The Wellington Files

  • Pitch, Roll, and Yaw

    The rivalry between quarterback Josh Allen of the Bills and Travis Kelce of the Chiefs has heated up and spilled over beyond the gridiron. Allen is married to actress Hailee Steinfeld who played a vampire in Sinners, and Trav, of course, is engaged to you-know-whom. It’s a little ridiculous how competitive these guys can get. Allen recently sent a note to Kelce that said: “I’m going to be a daddy — Hailee’s pregnant. Your move, Mr. Fancypants.”

    Here’s the happy couple in a lovely personal moment before they realized Phil had snuck onto their property and chased him away with dogs.

    Speaking of Tay, one thing’s for certain: I’ll never understand fashion. Here are two shots of her from last Wednesday when she appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show. In the first, she’s just getting out of the limo, not trying (much) to look glamorous. Looks great, IMO. In the second she’s wearing a $1,700 minidress that’s not nearly as pretty. For one thing, what’s that sleeve business?

    As always, on these matters, we ran the issue by our style and culture consultant Ana de Armas and have just heard back from her: “The dress is gorgeous, don’t be an idiot.”

    Thanks Armas!

    The puzzle beat me up pretty good today: couldn’t finish. D’oh! Of course, much of the commentariat complained that it was too easy. (Not kidding.)

    Among my misses: “School viewing?” was SNORKELING. I was thinking fish, but just couldn’t nail it. “Cry in many a horror film” was RUN. Brain glitched on that. Never heard of the rapper LATTO (used to be Mulatto), and couldn’t get from “Well, whoop-de-doo!” to OH FUN.

    You win, Gene Louise De Vera!

    It got off to a raring start. First word across: “Possible turnoff on a first date:” BAD BREATH. Right below it: “Spicy shellfish dish:” CURRIED CRAB. Well, that explains it. “Can I see you again?” (Wretching) “No.”

    I learned something at 50D. The clue was “Pitch, roll and _____ (rotations along the three-dimensional axes).” Answer: YAW.

    Commenter Gary: I hope a mathy person will explain “pitch, roll, and yaw” today. I can’t even picture a “three dimensional axis.”

    Anony Mouse: Picture a game of Jacks. Each jack displays a 3D axis.

    [What?]

    Burtonkd: Think of an airplane: PITCH is the nose going up or down, ROLL is banking to the left or right, YAW is turning left or right on a flat surface like a car would.

    OldCarFudd: I used to fly small airplanes for fun. The stick (or wheel) and rudder pedals control the three axes of the plane’s motion. Stick back, nose up; stick forward, nose down: Pitch control. Stick left, lower left wing; stick right, lower right wing; Roll control. Push left rudder pedal, nose left; push right rudder pedal, nose right; Yaw control. Learn to do those things in a coordinated way, and you’ve learned a lot about how to fly the plane.

    At 29D: “Article of regalia worn by both Elizabeth II and Pope Paul VI.” Did you know this? TIARA. It’s the Papal Tiara:

    Quick — who comes to mind? Dan Ackroyd?

    I remember the Pope complaining it would take a miracle to find a bag that matched.

    Here’s a cartoon I made up. A magician is sawing a woman in half, and it’s a disaster: she’s shrieking and there’s blood pouring out from the box. And he’s saying: “Dammit, I bet the rabbit trick doesn’t work either.”

    [Look, you can’t expect gems at these prices.]

    Speaking of gems, after Trump’s speech in Pennsylvania, which was supposed to reassure the country about the economy, the White House decided to let Vance and Bessent cover for him for future speeches. Trump posted the following few concise words after giving the speech:

    I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks—Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to ‘ace’ this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am ‘slowing up,’ am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am ‘slowing up,’ but it’s not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’ They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it. They have inaccurately reported on all of my Election Results and, in fact, were forced to apologize on much of what they wrote. The best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful ‘source’ of information. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    This poem by Mark Strand is called “Poor North.”

    It is cold, the snow is deep,
    the wind beats around in its cage of trees,
    clouds have the look of rags torn and soiled with use,
    and starlings peck at the ice.
    It is north, poor north. Nothing goes right.

    The man of the house has gone to work,
    selling chairs and sofas in a failing store.
    His wife stays home and stares from the window into the trees,
    trying to recall the life she lost, though it wasn’t much.
    White flowers of frost build up on the glass.

    It is late in the day. Brants and Canada geese are asleep
    on the waters of St Margaret’s Bay.
    The man and his wife are out for a walk; see how they lean
    into the wind; they turn up their collars
    and the small puffs of their breath are carried away.

    Here is a brant (small goose).

    We’ll let that little cutie honk us off tonight. Thanks for stopping in!

  • Criss-Cross Applesauce

    It’s “arraign-y” day in Ann Arbor, at least for disgraced former coach Sherrone Moore, whose job loss may be the least of his worries. Facts are emerging, not that we really care about them for our wallowing. After getting fired he went to the home of a woman and whatever he did there resulted in his arrest. He’s in police custody as we write, and will be arraigned today. Owl Chatter’s insipid, I mean intrepid, photographer Phil is heading out there now to stay on top of the story for us, although we just got a text from him saying he’s drunk and forgot to take his camera. Stay on it, buddy! You’re the best!

    OK, we have an update: Moore’s been charged with home invasion (a 3rd-degree felony), stalking, and breaking and entering, both misdemeanors. Oy.

    In a statement his attorneys released to the press he says: Sh*t, this is worse than losing to Ohio State.

    At 56D in the puzzle today the clue was “Physics unit equivalent to roughly 624 gigaelectronvolts.” The answer, of course, was ERG. I say “of course” not because anyone could possibly know what that means, but because every three-letter physics-related answer in an XW puzzle has to be ERG. (Or OHM.)

    It’s a great puzzle with many lively clues and answers. One of my faves came at 14A. The clue was “‘You’re telling me!’” and the answer was I KNOW, RIGHT?

    In his discussion of ERG, Rex (RP) noted that in college the only course he ever received an A+ in was Physics, and then he wrote: I know, right? stunning!

    I posted the following:

    Re: RP’s A+

    In my tax class, when we got to capital gains and losses I would warn the class: “Don’t take this topic lightly. It may seem clear, but I got the lowest grade in my entire academic career in the course in which this was taught.” Then I’d pause and say: A minus.

    It was actually three letteral steps down from there. I remember the prof too (from 1975). He was good. It was all on me.

    So, RP, the next time you screw up and your wife says “Hey, Einstein, you screwed up!” she’s not far off. (Einstein himself, btw, would get furious when his wife did that.)

    At 8D, the clue wanted us to know who wrote “‘You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?”” Four letters. The clue helped by saying it was a playwright. I don’t think I would have gotten it without the crosses. You? It was GB SHAW.

