-
PB&J
Actress and Member of Parliament Glenda Jackson died at the age of 87 last Thursday. Among her buckets of awards were two Oscars for Best Actress — for Women in Love (1970), and A Touch of Class (1973). She returned to the stage to play King Lear himself at age 80, to great acclaim, but with a good dose of nerves, she conceded.
She grew up poor and was still poor when she married fellow-actor Roy Hodges. She admits to resorting to shoplifting when necessary. They had one son before getting divorced. She was very demanding professionally: Gary Oldman called her “a nightmare.” Motivated in part by her dislike of Hollywood glitz, she did not attend either of the Academy Award ceremonies at which she was honored as Best Actress.
She was not too happy to be woken up by Owl Chatter photographer Phil for this photo. (Why they put up with him slipping into their bedrooms is beyond me.)
The puzzle was a little “aukword” today: at 55A, “Penguin lookalike” was AUK. Commenter jberg shared the following:
“AUKs fill an ecological niche in the Arctic similar to that of penguins in the Antarctic; but they don’t look all that much like them. And they can fly (except for the great auks, which are extinct, so you see where that got them).”
Here’s an auk — you decide whether they look like penguins.
The puzzle was a 12×19 rectangle today, instead of the usual 15×15 square. And solving it was like making a sandwich. There was a SLICE OF BREAD near the top and another near the bottom. And two of the other cross answers were RASPBERRY JAM and PEANUT BUTTER. That explains the unusual shape — all of the sandwich “pieces” are 12 letters long.
Rex was miffed that the sandwich is known as a “peanut butter and jelly” sandwich, and the puzzle had raspberry JAM (not jelly). A flaw!
Here are several comments:
“Those sandwiches have been called PBJ only since sometime around 1980; back in the 1950s they were called ‘peanut butter and jelly,’ nothing else. Eventually the analogy with BLT became too hard to resist. (Technical note to those unsure: when you make jelly, you put the cooked and mashed fruit in a jelly bag, which you hang over a bowl. Then you take the juice that drips through and make it jell. With jam, you just leave the fruit in.)”
[Owl Chatter note: Love the term “jelly bag.” How have I lived without it?]
But Jim in Canada says:
I live in western Canada. Here, the J stands for Jam. Perhaps it also does in parts of the US. “Peanut Butter and Jam” is a thing here, while “Peanut Butter and Jelly” isn’t the standard at all.
CF added: If you grew up listening to Raffi, you definitely know that a peanut butter sandwich can be made with JAM! [One of the lyrics has it rhyme with musician David Amram.]
A peanut butter sandwich made with jam.
One for me and one for David Amram.[Raffi said he couldn’t think of any other rhyme.]
Eater of Sole said:
I mostly agree with Rex that PB&J is “peanut butter and jelly” and not “peanut butter and jam.” To those arguing that it’s OK because Jam starts with J, I say that “tortoise” starts with “T” but that would not in itself justify building a theme around a bacon, lettuce, and tortoise sandwich. Having said that, I have a peanut butter and jam sandwich several times a week. Usually with raspberry jam. Jam spreads better than jelly. Jelly, frankly, is unnecessary in life.
Wanderlust added:
Raspberries might be one of my two favorite foods, along with chocolate (and they are even better together). My RASPBERRY bush is in full production right now, and I am in heaven. Some of it hangs over a wall, above the sidewalk. The other day I was picking them there and popping them in my mouth at the end of a dog walk. A woman walked by, smiled conspiratorially, and said, “I won’t tell.” I told her it was OK, that I lived there, but that anyone walking by is welcome to pick them. Passers-by rarely do, but I think it’s less that they think they are stealing and more that they are so immersed in their phones that they don’t notice the bounty right above their heads. More for me.
I added the following (true) story to the thread:
Growing up, there was never any peanut butter in my home because my older brother loved it too much and would binge on it. So my mother had to stop bringing it home. I was okay with that — I liked it but didn’t love it.
A bigger issue was strawberries. Whenever there were strawberries in the house and I’d go near the fridge, my mother would say — “don’t eat the strawberries — they’re Jay’s favorite and he’ll be home soon — I got them for him.” I was “okay, I guess I’ll have something else.”
Fast forward thirty years — my mom is gone, my brother is in his sixties and I’m around 50, and he’s over at my house and I happen to have some strawberries in the fridge. So I say to him — “hey, this is luck — we have some strawberries — your favorite, right?” And he said, “You know, I was home once and enjoyed a few strawberries and Mom somehow got the idea that they were my favorite, but really they’re no more my favorite than any other fruit.” And I said ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!?? My entire childhood I couldn’t eat strawberries because of you!! I was like some poor Appalachian kid who never saw a grape or something! (Love you Mom.)
As Ukraine mounts its offensive, here’s a video to spur on the troops.
When I surf the obits looking for Owl Chatter fodder, I almost always dismiss religious figures out of hand. But today’s on Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, who died on June 7 in Monroe, LA, at age 81, was worth reading. In the 70’s he was a rising star in the Southern Baptist Convention (which was in the news recently for proscribing women pastors, not surprisingly). But Gaddy saw the trend towards a repressive and cruel conservatism and got out. He called it “a steamroller cloaked in piety.” He hooked up with the progressive Alliance of Baptists which proclaims to visitors “every part of you is welcome here — your gender, your race, your politics, your theology, your sexuality.”
