The Wellington Files

  • My Son, the King

    I went to a funeral service last night for Tony Zhang, the husband of Wei (Vicky), who teaches with me at Hunter. They have a beautiful 9-year-old son, Ryan, who played a song on the piano to open the service. While they were vacationing in Wyoming, a terrible car crash took Tony’s life. He was only 48. Ryan was hurt, and had to be helicoptered to a hospital, but he’s fine now. The first speaker was Tony’s father, who flew in from China and spoke in Chinese. Several friends spoke next. Then Wei spoke at length and ran the gamut of emotions, from grief to laughter, recounting stories. Behind the open casket, there were arrangements of white roses, a Chinese tradition. Tony had both a PhD in Chemistry from RPI, and a law degree from Suffolk Law School. By all accounts, he was a true mensch — look at that sweet punim — and will be deeply missed by his family, friends, and colleagues.

    My colleague Ken was also there. We were chatting before the service began, and I know he has a son who was previously his daughter so I asked him if he saw Barbie yet. I was half-joking. Ken was taken aback for a second and reminded me that his ex-wife was named Barbara and they were sometimes referred to as “Ken and Barbie.” He hasn’t seen the movie.

    When Wei spoke, Ken said he didn’t think it was common for a surviving spouse to speak at a service. Then he remembered a story about an Economics professor at Penn whose wife died and who gave the eulogy at the funeral and was arrested for her murder several days later. “That’s cold,” I said.

    Ken thought he was still in prison, but Google tells me he served the maximum ten years and was released in 2017. His name is Rafael Robb. It wasn’t exactly murder — he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. His wife, Ellen, retained a divorce lawyer and was planning to move out. They had a fight while she was wrapping Christmas gifts, always a stressful time, and he bludgeoned her to death.

    I hope it’s not too creepy, but here’s a shot of her hands moments before she was killed. [I’m joking — it’s a random shot I found on the interweb. But I will go pretty low for a laugh from time to time.]

    I may have shared this story before, but it’s good, so if I have it’s worth repeating. (Linda tells me most of my cooking repeats on her.) It’s the poet Stanley Kunitz’s birthday today. He was born in Worcester MA and lived to be 100. He was teaching at Bennington when the college tried to expel a student of his three months before her graduation for alcohol-related violations. Kunitz organized a protest and the president of the college came to his home to tell him to stop. Kunitz was potting a plant at the time. He threw the plant at the president and quit. The student was Miriam Marx, Groucho’s daughter. The protest was not successful.

    Miriam went on to be a writer at Mademoiselle, and later worked on her father’s hysterical quiz show, You Bet Your Life. In her 1992 book, Love, Groucho: Letters from Groucho Marx to His Daughter Miriam, she detailed her battle against addiction, her difficult relationship with Groucho, and their eventual reconciliation. She died in 2017 at age 90.

    Did you know that King David’s father’s name was JESSE? I forgot or never knew that, but that wasn’t what did me in today — it was 33A: “Delivery room offering, informally.” The answer was EPI, for epidural. I know epidural, but I never heard it called EPI. Oh, well.

    Here’s Jessica Chastain who won an Oscar for Best Actress in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. She played one of the eyes, very expressively. Chastain is highly protective of her private life, but I was able to find out (it’s on Wikipedia) that she married Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo [I’m not kidding], an Italian count of the Passi de Preposulo noble family, who is an executive for the fashion brand Moncler, on June 10, 2017 at his family’s estate in Carbonera, Italy, which was Linda’s and my 33rd anniversary. They have two daughters.

    I am aware that the link between the appearance of JESSE in the puzzle, clued as King David’s father, and the actress Jessica Chastain is tenuous. But it’s a slow news day for Chatter, and she has unusually colored eyes.

    The commentariat gave a ton of grief to the constructor, Sam Ezersky, an old hand, for 11A: “Canal implement.” The canal is your ear canal, and the answer was Q-TIP, but many pointed out that you are not supposed to insert a Q-TIP into the canal — it says so right on the package, for Cripe’s sake! But doesn’t everyone?