    Another of my faves today was at 17A: “Conspiracy theorist’s accessory.” Answer: TIN FOIL HAT.

    Commenter Pablo noted that he would have guessed the above quote was by RFK “the real one, not the idiot.”

    I was about to post the following, but didn’t want to start anything. Too lazy.

    Pablo: To follow your tangent on RFK Jr: Headline in NYT today: Hundreds Quarantined in SC as Measles Spreads. No signs of slowing in areas with low vax rates.

    Hang on to your TIN FOIL HATs, folks!

    It’s the birthday of Gustave Flaubert (1821), pronounced FLOBB-ert. Gus is famous for writing the novel Mrs. Ovary. He was working on a deal to obtain some of Einstein’s hair when he (Gus) died.

    Another sparkler today was a combination of 5D and 38A, which “crossed!” The clue was “One way to sit.” I got it right away, but judging by the comments, the world is made up of two groups: one that’s heard of CRISSCROSS APPLESAUCE, and one that hasn’t. The latter group was a bit pissy about it.

    Commenter Les wrote: What’s with CRISS CROSS/APPLE SAUCE? Looked it up post-solve and see it’s a pre-school thing. I took my kids to pre-school (and kindergarten) and sat in as a parent helper and I never heard this term. Why APPLE SAUCE? Because it rhymes and kids will fall for anything if it rhymes. Sheesh! That’s awful. Cynical and manipulative, even.

    Anony Mouse replied: CRISSCROSS APPLESAUCE is “cynical and manipulative?” Hoo-boy, you must have a hard time getting along.

    Mathgent asked:  “In what context is CRISSCROSS APPLESAUCE well known?” Pre-school, for one, as noted above. Here’s the teacher.

    I see from the front page of the NY Times today that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was released from U.S. custody on judge’s orders. Clearly the judge is a drug-crazed communist lunatic. How else to explain the order? Why don’t they just shoot the poor guy already? Have Hegseth throw him on a boat off Venezuela and blow it the hell up? And let’s convene a few more grand juries to go after Tish James while we’re at it. You can’t make this stuff up. All these lawyers who go along with all of it – deplorable.

    Here’s Garcia, holding some kid as a prop. That cake is clearly filled with cocaine and weapons. How much more proof do you need?

    Joseph Enzweiler’s poem, “Christmas 1963” is from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Because we wanted much that year
    and had little. Because the winter phone
    for days stayed silent that would call
    our father back to work, and he
    kept silent too with our mother,
    fearfully proud before us.

    Because I was young that morning
    in gray light untouched on the rug
    and our gifts were so few, propped
    along the furniture, for a second
    my heart fell, then saw how large
    they made the spaces between them

    to take the place of less. Because
    the curtained sun rose brightly
    on our discarded paper and the things
    themselves, these forty years,
    have grown too small to see, the emptiness
    measured out remains the gift,

    fills the whole room now, that whole year
    out across the snowy lawn. Because
    a drop of shame burned quietly
    in the province of love. Because
    we had little that year
    and were given much.

    We attended the Morristown HS Orchestra’s Winter concert last night, and heard Robin (the artist formerly known as Lianna) play the viola. It was great! One piece they played was the Symphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo. It was the version often played by the Boston Pops. We really enjoyed the Lalo Pops.

    That’s Robin and boyfriend Diegan on the right. Her cousin Dante is holding Izzy. Zo, newly muffed, stands between Caity and me, with Linda on the far left.

    From Rex’s holiday pet pix today. Here’s Sunny! On his way to a $20-minimum dreidel game, no doubt. Woof, woof.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Moore’s the Pity

    UMICH is in the news, and not in a good way. Head football coach Sharonne Moore was fired yesterday for shtupping someone on his staff. The ridiculous way he spells Sharonne was not a factor but couldn’t have helped.

    Owl Chatter’s Director of Diet Soda Acquisitions George Santos summed it up well: The schmuck’s making $5.5 million a year to coach college football, has a gorgeous wife and three sweet daughters, and he can’t keep it in his pants? Sheeesh. And people sh*t on me?

    Here are Sharonne and wife Kelli in happier times, about 30 seconds before their dog lunged at Phil. Run Buddy!! Forget the cameras!!

    The ‘Rines have turned to assistant coach Biff Poggi to step in, like, immediately. They have a tough bowl assignment against Texas on NYE. Biff’s a real no-nonsense type, respected and admired by all, and clearly way too fat and ugly to be having any affairs. Born in Baltimore, Biff is 65 and played college ball himself at Pitt. His one previous head coaching stint at the college level was for UNC-Charlotte where he went 6-16 and was fired with two games remaining in his second season. D’oh! We won’t dwell on that.

    Go Blue!

    That cartoon, and many other very good ones, is from XKCD, a webcomic created by Randall Munroe, described as “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” It was the answer at 57D in today’s puzzle, clued with “Popular stick-figure webcomic.” Completely new to me. Hasn’t appeared in the NYTXW since April 2017.

    The brilliance of the clue at 47D eluded me. See how you do: The clue was “Pan in the butt?” And the answer was GOAT.

    Ready? Pan is a “goat/man” and the part of him that is goat is his hindquarters, or “butt.”

    Apparently lives on Long Island now.

    38A: “Landing area in a long jump” — SANDPIT. Kathleen Edwards, 47, is a Canadian folksinger. She studied classical violin from age 5 to 17. Her dad was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and she lived abroad as a teenager listening to a lot of Neil Young and Dylan via her brother’s records. After high school she blew off college and started playing in local clubs. Good move.

    At 62D the clue for KEA was “New Zealand parrot whose name sounds like a Korean automaker.” Did you know this? Kea are known for their intelligence. They can solve logical puzzles, such as pushing and pulling things in a certain order to get to food, and will work together to achieve a certain objective. They have been filmed preparing and using tools.

    In case you thought Rubio might have retained even a scintilla of decency in his craven Trump tuchas licking, a story in today’s NYT should disabuse you. Back in 2023, then-Sec’y of State Blinken shifted the typeface used by the State Department on its communications from Times New Roman to Calibri, see below. The shift was recommended by the department’s office of diversity and inclusion on the grounds that Calibri is easier to read for people with poor vision or dyslexia, and for people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers. Clearly (pun intended), a laudable gesture towards a segment of the populace with special needs.

    Proving there is no depth of indecency to which he will not descend, Rubio shifted back, calling Blinken’s action a “wasteful sop to diversity.” He blamed “radical” DEI and accessibility programs for the misguided shift. That should earn him a nice pat on the head from you-know-whom. Good boy, Marco. Here’s a biscuit.

