The Wellington Files

  • Where’s the Fork?

    If you like malapropisms (and who doesn’t), then you should celebrate the birthday of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was born on this date in Dublin back in 1751. His play The Rivals was not well-received when it opened — a member of the audience even threw an apple at the main actor. But after he shut it down and rewrote the script it was a huge hit — George Washington said it was his favorite play. One of the characters was Mrs. Malaprop. She used malapropisms, and thus the term was coined. For example, she referred to someone as “the very pineapple of politeness.” He also wrote The School for Scandal.

    Get this — Sheridan went into politics and entered Parliament in 1780. He sided with Charles James Fox, who supported the American Revolution and tried to persuade King George not to go to war over it. He was giving a speech once and Edmund Burke, to dramatize a point, threw a knife onto the Parliament floor. Sheridan looked at it and asked “Where’s the fork?” [Ha!]

    Later in his life, the U.S. Congress offered Sheridan £20,000 in gratitude for his efforts to avoid the Revolutionary War, but he refused the money. He is buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey along with Chaucer, Spenser, and other pathetic ne’er-do-wells.

    Happy Birthday, Sheridan.

    OMG — I’m full of pride when Sam successfully gets his oil changed — how in the world did Chris and Ann stand it when son Greg got inducted into the U.S. Coast Guard’s Hall of Heroes, for acts of extraordinary bravery. Here’s how the Coast Guard tells it:

    When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in late August 2017 it arrived as a devastating Category 4 hurricane that caused catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths.

    One of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, Harvey caused a staggering $125 billion in damage throughout Southeast Texas and the Houston metro area.

    On August 26, as part of the initial Coast Guard response to the hurricane Lieutenant Gregory Bukata ‘11, an MH-65D Aircraft Commander, and his crew conducted some of the first rescues that night, in 80-knot winds and torrential rain.

    As the response continued, during one notable mission Bukata worked to place a Coast Guard rescue swimmer between tall trees and high voltage power lines to reach a critically-ill pregnant woman who was trapped by rising waters in the attic of her home.

    An award citation describing the arduous mission reads, “Due to massive amounts of water intrusion, the crew endured multiple aircraft emergencies during the rescue of additional family members. The loss of critical avionics, internal communication, and aircraft stabilization systems coupled with the violent motion of the aircraft from 60-knot gusts made just hovering an arduous act and hoisting a true aeronautical feat. Following a hoist failure on the subsequent rescue, the crew was forced to leave the swimmer on scene. As the only available resource at this early stage of the response, the crew returned with a new aircraft to complete the rescue.”

    During the seven days Bukata was part of the response, he and his crew were instrumental in the rescue of 108 people and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for extraordinary achievement in aerial flight.

    ******

    Greg went to school with our Sam and they were good buddies. Greg loved it when I teased him for laughs, pretending to confuse him with his sister Claire. He always had a gleam in his eye, part mischief, part joy. Still has it.

    In the puzzle today, “Seeing Eye dog, e.g.,” was GUIDE ANIMAL. And it set Rex off, to wit,

    Wait, is “Seeing Eye dog” a brand name? Why is “Eye” capitalized? I would’ve written it without a capital “E,” and possibly with a hyphen. Wow, yes, it’s trademarked. Well, you learn something new every day. Or maybe not every day, but occasionally, anyway. I didn’t have any problem with the capitalization, but I do have a problem with the answer, GUIDE ANIMAL, which … are there Seeing Eye warthogs? The only GUIDE ANIMAL I’ve ever seen or heard of is a Seeing Eye dog. I guess the dogs that don’t learn the trademark method can’t be called that, is that the deal? Anyway, GUIDE ANIMAL feels … off. The internet is telling me that a “miniature horse” might also serve as a GUIDE ANIMAL, but I resolutely refuse to believe this. Thumbs down to GUIDE ANIMAL.

    But an anony-mouse poster shared the following:

    I actually worked with a woman who had a guide horse: a miniature horse that worked like a guide dog for the blind. You can Google it. She had previously used a dog to help her navigate, but dogs have relatively shorter working lifespans, and a lot of it is spent training them. I haven’t worked with her for ages, but I used to see her and her horse out and about in town and even at the mall, and think, “Yup, that horse is still at it!”

    From the Borowitz Report today: Mike Pence Returns Four Dollars to Donors.

    Good night everybody! See you tomorrow (if I’m not too tired from my classes).

  • A Business of Ferrets

    Was Chandler your favorite? Of the guys, he was mine, and I’m sad that he passed away at only age 54. He struggled terribly with drugs. At one point he was taking 55 Vicodin a day. He credited having the role in the show and the support of his castmates (his “Friends”) with saving him.

    Matthew Perry was born in Williamstown, MA, where we hang out every July 4th, but raised in Ottawa. He went to school with Justin Trudeau, and his mom was Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary. Justin issued a statement honoring his memory.

    Take care, Chandler. Thanks for all the good work, and for so many laughs. Hope you find peace.

    This story, by Evelyn Saphier, is from today’s Met Diary.

    I am remembering with nostalgia a bakery on East Ninth Street near First Avenue that I used to frequent in the 1970s.

    It was run by two brothers who sold bread by the pound in loaves they stored in large drawers.

    “Hello, dear,” they would say when I entered. “If you eat this bread, you can live forever! You never need to eat anything else!”

    They would cut a slice from a loaf, put it in my hand and direct me to taste it on the spot to make their point. There were lots of rye and dark pumpernickel loaves.

    One brother began to lose his memory, and it was touching to see the other care for him as they carried on the business.

    Eventually, the brothers died, and I heard on the news that one had secretly built up a small fortune that he passed on to a nephew.

    To this day, I think I could live forever if I could have that bread again.

    If a group of lions is called a pride, what is a group of ferrets called? Well, I learned from today’s puzzle at 16D it’s called a “business.” A business of ferrets.

