The Wellington Files

  • The Silk of Their Sorrow

    Today’s poem of the day from the Poetry Foundation is by Taha Muhammad Ali, and was translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin. It’s called “Meeting at an Airport.”

    You asked me once,
    on our way back
    from the midmorning
    trip to the spring:
    “What do you hate,
    and who do you love?”

    And I answered,
    from behind the eyelashes
    of my surprise,
    my blood rushing
    like the shadow
    cast by a cloud of starlings:
    “I hate departure . . .
    I love the spring
    and the path to the spring,
    and I worship the middle
    hours of morning.”
    And you laughed . . .
    and the almond tree blossomed
    and the thicket grew loud with nightingales.

    . . . A question
    now four decades old:
    I salute that question’s answer;
    and an answer
    as old as your departure;
    I salute that answer’s question . . .

    And today,
    it’s preposterous,
    here we are at a friendly airport
    by the slimmest of chances,
    and we meet.
    Ah, Lord!
    we meet.
    And here you are
    asking—again,
    it’s absolutely preposterous—
    I recognized you
    but you didn’t recognize me.
    “Is it you?!”
    But you wouldn’t believe it.
    And suddenly
    you burst out and asked:
    “If you’re really you,
    What do you hate
    and who do you love?!”

    And I answered—
    my blood
    fleeing the hall,
    rushing in me
    like the shadow
    cast by a cloud of starlings:
    “I hate departure,
    and I love the spring,
    and the path to the spring,
    and I worship the middle
    hours of morning.”

    And you wept,
    and flowers bowed their heads,
    and doves in the silk of their sorrow stumbled.

    You know that expression “from the sublime to the ridiculous?” Napoleon used it to describe the retreat of his army from Moscow. But it was coined by Thomas Paine in 1794 in The Age of Reason. The full quotation is, “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.”

    Nikki Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and Nikki is her middle name. Her given name is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. In what the NYT describes as the use of a “racist dog whistle,” Trump recently referred to her as Nimrada. After taking some sh*t for it, he switched to Nimbra. 

    Nimrada herself says she’s not worried about it; that it just reveals Trump’s own insecurities. Kathy Holland, a supporter of Nimbra, said: ”This is a continuation of the bullying and third-grade behavior that should have him grounded. We deserve leaders who act grown up.”

    Grounded? Like he can’t go out with friends? ”Leaders who act grown up” may be setting too high a bar. 

    Here’s a nice shot Phil got for us from the wedding of Nimbra’s daughter Rena to her college sweetheart Josh Jackson. They went to Clemson together, where Josh was on the football team. He mostly rode the bench, but still. His sole statistic was one catch for minus 2 yards. But we are sure he’ll tell you the catch he made that mattered most was of Rena. Awwww. Rena is a pediatric nurse, and Josh is a math teacher and HS football coach. Mazel Tov, kids!

    That’s Nimrada’s husband Michael on the left, and their son Nalin on the right.

    The puzzle today featured bad puns about failing businesses. Thus, at 23A, the clue was “First, I founded an aerospace start-up, but I never …” and the answer was GOT IT OFF THE GROUND. 77A: “When I tried candle-making, all my workers …” SUFFERED FROM BURNOUT. 56A: “Next, I pivoted into breakfast restaurants, but competitors …” POACHED OUR EMPLOYEES.

    egsforbreakfast commented: ”When I was a business owner, we often grilled our employees. Never thought of trying them poached.” 

    Is the federal government anti-fun? States have started using humorous road signs but Uncle Sam is not amused. E.g., in Massachusetts we had “Changing lanes? Use Ya Blinkah.” Jersey had “Get your head out of your apps.” Jersey also used “Slow down: This ain’t Thunder Road.” 

    Paul Katool, a spokesman for the Mississippi DOT, explains that “there are only so many ways you can say ‘Don’t text and drive.’ People tune you out.” And a study by Virginia’s DOT found creative and amusing road signs rank high in effectiveness. But the feds, while not banning such efforts outright, say they “should not be used.” Their fear is such signs may confuse or distract drivers. And a study in 2022 found that many drivers “don’t understand” safety messages that include humor or pop-culture references. It recommends humor be avoided and messages be limited to 16 words or numbers. 

    Noooooo! Don’t give in to the morons! It’s bad enough they’re getting the White House back next year.

    This sign has “pop-culture references.” Taylor — whaddya think?

    See you tomorrow!

  • Leader of the Pack

    Paul RUDD? — People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2021? Really? That’s what 51A in today’s puzzle says, and who am I to quibble? 

    He looks a bit like former Dallas QB Tony Romo, no? 