    The juxtaposition of words in a puzzle sometimes leads to amusing images or connections. Today, smack next to each other were POPEMOBILE and I GOT A WOMAN (the Ray Charles song). Rex called it a stunning pairing. “Two great answers that create a deeply pleasing mental picture—the pope cruising along blasting Ray Charles out his windows.”

    If, like me, you haven’t heard Ray in a while, you owe me one.

    We’ll let Bianca close for us today. This exquisite little girl was in the first batch of pet pix Rex shared today. Hi, Sweetie. George!! — Anything in the fridge we can give her?

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads! Thanks for popping in.

  • Who Bapps?

    It’s the birthday of Emily Dickinson today (1830). She shares it with our seventh grandchild Harold Barney (2024). Hi Harold! The Writer’s Almanac shared this quote of hers: “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

    Wait, what? Was she kidding? You sure that wasn’t Yogi?

    It is also the date on which William Faulkner was given the Nobel Prize (1950). He was an alcoholic and his family had a rough time getting him to Sweden. He stood too far from the microphone for his speech to be heard. I’m not kidding: why didn’t someone say something? Are the Swedes like that? Are they the kind of people who when you are standing too far from the mic to be heard they don’t say anything? Apparently.

    But the text was printed in the papers the next day. Here is part of it, per the WA:

    “The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

    I called Phil and George in to read it to them, my voice cracking towards the end. They both said, “What?”

    Paul Krugman pointed out a little wrinkle in how Trump is trying to lie his way around the nation’s economic problems he caused. His “go to” is to blame Biden, but he’s not willing to admit there are problems. Hmmmm.

    In the puzzle today, the clue at 42A was “Protected lands for plants and animals,” and the answer was NATURE RESERVES. But one of the Anony Mice bristled and said it should be nature “preserves.” So, I ask you, is there a difference, and, if so, what is it? Time’s up! Beezer came to the rescue:

    “A nature reserve focuses primarily on strict protection and conservation of ecosystems and species, often with limited human access, while a preserve (like a National Preserve) also protects nature but might allow for specific, regulated human activities like hunting, mining, or grazing, depending on its specific designation, balancing conservation with resource use or recreation. Essentially, reserves are often more restrictive for nature’s sake, while preserves offer a managed middle ground.”

    I added: “And, of course, preserves such as peach or strawberry preserves are devoted to the protection of those particular fruits.”

    I was in a silly mood today. So when the answer at 1D (for the clue “Software accessed via an online browser”), turned out to be WEBAPP, I commented: “Who bapps? We bapp.”

    But I held off posting on the following:

    15A: “First name in daring jumps.” Answer: EVEL. If Evel Knievel had named either of his sons Evel Jr., he could have been known as the lesser of two Evels.

    34D: “Several things in a pagoda.” Answer: TIERS. Thus, a pagoda whose use is limited to festive events contains tiers of joy.

    Sophie Kinsella died today, sort of. It’s really Madeleine Wickham who died; Kinsella was the pen name she used for most of the 50 million books she sold, mostly humorous fare about a young woman who was a shopaholic. She was okay about it being cubby-holed as chick lit, but was later happier when her books were referred to as “wit lit.” She was just about to turn 56, and it was brain cancer that did her in. She is survived by her husband Henry whom she met in college (at Oxford), and their five children: Freddy, Hugo, Oscar, Rex and Sybella.

    Several of her books were turned into movies. Alexandra Daddario starred in one. You may remember her as the new wife of an obnoxious guy in the first season of White Lotus.

    Have you ever reached across the table and taken a french fry or two off of someone’s plate? Of course you have. Who hasn’t? Well, we’ve lived long enough for a slang term to arise for it: the Fanum tax. It started when an online comic, who went by the name Fanum, would tell a joke and then grab a bite of your sandwich as payment for it, claiming he was assessing the Fanum tax. It’s still principally used for such food-related mini-thefts, but its usage is broadening into other areas — anywhere where one person inflicts himself on another in some way. E.g., “the quarterback dropped back to make a pass, but the defense Fanum taxed him into a fumble.”

    I hope to see it in a puzzle soon, now that I know about it.

    At 54D, the clue was “‘There is more to life than increasing its _____:’ Gandhi” and the answer was SPEED. But a correction was in order, according to commenter “Bart Lett” who posted:

    “What Gandhi actually wrote was ‘Speed is not the end of life.’ (Nonviolence in Peace and War, 1942)

    “Gandhi shares a fate with Lincoln, Einstein and a few other luminaries for having sayings widely and ‘authoritatively’ attributed to them whose only sources are the other people who widely attribute the sayings to them. You will find no verifiable primary source for the quote as presented in the puzzle – unless you consider the words embroidered on your great aunt’s pillow a verifiable primary source.

    “In this regard, wiser words than these have never been spoken: ‘Half the stuff on the Internet is incorrect’—Abraham Lincoln.”

    Rex started a holiday tradition of sharing “pet pix” his readers send in. They are very cute. Two years ago, they included one of my Zoey with her cat Emily. I sent this one in today. We’ll see if it qualifies. Technically, Welly (left) and Wilma are not “pets.” And there is nothing to link it to the holiday season. But how could he resist those punim? I explained that Welly has been a family member for 62 years, and that Wilma is his beautiful bride. I’ll let you know if/when the photo gets posted.

    Let’s close tonight with this alarming story from The Onion:

    Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in!

  • Will You Be Our Emmylou?

    I saw Yogi Berra on a late-night talk show years ago. I forget who the host was; maybe Johnny Carson. Of course, the topic soon turned to Yogi’s famous sayings. And Yogi had a confession to make right off the bat. He made it with a great Yogi-ism. “I never said a lot of the things I said.”

    Trump’s a lot like Yogi in that way, don’t you think? About a week ago he clearly stated on camera that he had no problem releasing the video of the boat murders. Yesterday, when Rachel Scott of ABC News stated that as a prelude to a question, he stopped her and said: “Who said that? I never said that.” Just like Yogi! He never said what he said.

    Then he ripped into Scott with a vicious personal attack. “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious– a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you.” 

    It’s not clear why he didn’t call her a pig. Could it be because she’s Black? It’s reverse racism!

    Here’s Rachel. I concede that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but that’s an impressive-looking cover, if you ask me.

    Rachel’s 32 and has a degree in journalism from USC. In June 2021, she received media attention for asking Putin: “The list of your political opponents who are dead, imprisoned or jailed is long … what are you so afraid of?” A year later she was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Journalist, the first year the category was introduced.

    On July 31, 2024, Trump appeared before an interview panel of the National Ass’n of Black Journalists (NABJ), where Scott was a panelist. She began by repeating Trump’s statements about Black and other women-of-color leaders, his support of January 6 rioters, and his criticism of DEI initiatives. Trump called it “a very rude introduction,” and claimed Scott arrived 35 minutes late to the interview. In fact, the start time was delayed because Trump was demanding that NABJ not do a live fact-check of his answers. Can’t blame him.