In 2010, when news outlets reported that Trijicon Inc., which supplied telescopic gun sights to the U.S. military, was embossing phrases drawn from the New Testament on those sights, he wrote to Obama saying that the gun sights “clearly violate a government rule prohibiting proselytizing.” He called the practice “only the latest in a long line of violations of the boundaries between religion and government within the military.” He was a stickler on the separation of church and state.
In a 1981 speech, Dr. Gaddy expressed his growing frustration with the way the “Moral Majority,” founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, was hijacking religious discussion. “Opposition to the political platform of the ‘pro-family’ forces is interpreted as opposition to family life,” he said. “Disapproval of attempts to pass legislation governing the practice of prayer in public institutions is labeled as disapproval of prayer. The protest against tax credits for purposes of funding private education is peddled as opposition to education. Our society seems to have an aversion to complexity. Maybe we read too many bumper stickers.”
He is survived by his wife Judy, whom he married in 1962, his son James, and several g’children. Rest in peace, Reverend.
See you tomorrow!
-
Do You Weep When Things Go Wrong?
Happy Father’s Day, everybody!
Too soon?
If ever there was an aptly named woman, it was Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. She made it up there on this day 40 years ago aboard the Challenger, for a six-day mission. She said, “The thing that I’ll remember most about the flight is that it was fun. In fact, I’m sure it was the most fun I’ll ever have in my life.”
Ride was married to astronaut Stephen Hawley from ’82 to ’87 (no kids), but was gay and was a long-time partner of pro tennis player Tam O’Shaughnessy. Ride was the first astronaut known to be LGBT.
Ride was a graduate of Stanford, where she earned a BS in physics and a BA in English Lit in 1973, an MS in physics in 1975, and a PhD in physics in 1978 for research on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium. She died of pancreatic cancer eleven years ago at the age of 61.
As the first American woman to fly in space, there were over 500 requests for private interviews, all of which were declined. Instead, NASA hosted the usual pre-launch press conference at which Ride was asked questions such as, “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” and “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” NASA engineers asked Ride to assist them in developing a “space makeup kit,” assuming it would be something a woman would want on board. They also infamously suggested providing Ride with a supply of 100 tampons for the six-day mission. NASA must have a Costco membership.
Ride was appointed to the Rogers Commission investigating the Space Shuttle disaster, and headed its subcommittee on operations. After Ride’s death, Major General Donald J. Kutyna revealed that she had discreetly provided him with key information about O-rings, namely, that they become stiff at low temperatures, that eventually led to identification of the cause of the explosion. To protect her source, they fed this information to Richard Feynman, who you may recall famously illustrated the effect with a simple glass of ice water sitting in front of him at the hearing.
Among the numerous run-of-the-mill awards she received, like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, two stand out: A mini-figurine of Ride is featured in a LEGO set; and Mattel released a Barbie doll in her likeness. Incredibly, the Barbie doll defies gravity, as shown below.
I searched the universe for a sexy picture of Ride for the Owl Chatter Dirty Old Man Department, but she’s so f*cking wholesome there’s nothing out there. Hrummmph. This devastating smile will have to do.
In the puzzle today, the clue at 46D was “The Iron ___, pro wrestling Hall-of-Famer from Iran,” and the answer was SHEIK.
Commenter Anoa Bob wrote:
I went through a professional wrestling phase about the time The Iron SHEIK was a head liner. This was not long after the Iranians overthrew the Shah and imprisoned the U.S. Embassy personnel, so The Iron Sheik was a bad guy par excellence. He did a routine where he hoisted two heavy “Persian Clubs” repeatedly over his head and then would challenge his opponent to match his feat. It would usually end in “Professional Wrestling style,” i.e., hilariously. [See the video, below] I just saw that he passed away this June 7 at age 81. RIP Iron Sheik.
Here’s the best-ass Father’s Day poem you’ll ever read. It’s called Daddy Dozens, by Jamilla Woods, and it’s from the Poetry Foundation.
My Daddy’s forehead is so big, we don’t need a dining room
table. My Daddy’s forehead so big, his hat size is equator. So
big, it’s a five-head. Tyra Banks burst into tears when she seen
my Daddy’s forehead. My Daddy’s forehead got its own area code.My Daddy baseball cap got stretch marks. My Daddy pillowcase
got craters. His eyebrows need GPS to find each other. My Daddy
forehead lives in two time zones. Planets confuse my Daddy forehead
for the sun. Couch cushions lose quarters in the wrinkles in my Daddy
forehead.My Daddy so smart, he fall asleep with the movie on and
wake up soon as the credits start to roll. My Daddy so smart, he
perform surgery on his own ingrown toenail. Momma was not
impressed, but my Daddy got brains. My Daddy know exactly
how to drive me to my friend’s house without lookin at no map.
My Daddy born here, he so smart, he know the highways like
the wrinkles in his forehead. He know the free clinics like the gray
hairs on his big ass head. My Daddy so smart, he wear a stethoscope
and a white coat.My Daddy drive to work in a minivan only slightly
bigger than his forehead, that’s just how my Daddy rolls. My Daddy
got swag. My Daddy dance to “Single Ladies” in the hallway.
