’51 to ’55, shuttling up and down, and made only 58 appearances, but played alongside DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, and the other Yankee greats of those years. His lifetime record was 6-7 with a 4.02 ERA. He pitched three complete games. He faced Ted Williams twice and got him out both times! He recalls only throwing slow stuff for strikes against Williams and fastballs off the plate, thinking he’d kill any fastball of his. Even so, one of the outs was a screaming line drive that knocked the first baseman down and tore the glove off his hand. But he picked the ball up and threw Williams out. Ha!

    Art met his wife Dona on a blind date. They were married for 76 years, until she passed away on his 99th birthday last year at the age of 97. They had two kids and five grands.

    He made it to the World Series three times with the Yanks, but only pitched in one. It was Game 4 in 1953. The Yanks were trailing the Dodgers late, and he pitched the last two innings and gave up a run. The first five batters he faced were Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, and Carl Furillo.

    When asked about his favorite baseball memory he said: “The height of my career was just walking into Yankee Stadium. It was a thrill just to be on the mound.”

    I can’t even imagine it. I can close my eyes and picture the scene. But I can’t imagine the feeling.

    I don’t have his autograph in my collection. So I checked on eBay and there are nice ones on index cards for under $10. Before I splurge, though, I’m going to send him a note wishing him a happy birthday and see if he’ll sign a few cards for me. (The name of his nursing home in Sonoma was in the NYT.) I’ll let you know if he replies.

    This piece from tomorrow’s Met Diary should help get the taste of that first item, above, out of your mouth. It’s by Shanti Norris.

    Dear Diary,

    It was the late 1960s and I was attending Cooper Union at night and living in a tiny shared apartment in the East Village.

    I had become interested in Eastern thought and was trying to learn how to become kinder in my life. As part of that effort, I had just started attending yoga classes.

    One day I took the bus between home and school because of heavy rain. The bus was crowded but I found a seat.

    A man got on the bus and was standing near me dripping wet. He was muttering to himself, and I strained to hear what he was saying. He was complaining about his life.

    “No one cares about me,” he said. “I am alone. No one cares. I don’t have anything.”

    He mentioned that he didn’t even have an umbrella to protect him from the rain.

    As he spoke, people looked at the floor or looked away. His voice got louder. My stop was coming up, and I didn’t know what to do.

    Then, as I stood up and got ready to move toward the door, I handed the man my umbrella.

    He shouted at me, asking me what this was.

    This is for you, I said.

    He asked why.

    “Because I love you,” I mumbled.

    What, he asked — as though he hadn’t heard me.

    “Because I love you,” I shouted before jumping off the bus.

    The playwright August Wilson (born Freddy) was born on this date in 1945 — he’s from Pittsburgh. He dropped out of school at 15 when a teacher accused him of plagiarizing a paper he wrote on the grounds that a Black can’t write that well. [I was ten years old, fat and comfortable in fifth grade at the time.]

    So he was self-taught, spending his days at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library. He became close friends with the shusher. Do you like the blues? This is what Wilson said:

     “My greatest influence has been the blues. And that’s a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have. […] Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are all ideas and attitudes that are expressed in the blues. If all this were to disappear off the face of the earth and some people two million unique years from now would dig out this civilization and come across some blues records, working as anthropologists, they would be able to piece together who these people were, what they thought about, what their ideas and attitudes toward pleasure and pain were, all of that. All the components of culture.”

    Happy Birthday AW! George made this cake a few days ago, but I think it’s still good — Georgie! — bring in some Diet Pepsies! And try to find an ash tray somewhere.

    The puzzle was murder today, or, as Rex put it — medium. What!! C’mon man! I’m not complaining (much) — I finished it. But it was hard.

    At 1A, “Small-town issue” was LOCAL PAPER. Here’s egs on the matter: If you don’t want to get fat from eating your own words, write them on LO-CAL PAPER.

    At 20A, did you know the “Pistol used by James Bond” was the WALTHER PPK? Seriously.

    “Regatta leaders” was COXES. You know, like the coxswain.

    How about 35A? — “Hybrid shape with straight edges and rounded corners.” Answer: SQUIRCLE. New to me. Didn’t help that the Q crossed with SQUEE another term I didn’t know, clued with “Excited outburst.”