    A few days ago I vented here about a woman who got on the subway and blocked the way for the rest of us. Well, here’s a story about the commission of the same “crime” with a very happy ending. It’s from this week’s Met Diary, and was told by John Diefendorf.

    On a sweltering Saturday in summer 1995, I was 25, hung over and waiting for the No. 1 train at 116th Street with a friend. We were on our way to Penn Station to pick up another friend.

    When the train arrived, I stepped inside and stopped immediately so that I could lean against the door when it closed. A moment later I felt a sharp jab to my ribs and heard a stern, “Step aside!”

    I apologized sheepishly.

    The elbow jabber turned and looked at me. She was a petite woman about my age, and something happened when our eyes met.

    “You’re not from around here, are you?” she said.

    “No,” I said, feeling myself blush. “I just moved here from upstate.”

    “You apologized,” she said, smiling. “That’s how I knew.”

    “I just finished a parks restoration job upstate,” she continued. “Where did you live?”

    By the time we got to Penn Station, I had her phone number and we had arranged to meet with a group of her friends and mine at an East Village bar that night.

    We talked until 4 a.m., then went for falafels at Mamoun’s on St. Marks until the sun came up. June 27 was our 25th wedding anniversary.

    We cannot let slip by a rave review of a new book on owls: “What an Owl Knows,” by Jennifer Ackerman. It sounds like a long love letter to our favorite bird. Here’s an eggs zerpt from Jennifer Szalai’s review: Each species seems like a marvel, but certain owls are so special that her book is peppered with superlatives. The Eurasian eagle owl is “the most powerful hunter of all owls” (though not to be mistaken for the powerful owl, which will eat as many as 250 to 350 possums a year). The Northern saw-whet is, she says, “arguably the world’s most adorable owl,” with its heart-shaped face and tiny, rounded form. Blakiston’s fish owl is “the world’s biggest owl.” 

    Here’s a trio of Northern saw-whets. Have you ever seen owls like these?

    The title of the review is “Give a Hoot.” We do! See you tomorrow.

  • “I Teach Those Birds”

    The clue at 57A today was “Polyamory portmanteau.” I love portmanteaus. It’s when you squoosh two words together (like squeeze and shmoosh). The answer was THROUPLE. Rex didn’t like it — he said he would have preferred “threedom.” (Let threedom ring!, he wrote.) It gave me the opening to post:

    If a throuple decides to end it and winds up in court over who gets the property, it’s a three-piece suit.

    When my wife asked if I picked up my outfit for the wedding, I told her I had the jacket and pants but the vest was yet to come.

    My buddy “mathgent,” see below. added this:

    I had some fun just now looking up THROUPLE (rhymes with “couple”) and menage a trois, and trying to figure out the difference. I think that a THROUPLE can all be of the same sex, menages are two and one. And in a THROUPLE, each member typically will have sex with the other two, not so in a menage.

    Good to know.

    NEVADA was the answer at 2D, clued with “Home to the U.S. city with the most hotel rooms.” It led Son Volt to share this tune by Deer Tick with us, called “Nevada.”

    From the “You-Can’t-Win” Department:

    On a family trip about 25 years ago, which included Nevada, I learned that I had been mispronouncing it my whole life (till then). I was saying Nevada like Nev-ah-da, but the locals said it with the “a” as in arrow. I immediately started pronouncing it correctly. My teenaged daughter continued to pronounce it Nev-ah-da. I said, “Caity — we just learned that the people who live here pronounce it Nevada.” And she said, “Well, I don’t live here.”

    D’oh!

    The puzzle went somewhere it doesn’t usually go with PAD and TAMPON. And Natasha said: “I loved that this puzzle had PAD and TAMPON cross-referencing each other and a neutral reference to “polyamory.” I didn’t love ENGAGEMENTPARTY as the marquis answer, however. F*** the wedding-industrial complex and amatonormativity.” [Wow.]