My Daddy drink a small coffee cream and sugar. My Daddy
drink a whole can of Red Bull. My Daddy eat a whole pack
of sour Skittles and never had a cavity.My Daddy so smart, he got a pullout couch in his office. Got a mini fridge there too. Got a cell phone, and a pager, and a email address where I can leave
him messages when he’s not at home. My Daddy’s not home. Momma saves a plate that turns cold.But when my Daddy does come home, he got a office
in his bedroom too. Computer screen night light,
Momma says she can’t sleep right, but my Daddy
got work, my Daddy at work, at home, in the attic,
with the TV on, in the dark, from the front yard,
through the windows, you can see him working, glass
flickering, my house got its own forehead, glinting, sweaty,
in the evening, while my Daddy at work, at home,
in his own area code,a whole other time zone.
We’re back at the Owl Chatter home base in Jersey. Long weekend.
Here are the caps that honor Susan’s memory. The three initials replicate exactly how she signed her name. Robert had several hundred made for friends and family. An object to represent the feelings. Spanish boots of Spanish leather.
-
The Mermaid Parade
Owl Chatter is broadcasting tonight from the historic Middlebury Inn in Vermont. We attended the memorial service for Susan today, who passed away in January. It was a warm and loving tribute. The first thing Robert said was that Susan would not have wanted it. But he rigged the election.
Today’s puzzle just ran me ragged — couldn’t finish. “Capital on the Caspian.” BAKU — gimme a break. “HOYEON Jung, ‘Squid Game’ actress.” Right. And I just couldn’t get them from the crosses.
I liked 36A. The clue was “Don’t make me laugh,” and the answer was OH, PUHLEASE.
25A was good too — “What might turn pie into pieces?” — AUTO COMPLETE.
Yesterday, “Spending excessive time reading negative news online,” was DOOM SCROLLING. Had you heard of it? It led to some good comments:
First, Joaquin wrote:
“At my age, DOOMSCROLLING means spending a half hour scrolling down the list to finally arrive at your birth year.”
Then, I love this note by egsforbreakfast:
What Joaquin cleverly noted about DOOMSCROLLING brought to mind one of my pet peeves. Why do you have to go down to your state alphabetically on 90% of websites that ask for an address? If you live in Washington, as I do, it takes around 5 seconds extra vs an Alabamian. If you figure you’re doing this a couple of times a week for 60 years or so, you end up being penalized around one day of your life for living in Washington. So I’m hereby demanding that web developers incorporate a random order generator so that all states average the same (25th) place in the list. Maybe it’s 27th or 28th if you include Puerto Rico, DC and the territories. You get the idea. I have incorporated a 501(c)3 to pursue this goal. It is known by the backronym WAR BS, for Washingtonians Advocating Randomness Between the States.
Two great Yiddish words were in the puzzle Friday. “Faints from emotion” was PLOTZES, and “Bagel shop request” was SCHMEAR.
The 41st annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island this weekend brought out hundreds of thousands of spectators. Word of it had not reached me under my rock before. It sounds wild. Owl Chatter sent our fearless photographer Phil this year. Nice shots, Philly!
Thanks for stopping by!
-
Double Play
The NYT says Bud Light slipped from the #1 spot in U.S. beer sales in recent weeks due to a right-wing boycott. The right is upset that Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, posted a video promoting a Bud Lite contest. The company tried to backtrack by announcing the departure of two marketing execs who were behind the idea, but that only angered the left! (Oops.) I was surprised to learn that the top spot for U.S. sales has been taken over by a Mexican beer: Modelo Especial.
Here’s one of my tax students enjoying a few cold ones after our final exam last month. (Burp!)
Lisa del Giocondo, born Lisa Gherardini, was a beautiful girl. It’s her birthday today — she was born in Florence Italy in 1479. She didn’t have a rich dowry and her family had no connections, but she snared a wealthy silk merchant when she was only 15 (he was 30) because she was so damn gorgeous. He was Francesco del Giocondo, and he was simply captivated by her. And it never wore off — in his will he mentions her noble spirit and faithfulness, and speaks of his love and affection for her. They had five children. Lisa outlived Francesco by four years — she died at age 63 and he died in his early 70’s.
In 1503, when she was 24 (I did the math), Francesco commissioned a respected local artist to paint her portrait. It may have been in honor of the birth of their second son. The artist used a large canvas and “zoomed in” on his subject, which was revolutionary and influenced other artists in the region. Before he could finish, the artist got a better offer, so he stopped working on it and left town! He eventually finished the portrait but never delivered it to Francesco and Lisa — maybe because Francesco never paid him. It wound up in the hands of the French King Francis I.
You may have figured out by now that the artist was Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa was, well, you know who Lisa was.
That “better offer” Leonardo got was to work with Michelangelo on decorating the Palazzo Vecchio. Leonardo worked on The Battle of Anghiari but it wasn’t completed and did not survive. Some battle! — 20 to 24 hours of fighting resulted in only one death, and that was a soldier who died when fell off his horse. It was like a fight at a baseball game — no one gets hurt. Here is Rubens’ version of the Battle.
Remember the Clinton years? Here’s the Monica Lisa.
Kobayashi Issa was born on this date in 1763. He was one of the masters of Haiku. By the end of his life, he had written over 20,000 haiku celebrating the small wonders of everyday life. Here are a few (translated). He had a sense of humor.
The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
with children.On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.Mosquito at my ear—
does he think
I’m deaf?
The clue at 46A today was: “‘A foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time,’ per Shaw.” The answer was CHESS, but Rex noted it might have come with a little wink because it could easily apply to XW puzzles as well. D’oh!