    Here’s a pretty one:

    At 41D, CIRRUS was the answer for “Ice crystal formation.” You’ve probably heard of cirrus clouds — well, they are made of ice crystals. Who knew?

    “Capital on the Gulf of Guinea” is LOME. Fuhgedaboutit, right?

    When I started teaching and giving exams, I soon saw there was an art to making up a test — it had to be just at the right level of difficulty to break the class up into four groups: A, B, C, and YUCK. Too hard or too easy and it doesn’t serve its porpoise. Puzzles are the same way, with the added element that each day imposes a different standard. So I like the Saturday puzzle to be very hard — but gettable. They had been getting too easy under Will Shortz. His temporary (everyone hopes) replacement Joel Fagliano is tightening up the ship, I am happy to see. In any case, it’s not just the one person — a whole staff works on them.

    I remember an early test I gave, one poor jerk got a three on it, out of 100. He came to beg for a passing grade, noting he did all the assignments. And I said — Yeah, and I’ve been telling you you’re getting them all wrong and to drop the class. In fact, his answers on the exam were totally nonresponsive to the questions: not even in the ballpark. He kept making his hopeless case and I finally said, “Mr. XXX – I couldn’t possibly give you a passing grade — you’d have to improve a great deal just to get the answers wrong.”

    Great moments in academia.

    Back to the puzzles for a moment — as I’ve noted before, some folks find the Mondays too easy to provide a challenge. So to make them more of a challenge, they solve them using only the down clues. And if they post a comment on Rex’s blog, they start by saying they solved the puzzle using only the down clues. One funny fellow recently opened his comment by saying he solved the puzzle “using only the down and across clues.” Damn, I wish I had thought of that.

    Have I started rambling? It may be time to go. Sam and I were at an Alasdair Fraser concert in Ann Arbor once — the great Scottish fiddler. He’s also a composer and runs a school for fiddlers. In between songs he started chatting about the music and he suddenly realized he was talking about technical fiddle things — at a level more appropriate for a class than for the audience he was facing. And he stopped, looked up at us, and said: “I’m sorry — are we not all fiddlers here?”

    He is one of those performers it is hard to see and not fall in love with. Linda and I have tickets to see him in Sellersville PA on May 9th, a Thursday night. If you’re in reach and can go, you won’t regret it. He tours (and records) with cellist Natalie Haas. On this exquisite piece, the cello starts and then Alasdair comes in. It’s called “Josefin’s Waltz.” It will send us off tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • Dots on a Map

    An article in the NYT gives a whole new meaning to the term “beer belly.” A man in Oregon must have been driving upstream because when he crashed his truck 11,000 salmon spilled onto the highway. He was charged with drunk driving. Also charged was a brewery worker in Belgium who was pulled over and scored a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit on the breathalyzer test. Yet neither of them had a drop to drink.

    They both suffer from a condition known as Auto-Brewery Syndrome (ABS) in which your stomach ferments carbs into ethanol, effectively brewing alcohol inside your body. It can lead to blood alcohol levels that would be lethal if obtained through drinking and can cause the typical behavior of drunkenness. Once you are aware of it, the condition can be managed through diet and medical treatment (antifungals).

    Phil — you might try this as a defense the next time you’re pulled over drunk. You know, — tomorrow.

    In a puzzle, “dots on a map” are usually isles. Today, I thought of subway stops for some reason. But the (boring) answer was TOWNS. It led Rex to post this wrenching Rufus Wainwright song expressing his disappointment with America during the Geo. W. Bush era: “Going to a Town.” There’s other Christ-y stuff going on too, but I’m too thick to understand it.

    At 43A, “Porto-Novo’s country” was BENIN, a country I know only from XW puzzles. Here’s egs:

    Ben’s Mom: Ben’s seeing the world, you know.
    Friend: What country is Ben in?
    Ben’s Mom: BENIN

    The puzzle brought us a new visitor today: the beautiful and very smart MINA Kimes. I didn’t remember her name, but I recognize her from sports talk/analysis shows.

    Mina is from Omaha. Her mom is Korean. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale with a BA in English and started out as a business journalist before turning to sports. She’s 38 and has been married since 2015 to Harvard man Nick Sylvester, a music producer and musician. They have a one-year-old son. Nice to see you, MK! Don’t be a stranger.