    I also learned that the “HODGE conjecture” is one of math’s Millennium Prize Problems. Having never heard of it, I sought out some info in Wikipedia. Note that this discussion starts with the phrase “in simple terms.”

    In simple terms, the Hodge conjecture asserts that the basic topological information like the number of holes in certain geometric spaces, complex algebraic varieties, can be understood by studying the possible nice shapes sitting inside those spaces, which look like zero sets of polynomial equations. The latter objects can be studied using algebra and the calculus of analytic functions, and this allows one to indirectly understand the broad shape and structure of often higher-dimensional spaces which can not be otherwise easily visualized.

    Okay, thanks!

    The clue at 11D was “Famed NYC deli” and the answer was ZABAR’S. It led me to post the following story on Rex’s blog. Some of you have already heard it, and some of you were at the wedding!

    To me, “deli” means The Carnegie or Katz’s, but I guess technically Zabar’s qualifies. When my wife and I got married nearly 40 years ago (to each other), we broke up the reception into two pieces: A more formal sit-down lunch with the families, and then, at night, a looser party with our friends.

    Part of the food for the latter was lox from Zabar’s. The bagels were from our favorite bagel place in Brooklyn. We figured we’d need about 100 which, translated into bagelspeak, is 8 dozen. So we went to the bagel place a week ahead of time to see if there was anything special we had to do for an order that large. (My wife still laughs at this.)

    I approached the counter like I was a big macher to let them know I would be ordering “8 dozen bagels” in a week, but I must have been a little nervous because what I said was: “Next Sunday I’m going to be needing 8 bagels — is there anything special I should do in advance?” I had left out the word “dozen.” He looked at me for a few seconds before saying “It won’t be a problem.” (Fortunately, my wife cleared things up, as she has continued to do for close to 40 years, kinahora.)

    In the puzzle today, “Philadelphia special,” was CREAM CHEESE. But, get this — it was actually invented in Chester NY by a dairyman named William Lawrence in 1872. In 1880 he took on a partner and they adopted the name “Philadelphia” because that region had a reputation for high-quality dairy farms and creamier cheese products. Good move.

    In 2019, an advertisement for it in England that portrayed an absent-minded father was banned under a British law that forbade gender stereotyping on TV advertisements. Owl Chatter was able to obtain a copy.

    The Z in Zabar’s was also the Z in ZEBRAFISH, clued with “Striped minnow used in drug development.” Let’s take a look at one.

    Rex poster Barbara S., after noting that it’s National Cat Day today (meow), shared this info from the website yourgenome.org, explaining why Z-fish are so useful in drug trials:
    * Zebrafish have a similar genetic structure to humans. They share 70% of genes with us.
    * 84% of genes known to be associated with human disease have a zebrafish counterpart.
    * As a vertebrate, the zebrafish has the same major organs and tissues as humans. Their muscle, blood, kidney and eyes share many features with human systems.

    I’ll never look at a herring the same way again.

    Here’s an interesting linguistic matter that arose. At 15D the clue for the simple word ATE was “Did a great job, in Gen Z lingo.” So, apparently, if Tom does a great job, you can say he ATE. But that usage is not original to Gen Z — it was appropriated from AAVE. What’s AAVE, you may ask? It’s Black English (African American Vernacular English).

    AAVE can be traced all the way back to slavery and has been used by Black people for centuries. It’s a big issue as to whether some phrases are AAVE or just “Twitter slang.” As one article in a student paper put it, “If we look at AAVE as just slang, then there isn’t a problem with people adopting and using it. But it’s so much more than that. It’s an actual dialect that people use to communicate. When a non-Black person uses it, with no regard to where and from whom it actually came, that’s just a form of cultural appropriation. I understand that like every other dialect or language, people do have access to it, but what non-Black people in Generation Z could do is at least learn the history behind it and respect AAVE before they use it.”

    Rex poster Seth asks:

    How long after a slang term is coined can a clue stop having to recognize the origin of the word and can just call it “slang?” There are tons of words that appear in crosswords now that originated in AAVE, but it’s been so long that no one would think to clue it in reference to AAVE — it’s just common slang now. (For example: dig meaning appreciate, crib meaning house, lit meaning exciting, bae meaning significant other, etc.) Granted, ATE is very new slang, so maybe it’s new enough that recognizing it comes from AAVE is appropriate. But at some point slang stops being attributed to its origins, and just becomes generalized slang.

    In some cases, a “culture clash” involving something as seemingly harmless as language or pronunciation can have real-world consequences.

    It’s the birthday of Harriet Powers today (1837) — quiltmaker and folk artist. She was born into slavery and emancipated after the Civil War. She married and had nine children before her husband abandoned the family. She survived as a seamstress.

    Through her quilts, she recorded legends and biblical tales of patience and divine justice. Only two have survived: Her Bible quilt of 1886 which she sold for $5 in the aftermath of the war now hangs in the Smithsonian. (She asked for $10 but the buyer bargained.) Her Pictorial quilt of 1888 is displayed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Powers’ work is considered among the finest examples of Southern quilting from the 19th century.

    In 1992 the Smithsonian hired a Chinese company to make reproductions of the Bible Quilt, along with several other quilts, and it aroused much controversy. The quilting and arts communities were extremely upset. And you don’t want those thugs coming after you, believe me.

    They claimed that it was disrespectful to make money off the Bible Quilt and similar works without exploring who might own the familial rights to the works and who could receive some of the royalties from reproductions.

    Many felt so passionately about this cause that they canceled their Smithsonian memberships, contacted their congressmen, signed petitions, and protested on the National Mall. The Smithsonian greatly altered its policies as a result. So there.

    No need to bring up today’s Jets game. Too painful. Oy. No, wait!! There was a miracle overtime win after we went to press!! All is forgiven, Zach! You da man!

    See you tomorrow.