    Wait — who’s this guy?

    Rudd’s 54 now and has been married to screenwriter/producer Julie Yeager for 20 years. They have two kids. Hi Julie! — you know about this sexiest man business?

    Like most sexy men, Rudd is from New Jersey (born in Passaic), and he’s Jewish. His grandfather changed Rudnitsky to Rudd. His mom was a Goldstein. He was bar-mitzvahed in Ontario Canada. The family moved to Kansas when Paul was ten and he went to HS there and the U. of Kansas. He still roots for the Royals, Chiefs, and Jayhawks. After college, he studied acting and took odd jobs. He was a DJ at bar mitzvahs, and glazed hams at the Holiday Ham Company in Overland Park KS. The Ladies Home Journal and others named it the best mail-order ham in the country. This is a half ham that will cost you about $90.

    But I digress.

    When Paul was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015 he said “I remember being a kid and walking this boulevard and reading the names and thinking about what so many other millions of people thought about, which is, you know, ‘Who’s that?’”

    Rudd is a supporter of the Stuttering Association for the Young (SAY), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping young people who stutter. He became an advocate for stuttering awareness after portraying a character who stuttered. 

    Sounds like a mensch. Good to see you in the grid, Paul. And you are way sexier than those other two – no question.

    You familiar with ASMR? Here’s the clue: “Initialism for a pleasant tingling on the scalp or back of the neck.” It’s an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, defined by Miriam Webster as a pleasant tingling sensation that originates on the back of the scalp and often spreads to the neck and upper spine, that occurs in some people in response to a stimulus (such as a particular kind of sound or movement), and that tends to have a calming effect.

    During Super Bowl LIII in 2019, Anheuser-Busch broadcast an ASMR-themed commercial in which Zoë Kravitz uses ASMR techniques including whispering and tapping on a beer bottle into two microphones. Rolling Stone described the commercial as an example of ASMR “going mainstream.”

    OC friend Delaware Pam added to our discussion of the late Peter Schickele. She said, “I had a record of PDQ Bach’s greatest flops. In the category of never-laughed-so-hard, the recording features an aria—quite a long one. The soprano hits a very high note at the end of side one, and the flip side begins with her on the same note for another couple of minutes.” She adjured him to rest in peace — something we forgot to do yesterday (d’oh!). So, thanks Pam!

    Trump attacked Nikki Haley Friday night, accusing her of turning down 10,000 troops on Jan. 6 and saying she was in charge of security. In addition to the troop business being a total lie, it was a lie related to Nancy Pelosi. Haley had nothing to do with Jan. 6. Trump was confusing Haley with Pelosi. It’s understandable: they both have dark hair. Haley responded by questioning whether Trump is mentally fit for the job. Of course he’s not — if he wins, that’s our only hope,

    The girl group era didn’t last long in the 60s, but the Shangri-las made the most of it, and left an impression. Sadly, lead singer Mary Weiss died yesterday at the age of 75. Remember “Leader of the Pack?” (I met him at the candy store . . . .) The song was honored by the Rock and Roll HOF, in its singles category. Weiss is the pretty blonde girl drooling over Jimmy.

    Love the specs!! Rest in peace, Mary.

    That smile could light up the East Coast. We’ll let it send us off tonight. See you tomorrow, folks. 

  • Bladderball

    Peter Schickele died at age 88 on Tuesday at his home in Bearsville, near Woodstock, NY. A serious composer and musician, he is better known as the “discoverer” of P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742), the 21st of J.S. Bach’s 20 children, also described as “the youngest and oddest of Bach’s 20-odd children.”

    Works attributed to P. D. Q. Bach often use instruments not normally used in orchestras, such as the bagpipes, slide whistle, kazoo, and fictional instruments such as the pastaphone (made of uncooked manicotti), tromboon (see below), hardart, lasso d’amore, and left-handed sewer flute.

    During his Soused (or Brown-Bag) Period, P. D. Q. Bach wrote a Concerto for Horn and Hardart, a Pervertimento for Bicycle, Bagpipes, and Balloons, a Serenude, a Schleptet in E-flat major, Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, an opera in one unnatural act, The Art of the Ground Round, and a Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion. He also wrote The Short-Tempered Clavier, The No-No Nonette, and The Unbegun Symphony. He wrote pieces to be performed by a “bargain-counter tenor” and an “off-coloratura soprano.”

    The tromboon is an actual musical instrument developed by Schickele. He called it “a hybrid – that’s the nicer word – constructed from parts of a bassoon and a trombone; it has all the disadvantages of both.”