    Rachel married Elliott Smith last year. She met him at a brewery. (Burp!) She doesn’t drink beer. Smith heard her ordering wine at the bar and gently upbraided her for doing so at a brewery. They hit it off. He’s a program administrator at Yale’s Divinity School and he thought she was divine. Ba da boom.

    Hey Smith – your wife was just personally insulted on national TV by an asshole of epic proportions. And how about the rest of the WH press corps? Your colleague was just crudely dissed for doing her job brilliantly. You all just letting it go? At least issue some sort of public statement.

    Mr. Trump,

    By virtue of your position, you have the unique opportunity to serve as a role model for American children. And what are you doing? Issuing degrading personal insults in a public forum to professional women who are just doing their jobs. Incredibly, you called a woman a pig to her face in front of her peers and the nation. What the f*ck is wrong with you? If we had a son who behaved as boorishly as you, he’d be grounded till hell froze over.

    Or something along those lines. I’m too disgusted to go on. C’mon guys, especially you, Elliot. Your new wife! Don’t just let it go.

    This poem is called “Great Depression Story.” It’s by Claudia Emerson and was in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s making me hungry, but what doesn’t?

    Sometimes the season changed in the telling,
    sometimes the state, but it was always during

    the Depression, and he was alone in the boxcar,
    the train stalled beneath a sky wider

    than any he’d seen so far, the fields of grass
    wider than the sky. He’d been curious

    to see if things were as bad somewhere else
    as they were at home. They were—and worse,

    he said, places with no trees, no water.
    He hadn’t eaten all day, all week, his hunger

    hard-fixed, doubled, gleaming as the rails. A lone
    house broke the sharp horizon, the train dreaming

    beneath him, so he climbed down, walked out,
    the grass parting at his knees. The windows

    were open, curtainless, and the screendoor,
    unlatched, moved to open, too, when he knocked.

    He could see in all the way through to the kitchen—
    and he smelled before he saw the lidded

    pot on the stove, the steam escaping. Her clothes
    moved on the line for all reply, the sheets,

    a slip, one dress, washed thin, worn to translucence;
    through it he could see what he mistook for fields

    of roses until a crow flew in with the wind—
    sudden, fleeting seam. By the time he got back to the train,

    he’d guessed already what he’d taken—pot
    and all—a hen, an old one that had quit

    laying, he was sure or she wouldn’t have killed it.
    The train began to move then, her house falling

    away from him. The story ended with the meat
    not quite done, but, believe him, he ate it

    all, white and dark, back, breast, legs, and thighs,
    strewing the still-warm bones behind him for miles.

    Get it? Took me a minute. It’s John Paul McKnight of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), who posted: After explaining what my new t-shirt means to my non-engineering family members, they now think I may be even duller than I previously was.

    Roy Whittaker: Are you Wire Wound or Metal Film….? Feel free to resist answering.

    John Scotland: If you didn’t have a separate organiser box for your resistors, they’d have no ohms to go to…

    Shaun Gisby: Watt?

    Paul Huang: Took me half a mho!

    [OC note: The mho is an historical unit used in electrical engineering to quantify a material’s ability to allow the flow of electric current. You knew that, right?]

    Matt McLaughlin: But surely not if bypassed as the image depicts?

    Derek Rose: The resistor is for all intents shorted and of no use in this circuit. However….the wire can (and will have some) resistance however minimal and the result of 2 resistors in parallel is always less than the individual value of each resistor.

    Avi Liveson: Fell off the truck there.

    Separately, on another dull topic (meat pies), Andy Spragg shared what he billed as “the world’s best anchovy joke.” Brace yourselves.

    Three lads go for a meal at a new pizza restaurant, whose pitch is that you can totally personalise your pizza: you just have to choose any three ingredients from a huge list, and voila: made to measure pizza.

    So the first guy who is a total carnivore opts for a venison, kangaroo, and biltong pizza. The second guy who is an out-and-out veggie opts for an artichoke heart, salsify, and banana blossom pizza. The third guy, who just loves anchovies, doesn’t want anything outlandish to distract from the anchovial loveliness, so he opts for anchovy, onion, and tomato.

    Appetites duly whetted, they sit back to await events. After a bit, three pizzas get delivered, and the first two guys are raving about theirs and how generous all the portions are of their chosen toppings. Meanwhile, the third guy is looking at his pizza and wondering what went wrong. He calls the waiter back. “My two mates are raving about their pizzas, no complaints there. And mine … well, no complaints about tomato and onion, but they were just supposed to be a foil for the anchovies. Where are they all? There seem to be only three of them!”

    And the waiter, looking a bit dumbfounded, replies …

    …

    (spoiler alert)

    …

    …

    “But sir, most people don’t like anchovies.”

    I sent that joke to Brookline Carl who sent this one back to me:

    A guy goes for his annual physical.  Everything is going well and the doctor says “We have one last thing: Your prostate. Go over to the exam table, lean on it, drop your shorts, and spread your legs wide.  And don’t get an erection, Steve.”

    The guy says, “Doc!  My name is Daniel, not Steve!”  The Doc says, “I know. My name is Steve.”

    In the puzzle today, at 47D the answer was THEA. And it’s a Tuesday but the constructor, Kaye Hawkins, did not take the easy way out by cluing it with “The A Train.” Instead, to her credit, the clue was “‘Edie & ___: A Very Long Engagement’ (2009 documentary).” It’s about a lesbian couple from NY. How one cared for the other when she was stricken with MS and their marriage in Canada when gay marriage was still barred in the U.S.

    One of the central “tools” of estate tax planning is the marital deduction which excludes from taxation property of the decedent’s that goes to the surviving spouse. This was not available to Edie and Thea at Thea’s passing because their marriage was not recognized in the U.S. So Edie was hit with an estate tax bill over $350,000. Do you like happy endings? Edie’s case went up to the pre-Trumpian Supreme Court and it held that DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) was unconstitutional.

    Can you think of a better way to close than with pretty girls singing a bluegrass song? We can’t either. (Actually picked this up from Paul Krugman!) See you tomorrow!

  • Jackson Hole

    In, literally, a bombshell report exclusive to Owl Chatter, sources reveal that the boat blown up by the military on Sept. 2 did not contain cocaine at all, but was instead carrying boxes full of Epstein files. Details to follow as they emerge (and dry out). This photo of the ship before it was hit was provided by the Defense Department.