    Seymour Weiner is 97 years old, kinahora. He was a Brooklyn Dodger fan and was at the game at Ebbets Field in which Jackie Robinson got his first hit. There were only 12,000 fans in attendance so he may be the only person still living who saw it. He says Robinson was the most exciting player he ever saw, but Willie Mays was the best. He’s a Mets fan now and was honored on Opening Day this year for his service in WWII. Here he is with Mookie Wilson and John Franco. He was thrilled.

    His name went up on the giant scoreboard to much appropriate applause, and then people started realizing it’s sort of a special name: Seymour Weiner, as in See More Weiner. It was a short step from that to having the Mets use Seymour in their ad for Dollar Hot Dog Night. He thinks it’s a riot and he’s delighted. Let’s Go Mets!

    I remember eating a hot dog at the first ballgame I ever went to. Yankee Stadium, maybe 1960? David Kantorowitz’s dad took a bunch of us. Yogi Berra won the game with a late-inning home run. Sy Weiner would have been in his early thirties.

    See you tomorrow, everybody! Happy Puzzling!

  • Dolores on the Dotted Line

    In the “I wish I had written that” department, via Frank Bruni: In Time Out, Adam Feldman reviewed a Broadway revival of “Cabaret” and questioned Eddie Redmayne’s performance in the role that Joel Grey played in the movie version. “The theory seems to be that increasing the Emcee’s power exponentially will make him more exciting: That energy, if you will, is equal to Emcee squared.”

    Here are Eddie and his pretty wife, Hannah, still wearing the blood-stained dress from a murder she recently committed. “No time to change, Hon.”

    The theme of today’s puzzle was Holy Cow! Or, actually, holey cow. There were three long answers with the letters COW in them and holes were placed between the C and the O, and the O and the W. So the cows were “holey.” One of the cows was in MOSCOW, IDAHO. It’s the home of the U. of Idaho, whose teams are the Idaho Vandals. Famous alums include Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, who met while in school there.

    Holy Cow, of course, was the signature cry of Phil “the Scooter” Rizzuto. Egs invited “Scooter-obilia” so I posted the following:

    Rizzuto was watching a very slow runner plodding his way from first to third. His comment was “He’s spending a lot of time running in the same spot.”

    His “Holy Cow” was noted in the very first sentence of his obit in the NYT. When the Yankees retired his number (10) and honored him with a “day,” they presented him with a cow as a gift. It stepped on his foot and knocked him over.

    He met his beloved bride Cora at a breakfast event where he spoke, replacing DiMaggio. He was invited by her dad back to their house in Newark. Rizzuto said he fell in love so deeply that he couldn’t go home. He rented a hotel room nearby for a month so he could be near her.

    ********

    At the time of his death, a month shy of his 90th birthday, Phil was the oldest living member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

    At a charity event in 1951, Rizzuto met a young boy named Ed Lucas, who had lost his sight when he was struck by a baseball between the eyes. Rizzuto took an interest in him and his school, St. Joseph’s School for the Blind. Until his death, Rizzuto raised millions for the school. Rizzuto and Lucas remained friendly, and it was through his influence that Lucas’s 2006 wedding was the only one ever conducted at Yankee Stadium. Lucas was one of Rizzuto’s last visitors at his nursing home, days before his death.

    Here’s a shot of Cora and Phil at their 60th anniversary:

    The NYT devoted two full pages to Taylor today, about her Tortured Poets double album, containing 31 songs. In one of the stories, a bunch of music critics discuss it.

    Caryn Ganz: I have long found it baffling that some Swift observers are hellbent on inscribing her into a queer narrative. To me, she is by far our most heteronormative pop star, with a catalog of songs longing for the kind of straight, fairy tale romance that ends in traditional marriage and children. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) While it’s never wise to speculate about a public figure’s sexuality, Swift has made her romantic life the overt text of her work and is nearly demanding that fans read “Tortured Poets” as historical record — including lyrics about her current boyfriend, the paradigm of American heterosexuality: a football player. The tracks on the new album, like so many in her catalog, insist that no accomplishment is worth more than, or worthwhile without, that happy ending. The things that threaten it — immaturity, insincerity, addiction, chaos, lack of commitment, enemies tarnishing her reputation — are evils to be vanquished. “Tortured Poets” is quite bloodthirsty, which I enjoy in doses, but its power is blunted by its sonic and thematic repetition. Nobody here knows when to say when.