  • Fergie

    This lovely post by CDilly52 appeared earlier in the week in response to NEW MATH:

    As the first generation (victim?) of that curriculum, I remember listening to all the chat at home (in a house full of teachers) antecedent to its introduction. Those were such exciting years, from Sputnik on through the Apollo program. I was never a good math student but space exploration excited me. Such fertile ground for my very active imagination! My earliest “viewing” experience was standing outside in the alley between my house and Mrs. Lewis’s using my thumb and first finger as demonstrated on the “Today” show to keep my eyes on the right place in the sky to find and track the movement of the satellite Echo I. It looked just like a star, but once I figured out how to hold my hand once I saw the satellite, I was truly in awe being able to see the movement and watch what looked like a tiny twinkling star move slowly across the night sky.

    That experience created an aerospace fan. If I had had a better attitude and better teachers I might have had more success with mathematics and gone deeper into the sciences. To this day though, I enjoy following space exploration thanks to my husband’s avid interest in astronomy, his degree in math but mostly his true gifts as a teacher. He lit the learning fires for his most math-averse students, several of whom were among the many former students (math and music) who so kindly communicated their appreciation of his teaching skill to me after his passing. We need to attract, train, and provide wonderful learning facilities and materials for exceptional teachers in this country.

    And Nancy, a much beloved curmudgeon (not to be confused with our own beloved Pennsylvania (nee Delaware) Nancy), writes:

    Didn’t realize that NEW MATH came about because of Sputnik. I wasn’t taught NEW MATH; I was taught OLD MATH, and when NEW MATH came along I was out of school and it was incomprehensible to me. Problems that were once duck soup to me became Einsteinian. It’s the same way I thought I understood chess notation back in the 50s and 60s and then they changed it and now I don’t even understand which piece is being moved. Also there’s the matter of how they now predict who will win football games. They used to write things like “49ers favored by 14 points” and now they write some sort of gibberish where I can’t even tell which team is favored. (-7.5). (-3). From my Sunday NYT Sports Section. Do you have any idea which team is favored from THAT?

    Rant over. 

    Hey Nance — It says Jets (-3). That means the Jets are favored to beat the Giants this week by 3 points. Kinahora. From my keyboard to God’s ears. It’s a big game.

    Here’s Robert Saleh, the Jets head coach, in a moment of unbridled joy. He’s been on suicide watch since accepting the position.

    Let’s get lurid.

    Read any books by Anne Perry? I haven’t. It’s her birthday today, she was born in London in 1938 with the name Juliet Hulme. She formed an unhealthy friendship with Pauline Parker, a classmate, and when Pauline’s mom stood in the way of it, they murdered her. It was not the most brilliant of schemes. They invited the mom to take a walk in the park that turned out to be no walk in the park. They bashed her head in with a brick. The one flaw in their otherwise perfect crime was they returned home all covered in blood. D’oh! Those pesky little details always burn you.

    It was a sensational trial and the girls were sentenced to indefinite prison terms. They were released after five years on condition that they not resume contact with each other and stay away from bricks. Juliet changed her name to Anne Perry and has published over 50 novels that have sold over 250 million copies. The film Heavenly Creatures was based on the murder case. Kate Winslet played Juliet and Melanie Lynskey played Pauline. Here’s the real Juliet/Anne, and then Kate and Melanie.

    Today’s puzzle was a real bear and it defeated me. Small solace: Rex also struggled and rated it “Challenging.” Right off the bat at 1A, the clue was “Had kids on a farm?” and the answer was LAMBED. I was sure it started with a W from my crossing answer so I started thinking it was WOMBED, awkward, or eventually WAMBED, which is worse. And 1D was “Ultimately arrive (at)” which I thought was WIND UP but turned out to be LAND UP, as in “land up in jail.” Ouch — just couldn’t get to those two. Also, at 10A “Scan in neuroscience research, in brief,” was FMRI. What the f*ck is that F doing in there? It stands for “functional.” An FMRI measures brain activity via blood flow.

    Also had trouble with “Oratorio highlight in A-B-A form:” ARIA DA CAPO. No chance. A Saturday grid for sure.

    Otherwise, it was a satisfying puzzle to hammer out. CORNEL WEST was in it. He has only one “L” but has had five wives! His current one is Annahita Mahdavi, a 38-year-old Iranian woman who is a political science professor.

    All four of his previous marriages ended in divorce. He has two kids.

    Looks like we don’t have Mike Pence to kick around anymore. His campaign was not going well, so he decided not to hang around. Oops — sorry Mike — forgot you’re still a little sensitive about that word. It’s just a little gallows humor.

    Here he is with his wife Karen (whom he calls “Mother”), dancing off the campaign stage. Philly — can you make up a bunch of wallet-sized for us? I have a feeling they’re going to be in high demand.

    Owl Chatter is very happy to report that the great Canadian-born HOF pitcher Ferguson Jenkins is looking and sounding great at 80. He’s down in Texas for the World Series and we caught up with him doing an interview for MLB-TV. He pitched for Texas back in 1974-75. He was proud to note he was a good hitting pitcher: he hit 13 home runs. The interviewer asked if any were off of Hall of Famers, and he said “Two: Seaver and Sutton. Seaver tried to sneak a fastball by me, but ‘Thou shalt not pass.’”

    Jenkins, fellow Cub Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martínez are the only major league pitchers ever to record more than 3,000 strikeouts with fewer than 1,000 walks.

    But there was also much sadness in Fergie’s life. He had five children, but one, Samantha, was killed when she was only three when his girlfriend at the time killed herself with carbon monoxide poisoning with the little girl in the car. And Fergie’s mom lost her sight during her pregnancy with him, her only child. She would attend his Cubs’ games when she could, and bring a transistor radio into the stands with her. He participated in the making of a documentary film about his life in 2021. As he watched a screening of the final version, he wept.

    Baseball was still overtly racist during the early part of his career. When he was in Florida for Spring Training in 1962 he couldn’t eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels as the white players. Blacks were forbidden to use the beach in Miami Beach. He was okay with that. “I don’t need a tan,” he said.

    A statue honoring him is in place at Wrigley Field. Canada issued a stamp in his honor. The Owl Chatter doors are always open for you, Fergie — we could use a good right-handed starter.