Let’s give actress Mary-Louise Parker a warm Owl Chatter hello for her visit to the puzzle today in a clue for WEEDS, “Mary-Louise Parker show about a suburban mom dealing pot.” MLP is 58 and was born in Columbia, SC. She was with actor Billy Crudup for seven years and they have a son, William Atticus Parker, but in 2003 he left her for Claire Danes when Parker was seven-months pregnant. Boo! Susan Sarandon is William’s godmother. MLP also has an adopted daughter, Caroline Aberash Parker, from Ethiopia.
Phil got this nice shot of Mary-Louise in her Owl Chatter shirt.
There was a terrific and unusual double play in last night’s Toronto-Orioles game. The Jays had men on first and third. No outs. The batter hit a grounder to the shortstop who threw to second, apparently starting a double play. So the runner from first was out. The runner from third took off for home, expecting to score on the DP. But the second baseman did not complete the traditional DP by throwing to first. Instead, he fired the ball home in time to catch the runner from third on a tag play. I saw that only once before, back when Willie Randolph was at second base for the Yanks. Great baseball. Adam Frazier was the alert second baseman for the O’s. He was formerly a Pirate. Take a bow, Frazier.
Good night, everybody. See you tomorrow!
-
See Ya Later, Alligator
In the puzzle today, every across clue started with the word “not.” E.g., “Not exactly . . . ” was the clue for YES AND NO. “Not yet two years old” was the clue for ONE, which one commenter called “maybe the worst clue in the history of crosswords.” It is weak tea, as they say. Some thought the gimmick was clever and cute, and others thought it was stupid. Owl Chatter is ON THE FENCE (“Not yet decided”).
A centaur has the head, arms, and torso of a man, and the body and legs of a horse. In Greek mythology, Chiron was a centaur who was an old and wise mentor to Achilles. A “chyron” comes from the name of the Chyron Corporation that developed those superimposed crawling or stationary words on your TV screen used mostly on news reports or sporting events.
From Owl Chatter’s You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department: Now that you know what a chyron is, I can tell you that the chyron used by FOX News during Trump’s post-arraignment speech was about Biden. It said: “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.”
Back on Planet Earth, there was a rare visit to the puzzle today by Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. Here’s one of his fiercer catches, sedated (and autographed).
Irwin was an Australian zookeeper, conservationist, television personality, wildlife educator, and environmentalist. He co-hosted The Crocodile Hunter (1996–2007), the wildlife TV documentary series, with his wife Terri. They had two children: a daughter, Bindi Sue, jointly named after Bindi, a saltwater crocodile, and Sui, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier; and a son, Robert Clarence, named after Irwin’s father Bob and Terri’s father Clarence (Bore-ing!).
In 2003, Irwin was filming a documentary on sea lions off the coast of Mexico when he learned that two scuba divers were missing in the area. He suspended operations and his team’s divers searched with the rescue divers. Irwin used his vessel to patrol the waters and used his communications system to call in a rescue plane. On the second day of the search, kayakers found one of the divers, Scott Jones, perched on a narrow rock ledge jutting out from the side of a cliff. Irwin and a crew member escorted him to Irwin’s boat. The other lost diver, Katie Vrooman, was found dead later that day not far from Jones’ location. She was 77 years old.
In 2006, while filming a documentary in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Irwin died from an injury caused by a stingray. Numerous parks, zoos, streets, the snail species Crikey steveirwini, and the asteroid 57567 Crikey have been named in his honor. His family continues to operate Australia Zoo. Here are Steve and Terri with a friend. Steve often said that if he was to be remembered for anything, he hoped that it would be for being a good father.
The clue at 33D was “Possessive type?” The answer was DEMON (get it?).
I posted this joke for the commentariat. No response yet (thank God).
So this poor girl was in the grips of a demon and her dad finds an exorcist who can help. The problem is his fee is $50,000 and the dad doesn’t have it.
So they work out an arrangement for him to pay it off over 5 years.
The exorcism goes well and the girl is fine. But after 2 years, the dad loses his job and misses a few payments. So the girl was repossessed.Ba da boom!
Owl Chatter Director of Puns, Brookline Carl, tells us he’s trying to arrange a lunch with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, but he’s having trouble making ends meet. On top of that, he was called into the pathologist’s office. Why? Remains to be seen. [Owl Chatter note: The man is at the top of his game!]
Today’s poem in The Writer’s Almanac is by Thomas Hardy. It’s called “A Thunderstorm in Town.” Been there, fellas?
She wore a new ‘terra-cotta’ dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom’s dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.
The expression “to lose one’s head” has special significance in the art world. According to a front-page story in the NYT today, for many years a museum in Denmark (the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek), maintained that it had the head of a statue of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, and that the torso from which it had been separated was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY. It arranged a loan of the torso so it could exhibit the two together in 1979, and tried to buy the torso (but failed).
Last February, however, the torso was returned by the Met to Turkey when investigators determined it had been looted from Turkey. Turkey wants the head too, but the Danish museum is now claiming that it reassessed the matter and concluded it’s an unrelated head. Turkey is crying Fowl! I mean Foul. The museum is conducting further research that will take two years. So we’ll have to wait and see. Here are the two puzzle pieces.
There are more separated parts (heads/torsos) than complete statues in museums today. This is partly because of the normal wear and tear of time — when a statue falls the thin neck is liable to break. But looting and regime change play a role too. Looters may have intentionally severed a head from a body so they’d have two artifacts to pass off. And a conquering army might symbolically lop off the head of a defeated ruler’s statue.