    “Amatonormativity” is a neologism coined by Elizabeth Brake, a philosophy prof at Rice University, in 2011. (Long-grained) It’s the assumption that all human beings pursue love or romance, especially by means of a monogamous long-term relationship.

    It’s a two-poem day at Owl Chatter (Hi Jenny!). This first one is from The Writer’s Almanac. It’s called “My Ancestral Home” and is by Louis Jenkins.

    We came to a beautiful little farm. From photos
    I’d seen I knew this was the place. The house
    and barn were painted in the traditional Falu
    red, trimmed with white. It was nearly mid-
    summer, the trees and grass, lush green, when
    we arrived the family was gathered at a table
    on the lawn for coffee and fresh strawberries.
    Introductions were made all around, Grandpa
    Sven, Lars-Olaf and Marie, Eric and Gudren,
    Cousin Inge and her two children… It made me
    think of a Carl Larsson painting. But, of course,
    it was all modern, the Swedes are very up-to-
    date, Lars-Olaf was an engineer for Volvo, and
    they all spoke perfect English, except for
    Grandpa, and there was a great deal of laughter
    over my attempts at Swedish. We stayed for a
    long time laughing and talking. It was late in
    the day, but the sun was still high. I felt a won-
    derful kinship. It seemed to me that I had
    known these people all my life, they even
    looked like family back in the States. But as it
    turned out, we had come to the wrong farm.
    Lars-Olaf said, “I think I know your people, they
    live about three miles from here. If you like I
    could give them a call.” I said that no, it wasn’t
    necessary, this was close enough.

    The clue at 27A today was “Outdoor installation using earth, rocks, vegetation, etc.,” and the answer was LAND ART, something I hadn’t heard of. It started LMS off on quite a paragraph. As you should recall, she teaches disadvantaged kids in NC. She talks about being moved to tears in it, and that’s what happened to me.

    “I kept thinking about that LAND ART. As always, when ART comes up, I feel inferior and intimidated. I just don’t ‘get’ most art. The emotion I’m supposed to experience never happens. I take that back; once at the Louvre, a painting by Georges de la Tour rendered me speechless, stunned. And Maya Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird’ poem makes me cry every time. When that caged bird ‘opens his throat to sing … a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still,’ I’m overcome. I teach those birds, caged by the crappy circumstances they were born into, caged by the failure of our collapsing educational system, caged by the ignorance of the everyman who refuses to see their very real, very vast potential.”

    Here it is, in case it’s been too long since you’ve read it:

    A free bird leaps
    on the back of the wind
    and floats downstream
    till the current ends
    and dips his wing
    in the orange sun rays
    and dares to claim the sky.

    But a bird that stalks
    down his narrow cage
    can seldom see through
    his bars of rage
    his wings are clipped and
    his feet are tied
    so he opens his throat to sing.

    The caged bird sings
    with a fearful trill
    of things unknown
    but longed for still
    and his tune is heard
    on the distant hill
    for the caged bird
    sings of freedom.

    The free bird thinks of another breeze
    and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
    and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
    and he names the sky his own.

    But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
    his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
    his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
    so he opens his throat to sing.

    The caged bird sings
    with a fearful trill
    of things unknown
    but longed for still
    and his tune is heard
    on the distant hill
    for the caged bird
    sings of freedom.

    I got a nice e-note from “mathgent” yesterday, much appreciated. LIMERICK was in the puzzle and several folks shared limericks with us, including one on rabbits. It lead me to post this joke:

    So these two life-long friends, Pete and Louie, make a pact that when the first one of them dies, he’ll come back after a year and tell the other what the afterlife is like. Years go by and Pete slips on a banana peel (badly) and dies. A year later Louie is waiting up, nervously, hoping to hear from Pete. But it’s midnight, then 1 am, and there’s nothing, so he falls asleep.