    For his live performances, he often made a wild entrance. In his early years, he slid down a rope suspended from the first balcony; on at least one occasion he ran down the aisle, vast suitcase in hand, as if delayed at the airport; on another he entered, pursued by a gorilla. In his later years, when declining health forced him to enter in a wheelchair, audience members mistakenly took it for part of the act.

    Schickele was born in Ames, Iowa, and went to high school in Fargo, ND. He dubbed himself Professor of Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, ND. He is survived by his wife, their daughter, Karla, a singer, songwriter and bassist, their son, Matthew, a composer, and two grandsons, all of whom enjoy a good tune on the tromboon from time to time. 

    I had the great pleasure of hearing Peter Schickele on NPR now and then. He was a uniquely brilliant and funny man.

    Ed Poe was born on this date in 1809 in Boston, although he is most associated with Baltimore. He’s the reason their pro football team is the Ravens. Poe died in Baltimore. He was only 40.

    Poe spent periods of his life in poverty during which he’d write anything for a buck, e.g., a how-to guide on collecting sea shells. 

    Ever hang out at a bat-mitzvah drooling over the bat-mitzvah girl’s friends and classmates? Me neither. But Eddie was 26 when he married his cousin Virginia who was only 13! Yikes! They remained married for 11 years until, sadly, her death from TB did them part. 

    Poe “invented” the detective novel, says no less an authority than A. C. Doyle. Thus, the award for best mystery is the “Edgar.”

    Between 1949 and 2009, a bottle of cognac and three roses were left at Poe’s original grave marker every January 19 by an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the “Poe Toaster.” It may have been Sam Porpora, a historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimore. He claimed he started the tradition to raise money and enhance the profile of the church, but this hasn’t been verified. The Poe Toaster’s last appearance was on January 19, 2009, Poe’s 200th birthday. Research conducted by Owl Chatter has established that there is no connection between the Poe Toaster and Post Toasties.

    The puzzle today triggered a rant from Rex right off the bat. The clue at 1A was: “Bladderball players, historically,” and the answer was ELIS. It’s a game that used to be played at Yale. Here’s the rant:

    “I cannot adequately express how much I do not care about and am not curious about the lore and practice and general behavior of YALIES, who have, historically, been overrepresented in the crossword, compared to other institutions of higher learning, to an absolutely absurd degree. YALIE YALIES ELI ELIS ELIHU OLDELI BOOLA LUX (et Veritas) and on and on, seemingly. So … Bladderball? I have no &^$%ing clue. I assume it’s something embarrassing like Quidditch. The name itself is something someone should’ve changed a long time ago. I know and admire and even love many people who have attended Yale, but dear god please stop making me know things about Yale.”

    Here’s the scoop. Bladderball is a variant of pushball, and has its roots in mob football. It was originally a competition between The Yale Banner, the Yale Daily News, the campus humor magazine, and the campus radio station.

    Bladderball was conceived by Yale student Philip Zeidman, owner of a six-foot leather exercise ball, as a preliminary event before the Yale-Dartmouth football game in 1954, according to Yale bladderball historian Sarah Hammond. Hammond traces the name “bladderball” back to a rugby-like game played by Yale students on the New Haven Green in the first half of the 19th century, featuring an inflated animal bladder.

    Once each year, at 11 a.m. the Saturday before the Yale-Dartmouth game, the inflatable six-foot ball was rolled through Yale’s Phelps Gate onto Old Campus, where a throng of Yale students waited. At the sound of a whistle, teams from each residential college and various extracurricular organizations would fight for possession of the ball. Teams were allowed to use any means at their disposal to seize control.

    In the absence of any scoring system, victory consisted of fervent declarations of victory by each team. Listeners to the Yale radio station would invariably learn that the station team had won a mighty victory, while readers of the Yale print media were invariably informed that each particular publication had bested all other teams handily, by scores often ranging into the thousands of points.

    In the 60s, the game started spilling out onto the streets of New Haven, resulting in traffic tie-ups and various unfortunate incidents, which finally led Yale Prez Bart Giamatti (later the Baseball Commish) to ban it in 1982. The game reappeared surreptitiously in 2009 and 2011, but the cops quickly came and ended it. An attempted revival in 2014 was scotched by the cops who had received advanced word.

    At 17A the clue was “World capital since 1971,” and the answer was DOHA. Here’s Rex again:

    “I had no idea its capital status was so young. Admittedly, I don’t think a lot about DOHA. In fact, it’s possible I wouldn’t think about it at all, or even know of its existence, were it not for crosswords. This is true of much of the world. Is OSLO even real?”