According to the Times, in one case, a bronze of the Emperor Augustus from around 25 B.C. was decapitated by Kushite raiders in Egypt, who then defiantly buried the severed head beneath temple steps in the Kushite capital of Meroë, in modern Sudan. The feet of multitudes trod atop the head before it was discovered in the 20th century. The head is now in the British Museum. It is not known where all those feet wound up. [Wait, what?]
And get this — Roman statue makers often created archetypal body types and separate, highly individualized heads. As an emperor’s power or popularity waned, one head could be swapped for another. [The popular Mr. Potato Head toys are loosely based on this approach. Various parts (eyes, ears, hat) can be switched on a basic head. BTW, Mr. Potato Head is the first toy ever to be advertised on TV.]
In some cases, the ancient statues just lost their noses. Early museum conservators replaced the noses with new ones, but the process was reversed in modern days as curators decided authenticity trumped appearances. The museum in Denmark has a collection of replacement noses (not kidding). Looks like some ears snuck in too. It’s a popular exhibit — the noses have been running for quite some time.
The rare occasion on which a head and a torso find their way back to each other is cause for great celebration. “Statue of a Draped Woman,” a 2,000-year-old torso, had spent almost 50 years at the Getty Museum in LA before a curator came across its head, a carved marble portrait of a stern-looking Roman woman in a NY gallery. That’s how the NYT described her — I don’t think she’s that stern-looking. That’s one thick-ass neck though.
Enough. More nonsense tomorrow. Thanks for popping in.
-
TS
The puzzle today contained a “checklist” of things you need to remember to bring with you when you go out, built into longer answers. So, e.g., there was KEYS built into “whisKEY Sour.” The other items were taxI Driver, volcaniC ASH, and keeP HONEst (ID, CASH, and PHONE).
Commenter JD shared his mother’s “checklist:”
My 89-year-old mother’s suitcase-size purse contains her checkbook-wallet (containing a checkbook, cash, credit cards, photos, and her probably-expired license since she shouldn’t be driving), lipstick, gum, coupons (those expired and those doomed to expire), numerous crumpled tissues that she swears are unused, a change purse that weighs at least a pound, and keys that she’ll take forever to find because they’re beneath all of the above. Her checklist is “purse.”
We can be together now, Elias! I got legs!
The New Yorker of June 19 has a review of Taylor Swift’s concert at Met Life Stadium in NJ by Amanda Petrusich, noting in the subtitle its “startling intimacy.” Here are some egg-zerpts.
“My daughter, who is about to turn two, had picked out my socks, which had cats all over them — a little wink to the fans, I thought. (Swift loves cats.) Let me tell you: no one was looking at my socks.
The pavement outside the stadium was dappled with thousands of fallen sequins. Forearms were wrapped in bracelets featuring Swift-isms spelled out in lettered beads. I was seated in front of two people dressed as fully decorated Christmas trees. (Swift was brought up on a Christmas-tree farm in PA.)
When Swift addressed the seventy-four thousand people who had gathered to see her, I felt as though she was not only speaking directly to me but confessing something urgent. Maybe it’s her savvy use of what feels like the singular “you.” When I attempted to explain this feeling to other people, it sounded as though I had been conned. Yet I’d prefer to think of it as an act of kindness: Swift sees each of us (literally—we were given light-up bracelets upon entering) and wants us to know it.
Swift’s voice has become richer and stronger over the years; its clarity and tone foreground her lyrics.
The camaraderie in the audience invited a very particular kind of giddiness. My best friend from childhood had accompanied me, and when she returned from the concession stand carrying two Diet Pepsis so enormous that they required her to bear-hug them for safe transport, I started laughing harder than I have laughed in several years.
As the night went on, I began to understand how Swift’s fandom is tied to the primal urge to have something to protect and be protected by. In recent years, community, one of our most elemental human pleasures, has been decimated by covid, politics, technology, capitalism. These days, people will take it where they can get it. Swift often sings of alienation and yearning. She has an unusual number of songs about being left behind. Not by the culture—though I think she worries about that, too—but by someone she cared about who couldn’t countenance the immensity of her life. In her world, love is conditional and frequently temporary. (“You could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend,” she sings on “ ’tis the damn season,” a line I’ve always found profoundly sad.) On the chorus of “The Archer,” she sings, “Who could ever leave me, darling? / But who could stay?” Toward the end of the song, she adds a more hopeful line: “You could stay.”
As she sang that “you” on Saturday, she raised an arm and pointed directly to the audience. Swift has written many songs that describe her devotion as a punishment to be endured. “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?” she bellows on “Cruel Summer.” She believes that the force of her affection will push people away. But her fans have remained. They have buoyed her; in turn, she has given them everything.
I’ve seen some phenomenal concerts over the years. I’ve got no complaints. Wish I was there, though.
See you tomorrow. Thanks for dropping by.
-
Dissing Pluto
Professor Owen Gingerich, who taught astronomy and the history of science at Harvard for 37 years, thought Pluto should not have been deplanetized (my word). He considered its demotion a “linguistic catastrophe.” Prof. Gingerich died in Belmont, MA, on May 28th. He was 93.
His view on the matter was significant because in 2006 he was chosen to lead a committee of the International Astronomical Union charged with recommending whether Pluto should remain a planet. Gingerich’s position did not carry the day. Pluto is now a “dwarf planet.”