    Lindsay Zoladz asks, How do you square the desire for privacy she seems to crave in many of these songs with the simultaneous Easter egginess of it all? [Easter eggs: planting hints for fans to hunt for.]

    Jon Pareles answers: I wouldn’t call it a craving for privacy — not when she’s spending three hours a night onstage, walking red carpets and enjoying a public display of affection at the Super Bowl. Rather than privacy, the theme is more like seeking autonomy under the spotlight: the right to make good choices and bad ones, to learn — or not — from mistakes, to wreak vengeance or come to terms with regrets.

    Ben Sisario adds: Something that “Tortured Poets” drove home for me is that perhaps Swift’s greatest strength is how she has melded songwriting and journaling. Even she admits she’s no Patti Smith. But her gift is conveying the sense of honest intimacy, letting her feelings spill out in ways that seem straight from the heart. Her most powerful lyrics often involve telling details — a scarf, a cardigan — that are like burning memories.

    And the journal is an inherently messy model. It has no end. Its purpose is to be a repository of the thoughts and feelings that are too raw, too personal, to say in public. For a lot of Swift’s career, I think she has been a master of taming this chaos with the discipline of song. 

    Here’s a shot Phil shared with us from a recent weekend he spent tooling around with Tay and Travis. Phil has always claimed she’s prettiest when she’s not trying.

    The second story in the NYT is about a course on Taylor at Harvard. Not kidding! The undergraduate course, “Taylor Swift and Her World,” is taught by Stephanie Burt, who has her students comparing Ms. Swift’s songs to works by poets and writers including Willa Cather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

    Get this! — You may recall we made note of Vladimir Nabokov’s birthday earlier this week. Well, LOLITA was in today’s puzzle, weirdly clued with “Novel parodied by Umberto Eco’s ‘Granita,” which I’ve never heard of.

    In 1963, VN said in an interview: “I would say that of all my books Lolita has left me with the most pleasurable afterglow—perhaps because it is the purest of all, the most abstract and carefully contrived. I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don’t seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.”

    He finished writing Lolita in December 1953, but it was turned down by all of the major publishers in the U.S., so was first published in France. It only made it into the U.S. in 1958 and was an instant best-seller. Because of its salacious subject matter Nabokov considered publishing it under a pseudonym: Vivian Darkbloom. But it’s an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov and he thought people would figure that out, so to hell with it.

    Here’s how it opens:

    Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

    She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

    And here’s a snippet from later on, when he sees her all grown up and a little weary from life:

    “I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago – but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man’s child. She could fade and wither – I didn’t care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

    Here’s Sue Lyon as Lo. Sadly, she passed away at 73 in 2019. She won a Golden Globe for the role. She was married and divorced five times, and dated folksinger Donovan for a while. She had one daughter. Her third marriage took place in a Colorado state prison where her hubby was serving time for robbery and second-degree murder. It didn’t last very long. Her fifth was to an engineer and lasted 17 years.

    What a pleasant surprise! The Poem of the Day from The Poetry Foundation today is by our wonderful Ted Kooser! But we shouldn’t be surprised because it’s his birthday! 85, kinehora!

    In 2004, he got a phone call informing him that he had been chosen as poet laureate of the US. He said: “I was so staggered I could barely respond. The next day, I backed the car out of the garage and tore the rearview mirror off the driver’s side.”

    He flunked out of grad school and took a job with an insurance company that he kept for 35 years. Every morning, he got up at 4:30, made a pot of coffee, and wrote until 7. He said: “I believe that writers write for perceived communities, and that if you are a lifelong professor of English, it’s quite likely that you will write poems that your colleagues would like; that is, poems that will engage that community. I worked every day with people who didn’t read poetry, who hadn’t read it since they were in high school, and I wanted to write for them.”

    So This Is Nebraska

    The gravel road rides with a slow gallop
    over the fields, the telephone lines
    streaming behind, its billow of dust
    full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

    On either side, those dear old ladies,
    the loosening barns, their little windows
    dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs
    hide broken tractors under their skirts.