    A few hours later, it’s pitch dark and he hears “PSST, PSST, Louie.” And he wakes up and says “Pete! You came back!! So what’s it like?” And Pete says, “Well, I get up in the morning, have sex, and then have a little breakfast. Then I have sex again, and then again, and then I have lunch. After lunch, I have sex again, and then again, and then dinner. And then there’s sex one more time and I go to sleep.”

    And Louie says, “Wow, so that’s really what heaven is like?” And Pete says, “Who said anything about heaven? — I’m a rabbit in Colorado.”

    I posted the joke fairly late in the day (4:30PM), so wasn’t expecting much of a response. But around 6:30, I got this email, which made my evening:

    Dear Avi,

    It’s too late to reply on the blog.  Your joke cracked me up.  Then I read it to my wife, who also doubled over.  Great one.

    mathgent

    Quite an EGO BOOST, right? Well, the clue at 34D today was “Spirit-raising?” and the answer was EGO BOOST. It led LMS to post the following from which I learned that “peruse” is a contronym, i.e., a word that means both what it means and its opposite. Like “sanction” means both to allow and to punish. Peruse means both to skim over something and to study it carefully. Here’s what she wrote:

    Loved EGO BOOST. Since BOOST can also mean “steal,” that phrase could *almost* be one of those Janus dealies like sanction and peruse. You can get your ego boosted by a compliment or a put-down. Last year, I called the mom of a student from the Congo because I wanted to tell her how terrific her son was. When she answered with an accented, tentative, Hello, I knew I was in trouble. Vic had told me that they speak Lingala, and my Lingala consists of one word: mbote. But I forged ahead. Parlez-vous francais? … Oui. I proceeded to tell her in French how lovely her son was – nice, smart, respectful. The next day my conversation with Vic went something like this:

    Me: Did your mom tell you I called?
    Vic: Yes
    Me: Did she tell you I spoke to her in French?
    Vic: Yeah. She said your French isn’t that good.

    EGO. BOOSTed. Ouch. Hey – I haven’t really spoken French in almost 40 years. But he assured me that she understood what I was saying.

    On the Barbie front, I suggested to Daughter #1 that she take the girls (Lianna, almost 14, and Zoey, 8) to see it as a nice mother/daughter outing. And she told me Lianna already saw it and hated it. D’oh!

    Here’s MR, out of character:

    That’s a pretty note to end on. See you tomorrow!

  • The Price is Wrong

    There were some good entries in Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature. From The Forward (the Yiddish/English paper), on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Rob Eshman noted: “Sometimes the apple falls so far from the tree, you can’t even believe it’s an apple.”

    And in WAPO Ron Charles wrote about censorship from any side of the aisle: “Speech codes and book bans may start in opposing camps, but both warm their hands over freedom’s ashes.”

    Hey, readers!! Are you as upset as I am over this? Are you up in arms? The clue at 49D today was “Showcase guesstimate on a TV game show.” The show, of course, is The Price is Right, and the answer was PRICE. Infuriating, right? Here’s what George F. wrote (and he was not alone in making the point):

    “The clue for 49 Down is flat out wrong. The *Showcase* on The Price Is Right is when you ‘guesstimate’ a Price. The *Showcase Showdown* is the spinning of the Big Wheel to determine which contestant advances to the Showcase round. (Yeah, I’m a TPIR nerd … and a recent contestant!) I’m actually going to write NYT about this one …”

    God Bless the nitpickers!

    “Root in potpourri” was ORRIS, new to me (I think — who can remember this stuff?). It’s also used in perfume. In Japan, the roots and leaves of the plant were hung in the eaves of a house for protection from evil spirits. Other uses include as a love potion, with the root powder in sachets, or sprinkled around the house or sheets of a bedroom.