When Gingerich was 9, his dad bought him a book that included instructions for making a telescope using a mailing tube and lenses from a local optician. The eyepiece was a dime-store magnifying glass. It worked well enough for him to see the rings of Saturn easily. “So it was probably slightly better than Galileo’s telescope,” Gingerich said.
From all accounts, he was a wonderful and lively professor. He sometimes taught dressed as a 16th-century Latin-speaking scholar. He sometimes shot himself out of the classroom on the power of a fire extinguisher to prove one of Newton’s laws. One year, when his signature course, The Astronomical Perspective, was under-enrolled, he hired a plane to fly a banner over the campus that said: “Sci A-17. M, W, F. Try it!”
One of the major pursuits of his life was triggered by Arthur Koestler’s contention (in 1959) that Copernicus’s book on the Earth revolving around the sun (De Revolutionibus) was not widely read in its time. Eleven years later, Gingerich ran across a copy of it in Edinburgh that was heavily annotated, thus indicating that at least one person read it. Over the next 30 years, he travelled hundreds of thousands of miles to examine 600 Renaissance-era copies. It resulted in Gingerich’s 2004 book, “The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus.” It established that the Copernicus book was widely read, and showed how word of its theories spread and evolved.
He also wrote two books on his belief that religion and science need not be at odds. Here’s what he looked like 50 years ago.
Professor Gingerich is survived by his wife, three sons, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, all of whom would say, Wherever he is up there now, he probably knows his way around.
From the “Monday is too easy camp,” I started off by posting: “Completed the puzzle on paper today with the grid and clues face down. Definitely more difficult. Took me forever to get GLBSWEZZY and MRKLLDRB.”
My co-conspirator, JM, chimed in with: “From a blindfold-solving perspective, this is the toughest Monday puzzle in memory. I’ve spent over an hour on it so far and still don’t have a single answer. Maybe it’s because I used a double blindfold this time and couldn’t see any clues. However, I haven’t given up and will try again later after I figure out some new peeking techniques.”
Picked Nit of the Day: The clue at 28D was “Buck ___, first Black coach in Major League Baseball,” and the answer was ONEIL.
Commenter Evan said: “The clue on Buck O’Neil is a problem. There was no (capital M, L, B) Major League Baseball at the time (it only came into use in the 1980’s and was generally not capitalized in the NYT until the leagues merged at the end of the 20th century). The phrase ‘major league’ was only applied to baseball as an adjective at that time, which properly (and now widely acknowledged) applied to the Negro Leagues as well.”
C’mon, man — it’s a crossword puzzle for cryin’ out loud, not a doctoral thesis.
Here’s Buck:
Anne Frank would have been 94 today had she lived. It’s her birthday. Of course, she was killed by the Nazis at Bergen-Belsen when she was only 14.
Today is also the anniversary of the murder of Medgar Evers, in 1963, in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. He was 37. He served in the U.S. Army and participated in the Allied invasion in Europe. He was shot in the back at point blank range by a KKK member named Byron De La Beckwith. Evers was rushed to the hospital and was initially refused care because he was Black. He didn’t survive. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Two trials of De La Beckwith ended in hung juries, but he was convicted in 1994 at the age of 74 by a jury consisting of 8 Blacks and 4 whites and died in prison.
See you tomorrow.
-
The Right to Remain Silent
Happy Birthday, Sash! Sasha Obama turned 22 yesterday and appeared in the puzzle today, clued with “White House daughter whom the Secret Service called ‘Rosebud,’” at 19A. Her legal name is Natasha. Here she is wearing her Owl Chatter cap for this short feature on her.
Sasha enrolled at U. Michigan after high school, but transferred to USC for reasons unknown, and earned her degree in Sociology from there last month. Her dad is the Kenya-born former pol Barack Obama.
You probably know what an acronym is, but do you know what a BACKRONYM is? It was at 17A today, clued with “CARES, for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, e.g..” An acronym is when you take the first letters of a phrase or name and create a new word out of them. So, e.g., North Atlantic Treaty Organization gives us the acronym NATO. A backronym is the same operation but in reverse. You start with the single word and name the item using those letters. In the puzzle clue, Congress started with CARES as the name of the legislation and used those letters to come up with Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
A great example is the USA PATRIOT Act, where that was the “shorthand” name Congress wanted to use, so they made up from it the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Rolls right off the tongue, no?
How about RED HOT POKER at 21A for “Flower whose name sounds like a branding iron.” Ouch. That’s new to me, although I think I’ve seen them. Their formal name is kniphofia, after Johann Hieronymus Kniphof, an 18th-century German physician and botanist.
There was also a SEA LILY today, at 36D, “Marine animal that resembles a flower.” The sea lily is a “crinoid” that is attached to the sea bottom by a stalk. The unstalked forms are called “feather stars.” Here’s a sea lily.
In the Midwest, fossilized segments of the columns of crinoids are sometimes known as Indian beads. A species of crinoid is the state fossil of Missouri. I didn’t even know states had official fossils. New Jersey’s is a lizard-like dinosaur, the Hadrosaurus. Cute!
Today is King Kamehameha I Day, honoring the monarch who established the kingdom of Hawai’i. I’m not kidding — he has been in puzzles at least twice pretty recently, so I have heard of him. Here’s a poem in honor of the day, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation. It’s From Understory, by Craig Santos Perez.