    See you tomorrow, everybody. Thanks for stopping by!

  • Tamar

    Does the name Grzegorz Kaszak mean anything to you? Half of the letters are K, G, and Z. Anyway, Grzegorz is the ex-bishop of Sosnowiec in Southwestern Poland who quit on Tuesday on account of a sex scandal. I know, right? — Hard to imagine a sex scandal involving the Church even making the news anymore, — if a day goes by without one it’s a miracle — but this one is juicy. One of the priests organized a gay sex party during which a male prostitute lost consciousness from an overdose of erectile disfunction pills. [We’ve all been there, right fellas?] So one of the priests called an ambulance but the others prevented the paramedics from treating the poor unconscious guy. So the paramedics called the cops and finally the priests relented. “Okay, Okay — go ahead and save his sexy little ass if you’re gonna get all pissy about it.”

    The priest who set it all up defended himself by quibbling over how many priests were present and stated: “it is worth reading what the definition of an orgy is.” Jeez Louise: even the Giants can come up with a better defense than that.

    According to the NYT, the resignation came less than a month after the Polish Catholic Church, in a lengthy report on the state of its affairs, warned that priests needed to get a grip on “crimes of sexual abuse of minors by some clergy” and other misbehavior.

    You tell ’em, Polish Church!! Get a grip, guys!

    Here’s our hapless Bishop, who still hasn’t quite gotten his game face on yet.

    Chatting with a nurse in a doc’s office today, we casually mentioned seeing Taylor’s concert movie and it unleashed a torrent. Turns out she is a major-league Swiftie. Saw the ERAS Tour concert live twice and movie once. Has been a fan since TS was 16. Has a tattoo (on upper chest) of a song verse in Taylor’s handwriting, another tattoo (on leg) of some insignia with TS significance, won a contest sponsored by Pepsi years ago that netted her a trip to Nashville for a concert and a personal brief meeting with TS herself (showed us the photo on her phone), and almost flew to Norway for a concert but the pandemic hit. I think that may be about it.

    Hi Taylor — remember Chelsea? An RN — dark hair?

    Headline in The Onion: Exhausted Doctors Pronounce Patient Dead Enough.

    This unusual poem is today’s Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. It’s by Thomas Lux and is called “The People of the Other Village.”

    The people of the other village
    hate the people of this village
    and would nail our hats
    to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
    or staple our hands to our foreheads
    for refusing to salute them
    if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
    mix their flour at night with broken glass.
    We do this, they do that.
    They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
    We devein one of their sisters.
    The quicksand pits they built were good.
    Our amputation teams were better.
    We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
    They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
    They do this, we do that.
    We canceled our sheep imports.
    They no longer bought our blankets.
    We mocked their greatest poet
    and when that had no effect
    we parodied the way they dance
    which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
    was leprous, hairless.
    We do this, they do that.
    Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
    (10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

    In the puzzle today “Bottoms out?” was MOONS. (Get it? Tee hee.)

    And “Curriculum overhaul triggered by the Sputnik crisis,” was NEW MATH. Remember that? Part of it was learning bases other than ten. An uproar from parents and teachers (never mind the poor students) resulted in its rapid abandonment.

    Wikipedia explains: In his book Why Johnny Can’t Add: The Failure of the New Math (1973), Morris Kline says that certain advocates of the new topics “ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations, if one does not know the older ones.” Furthermore, noting the trend to abstraction in New Math, Kline says “abstraction is not the first stage, but the last stage, in a mathematical development.”

    “New Math” is now used as a phrase to describe any fad that burns out quickly.

    Here’s a shot of Niece Tamar with the birds and us. We had a blast. See you tomorrow!

  • Got A Light?

    Condolences go out to all the disappointed Phillies fans, done in by those pesky ‘Zona snakes, in a tense and very enjoyable Game 7. Wow, what a catch by Trea Turner to help keep it close.

    Kudos to the brilliant young bullpen that throttled those expensive Philly bats. I’ll be pulling for Texas in the World Series, but won’t mind at all if Zona slips by them.

    BTW, remember Adolis Garcia from yesterday’s post? He has a brother named Adonis Garcia. Adonis also played pro ball, for the Braves from 2015 to 2017.

    There were two answers in today’s puzzle that got me to do a little digging: CO-PARENT and EGOTISM. How is a co-parent different from a parent? And what’s the difference between egotism and egoism?

    On the former, apparently (ouch), co-parenting is when a child’s parents are living apart but work together pretty closely on the child rearing: keeping him or her to the same schedule, pushing the same activities, etc.

    And on egotism vs. egoism: With a T it’s believing you are better than everyone else — not a nice quality. Without the T it just means you look at things from a self-centered perspective — not necessarily obnoxious.

    I’ve read a few books by Anne Tyler and liked them. I’ve always thought of her as sort of suburban/cosmopolitan. I correctly associated her with Baltimore, where she lives and about which she often writes. But The Writer’s Almanac wrote about her today (her birthday), and said this about her upbringing: “She spent most of her childhood in the mountains of North Carolina. Her family raised milk goats and grew their own food, and she learned folk crafts and traditional music. Eventually, they moved to Raleigh, where she felt like a total outsider — she had never used a telephone, and her feet were so calloused from going without shoes that she could light a match on her bare feet.”

    Ever see someone light a match with their bare feet? Me neither.

    Lubbock County Texas includes Lubbock (duh) and Texas Tech and has a population of over 300,000. It’s near the New Mexico border. Now, Texas has a Catch-22 abortion ban which essentially says abortions are legal for women who don’t know they are pregnant, but once they learn they are pregnant, they are illegal. (It’s the six-week abortion ban.) So those women would need to go to New Mexico or another state where abortions are legal for women who know they are pregnant. That’s where Lubbock County comes in — it just made it illegal for anyone to transport a pregnant woman through the county or pay for her travel for the purpose of seeking an abortion out of state.