    Actor ED HARRIS popped by the grid today, clued with “Oscar nominee for ‘Pollock’ and ‘The Truman Show.’” I always liked Harris: “Failure is not an option.” He’s a Jersey boy, born in Englewood and raised in Tenafly. He was a star athlete at Tenafly HS and captain of the football team. He was also on the football team at Columbia U, playing alongside future US AG Eric Holder.

    Harris and actress Amy Madigan have been married for 40 years, and they have a daughter, Lily Dolores. During the 71st Academy Awards, Harris and Madigan openly dissed Elia Kazan by staying in their seats and not applauding when he received an honorary award. This was due to Kazan’s ratting out his friends as communists before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, resulting in their being blacklisted. Kazan never apologized.

    New York magazine once described Harris as “the thinking woman’s sex symbol.” [Not to boast (much), but in high school, I was known as “the pastrami-eating woman’s sex symbol.”]

    I gave my first exam in my summer tax class today. Ten students took it and two of them came up to me before it started and asked if I had an extra pencil. I did, but how does that happen? Where are their heads? Of course, I drove Lianna to her tennis camp this morning and we had to turn around and go back for her racquet. Hmmmmm.

    Women’s World Cup Soccer is heating up. Owl Chatter looks forward to getting into it as matters progress. Break a leg, Ladies!

    See you tomorrow!

  • The Floor Needs Sweeping

    It’s Jean Shepherd’s birthday today, “Shep,” 1921, in Chicago. He died in Florida at age 78, back in 1999. I was just a little too young to be a fan, but my brother and sister loved him. He was on WOR, the radio station, late at night, and he just talked. And talked. And talked. Told wonderful funny stories. No one else did that — he was unique and brilliant. He was a precursor to Spalding Gray and Garrison Keillor. And if you need some proof of how important he was as a figure in American Humor, Jerry Seinfeld said  “He really formed my entire comedic sensibility—I learned how to do comedy from Jean Shepherd.” The first name of Seinfeld’s third child is Shepherd.

    When he was about to be released by WOR in 1956 for lack of sponsors, he did a commercial for Sweetheart Soap, not a sponsor, and was immediately fired. His listeners besieged WOR with complaints, and when Sweetheart offered to sponsor him, he was reinstated. Eventually, he attracted more sponsors than he wanted—the commercials interrupted the flow of his monologues.

    He’d organize stunts with his listeners. The most famous was a hoax he created about a nonexistent book, I, Libertine, by a fake author “Frederick R. Ewing,” in 1956. During a discussion on how easy it was to manipulate the best-seller lists based on demand, as well as sales, Shepherd suggested that his listeners visit bookstores and ask for a copy of I, Libertine, which led to booksellers attempting to order the book from their distributors. Fans of the show planted references to the book and author so widely that demand for the book led to claims of it being on The NYT Best Seller list. Then — the kicker — Shepherd, author Theodore Sturgeon, and Betty Ballantine actually wrote the damn thing, with a cover by illustrator Frank Kelly Freas, and it was published by Ballantine Books.

    The hoax was so successful that I, Libertine became the talk of the town, even earning the unique distinction of being banned by the Archdiocese of Boston, despite the fact that it didn’t yet exist. I, Libertine covers the bawdy misdeeds of Captain Lance Courtenay as he carelessly romps through the royal court and the bedchambers of London’s finest ladies. It is a hilarious, picaresque adventure that Ewing himself would certainly have been proud to call his own, if he had existed. Jean Shepherd makes me sad, because I associate him so strongly with my older brother and sister, Jay and Bonnie, who were my whole world when I was a little boy, and who are gone.

    This poem from Today’s Writer’s Almanac is by David Sanger, and it’s called “My Daughter’s Morning.”

    My daughter’s morning streams
    over me like a gang of butterflies
    as I, sour-mouthed and not ready
    for the accidents I expect

    of my day, greet her early:
    her sparkle is as the edge of new
    ice on leafed pools, while I
    am soggy, tepid; old toast.