    It was anybody’s game, the Big Ten title game, when I crashed at halftime Saturday night. Ohio State was up 10-6, but hardly dominant. And Indiana’s best receiver was on the fritz; we could do without that. But I woke up to the happy news that the hated Buckeyes lost 13-10. The juggernaut was de-jugged. Bravo Hoosiers!

    After several weeks of pretending to be a football team, the Jets reverted to being a mop and the Dolphs wiped the floor with us, 34-10, ouch. But the score doesn’t really convey what a drubbing it was: the only Jets TD was on a punt return. It was 21-0 and essentially over after just 12 minutes. An unusual statistic: The Jets do not have a single interception all season. Remarkable. The lowest amount for real teams is five.

    Rounding out the OC sports report, our Sirens fell badly (4-0) out west to the same Vancouver team (the Goldeneyes) we watched them beat last week in Newark. We are 2-3 now and off until the 17th, when we face the Boston Fleet, with Linda and me in attendance, kinehora. It’s Enema night!

    Here’s Paetyn Levis of the Sirens, frequent winner of the league’s Most-Difficult-First-Name-To-Spell Trophy. She’s from Minny and played college hockey at Ohio State. Men’s heads have been known to explode when she and teammate Sarah Fillier have been in the same room with them.

    Here’s a snippet of conversation from yesterday.

    Me: I didn’t sleep well last night.

    Linda: That’s too bad.

    Me: I was up from around 1 to 3.

    Linda: Were you anxious about something?

    Me: I wouldn’t say anxious.

    Linda: What would you say?

    Me: I would say unctuous.

    We then had to look up what unctuous means. It means smarmy.

    Here’s Frank Bruni on that recent Cabinet meeting that Trump slept through: “Just how run-down must a raging narcissist be to snooze through tributes to his own greatness?”

    Having slept through 38 years of department meetings at Hunter, I sympathize with the poor guy. One nice memory I have of my colleague John Kim, who passed away way way way too young, was from a department meeting. He was sitting next to me and, as things droned on, he jotted something down on his note pad and showed it to me. It said “Going to men’s room.” I nodded, and he got up and left. He came back after a while and sat back down in his seat. He jotted another note on his pad and showed it to me. “Feel better now,” it said.

    Except for one deranged a**hole (and I chose those words carefully), every single one of my mates in the accounting program over the years was wonderful. I had the reputation of getting along with everybody. But, really, it was easy.

    Humorist James Thurber was born on this day in Columbus OH in 1894. Flipping through a sampling of his cartoons reminds me of how funny cartoons used to be. It may have been he who introduced the absurd into New Yorker humor. I’m not enough of an expert on the topic to know. Here are just two.

    Can you dig it? If you can, you probably did well on today’s puzzle where the revealer was “Finger or toe … or, when read as two words, what you can do to the ends of the theme answers.” DIGIT or DIG IT. Then the theme answers all ended with things you dig: Jackson HOLE, last DITCH, cherry PIT, and work out WELL.

    Everyone’s favorite commenter, Lewis, often takes little outings the puzzle leads him on. Today he shared the following with us:

    “Maybe digging is in our genes, like it’s in dogs’ genes. I remember that when I was a kid, the first thing I’d do after getting to the beach is dig the deepest hole I could.

    “I did some more digging post-puzzle to determine the origin of ‘Hole’ in ‘Jackson Hole.” Turns out the area is named after fur trapper David Jackson, who worked the area in the 1820s, and ‘Hole’ was a trapper’s term for a large mountain valley. Huh!

    “I did notice that the theme nouns – HOLE, DITCH, PIT, and WELL – can also be verbs. Then I saw words that can be both nouns and verbs all over the grid. A partial list: STREAK, SCAT, SCAN, RAIL, SLAM, TANK, GROWL, YOYO.

    “A little more digging revealed that 30-50% of high-frequency vocabulary in English can be both noun and verb, but only about 10% of all the words in the dictionary can. You’re welcome.”

    [OC note: At first, I didn’t see how “well” could be a verb. But then I remembered tears can well up in your eyes. And “hole” is certainly a verb in golf, e.g., he holed the ball with his third putt.]

    The puzzle was fine, if a bit (44A) HO HUM. At 30A, “‘Enola Holmes’ actress [MILLIE] Bobby Brown” livened things up a bit. Hi Mill! Grab a Diet Coke and shoot the breeze with us a bit. What was it like growing up in Spain and England? Are the in-laws cool (see below)?

    Some of you may know her as Eleven from “Stranger Things.”

    Phil!! Quit freaking her out!! It’s not funny!! What the hell is wrong with you??

    Millie is married to Jake Bongiovi, an actor and model, whose dad is Jersey’s own Jon Bon Jovi! They adopted a baby girl last August.

    Does this license plate raise your hackles? Do you even have hackles? FYI, in mammals, the hackles are the hairs of the neck and back which become erect when the animal is fearful, as part of the fight-or-flight response, or to show dominance over subordinate animals. In birds, the hackle is the group of feathers found along the back and side of the neck. Anyway, never mind that, here’s the plate:

    It’s a vanity plate issued by Tennessee to Leah Gilliam but then revoked eleven years later when it generated complaints. Gilliam said pwndu means “owned you” in gamer language. [In fact, PWN does mean OWN: it comes up a lot in crosswords.] She first said the 69 was part of her phone number but later said it was a reference to the year of the moon landing. The complaints claimed the plate was a reference to sexual domination.

    Having nothing better to do (which we can certainly relate to), Gilliam appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, back in 2015 the Supremes heard a case from Texas which did not allow confederate flags on a vanity plate. Amazingly, Clarence Thomas joined the then-four liberals on the Court to find in favor of Texas (and against the Confederacy). The plates were held to be governmental speech which the State can control, and not personal speech, which it can’t.

    Fast forward to 2025. On Gilliam, the Court said, “Don’t bother us with nonsense that’s more appropriate for blogs like Owl Chatter.” It refused to take up the case, so Gilliam was out of luck, or, legally, pwned.

    Here’s Leah, in one of the few shots of her we could find in which she’s not wearing leather and holding a whip.

    I was in the offices over at CNN recently, digging up some dirt for an important feature we’re working on at Owl Chatter on plastic turtles. And I accidentally opened a door to a private meeting room where I found CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reaching for a nearby box of tissues and weeping her searing brown eyes out. “Kaity, Babe,” I said, “What’s wrong, girl?”

    “I am not stupid. And I am not nasty,” she wailed.

    “Of course you’re not,” I reassured her. “Who said these things?”

    “The President,” she bawled. “He wrote that I was stupid and nasty because I asked why the ballroom is costing so much. He even used a capital S on stupid and a capital N on nasty.”

    “Well, those words should not be capitalized,” I said. “And he’s just being a big meanie,” I told her. “If anybody is stupid and nasty, it’s him. Or he.”