    At 42D, as anyone who has seen The Little Mermaid knows, “Domain of the god Triton,” is the SEA. It led Son Volt to share this song by the Waterboys.

    Phil got the scoop for us on Taylor and Travis’s first tiff when he snapped a few exclusive pics of the star for OC. It started with a bad loss for the Chiefs on Christmas. It put Trav in a very sour mood and — unacceptable! — he snapped at her. (“No shit!” Phil said. ”Shit,” she replied.) The only snapping she wants to hear is our Philly snapping some pix. Travis apologized but it left a scar. Rule #1: Don’t be snappin’ at the Princess. No way. No how.

    Taylor also opened up to Phil about her relationship with some members of Travis’s family — there’s some coldness between her and Trav’s brother and his wife. The brothers are close, so that doesn’t help. There’s also tension about scheduling time for them to see each other — they both have massive career commitments (duh). Taylor told Phil she’s been bending over backwards to accommodate Travis’s schedule and it sounds like she may be pulling back a bit. We’ll keep you posted. Phil stays in pretty close touch with Tay.

    Wow — nice shot, buddy.

    See you tomorrow everybody! Thanks for popping in!

  • Killing Mosquitos

    Let’s start off today by greeting a visitor who is new to us: Katey SAGAL. She was clued as the actress who played Peg Bundy on Married With Children. So I knew who she is, just not her name. Hey, it’s her birthday tomorrow — she’s turning 70. Ouch!

    Katey comes from a show biz family. How show biz? Her godfather was Norman Lear. Her mom was Amish and died in 1975 from heart disease. Her dad was Ukrainian/Jewish and he married dancer/actress Marge Champion in 1977, but died in an accident in 1981 on the set of the mini-series World War 3. He is, to date, the only casualty of WW3.  He was partially decapitated by walking into the tail rotor blades of a helicopter in the parking lot of the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. He turned the wrong way after exiting the helicopter. Let’s all keep that in mind for the next time we’re on a copter: Walk towards the front. He directed episodes of Columbo and The Man from UNCLE. There is a directing fellowship in his name at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in MA.

    Back to Katey, she began her career as a singer/songwriter. She was a backup singer for Bob Dylan, Etta James, and Tanya Tucker. She was a member of the Harlettes, Bette Midler’s backup singers.

    Katey married three times and has three kids, one, with her current hubby, via surrogacy. She became pregnant while on Married With Children and they worked it into the script. Sadly, however, she lost the baby in the seventh month. The producers didn’t want her to have to relive her grief on the show, so they recast the pregnancy as a dream.  

    Hi Katey! Make yourself at home. Loved you in MWC — need a refill?

    The poem today from the Poetry Foundation is a haiku by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Robert Hass.

    All the time I pray to Buddha

    I keep on killing mosquitos.

    Jeez Louise! Have you seen Barron Trump lately, the one child Melania had with you-know-whom? Owl Chatter ran into him at his grandma’s (Melania’s mom’s) funeral the other day. He’s 6′ 7″ tall! He leads the family in rebounds.

    Melania’s mom, Amalija Knavs, passed away at age 78 on January 9th. Mel’s dad Viktor attended the funeral with her and Barron. I recall how horrified we were at the basket of deplorables our Caitlin brought home during her dating years. But nothing could match the disgust Amalija must have felt upon meeting Donald J. 

    “Melania — he’s a pig! He’s disgusting!” 

    “I don’t want to hear it, Mom.”

    Our hearts go out to them all.

    Amalija was born in Austria but the family moved to Slovenia. Her mom was a seamstress and her dad was a cobbler at first, and then a red-onion farmer. She worked on the onion farm for a time. In addition to Melania, who was born in 1970, Amalija and Viktor also had a daughter Ines, born in 1968. Mel skipped the New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago last month, to be at Amalija’s bedside.

    This nice shot is of Mel’s parents with her and her sister when they were tots.

    Rest in peace, Grandma Amalija.

    Responses to our surveys contain so many wonderful ideas and requests. But, to no surprise, the overwhelming majority ask for more songs in Yiddish about watermelons. Here’s a catchy tune that just may become your next earworm!

    Can’t imagine a better send-off than that! See you tomorrow!

  • The G is Silent

    My favorite clue/answer in today’s puzzle was at 61A: ”Interesting idea, but … huh-uh.” The answer was YEAH, NO. Rex described it as “colloquiparadoxical.” To which I would add: Wow.

    67A was “Silently acknowledge,” which was NOD AT. Rex said it would have been better clued with “Possible response to a dis?” (NO, DAT) (Get it?)