    Yet I am the first version
    of later princes; for all my blear
    and bluish jowl I am welcomed
    as though the plastic bottle

    I hold were a torch and
    my robe not balding terry.
    For her I bring the day; warm
    milk, new diaper, escapades;

    she lowers all bridges and
    sings to me most beautifully
    in her own language while
    I fumble with safety pins.

    I am not made young
    by my daughter’s mornings;
    I age relentlessly.

    Yet I am made to marvel
    at the durability of newness
    and the beauty of my new one.

    Vermont Lizzie tells me she’s worried about Robert’s deficient gardening skills affecting the care of Susan’s garden. I won’t alarm you with the deets about the near-disaster involving “hideous red-dyed mulch.” The team had to come down hard on him, but harm was averted. Looks pretty good to me.

    Everyone thought a clue/answer from yesterday’s puzzle was unusually good. The clue was “Two things associated with Gene Simmons?” The answer was KISSANDMAKEUP. It helps if you know who Gene Simmons is, which I didn’t. I confused him with Richard Simmons that little funny gym guy. Gene is the lead singer in the heavily-made up rock band Kiss.

    In the Nitpicking Dept., Weezie had trouble with MACE being clued by “A spice related to nutmeg.” She or he wrote:

    MACE is not a spice “related” to nutmeg; they are the exact same species and different parts of the same plant. Nutmeg is the seed itself while mace is the covering. In my wayward youth, I stayed with a stoner friend at a solar-powered chocolate factory on the island of Grenada, and got to taste fresh mace (as well as cacao fruit while helping restore an overgrown grove, tangy!). That was followed by a few weeks on a moored sailboat off the coast of Carriacou (a small Grenadian island). Nutmeg and mace are major exports of Grenada, so that trip left me with a nostalgic fondness for the spices.

    jberg came back with: Well, the clue says the spices are related, not that they come from related plants. Like my fingernail is related to my finger, or at least that’s how I read it.

    In today’s puzzle, the clue at 35A was “What a guitar gently does in a 1968 Beatles song.” Well, you all know that one, right? — WEEPS. Joaquin shared this brilliant version from the concert honoring George Harrison after his death, featuring Clapton and McCartney, with Ringo on the drums (voo den?). George’s son Dhani is the young man on one of the backup guitars. You could do worse with six minutes than give it a listen.

    Not gonna try to top that. See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in.

  • Cow Tools

    According to The Writer’s Almanac, yesterday was the anniversary of Brigham Young’s leading his people into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake (1847). They were tired of taking sh*t as Mormons in Illinois and were looking for a new settlement. Young got sick during the journey from eating spoiled herring (we’ve all been there), and was lying prostrate in a wagon when they reached the Valley. Legend has it, he was able to describe the scene below without looking. After he sat up, he said, “This is the right place. Drive on.” No disrespect, but if they’re counting that as a miracle, it’s pretty weak, no? Part some waters or do some stuff with fire and then come back to us. [I made up the detail about the herring to zhuzh it up.]

    Here’s the Valley, with sort of a religious-looking sky. Thanks, Philly!

    Can something be funny and horrific at the same time? As a follow-up to yesterday’s note about DeSantis’s middle school curriculum noting that slaves benefited from picking up skills on the job, Andy Borowitz had the following headline today: “Unskilled Florida Man Regrets Missing Out on Being Enslaved.”

    In a desperate, but hopelessly doomed, effort to stay in touch with the zeitgeist from under my rock, I read the review of the Barbie movie at Ebert.com, just to pick a site I have heard of. It’s by Christy Lemire and is an across-the-board rave. If you’re interested, it’s at https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/barbie-movie-review-2023. Today’s review by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker was favorable but less so. It says “watching the first half hour of this movie is like being water boarded with Pepto-Bismol.” He concedes the movie is fun, though, albeit in fragments.

    According to The Times, Barbie far exceeded ticket-sale expectations. Some theaters ran out of snacks and drinks! The audience was only 65% female. One Warner Bros. hotshot said “for a film this pink” you’d expect 90% female.