    Owl Chatter hats off to Gilbert Flores, a county commissioner, who abstained from the vote. “I am 77 years old,” he said, describing times in his life when his rights were violated. “Now, what’s in front of me right now is, do I have the right, do I have the power, do I want the authority to tell these women what to do, violate their rights?” he said. “I have a difficult time with that.”

    Some legal scholars said the ordinance may violate constitutional protections. “Even Justice Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion in Dobbs, noted that a state would be violating the constitutional right to interstate travel if it sought to prohibit women from traveling out of state to seek a lawful abortion,” said Jeffrey B. Abramson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

    But proponents say the ordinances are enforceable because they apply to someone assisting a pregnant woman with travel and do not prohibit a woman from driving herself or traveling by other means. “We don’t see this as a travel ban,” they say.

    Okay. I guess it’s not a problem then. Whew.

    Give the lady a lift, Phil — we’ll cover your bail.

    If you are a Fran Lebowitz fan like we are, you should get your long black coat, white shirt, scarf, glasses, and dour disgusted expression on, and head over to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge in the East Village for this year’s Fran-Con tomorrow night — her birthday eve. No need to bring cigarettes, real or otherwise, the organizers have bought a shitload of candy cigarettes.

    Fran won’t be there, BTW. Are you kidding? — she wouldn’t be caught dead at something like that. Hey, I see she was born in Morristown NJ (in 1950). That explains some of it.

    Niece Tamar is visiting from CA tonight for a few days. We’ll be having split-pea soup, a salad, and Thai Sea Burgers. Yum.

    We’re going to send you off tonight with a Nick Cave song: “Nature Boy.” It rhymes hysteria with wisteria, which was in the puzzle today at 38D, clued by “Flowering plant that lent its name to a lane on ‘Desperate Housewives.’” Good enough reason for me.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Adolis!

    I usually shave every other day. Once in a while, I’ll let it go to the third day. But today when I shaved, it was the fourth day. And I could sense that my face was beginning to think I might be growing a beard. I imagined my cheeks saying, “Hey fellas, is he growing a beard? Doesn’t he usually shave by now?” And my chin said, “Hard to say, but if so, it’s not a goatee, because he would have shaved the rest of his face and just not me.” So they decide to ask my mustache about it, thinking he might have special insight because it actually happened to him. I just stopped shaving there one day, forever. But when they asked my mustache if he thought I might be growing a beard, he just said, “How the f*ck should I know? Will you two idiots just shut up?” And they were like, “Okay, okay — sheesh.”

    But I shaved today, so it’s not an issue anymore.

    Today’s puzzle had a cute theme, sort of combining Taylor Swift with monsters. It was break-up lines appropriate for monsters. So, e.g., a vampire would say: “YOU’RE NOT MY TYPE.” Get it?

    A werewolf would say: TIME FOR A CHANGE. A mummy would say: LET’S WRAP THIS UP. And Frankenstein’s monster would say: THE SPARK IS GONE.

    Remember these monster stamps? One can only qualify for stamphood when one is dead for five years. Thus, an RBG stamp was just issued, below. So my question is, How can a vampire be on a stamp — ever?

    My favorite non-theme answer was for “trinkets:” TCHOTCHKES. Tough to spell, but it worked.

    The poem in today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Billy Collins and is called “Sixteen Years Old, I Help Bring in the Hay on My Uncle John’s Farm with Two French-Canadian Workers.”

    None of us expected the massing thunderheads
    to swing open their doors so suddenly
    that we would have to drop our rakes
    and run across the field to a shelter
    and stand there side by side under its tin roof
    looking out through a shiny curtain of rain.

    We had never spent any time together
    except for the haying, raking it into piles
    and pitchforking it up into an old truck,
    but now there was nothing to do
    but watch and listen to the downpour
    and nothing to say either

    after the cigarettes had been offered around
    and lit one by one with the flame of a single match.

    The Rangers delivered a delicious thumping to the Astros last night, driving a spike through their hateful hearts with an 11-4 drubbing. I loved the series MVP Adolis Garcia. Hadn’t seen him much before — wow!

    There was an interesting play at first base. Texas was batting, and the batter hit a grounder up the first base line. The first baseman fielded it and stepped on first and the first base umpire called it fair and the batter out. But until the ball passes first base, it’s the home plate umpire’s call to make. And he called it foul and overruled the fair/out call. So the batter was alive and got a hit. The replay showed it was clearly fair and the batter should have been out. Oddly, the ball stayed in foul territory its whole way up the line but skipped fair just as it reached the base (so it’s fair). But it is not a call that can be challenged. Astros manager Dusty Baker didn’t even come out to argue.

    Now the Rangers can relax with their feet up and watch the Phillies/’Zona game to see whom they’ll face next. Dusty’s 74 and he says he’s retiring. Everybody loves him — he’ll be missed. Here he is with his famous toothpick back when he was managing the Nats. Take care of yourself, Dusty.

    Good night everybody. Thanks for dropping in. See you tomorrow.

  • I’ll Give You Three

    Lianna turned to me in the car this morning on the way to school and said: “What’s Obama’s last name?” “Good one!,” I said, but she said it was an old meme from years ago. I explained to her that I live under a rock so it was new to me and I only recently learned what a meme is.

    It was timely: our ex-Prez was in the puzzle today, boringly clued as election victor in ’08 and ’12. His girls often make appearances too; less so, the missus. Nice to see you, Mr. Prez!

    Sticking with the political for a moment, 46D was “Convention-hosting Swiss city,” and the answer was GENEVA, as in the Geneva Convention. Anoa Bob posted: I still have my “GENEVA Convention Member” card that I got during my hitch in the Navy. A few years back when we were waterboarding prisoners, a reporter ask Dick Cheney if that wasn’t a violation of the GENEVA Convention. He brushed off the question by calling it a “quaint” document.

    I see Taylor was out in KC for the Chiefs’ game again yesterday. Her beau Travis Kelce leads the Chiefs with 48 catches this season, not counting this one very special one. Awwww. Word is TK’s mom approves. Reel him in, Taylor. We’re all rooting for you. That mini was a good move — he should be a helpless bowl of Salt Lake City Jello by now.