For my wife, Nālani, and our daughter, Kaikainali‘i, on her first birthday
nālani clips
kaikainali‘i’s tinyfingernails while
she sleeps —“the rape
of oceaniabegan with
guam” — soldiersinvade okinawa,
hawai‘i, thephilippines, and
south korea —#yesallwomen
how do[we] stop
kaikainali‘i’s bodyfrom becoming
target practice —bullets fragment
and ricochet —nālani brushes
kaikainali‘i’s hairwhen she
wakes, singsthe names
of bodyparts in
hawaiian language —who will
remember thenames of
girls disappearedfrom reservations
and maquiladorasfrom villages
and schools#mmiw #mmaw
#bringbackourgirlsnālani gathers
the clippingsbecause even
[our] nailsare ten
percent water —outside, mānoa
rain fallsas large
as eggs —inside, nālani
lies onher side
to breast-feed kaikainali‘i
in bed —they fall
asleep facingeach other,
still latched —i nestle
with themand, for
a moment,kaikainali‘i smiles —
what doesshe dream
about? herdeep breath
rises andfalls like
king tides —her fragile
rib cageappears and
disappears likea coral
island crowning —my daughter,
i knowour stories
are heavierthan stones,
but youmust carry
them withyou no
matter howfar from
home thestorms take
your canoebecause you
will alwaysfind shelter
in ourstories, you
will alwaysbelong in
our stories,you will
always besacred in
our oceanof stories —
hanom hanom
OK — here’s the actual headline in the Times: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s Former Leader, Is Arrested in Financial Inquiry.
Here’s what they should have used: Sturgeon Netted by Authorities; Accused of Fishy Behavior.
C’mon, fellas — that’s low-hanging fruit.
In March of 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old woman. The victim identified him as her assailant and he wrote out and signed a confession after he was interrogated. It was signed at 1:30 pm on March 13, 1963. A jury found Miranda guilty in June and the conviction was upheld on appeal by Arizona Supreme Court. It ruled the confession was admissible despite his not having a lawyer present.
You may have guessed by now where we’re heading. The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case on appeal and reversed the conviction in 1966. It was a 5-4 decision. In so doing, it established the requirement for the police to provide suspects with certain warnings, which have become known as the Miranda warnings.
Ernesto was retried in 1967 without the confession, and was found guilty again. He was paroled in 1972 and stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976. He had been trading on his “celebrity” by selling Miranda warning cards for $1.50 each. The price hasn’t gone up much over the years. You can get this one on Amazon for $1.74.
Miranda was first taken into custody by Carroll Cooley, a detective on the Phoenix police force. Cooley played it by the book, as the book was written at the time. He was college-educated, a good cop, and a good man. He disagreed with the Supreme Court decision, saying it would hamper crime-fighting. He said Miranda was aware of his rights without receiving the specific warnings since he was an ex-con who had been through the process before. Cooley was promoted to captain and retired in 1978. He later taught as an adjunct prof in a police certification program at U. Illinois, and volunteered at the Phoenix Police Museum, which unveiled an exhibit about the Miranda case in 2013.
Cooley died two weeks ago at the age of 87 in his home in Phoenix. He is survived by his wife, who is known as Glee, two children and two stepchildren, 12 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren, every one of whom is well aware of his or her right to remain silent.
And here’s Miranda:
See you tomorrow!
-
Telescopium
John Hawksley’s puzzle today had two five-answer stacks in the center, with each answer eleven letters. One stack ran across and the other down. Pretty impressive, IMO. One of the acrosses was “Blame-shifting words,” and the answer was HE STARTED IT. It called to mind this scene:
One of the prettiest clues was “Who wrote ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’” Ring a bell?
The author is Emily BRONTË, and the quotation is spoken by Catherine about Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights.” Here’s Kate Bush. (Brace yourself for her voice. It’s a good song once you settle into it (IMO).)
14D was tough because I don’t know the constellations. The clue was “Constellation named for the instrument it depicts.” I kept thinking of musical instruments, but the answer was TELESCOPIUM. There was some griping, but it was gettable from the crosses, so all is well.
Commenter kitchef added:
As a general note, a lot of the Southern constellations are named for instruments. I swear I am not making these up:
Microscopium (the microscope)
Antlia (the air pump)
Circinus (the drafting compass)
Norma (the carpenter’s square)
Sextus (the sextant)I posted that the Florida legislature voted to remove Sextus from the sky over Florida.
At 32D, the clue was “Quoth the raven?,” but the answer was not Nevermore! Yikes — what to do? It turned out to be CAWCAWED. Good one!
The commentariat erupted over 34D: “Prudent poker player perhaps,” and the answer was PASSER. Apparently, you pass in bridge. In poker you “check.”
Commenter Jim led the seething chorus with “I was actually genuinely angry at PASSER. That is absolutely NOT A THING in poker. Unbelievably shoddy.”
OK — take a breath.
Here’s a still of Kate Bush.
Hey, ladies — ever need to get away from it all? Seek refuge? That buffoon you married has his mancave — where do you go? How about 33D? — “Certain zen retreat.” Your MOM CAVE. What goes in there? Alcohol for sure. Chocolate? Playgirl magazines? Maybe you can find the one with George Maharis.
At 53A we learn that a “Natural treatment for nausea” is GINGER. Here’s sexy Tina Louise (nee Blacker) from Gilligan’s Island, everyone’s favorite Ginger. Aren’t I right, Lovey? Looking good TL!
Did you know Ginger’s last name in the show was Grant? Tina is the last living Gilligan Islander — she’s 89, kinahora. Her dad owned a candy store in Brooklyn before becoming an accountant. In 1958, the National Art Council named her “The World’s Most Beautiful Redhead.” Yup, we can see that.