    24A was “Product once advertised with the slogan ‘Everything you love about coffee without everything you don’t.’” Ans: SANKA. Decades ago, Sanka mounted an intense ad campaign, sponsoring, among other shows, I Love Lucy and The Twilight Zone and it was so successful that Sanka’s color orange is now the color of decaf. That is, in a diner, the pot of decaf will be identified via an orange handle regardless of what brand it’s using. (To a lesser extent, some use green for decaf stemming from Sanka’s rival Folgers.)

    OMG, is Trump right? Eric Olsen, director of elections for Prince William County in Virginia, revealed thousands of vote counting errors in the 2020 election. The errors were caused by formatting issues. The result, Olsen said, was that Biden received 1,648 fewer votes than he should have received and Trump received 2,327 too many.

    Oops. Never mind.

    I shared my Tuesday Weld material with the gang at Rex’s blog, noting as well, for no reason, that the G in Maynard G. Krebs stood for Fred. But a commenter mbr corrected me and said it stood for Walter, with Maynard explaining the G is silent. Wikipedia supports him or her and notes Maynard was named Walter “for his aunt.” I gained my impression that it was Fred from a memory (maybe wrong) of him telling someone once the G was for Fred. In any case, all in good fun, and nothing to whinge about.

    Whinge is today’s Miriam Webster’s “word of the day.” It means to complain fretfully, and is more common in British English. 

    Here’s another shot of Tuesday — this time on Wednesday.

    It is with much sadness and appreciation that Owl Chatter notes the passing, at age 99, of Joyce Randolph, Trixie Norton, the last surviving member of the great Honeymooners quartet. She died of natural causes at her home in Manhattan last Saturday.

    Of course, she was beloved and revered by fans of the show. At a 1984 Long Island meeting of the Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners, or RALPH, one could buy a coveted Trixie apron. She was born in Detroit, moved to NY at the age of 19, and began acting. Jackie Gleason discovered her in a chewing gum commercial. Her role as Trixie was the high point of her career. 

    This is how her obit in the NYT ended:

    “Ms. Randolph dedicated an eight-foot bronze statue of Mr. Gleason [as Kramden in his bus driver’s uniform], at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in 2000. [You can still see it there — guaranteed to raise a smile.] 

    “She got a standing ovation at a USO gala in NY in 2006. “I guess all those young Marines watch television,” she said.”

    Here’s a shot of her at age 83 — still looking damn good — in Sardi’s, below caricatures of Ralph, Alice, Ed, and Trixie above the bar.

    She married Richard Charles, a business executive, in 1955, the day after the Honeymooners premiered. Charles was a war hero in WW2, saving many lives on rescue missions. They remained married until his death in 1997. They had one son, Randy, who survives her. It was a wonderful marriage, by all accounts — he was a loving and devoted husband and father. He was supportive of Joyce’s career and became good friends with Gleason and Carney.

    Rest in peace, Trixie. You will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

    Good night, everybody. See you tomorrow.

  • Tuesday

    Today’s poem of the day in The Writer’s Almanac is called “A Color of the Sky” and is by Tony Hoagland. It rewards re-readings. But that’s up to you: As the saying goes, You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t look him in the mouth. (Not to imply that any Owl Chatter readers are horses.) 

    A Color of the Sky

    Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
    driving over the hills from work.
    There are the dark parts on the road
        when you pass through clumps of wood
    and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
    but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

    I should call Marie and apologize
    for being so boring at dinner last night,
    but can I really promise not to be that way again?
    And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
    in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

    Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
    the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
    are full of infant chlorophyll,
    the very tint of inexperience.

    Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
    and on the highway overpass,
    the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
    MEMORY LOVES TIME
    in big black spraypaint letters,

    which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

    Last night I dreamed of X again.
    She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
    Years ago she penetrated me
    but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
    I never got her out,
    but now I’m glad.

    What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
    What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
    What I thought was an injustice
    turned out to be a color of the sky.

    Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
    and the police station,
    a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

    overflowing with blossomfoam,
    like a sudsy mug of beer;
    like a bride ripping off her clothes,

    dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

    so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
    It’s been doing that all week:
    making beauty,
    and throwing it away,
    and making more.

    Here’s Hoagland. He was born in NC and passed away in 2018, a month before turning 65. Rest in peace, Tony.

    Nothing could stop our Pistons from garnering win number 4 (of the season) last night, stomping all over the Washington Wizards 129-117. Alex Burks came off the bench, played 28 minutes, and scored 34 points. Wow! He played college ball at Colorado. And, get this — we were playing without two of our best players, Cade Cunningham and Bojan Bogdanovic. Pistons are 4-36 on the season now.