    With all eyes on that romance and the interesting season the Jets are having, it might be easy to forget the baseball playoffs are going on, with two big games tonight. We’re pulling for Texas to unseat the hated ‘Stros, and for the Phils to move on to the WS too. Lots of ex-Nats in the spotlight tonight. Max on the mound for the Rangers, and Turner, Harper, and Schwarber in the lineup for Philly. It may all come down to Kimbrel in the Philly pen — and he’s been shaky lately.

    There is no one on God’s green earth cuter than my Zoey, but a case could be made that Cordelia Anastasia Russell my grandniece in California is in second place. (She’s the blond on the right in a shot her mom sent me today.) She has her dad’s face but, you know, cuter. The redhead’s her bestie.

    Remember “Singer Ronnie of the Ronettes?” SPECTOR, of course. There’s a Ronettes connection to Jimi Hendrix, alav hashalom. During the summer of 1964, the Ronettes spent a lot of time at Odine’s, an exclusive East Side club in Manhattan. According to Ronnie, that is where the Ronettes were first introduced to Jimi Hendrix, who was an unknown guitarist there at the time. Ronnie used to sing along with Hendrix as he played guitar. After running into Hendrix again in 1969, Estelle (a Ronette) and Ronnie were invited into the studio to do backing vocals on Hendrix’s “Earth Blues” song. Their work earned The Ronettes a credit on Hendrix’s LP Rainbow Bridge, posthumously released in 1971.

    Anyway, Ronnie popped by the puzzle yesterday to guide Kelce on what to ask Taylor. He might have figured it out — he’s no dummy — but advice from an old timer can’t hurt.

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for dropping in.

  • Neighboring Blackbirds

    I don’t watch SNL anymore so “SNL alum Bryant” had to be ANDY for me once I had A-DY. Some of you know it’s AIDY. Since it crossed with “Nintendo Switch predecessor,” a WOE for me (what on earth?), it led to my second downfall in two days on the NYTXW. Ouch. Coupled with a six in Wordle, a failure in Connections, and a dreadful Spelling Bee performance, it’s been a rough puzzle weekend for the home team. If it’s because my brain is addled with Taylor Swift, it’s the price that had to be paid.

    Have you ever refused anyone a fig? Rex opined that no one says “I don’t give a fig,” which was part of a puzzle answer. But I posted:

    FWIW, regarding fig donations, I do sometimes say “I don’t give a fig.” Apparently, it used to mean “I don’t give a f”ck.”

    According to the Free Dictionary, “fig” has denoted something worthless since about 1400. Moreover, in Mediterranean countries the sign of the fig is an obscene gesture, made by clenching one’s fist and pushing the thumb between the first and middle fingers. According to John Ciardi, the thumb represents the [male], the fingers the [female], and the gesture means “F*ck you.” Dante so used it in the Inferno section of The Divine Comedy. Centuries later, however, the phrase’s obscene provenance began to be largely ignored, and the cliché survives.

    Regarding the answers OBSCENE, NUDE, and ECRU, egsforbreakfast (one of our favorite Rex posters in LMS’s absence), noted:

    My favorite part of Grey’s Anatomy is when there’s a scene about obstetrics. A good OBSCENE actor is a pleasure to watch. [He also noted that NUDE is rubbing right up against OBSCENE in the puzzle.]

    What did Julius Caesar say when Brutus showed up in unbleached linen?
    “ECRU, Brute?”

    Excellent clue/answer at 64D: “Shares one’s bunk?” — LIES. (Get it?)

    At 24D, “Something a Brazilian is unlikely to wax” was a great clue for SKI. I didn’t get it at first. On the surface, you may think it’s just noting that there are no ski areas in Brazil. How laughably shallow that would be! But, no, — it’s a reference to a “Brazilian wax,” a technique that removes hair from one’s “sensitive” areas. It goes further than a bikini wax, said Tom droolingly.

    We sprung for our intrepid Owl Chatter photographer Phil to take a six-month training course in Brazilian waxing ($1,580), down in Rio, and this is a photo he sent back from one of the sessions. Looks serious. (But let’s hold it right there, buddy — don’t go any further with the camera. Puh-leeze.)

    OLGA Kurylenko popped by again. She’s sort of a Russian Ana de Armas. She could use a better scarf though for those Russian winters. What is that thing? Phil — is there something in the trunk you can give her? Root around a little.

    I was flummoxed by 82A. The clue was “Object with one hole or two, depending on whom you ask.” I got the answer from the crosses: TUBE. But its meaning eluded me. So I asked the Rex gang if anyone could enlighten me. Beezer responded with: “I think it is whether you consider a tube to consist of ONE long hole, or whether there is a hole on each end. Makes my head hurt.” Okay, I guess. Seems a little lame to me. I might clue it with “rigatoni.”

    Rather than sharing a perfectly fine poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac, I’m going to call on our old friend and Owl Chatter poet laureate Ted Kooser for one of his today, from Winter Morning Walks. It’s about an owl!

    In his drab gray overcoat,
    unbuttoned and flying out behind,
    a stocky, bullet-headed owl
    with dirty claws and thick wrists
    slowly flaps home
    from working the night shift.
    He is so tired he has forgotten
    his lunchbox, his pay stub.
    He will not be able to sleep
    in his empty apartment
    what with the neighboring blackbirds
    flying into his face,
    but will stay awake all morning,
    round-shouldered and glassy-eyed,
    composing a poem about
    paradise, perfectly woven
    of mouse bones and moist pieces of fur.

    Devoted Owl Chatter readers will recall that we made note of the passing of the great pianist (and person) André Watts from a piano falling on his head recently. As a follow-up, there is this small piece from today’s Met Diary by Mark Shechtman:

    I was dining with a friend at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side in the early 1990s.