    “Really? You really think so?,” she asked, calming down a little.

    “Absolutely,” I said. “Absolutely, Sweetheart.”

    Gotta go — the salad’s ready! See you tomorrow.

  • Holy Smokes!!

    Headline in the NYT today: Video Complicates U.S. Boat Strike Explanation.

    Ya think? “Complicates?”

    You mean the video that shows two shipwrecked men waving for help before being blown to bits? That one?

    Owl Chatter was able to get its hands on this top-secret photo of the vessel moments before the attack.

    At 12D in the puzzle today, the clue was “First name in Norse exploration,” and it was LEIF. Erikson, of course. Did you know that when Mrs. Erikson filed for divorce, she explained to the judge that she was turning over a new Leif? It’s true.

    At 5D, “Big Apple cathedral,” was ST PATS. And at 52A, “That’s crazy!” was HOLY SMOKES!

    Here’s egs:

    “Did you hear about the new Vatican-endorsed cigarette? HOLY SMOKES. Their slogan: Every puff gets you closer to heaven. Available now at ST PATS and other authorized distributors.”

    This was new to me, surprisingly. At 58A, “Side effect after a BBQ meal, informally.” Answer MEAT SWEATS. Our favorite BBQ joint is about a half hour east of Ann Arbor in a tiny town called Willis MI. Boneheads. OMG. Sam and I were at a UMich night baseball game once and planned to dine at Boneheads following the game. As the innings sailed by, I realized we didn’t know how late they were open. So I called and the news was not good. We fled the stadium as fast as we could, ran the three long blocks to our parking spot, and drove like hell. They agreed to serve us if we didn’t mind them starting to clean up. Whew.

    Urban Dictionary defines meat sweats as follows: “To consume an obscene amount of meat resulting in perfuse sweating.”

    A commenter on reddit who calls him- or herself Dr. Meat Sweat says: The threshold for meat consumption to trigger the so called “meat sweats” can vary from person to person. In many cases, the threshold for “throwing up from eating too much” occurs before the “meat sweats” thus resulting in a lack of widespread experiencing of “meat sweats.”

    This poem is called “My Father’s Diary” and is by Sharon Olds. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac, which has been on a bit of a roll it seems to me.

    When I sit on the bed, and spring the brass
    scarab legs of its locks, inside
    is the stacked, shy wealth of his print.
    He could not write in script, so the pages
    are sturdy with the beamwork of printedness,
    WENT TO LOOK AT A CAR, DAD IN A
    GOOD MOOD AT DINNER, LUNCH WITH MOM,
    TRIED OUT SOME RACQUETS—a life of ease,
    except when he spun his father’s DeSoto on the
    ice, and a young tree whirled up
    to the hood, throwing up her arms—until
    LOIS. PLAYED TENNIS WITH LOIS, LUNCH
    WITH MOM AND LOIS, DRIVING WITH LOIS,
    LONG DRIVE WITH LOIS. And then,
    LOIS! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! SHE IS SO
    GOOD, SO SWEET, SO GENEROUS, I HAVE
    NEVER, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE
    TO DESERVE SUCH A GIRL? Between the tines
    of his W’s, and liquid on the serifs, moonlight,
    the self of the grown boy pouring
    out, kneeling in pine-needle weave,
    worshiping her. It was my father
    good, it was my father grateful,
    it was my father dead, who had left me
    these small structures of his young brain—
    he wanted me to know him, he wanted
    someone to know him.

    Sharon is 83 now. She teaches creative writing at NYU. Here she is, catching up on some recent Owl Chatter posts.

    At 45A the clue was “Penn athletes” and the answer was QUAKERS. I posted the following for the commentariat: “Maybe UPenn’s football team would do better if the team name wasn’t based on Pacifism. What was the second choice: The Penn Marshmallows?”

    The puzzle was guilty of sending mixed messages: At 18A, PLEASE RISE. At 35A (the clue), Sit.

    Years ago I was on a committee at our Temple that was charged with conducting a Friday night service. During my small part I got to say “Please rise” and watch everyone in the room stand up. I couldn’t resist ad-libbing and said “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

    Here’s a rabbi joke: Three mothers are talking. The first says, “I am so proud of my Sammy. He’s a doctor, a big surgeon.” The second says: “My Isaac is a lawyer. Very successful, handles all the big cases.” They ask the third about her son and she says he’s a rabbi. “A rabbi?” they ask. “What kind of job is that for a Jewish boy?”

    From tomorrow’s Met Diary. This entry by Aryeh Friedman is called “13 Records.”

    Dear Diary:

    It was the mid-1990s and we were living in Washington Heights with our 4-year-old daughter.

    An older woman, a widow, who lived on our floor adored our daughter and showered her with compliments every time we bumped into her.

    After a time, we learned that she and her husband survived the Holocaust. They had never had children.

    One day, when our door was ajar, our neighbor peeked in and noticed some vinyl records that we liked to listen to with our daughter.

    Later, the woman invited me over to show me a box filled with classical records. They were in horrible condition: broken, scratched and caked with who-knows-what.

    I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I thanked her and said we couldn’t wait to listen to them. I figured we’d get rid of them some time when she wouldn’t notice.

    As I was leaving, she said that her husband loved classical music. They had always had Friday night dinner together when they were dating. And each time, instead of bringing her flowers, he had brought her a record.

    They had 13 dinners before getting married. There were 13 records in the box, and she said she wanted my daughter to enjoy them all.

    I still have those records.

    OK Chatterheads. See you tomorrow.

  • F*ck You, Katy Perry

    Owl Chatter sources tell us that Hegseth’s testimony in Congress yesterday really blew the Senators out of the water.

    Phil got these shots of him testifying.

    My favorite clue/answer in today’s puzzle spanned the grid (15 letters). The clue: “Words of caution.” The answer: DON’T POKE THE BEAR. Commenter Pablo said it’s a familiar line to Boston Bruin fans. It’s uttered when someone takes a cheap shot at a Bruin.

    It made me wonder, how many bears does it take to change a light bulb? Here are my thoughts. Bear with me now.

    If it’s unbearable then no amount of bears would be enough.

    But it may be a bear bulb.

    In that case, three bears would be ideal: one bear to bear the ladder, one bear to bear the bulb, and one bear to bear witness.

    And I would urge us all to bear that in mind.

    The exquisite Rooney MARA dropped in yesterday, boringly clued with “Actress Rooney.” What the hell is she wearing? The life vest from under her airplane seat?

    Hard to imagine linking the striking actress with the brutes who play pro football, but some of you probably know that her name comes from the two football families she was born into: Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Mara of the NY Giants. She gets down on her knees every morning and thanks God she is not connected to the Jets.