    After beating Toronto on Dec. 30 to end their record-setting 28-game losing streak, they lost seven more in a row before last night. Seven in a row is nothing, right fellas? Good game!

    Today’s puzzle seems pretty amazing to me. I was bumbling my way along, not noticing anything special until I got way down to the last across clue: 62A, “First-year law student … or what every answer in this puzzle has exactly.” Answer: ONE L. Wait, what? Every answer (across and down) has exactly one L in it? OMG, it does. BLOG, ALTAR, LIPO, NEALE, SLEW, and so on. Pretty neat. BILGE and BULGE was a nice combo.

    At 13D the clue was “Fuse, as metal,” and the answer was WELD. And today is Tuesday. Do you see the connection? I didn’t, but commenter Lewis noted the shoutout to actress Tuesday Weld, from the old Dobie Gillis show. She was the pretty girlfriend. Marybeth Whitehead, the biological mom in the famous Baby M surrogacy case had a daughter she named Tuesday. Here’s Weld sucking up to some random bus driver. Eyes on the road, Kramden!

    Weld’s name at birth was Susan. Her cousin couldn’t pronounce it when she was little and it came out Tu-Tu. That’s where the Tuesday came from. She changed her name legally to Tuesday when she was 16. She is 80 years old now and lives in Manhattan. She is of the Weld family — high society in Massachusetts. Tuesday is a fourth cousin of Bill Weld who was governor of Massachusetts in the 90s.

    She was married three times, the last one was Pinchas Zuckerman. Her second was actor Dudley Moore. She had a daughter with first hubby, screenwriter Claude Harz, and a son with Moore.

    This paragraph comes straight out of Wikipedia:

    Between marriages, Weld dated Al Pacino, David Steinberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov (whose previous girlfriend, Jessica Lange, had been Weld’s best friend), Omar Sharif, Rabbi Henry Sharpstein of Congregation Ohev Shalom in Great Neck, NY, Richard Gere, and Ryan O’Neal. (Okay, I made up Sharpstein, but the others are real.)

    Omar f*cking Sharif made the cut! — good old Doc Zhivago. She must have left him because of the Siberian winters. Good rule of thumb — when your moustache gets caked with ice, it’s time to call for an Uber.

    Here’s what all those men found alluring. I can see it.

     

    OK folks — I must still be tired from the trip. It’s only 6:30 but I’m beat.

    See you tomorrow – thanks for stopping in.

  • In the Garden of Eden

    When we staggered off of the plane at 7 am yesterday and into the terminal, these giant letters left no doubt as to our being back home. 

    A few days ago the puzzle asked us what Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Where’s Waldo? have in common, and I was surprised to learn they had both been banned. Can you see why Waldo was banned, below?

    Look closer:

    Right. When that kid touched his ice cream cone to the sunbathing woman’s back, causing her to jerk upward, it gave readers a side view of her left boob with enough detail to trigger the idiots. You can see her bikini top below her. You’re out Waldo! In fact, Where’s Waldo was one of the Top 100 most challenged books in the 90s. It was reissued with the bikini top covering the offending body part. Whew. We’re safe now.

    Rex Commenter DrBB noted how carefully you had to search to come up with the offending image. He added:

    Reminds me of the old joke about the lady who calls the cops because her neighbor is walking around naked in front of the windows of his house.

    “But madam, the nearest house is almost a mile away.”

    “Here, use my binoculars.”

    I checked my phone for the outdoor temperature yesterday before heading out to an NJ Symphony concert. The phone said it was 36 degrees, but then, in little letters, it whispered to me “but it really feels like 27 degrees.” What’s that about?? Is it 36 or 27? JUST TELL ME THE GODDAMN TEMPERATURE SO I CAN PICK A JACKET TO WEAR! Feels like to whom? This New Yorker cartoon got to the bottom of it.

      “Thirty-two? Feels more like 29 to me. Yeah, let’s go with 29.”

    Alright, so it’s not really that guy. The “feels like” temp takes into account wind chill and humidity. BTW, if it’s 33 but “feels like” 31, does water freeze? No it does not! Freezing occurs based on the actual temperature. That is your Owl Chatter science fact for the day. For the year, actually. It will be on the test.

    Except here’s another one. It is believed by many, counter-intuitively, that hot water freezes faster than cold water. A young man in Tanzania is reputed to have discovered this when making ice cream. It was even given a name: ”the Mpemba effect.”