    As we sat at a table toward the front near the bar, the pianist André Watts, dressed casually but elegantly, came in and approached the hostess, who was talking with another customer.

    I was a longtime admirer and recognized him immediately. While he waited, he turned his gaze in our direction.

    I smiled and mimed playing a piano keyboard.

    He responded by raising his eyebrows, jutting his chin in my direction and copying my pantomime, as if to ask whether I, too, was a pianist.

    I shook my head and mimed playing classical guitar. He nodded in approval.

    Then, as the hostess escorted him to his table, he waved in our direction and our brief encounter was over.

    This MD piece by Linda Zaworski caught my attention too:

    I was 18 in 1966. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I was making my first trip to New York City to visit a friend who was studying at N.Y.U. She had told me to take a cab to her dorm from La Guardia Airport.

    The cabdriver and I made the usual small talk, and he asked whether my friend and I had plans for Thanksgiving dinner.

    I told him I didn’t know but was sure she had planned something. He said immediately that if she hadn’t, he and his wife would be glad to host us.

    We had reached Washington Square by that point, but he wouldn’t let me leave without taking his phone number.

    As it turned out, my friend and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving at the Long Island home of her relatives. But I have never forgotten that driver and the warm welcome to New York he gave me.

    Since we’re stealing shamelessly from the NYT today, let’s “jam in” today’s tiny love story too. It’s by Ennis Smith.

    When my father-in-law died this summer, I inherited an unopen jar of the orange marmalade he loved. It’s not my favorite. But I’ve been slathering it on toast to honor the man who raised my husband and embraced our relationship when his son came out to him 20 years ago. His marmalade reminds me that some tastes are acquired, that preference often feels indivisible from acceptance. The acrid pulp requires a tolerance my own father would not have had for his queer Black son. I make room for the marmalade’s bittersweet complexity the way my father-in-law made room for me.

    Oops! Yikes!

    From the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up division of Owl Chatter —

    Michigan State University has issued an apology following an image of Hitler appearing on the scoreboard before Saturday night’s football game against UMich.

    Before the game began, the image appeared on the jumbotron as part of a trivia question about Hitler’s place of birth. [The choices were (a) Germany (b) Poland (c) Austria (d) Parsippany, NJ.]

    Michigan State issued a statement, without mentioning the image of Hitler directly, saying the school used a third party for the trivia content and will no longer be using that company.

    “We are deeply sorry for the content that was displayed, as this is not representative of our institutional values,” Michigan State associate athletic director Matt Larson said in a statement, after carefully checking on what their institutional values are. “MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures for all videoboard content in the future.”

    MSU will also be changing its slogan, above, to “We Sometimes Drop the Ball.”

    The NJ Symphony today featured a brilliant young cellist Sterling Elliott playing Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Keep an ear out for this young Black star. Growing up, he played in a “family quartet” at home with his parents and brother and they stayed away from classical selections and played blues, bluegrass, jazz, gospel, etc. (He received his classical training at Julliard.) A standing ovation (oy, it was hard to get up), led to an encore, which sounded like a Scottish fiddler’s piece on the cello and was terrific. Too bad it’s not on Youtube, or I’d share it.

    Elgar’s Enigma Variations closed out the afternoon and I was surprised I wasn’t familiar with it, since it’s pretty well-known. Each variation is based on a friend of Elgar’s and captures his or her qualities. Here’s the central one, “Nimrod,” which was the nickname of his friend August Johannes Jaeger. Some young folks from Boston are trying their hands at it, below. Give it some time: it builds. I’m going to slip out quietly while they’re playing. I’ve already heard it today in Jersey. See you tomorrow.

  • Among the Swifties

    It was Owl Chatter Day with Taylor Swift today! Linda, Phil, and I shot down to Red Bank for the movie in the OC van. Whew — pretty intense. Three hours. Springsteen-esque, although I don’t recall Bruce ever performing in a sequined bathing suit. It was the teeny-bopper afternoon showing, with much of the audience consisting of adorable little Zoeys with their parents. By the third song they all charged the stage, or screen, I guess, and spent the movie singing along and dancing way up close.

    The most touching moment, for me, was an extraordinary farewell tribute Taylor paid to our poor late friend Yevgeny Prigozhin, whom she got to know pretty well at several Owl Chatter events. She dedicated a very touching rendition of Shake It Off to “her Yevi.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the arena, and most of her fans were waving their friendship pierogis in time to the music.

    You don’t need Owl Chatter to tell you she’s a brilliant performer with a remarkable and loving connection to her fans. She wore many outfits, of course, some of them pretty wild, but my favorite was a simple orange dress. Phil caught her in it.

    But it’s back to earth for us now, and with a thud — today’s puzzle floored me. 24D: “Ibram X. ___, author of ‘How to Be an Antiracist.” I’m supposed to know that’s KENDI? Or how about 34A: “Haka dance performers?” Those are MAORI, of course. I knew I was in trouble at 5D: “1781 Mozart opera seria.” Seria? You may be shocked to learn the “1781” did not help me. The answer was IDOMENEO. “Tech support?” was MONOPOD. That’s like a tripod but with only one pod.

    But the real killer was at 14A: “1998 rap hit by Big Pun (feat. Joe).” I love the “(feat. Joe),” like that’s going to help. The answer was STILL NOT A PLAYER.

    But much of it was neat, and clever. My favorite was 48A: “I HAVE to have this — whatever it costs,” and the answer was TAKE MY MONEY!

    Yesterday’s puzzle was a gem — even curmudgeon Rex lavished it with praise. It was by Jacob McDermott. 15D was beyond brilliant, but needs some set up.

    One of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio journalism is Herb Morrison’s 1937 eyewitness report of the explosion and crash of the German passenger airship, Hindenburg. On May 6, 1937, while preparing to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, the Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed to the ground, killing thirty-five of the ninety-seven people on board and one member of the ground crew.