    So this is Nebraska. A Sunday
    afternoon; July. Driving along
    with your hand out squeezing the air,
    a meadowlark waiting on every post.

    Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,
    top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,
    a pickup kicks its fenders off
    and settles back to read the clouds.

    You feel like that; you feel like letting
    your tires go flat, like letting the mice
    build a nest in your muffler, like being
    no more than a truck in the weeds,

    clucking with chickens or sticky with honey
    or holding a skinny old man in your lap
    while he watches the road, waiting
    for someone to wave to. You feel like

    waving. You feel like stopping the car
    and dancing around on the road. You wave
    instead and leave your hand out gliding
    larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

    Happy birthday Teddy!

    Have some of this cake George made.

    To 120, Buddy!

    Everybody! — have some, please. George — get plates and forks.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Mamma Mia!

    For those of you celebrating Passover, friend Larry shared this modern matzoh ball with me. It’s the result of requesting AI to “create a matzoh ball.”

    Looks like it needs a little salt, no?

    There’s a very long story in the NYT today about the off-the-wall views of Jets QB Aaron Rodgers. It contains this sentence:

    “Many fans say that their favorite teams are cursed, but the Jets faithful have a legitimate claim.”

    No team in any major sport has gone as long as the Jets without making the playoffs. The last (and only) time they were in the Super Bowl was on Jan. 12, 1969 — LBJ was still president, which, BTW, stands for Let’s Beat the Jets.

    Rodgers was on the list of possible VPs for RFK, Jr. He’s a vocal anti-vaxxer. There was a fear that he subscribed to the Sandy-Hook-didn’t-happen-theory, but he cleared that one up – he’s not that bad.

    There was a weird back-and-forth with Jimmy Kimmel recently. With no evidence, Rodgers suggested that Kimmel had ties to sex monster Jeffery Epstein. WTF?? Kimmel then tweeted that AR is a “soft-brained wacko” and said in a monologue that Rodgers “thinks he knows what the government is up to because he’s a quarterback doing research on YouTube and listening to podcasts.”

    OK, let’s defend him a bit. First, he does about a dozen crossword puzzles a week. (He’s one of us!) He believes it will help stave off the impact of head injuries. (May be too late for that? Just sayin’.)

    Next, he has dated Danica Patrick, Olivia Munn, and Shailene Woodley. So how crazy can he be?

    Let’s Go Jets!

    Your car may be ratting you out, according to a big story in the Business section of the NYT today. When you bought it, you may have unwittingly signed up for some program like Onstar that is sending signals about your driving habits that your insurance company may be using to raise your rates! Yikes! I’m not sure if I was hit by this, but a few months ago I got a letter about how the actual mileage I was driving was higher than the amount I listed in my insurance application. I put down 12,000 a year — as an estimate, not knowing what I actually drive. It turns out I drive more than that and the letter told me that and was going to lead to a higher rate. Well, the letter said 17,000 a year, but I was able to get info from Marvin the mechanic that said it’s about 14,500 a year. So I corrected them. But how did they know to ask? Creepy. Apparently, we are being watched at all times. The nation has turned into one giant Jewish mother. She knows what you’re doing in the bathroom Portnoy!

    The puzzle was a paean to lateral symmetry today. Despite completing it successfully, I had no idea what was going on until I turned to Rex’s blog. Well, I knew some of what was going on — the grid had lateral symmetry. That is, the two halves were symmetrical — the black squares lined up on both sides — you could fold it in half lengthwise and the black squares would match up. See what I mean, below? (That’s no big deal — XW puzzles are required to be symmetrical in some way.)

    But the symmetry that eluded me was of the actual letters in the long, down, theme answers. Take 11D: HOITY TOITY. The individual letters TOHIY are all themselves symmetrical — you can fold each in half and each side is the same. Same for MAMMA MIA — M, I, and A are all symmetrical. (Examples of non-symmetrical letters are E, P, B, R, L, etc.)

    Well, once this was revealed to me, I thought it was pretty clever. But Rex and most of the comments really hated it. Crazy.

    I hadn’t heard “Mamma Mia” in, like, forever. It’s a catchy pop tune. Here’s ABBA, being very ABBA-licious.

    One of the comments on YouTube says that “to this day” no one knows who the “invisible” drummer is.

    Gotta go have dinner. See you tomorrow!