    But the good folks at MIT don’t buy it. Prakash Govindan, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s ME department, says it takes more time and/or energy to freeze hot water because it must be brought down further in temperature until it reaches the freezing point. Try it yourself by jumping into a vat of boiling water. No! Try it by taking both hot and cold water and placing them in your freezer. Then keep checking on them until one freezes or you get bored. (I got bored before I finished typing this paragraph.) Last, since you must have been wondering: Prakash Govindan is an anagram of “having soap drank.” 

    Boy, this water froze quickly.

    The Onion recently conducted an exercise in which they gave you quotes, and you had to decide whether they were by Hitler or Trump. Oy.

    It was the birthday of John Singer Sargent last week. He was born in 1856. In 1884 he shocked the art world with his erotic portrait of “Madame X.” In the original version, the strap on her right shoulder was slipping. Not very racy by Where’s Waldo? standards, but pretty hot for its day. He later raised the strap. Boo!

    This poem called “Poe’s Anvil” is by David Ray. It appeared in The Writer’s Almanac on Jan. 6.

    At the drive-in theater where they sell junk
    on Sundays we saw a man and his wife standing
    by a pick-up truck trying to sell his anvil.
    It sat up in the truck’s bed — it was black,
    heavy, and elegant like a mammoth’s tusk.
    And his name was written on it like a signature,
    in iron that once ran like ink. His name was Poe.
    I talked with him and he recalled briefly
    days when his anvil stood outside a shed,
    a workshop like a harbor set in a sea
    of green tomato fields, and inside
    he had a coal fire and a bellows and he watched
    the tractor replace mules and the car
    replace wagons. He tired of horse-shoes,
    wagon wheels and plows, of hitches, harrows,
    and lugs, of axles, crankcases and flywheels,
    and he sat somewhat amused (and dying, his wife
    told us), presiding over the sale of his own
    monument, which he wanted someone to go on
    hammering on, and in the midday city sun
    the theater’s white screen was blank
    like a faded quilt or Moby Dick’s stretched skin.

    Our concert yesterday with the NJ Symphony featured Augustin Hadelich, an amazing violinist performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. He was dressed in black, and his face, up close, shows the effects of his having been injured seriously in a fire on his family’s farm in Italy in 1999 when he was fifteen. He was airlifted to Germany for treatment . He’s the fire bearer now — the audience melted when he played. You could do worse with your next 4:36 than listen to a piece of the Beethoven concerto. Towards the end the violin and the bassoon have a brief conversation. 

    His wife’s cute. SuXiao Yang. She’s a professional photographer, so she and Phil had a lot to talk about, although Phil kept keeling over. She is also a violist and has developed a passion for knitting and crocheting, as this photo illustrates. 

    The following comment by Lewis is a great example of how stuff in a puzzle can open little doors to wonderful things, ideally utter nonsense that finds its way to Owl Chatter. The 7th row in today’s puzzle happened to be the three answers: ON A, TOGA, AURORA. Per Lewis:

    “Every time I look at row seven — ONA TOGA AURORA — all my brain hears, because the rhythm is identical, is In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

    “By the way, a bit of background on that song (recorded by Iron Butterfly), per Wikipedia:

    “According to drummer Ron Bushy, organist-vocalist Doug Ingle wrote the song one evening while drinking an entire gallon of Red Mountain wine. When the inebriated Ingle then played the song for Bushy, who wrote down the lyrics for him, he was slurring his words so badly that what was supposed to be ‘in the Garden of Eden’ was interpreted by Bushy as ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.’”

    Here’s the short (single) version. Turn it up.

    The Simpsons were way ahead of us on this:

    You may recall my snowman joke from a few days ago: What does a snowman eat for breakfast? Answer: Frosted flakes.

    Well, Granddaughter #1 (Lianna) came up with what he has for lunch: Chilly dogs.

    Dot Sharp, who is 84 years old, knows how to hold a job, that’s for sure. She retired from the McDonalds in Gibsonia, PA, last Friday after working there for 45 years. Quite a McCareer. When she started, McNuggets weren’t even a gleam in someone’s eye. Her last customer was her granddaughter. 

    “Her role as cashier involved greeting customers, taking orders and accepting payments but it doesn’t capture the essence of who Dot is,” a McDonald’s spokesperson said. 

    Ya think? Let’s hope so.

    We’re going to let Dot’s sweet smile send us off tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • Beavers Dam Up the Wildcats!

    Putting the Michigan win aside in a class of its own, Friday night in Corvallis may well have been the best night of the trip. 

    Taco Vina was spectacularly delish. I’m drooling as I type this. But the the Oregon State vs ‘Zona women’s basketball game took the cake.

    First, Maire gave us earplugs because our seats were near the band. How big a band? Well, there were nine tubas for starters. Here’s about 40% of it.