    Chicago radio station WLS had sent reporter Herb Morrison and sound engineer Charles Nehlsen to record the landing. Morrison’s professional demeanor gave way to an emotional outburst after the Hindenburg caught fire. Shaken and horrified, Morrison continued to record, struggling to compose himself as a hellish scene of fiery death unfolded before his eyes.

    Here are excerpts:

    “It’s fire and it crashing! . . . This is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world! Oh, it’s crashing . . . oh, four or five hundred feet into the sky, and it’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. There’s smoke, and there’s flames, now, and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here!

    . . . I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest, it’s just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage, and everybody can hardly breathe and talk . . . Honest, I can hardly breathe. I’m going to step inside where I cannot see it. . . .”

    Years later, Morrison recalled that he yelled “Oh, the humanity,” because he thought everyone on board had died; in fact, sixty-two of the people on board survived.

    OK, so where were we? Oh, yeah, the puzzle. So the clue for 15D yesterday was “Oh, the humanities!” The answer: LIBERAL ARTS. Rex called it “as good a repurposing of the Hindenburg disaster as there ever was.” He laughed out loud.

    At 4D, “Undertone of Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s Do It’” was a great clue for SEX, although some questioned the appropriateness of “undertone,” since it’s pretty out there — “let’s do it.”

    “Heck, yeah” was DARN TOOTIN, and someone questioned where it came from. So I posted:

    Extensive research (you know, a minute or two online), leads me to believe that when someone makes a statement that is so spot on, he or she is tootin’ – making noise. Like when you are casting about for an answer and your friend nails it and you go “ding ding ding” or would press a buzzer if you had one. So when your statement is right on target, you’re tootin, and the darn just strengthens it.

    An example of crafting a clever clue for a simple word: “Cry during an argument between siblings” was the clue for MOM.

    We’ll let Taylor send us off tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • SIS-BOOM-BAH

    Seen on a T-shirt: I said I’ll fix it. There’s no need to remind me every six months.

    In this week’s Tuesday New Yorker puzzle by Aimee Lucido there were some great clues/answers but I was puzzled by 10D: “Compelled to go.” Ans: HALED. It turns out hale as a verb means “to drag or draw forcibly,” as in “he haled the man out of the audience.” When you need a cab, you “hail” one — that’s different.

    My favorite in that grid was “Matriarch of a certain toy family,” and the answer, of course, was MRS POTATO HEAD! I was surprised to see that potato and head are separate words in the name. Here they are IRL. Love the outfit, Mrs. PH!

    One of my favorite cartoons during the pandemic had two potato people talking. You know, they were potatoes but with feet, hands, faces, etc. And one says to the other: “You don’t have to wear a mask, Meredith — You’re a potato.”

    Another good clue was “It may be used for island dressing.” Ans: HAWAIIAN SHIRT. Phil flew down to Oahu with one of my tax students to give this shot authenticity. Get her back in time for the test tomorrow, Philly!

    When the Holocaust came up in Sarah Silverman’s special, she corrected herself to call it the “alleged” Holocaust. She said she was surprised to learn something new about Hitler from Wikipedia recently — that for several years he molested his niece. “Now he’s really canceled, right?” She said she shouldn’t have been surprised. He was probably like, “Look, I just murdered millions of people. Do you expect me not to molest my niece?”

    She was waiting for a friend near a Catholic school not long ago, and the kids started streaming out. The girls were all wearing those “porn skirts.” She said the only place she sees them anymore is in porn. She was surprised the school didn’t move on from them. It’s like those people who say the swastika was originally a Hindu symbol for “good luck.” Yeah, but not anymore.

    Don’t mess with these two.

    Phil — you okay?

    In the puzzle today, the clue at 9D was “Musicians that play with mallets,” and the answer was VIBISTS. Tough one. One commenter asked, shouldn’t it be “Musicians who play . . . ?” Yeah, shouldn’t it?

    The clue at 47A was “Egyptian temple site,” and the answer was KARNAK. Never mind the temple. Here’s what I posted on Rex’s blog:

    Carnac the Magnificent was a regular Johnny Carson bit that could be clever and showed off his good comic relationship with Ed McMahon. Carnac was a swami who could divine the answers to questions before seeing the questions.

    Some of my favorites of that ilk were:

    ANS: Washington Irving
    QUES: Who was our first President, Max?

    ANS: 9-W
    QUES: Do you spell you name with a “V,” Herr Wagner? (Wagner was pronounced Vagner.)

    ANS: Super Bowl
    QUES: What would you call a toilet that can see through walls.

    Several folks added their favorite Carnac lines including East Coaster who contributed:

    ANS: SIS-BOOM-BAH

    QUES: What sound is made when a sheep explodes?

    I added the following post in response:

    According to an interview McMahon gave years later, the SIS-BOOM-BAH answer was his and Carson’s favorite. Carson tipped McMahon off that an unusually good one was in the deck that day and McMahon could tell from Carson’s expression when it was the next one. When it hit them, neither could control himself for over a minute, maybe two. They were paralyzed with laughter. It was the question that got the largest number of letters from fans, and was the only time Carson ever tipped McMahon off about anything that was coming on the show.

    Shield your eyes if you’re squeamish.

    Speaking of exploding sheep, we went to see the Australian Haydn Ensemble last night in a nice small auditorium in the Morris Museum. They had performed earlier in Carnegie Hall. They were terrific. They perform on period instruments, i.e., instruments from when Haydn et al were walking the planet. For example, the Mozart Symphony they performed (his 29th) he composed when he was eighteen. And the violin the first violinist was playing on was only four years old at that time. Imagine — it hadn’t even been bar-mitzvahed. The flute was wooden, and the bassoon was made of maple wood. One of the violinists was playing a violin that spent several decades in Morristown NJ (where we were) before finding its way to Australia, she was tickled to tell us. There were eighteen members in the ensemble that played for us, thirteen of whom were women. Here’s a nice shot of six of them.

    If you can spare eight minutes, here’s a different incarnation of the ensemble playing Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D Major. We’ll let them send us off tonight, and, you know, class up the joint a little. Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!