    Roo has two children with Joaquin Phoenix, whom I hope friends call Joe. They have been together since late 2016 and JP refers to her as his wife in interviews, though it is unclear if they ever took the trouble to get married, to the chagrin of the catering industry. They did announce they were engaged in 2019. Their first child is a boy named River to honor the memory of Jo’s older brother who passed away in 1993. Their second is a daughter whose name has not been revealed, as far as we can tell. They guard their privacy.

    One of the songs in yesterday’s puzzle has much more of a story to it than we were aware of. “2008 hit by Katy Perry,” was I KISSED A GIRL. But the late Jill Sobule released a song with the same title back in 1995. Per Anony Mouse: Katy Perry’s hit was an inferior rip off of Jill Soble’s original “I Kissed a Girl,” the first openly gay song to land in the Billboard Top 20. That was 1995 -13 years before Perry’s song.

    Sobule’s song title is ho-hum until you realize it’s being sung by a girl. She tells a bit of the story before singing it below.

    When Katy Perry released her song with the same title, Sobule calmly stated: “Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe ‘not good for the gays,’ title-thieving, haven’t heard much else, so not quite sure if you’re talented, fucking little slut.” Sobule later claimed that her comments were meant to be facetious and that she bore KP no ill will.

    At 10D today “Iterate” was REPEAT. It led two commenters to wonder: If iterate is repeat, is reiterate redundant? I explained that “Reiterate is redundant, and iterate is dundant.”

    For our Dirty Old Man Dept, several commenters thought the answer at 2D (“It might be on a rack”) was BRA. I went with tie first, but the answer was HAT. (Boo.)

    At 45A, “Where much of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was filmed,” was ALBERTA. Here’s Rex on it: “My favorite mistake was probably the one where I learned (‘learned’) that Ang Lee filmed Brokeback Mountain in ALBANIA. ‘Must’ve been more affordable,’ I thought.”

    Here’s an “Alberta” song in very good hands that never fails to clutch at my heart. If it’s new to you, brace yourself.

    Still I wish you’d change your mind
    If I asked you one more time
    But we’ve been through that a hundred times or more.

    Headline from The Onion:

    Authorities: Missing Plates And Glasses Found Filthy But Safe In Roommate’s Room

    CARSON CITY, MI—Nearly a week after the dishes vanished from the kitchen cabinets, authorities reported Wednesday that a collection of missing plates and glasses were found filthy but safe in roommate Brian Massoud’s room. “We are pleased to announce that the three missing plates and five glasses were located on the floor next to Brian’s bed, absolutely disgusting but now, thankfully, out of harm’s way,” said Sgt. Michael Sanders, who led the exhaustive search of the three-bedroom apartment that seemed hopeless until a tip from Massoud’s girlfriend directed authorities to a dinner plate crusted with melted cheese. At press time, the dishes had been placed in the kitchen sink, where they were reportedly soaking.

    This poem is called “The Fall” and it’s by George Bilgere. It’s from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Although there were no witnesses
    In the hallway outside the women’s room
    Of the Hotel Coronado,
    When my aunt stumbled
    And fell to her knees on the ancient marble

    It must have been like the swordsman
    Falling in The Seven Samurai,
    A whole dynasty collapsing,
    Falling out of its bones

    Into the mud. I was reading
    The sports section in the lobby
    When a boy, probably sixteen or so,
    Ran in and called my name.
    An old woman has fallen, he said,
    Frightened that something
    So enormous could happen, that fate
    Should cast him as an emissary
    Announcing dynastic collapse
    Instead of just a high school kid,

    And I stood up and ran to her
    Although I’m fifty-six now, and breaking
    Into a spontaneous run feels like
    Trying out a language you’d lost
    As a kid who’d swapped countries.

    And there she sat, lean and elegant,
    Like an athlete who’d collapsed
    From sheer exhaustion, her legs
    Drawn up to her chin as she fought
    To lift the whole city again,

    The crumbling Coronado,
    Where Miles Davis used to jam,
    And the Continental, where the Gershwins
    Hung out at the Tack Room,
    And the abandoned Fox Theater
    Where she saw Olivier’s Hamlet

    And even the boarded up
    Forest Park Boat house, where her father
    Used to take her for ice cream
    In the sweltering St. Louis summers.

    An old woman has fallen.

    We’ll give our art department the last word today. At 21A, the clue was: “Subject of the Bouguereau painting ‘The Abduction of Psyche.’” Anybody? EROS. Here’s Rex on it: “I like how this clue assumes I know who Bouguereau is. ‘Oh, the Bouguereau painting, yes, of course, what a master… [sips cocktail, nibbles on canapé] …’ Literally first I’m seeing his name today.”

    See you tomorrow Chatterheads! Thanks for wasting some time with us.

  • Where Have You Gone, Agatha?

    Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter is the opposite of Owl Chatter. Where we are devoted to nonsense, she is no-nonsense. So it says something when material in hers crosses over to be Chatter-worthy. This item’s hysterical, IMO.

    “Today’s cabinet meeting was clearly designed to demonstrate that the president is alert, active, and on top of things. But Trump could not stay awake while his Cabinet members were praising him, and so we had the wild visual of Marco Rubio praising Trump as the only man who could end Russia’s war in Ukraine, gesturing at the president sitting next to him, who was sound asleep.”

    HCR also shared a brilliant line of George Will’s on Hegseth: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.”

    Of course, since they are utterly dishonest and dishonorable, after lying about the killing only to see the proof emerge, Trump’s and Hegseth’s next step was to shift the blame, in this case, to Admiral Bradley. Richardson referred to it as “underbussing.”

    Antonín Dvořák popped in on the puzzle today, as composer of his Slavonic Dances. Shockingly, Malaika, the guest blogger for Rex, confessed that she didn’t know him. What!!?? He may not be one of Classical Music’s famous three B’s — Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart — but he’s darn close, IMO. (Just kidding with Mozart — I know the third B was Schubert.) Did you know that in 1943, the U.S. Navy named a ship in Dvořák’s honor? And his wife Anna said he was a wonderful Czech mate.

    PRELL was also in the puzzle today, albeit with a pretty clunky clue: “Shampoo often in a green bottle.” It’s still on the market. I remember the ads with the pearl slowly sinking to the bottom of the bottle. You can see the pearl dropping way at the end of this incredibly creepy ad. Jeez Louise!

    We’re all familiar with the QWERTY keyboard. I’m pounding away at it right now. But another one was developed that was touted by some as more efficient: faster and more ergonomic. It came up because it’s called DVORAK and Malaika noted that it’s the only Dvorak she’s heard of. (One of its developers was August Dvorak, no relation to the composer or the month.) It hasn’t caught on but it’s included as an option on most operating systems. It was patented in 1936.