    It’s a gorgeous place to play ball: the Ralph Miller Court in the Gill Arena. We arrived early to soak it in and watch the warmups.

    The Beavs (OSU) got off to good start but ‘Zona is good and took a 5-point lead into the halftime break. Then it was back and forth until ‘Zona pulled ahead again by 5 and suddenly the clock bled down to 52 seconds. Yikes! We got two, and the ball back with 13 seconds left. Long shot missed, rebound, miss, rebound again, and this time we drilled a trey. Game tied. Overtime. Whew.

    OT was tight and we managed to tie it again, but with 21 seconds left they had the ball. Their best player killed the clock and drove for the winner as time expired. But missed! On to a second overtime.

    By this time, everyone was exhausted, especially me. But the Beavers refused to lose, and battled to the end. And won. Great game.

    Our flight home boards in an hour. It was a good trip, but I miss the owls, and the g’kids and Caity and Danny. And the regular Owl Chatter. Thanks to Norrie for picking up the mail! And to you for stopping by. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a new joke.

    See you then!

  • Philomath and Corvallis

    We bid farewell to the Ashland Springs Hotel, which had been our home for three days, and pointed our rented Camry north.

    The drive from Ashland to Philomath, which is about 20 minutes from Corvallis, went well. We had tuna salad sandwiches and a cold beer when we arrived. Here is the view from the living room window (taken some time ago by sister-in-law Maire on a clear day). It’s Mary’s Peak. Wow, right?

    We took a walk around Philomath. Not much of a town. This building houses a museum (free admission) that had an exhibit about water and a one-person art show.

    It was formerly a women’s teachers college and was slated to be razed for something commercial but the townsfolk rose up and saved it.

    Let’s all raise a can of water and toast them for their good efforts.

    They had a stuffed otter and an old-timey bathing suit.

    They posted the words to Jack and Jill. Did you know things got pretty ugly for Jill: Mother, vex’d, did whip her next, for causing Jack’s disaster. What? Where’d that whip come from? Ouch!

    The artist was Greg Pfarr. We liked his work.

    Later we toured Corvallis, Annie Arbor’s equivalent for Oregon State. A large sign outside the baseball stadium said they were National Champs in 2007, 2008, and 2018. Very impressive. OSU players who had MLB careers include Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Conforto, and Adley Rutschman.

    OSU pitcher Glenn Elliott went on to the pros and yielded Jackie Robinson’s first MLB hit, a bunt single. Elliott received death threats because of it.

    Here’s a small sign in a store window, with which Owl Chatter heartily agrees.

    We picked up a 4-pack of Deep Seek ale by the local Block 15 Brewery. It’s very good. (Burp!) They are known for their Sticky Hands ale, but its high alcohol content scared me away. We cracked open a can of Deep Seek to have with the excellent salad and burgers our hosts Maire and Denise prepared for us for dinner, to cap our wonderful day.

    We’ll be back in town tomorrow for dinner at Taco Vina and the OSU-‘Zona women’s basketball game. Go Beavs!

  • On to Corvallis!

    Elite travelers like us enjoy a classy breakfast on the balcony overlooking the lobby at the Ashland Springs. Linda had doubles!

    If I were to pick a nit it would be over their elevator policy. 

    We lost a lot of time waiting for three other people to arrive. It makes no sense to me, but rules are rules.

    When is an inch a foot? When it’s ajar! No, hold on — when it’s snow! We heard an inch of rain would be falling on Owl Chatter headquarters in Jersey and learned that if it were snow the equivalent would be 13 inches! Yikes!

    Joke I just made up: What does a snowman have for breakfast? Answer: Frosted flakes! (I asked Caity, and she got it right away.)

    And there’s the horrifying story of the Donner snowmen who got lost and in desperation ate each other’s noses!

    We drove by a storage facility called “As You Store It.” (Ashland is known for its Summer Shakespeare festival.)

    We shot up to Medford (10 mi) and hung out in the library a bit reading the NYT. Then we saw The Boy and the Heron, which totally confused us. I was lost from the word go but it was beautiful, visually. How it earned 97% from Rotten Tomatoes and won a Golden Globe is a mystery. Severe grade inflation.

    For dinner, the pub we heard about from our nieces was closed: The Black Sheep, but excellent pizza with a local beer was a great stand-in. (Burp!)

    Here are samples of the art that adorns The Ashland Springs Hotel. First our bathroom, then the elevator.

    Gotta leave for Corvallis soon. Will miss this place. Yikes, it’s snowy out! Hope we make it, kinahora.

    I’ll let you know.