Tina was only married for five years (’66 to ’71) and it was to Les Crane, radio and TV announcer/interviewer. They had one daughter, Caprice Crane, an MTV producer and novelist. Caprice dedicated her first novel to her mom.
Check this out: The clue at 31A was “Roman statesman for whom a Midwest city was named,” and the answer was CINCINNATUS.
Carola shared this with us:
“I learned about him on a visit to ‘his’ city, where there is a wonderful, full-building-sized mural dedicated to him. It’s a trompe l’oeil [fool the eye] tour de force. Take a look: none of the architectural elements are real; everything is painted on an unbroken flat surface.”
Saul Bellow was born on this day, 110 years ago, in Lachine, Quebec. The Adventures of Augie March (1953) made him famous. Although Bellow’s family moved to Chicago when he was nine, not a word of the novel was written there. It’s worth a minute to read the opening sentences again.
“I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man’s character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn’t any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.”
Here he is, being disturbed at his breakfast by Owl Chatter photographer Phil. (Much better, Philly — no more wake-ups please!)
Thanks for popping in. See you tomorrow!
-
Glum Drops
Did you forget to send a card? Me too. It’s Bertha von Suttner’s birthday today. She may not put you on her sh*tlist, though — she’s been dead for over 100 years. She was a novelist and pacifist and was the second woman to win a Nobel prize — for Peace. (The first was Marie Curie for Physics.) What’s neat, though, is she knew Alfred Nobel personally, and it was her influence on him that convinced him to leave money in his will for the creation of the Peace Prize.
Von Suttner is depicted on the Europe Taler, along with Martin Luther, Vivaldi, and James Watt. It’s the largest silver-medal coin in the world, issued in 2008, i.e., it is awarded in some competitions to the silver medal winner.
I sent a selection to Frank Bruni for his “For the love of sentences” feature. It’s from Charles Blow’s Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s NYT.
“These [anti-gay, anti-trans] politicians play to a segment of the population that sees any divergence from its primitive ideals as deviant. So they build boxes. But for too many people, particularly young people, those boxes can become caskets. . . “
Blow goes on to note that, according to the CDC, one in five gay, lesbian, or bisexual high school students attempted suicide in the past year. Those are actual attempts, not just reports that they considered it. So, e.g., (check me on this, Judy), if a HS has a gay club with 20 members, statistically, four will have tried to kill themselves in the past year. Lianna has two good friends who are trans. They are wonderful young people and do not deserve to be the target of political and legislative attacks.
In the puzzle today 58A was “Like some Brie,” and the answer was RUNNY. The question arose as to why Brie was capitalized. Commenter bocamp shared the following from ChatGPT:
“The capitalization of ‘Brie’ cheese is a matter of grammar and style conventions. In English, proper nouns, which are names of specific people, places, or things, are typically capitalized. ‘Brie’ in ‘Brie cheese’ refers to a specific type of cheese that originated in the Brie region of France. Since it is named after the region, ‘Brie’ is considered a proper noun and is capitalized.
“Capitalizing ‘Brie’ helps distinguish it as a specific cheese variety and emphasizes its connection to the region from which it comes. It follows the same convention as other proper nouns, such as ‘Camembert cheese’ or ‘Cheddar cheese.’ By capitalizing the name, it also adheres to grammatical rules for written English.
“Capitalization conventions may vary in different languages or writing styles. Specific style guides or publications may choose to deviate from the general rules. However, in standard English, capitalizing “Brie” when referring to the cheese is the accepted practice.”
But Joe DePinto chimed in with:
“You don’t really have to capitalize cheeses that were named for locations if you are referring to them in a generic way. Almost no one capitalizes ‘cheddar,’ which is named for a village in England. The name comes to symbolize the taste, texture, look, etc., much more than where it’s actually from. Your runny brie cheese may not have been produced in the region of Brie or even in France.”
Today’s constructor, Robyn Weintraub, is widely loved and respected in Crossworld. Here are some of her very clever clues:
17A: “Animals that all share the same ‘birthday’ (January 1).” The answer is RACEHORSES. I think I may have heard this before. Whenever a racehorse is born during the year, it is considered one year old on the following Jan. 1. Setting a standard birth date for racehorses makes it easy to determine its acceptability for races based on age.
25A: “Game you can’t stand to win.” ANS: MUSICAL CHAIRS. (Get it?)
56A: “Alternative to an elbow.” ANS: PSST (Get it?)
57A: How about this one? — “Contronym that means moving quickly or not moving at all.” A contronym is a word that means both itself and its opposite. The answer is FAST. To “hold fast” means to not move at all. Another example is to sanction. It means both to allow and to censure.
And how about this lively cluing for some simple boring words:
“Glum drops,” for TEARS.
“65%, e.g.,” for MOST
“Some queens but not kings,” for BEES.
Here’s Robyn!
Ted – can you help me close tonight? This is from Winter Morning Walks.
An old moon, lying akilter
among a few pale stars,
and so quiet on the road
I can hear every bone in my body
hefting some part of me
over its shoulder. Behind me,
my shadow stifles a cough
as it tries to keep up,
for I have set out fast and hard
against this silence,
filling my lungs with hope
on this, my granddaughter’s
birthday, her first, and the day
of my quarterly cancer tests.
Thanks, Buddy. See you all tomorrow!
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
The Wellington Files 