    Here’s August Dvorak with some of his typing students back at UWash in Seattle in 1932. He’s having them try out his new keyboard (really), while trying not to look down this student’s blouse. Look closely to see that his keyboard is written out on the blackboard in the rear.

    The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is presenting a special showing of this film on 12/18 in NYC. We would go but it’s a tough schlep into the city from Owl Chatter headquarters.

    From The Onion:

    And this:

    Nature Begins Reclaiming Chuck Grassley

    Did you know that on this date in 1926 Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared? Her car was found abandoned in a chalk pit seven miles from her house. I didn’t even know chalk had pits. England was mesmerized and citizens (as well as the police) organized huge search parties. She showed up after eleven days in a luxury hotel under a different name (Rabbi Chaim Lefkowitz), and claimed she could not remember what happened. It was a stressful year for her: her mother died, and her hubby left her for his young mistress. Ouch. It was never resolved as to whether it was all a publicity stunt. If it was, it worked. The popularity of her books soared.

    Here’s a South Korean Ms. Marple. It’s Yunjin Kim. You may recognize her from Lost.

    Sirens are out in Seattle tonight. Puck drops at 10pm. Let’s go girls!

    See you tomorrow!

  • L’eggo My Eggo!

    Today’s puzzle involved state capitals. I’m a little better at them because in my youth a friend I used to visit had a tiny bathroom in the basement with a map of the U.S. facing the toilet.

    The theme was “raising capital” and the theme answers were all downs with state capitals “rising,” e.g., my favorite, at 15D: “Grey Goose competitor.” Answer: BELVEDERE VODKA.

    “Brought up the rear” was CAME LAST.

    “Criticize unfairly” was TAKE POT SHOTS AT.

    And “‘”Huh, better than I expected’” was NOT SO BAD.

    Not too many state capitals are amenable to this treatment. I came up with these two:

    What one might say about obese meanies:

    I hatE FAT NASty people.

    Hegseth — are you sure?

    Well, yES, I OBserved the rules.

    Aside from the theme, it was good to learn: “Breakfast brand originally known as Froffles:” EGGO.

    Froffles!

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess it was a portmanteau from “frozen waffles,” but I could find no reference to froffles on Wikipedia or the Eggo website. I did learn that the famous ad: “L’eggo my eggo!” brought attention to a link between Eggo and LEGO. Rather than go to war, the companies teamed up, and a LEGO-shaped Eggo was the result.

    Loyal readers of Owl Chatter (both of you!) will recall how thrilled we were when Trump rolled over the utterly unprincipled GOP Senate to get Pistol Pete Hegseth confirmed. It was clear an endless stream of hilarity would issue from the Defense Dept. And it has. Dayenu! But not in our wildest dreams could we predict the delicious turn events took this week. The war crimes we expected. But Pete’s making fun of it with turtle cartoons! Even Putin on horseback must be impressed. Bravo, PH!

    Needless to say, Hegs caught sh*t for it from Franklin the Turtle, although that’s the least of his problems. I copied the following, verbatim, from The Hill:

    “Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity,” Canadian publisher Kids Can Press said in a statement on X. “We strongly condiment any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values.”

    Condiment!! OMG, it just keeps getting better and better. In other pubs the intended “condemn” replaces the mustard, ketchup, and relish.

    Of course, the Defense Department doubled down and charged the turtle with being soft on narco-terrorists. (Not kidding.)

    Arthur Sze is the current poet laureate of the U.S. About this poem he said: “In 2023, I participated in the Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau and collaged images and events in China together. The Yi host in the poem was the festival organizer, Jidi Majia.” It’s called “Qinghai Lake” and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Naked carp swim upstream    and spawn in fresh water,
    then fry return     to this 3,260-meter-high saline lake—

    we stroll past black sheep      chained by their necks; 
    later, our Yi host invites us    to join him at a low table:

    boiled mutton, intestines, potatoes,     and red chile 
    powder are set in red-swirling,     black lacquer bowls.

    Closing my eyes,     I see wind turbines along a ridge, 
    transmission lines     that arc from tower to tower 

    across green hills;     a herder opens a gate, and black 
    yaks slip through—when I walk    to a stream 

    that feeds the lake, I follow     a path lined with red
    and orange marigolds in pots,     wonder

    who surrenders to reach     a higher plane of existence?
    At a temple built and rebuilt     since 307 CE, 

    I see a persimmon tree     alongside a cypress,
    where lovers,     whetted by prayer, leave plaques

    with dangling red strings.     Boating on this lake,
    we make an oval track     on the surface; and, gazing 

    at rapeseed     flowering yellow along the shore, 
    we suspend but do not dissipate     the anguish of this world.

    The NY Football Giants (2-11) are having a worse season than the Jets (3-9). And, as Bill Parcells’ famous quote goes: “You are what your record says you are.” Last night, with the Jints down 17-7 against the Pats, their kicker Younghoe Koo attempted a field goal to make it a one-score game. It didn’t go well.

    But if you check the game stats, there’s no record of a missed field goal by Koo. What gives? It turns out for a missed kick to count as a missed kick, statistically, the foot must touch the ball. Since Koo did not even come close here, it’s a nonevent. Actually, it counted as a sack of the holder.

    Koo explained what happened after the game. It turns out he was high from drugs and “everything was spinning.” No! I’m kidding. He said the holder bobbled the snap and the ball seemed to still be in motion as he began his approach. He felt he could not complete the kick effectively, so he aborted the effort as you saw in the video. The Giants lost 30-9 anyway, so no harm was done. And his pretty wife, Ava, a teacher, consoled him after the game.

    Are teachers allowed to be that pretty? I remember a back-to-school night when Sam was little. His teachers came out and seemed nice, and then his friend Greg’s teachers came out, like from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Greg’s dad (Hi Chris!) leaned over and said to me: “Greg is a very lucky boy.”

    We are looking forward to Jeopardy! tonight. A very nice young man named Eli, who often subs for Rex, is one of the contestants. Here’s what he said about it:

    “I’ve been auditioning for Jeopardy for close to 15 years now. I’ve gone through the audition process so many times I’ve lost count (it’s at least 5). So to finally get the call was a dream come true. And the experience lived up to the dream!

    “The entire staff at Jeopardy was just wonderful. They run the show like a well-oiled machine and treat all of the contestants extremely well. They know how big a deal it is for everyone who gets on the show and they make sure it’s special. The stage manager (Jimmy, formerly of the Clue Crew), the contestant wranglers, the hair and makeup team, the technical crew… all absolutely fantastic. You could tell they really cared. And Ken Jennings is a delight! I knew he was a good host, but trivia people are his people, and he knows how to make them feel welcome and at home.”

    Knock ’em dead, Eli!

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by.