    As you may have noted, its clear feminist empowerment theme has the right wing up in arms. Fox News has repeated attacks on the film over everything from “wokeness” to inclusivity. One such segment amplified the call against “Barbie” coming from Movieguide, a Christian movie review site, that read, “Warning: Don’t take your daughter to Barbie.” The segment criticized the film for the inclusion of a transgender performer (actor Hari Nef) and for presenting “LGBTQ stories.”

    Are you troubled by the implication that trans actors should not be given roles? Does anyone else hear an echo of Nazi regulations barring Jews from professions? Hello? Anyone?

    AOC posted: “Love how Republican Congressmen are just now hating on Barbie because she’s ‘too woke’ …like, hello, this was a doll made for little girls who was a DOCTOR and an ASTRONAUT before women in the US were even allowed to have credit cards without their husband’s permission. Of course they’re mad! They want the old days back.”

    They thought they could do damage with a call for a boycott like they did with Bud Light. But beer drinkers tend to skew right, while Barbie-goers are all pinkos. [Owl Chatter is proud of that line.] The boycott call had about as much effect as a burp in a windstorm.

    May Haaf, below, said seeing the movie with her 9-year-old daughter, Arya, was a bonding event and a way to celebrate female empowerment. Both wore matching white and pink “Barbie” T-shirts. “It’s like a new generation of movies where women can be individuals and not be married, and you don’t have to settle for anything,” Haaf said.

    Amen to that. Phil! — OMG, this may be the sweetest shot you’ve ever turned in. You da man!

    Readers, are you familiar with this cartoon? It’s called “Cow Tools.”

    It’s by Gary Larson from The Far Side and was published in October of 1982. Rex’s guest blogger Malaika included it in her write-up yesterday, sans explanation, perhaps because TOOLS was in the puzzle and her first thought about the theme was that it might be bovine-related (it wasn’t). I don’t “get” the cartoon — do you?

    There’s a big difference between finding a cartoon not funny, and not being able to see what it’s getting at. Most New Yorker cartoons these days, IMO, are just not funny. For example, in the issue I just received, there’s one with a husband and wife talking in their sun room, and he’s saying “I wouldn’t say I’m an indoor person or an outdoor person. I’m more of a screened-in-porch person.” Again, IMO, anyone who thinks that’s funny should not be in charge of cartoons, amirite? But at least I understand it. The “cow tools,” above, just eludes me. And I’m not the only one, and it’s gotten kind of famous.

    According to Wikipedia, immediately upon the cartoon’s publication, Chronicle Features, which syndicated The Far Side, was inundated with queries seeking an explanation. “The phone never stopped ringing for two days.” Larson himself received hundreds of letters. In one, a reader from Texas wrote that they had shown the cartoon to “40-odd professionals with doctoral degrees,” and none could understand it.

    In response to the uproar, Larson issued a press release clarifying that the cartoon was “an exercise in silliness,” and its thrust was simply that, if a cow were to make tools, they would “lack something in sophistication.” He had read that one thing that separates man from animals is the use of tools, so it got him thinking of what sort of tools a cow would come up with. I kinda like it. Larson did concede that he erred in making one of the tools resemble a crude saw, which misled many readers into believing that to understand the cartoon’s message, they needed to decipher the identities of the other three tools.

    The cartoon has become a popular internet meme, hence Malaika’s use of it in her discussion.

    But that didn’t get her into hot water. Another comment of hers ruffled some feathers, unreasonably, it seems to me. Here’s the story: As I reported in yesterday’s Owl Chatter, for the clue “‘That’s hilarious!,’ in a text,” the answer was LOL. Malaika wrote: “I get that it’s boring to say ‘Will Shortz (70 yrs old) has a different frame of reference from Malaika (26 yrs old)’ but here I am, beating a dead horse around the bush, or whatever the saying is. That is simply not what LOL means anymore because language changes and evolves etc etc okay I’m done now.”

    First of all, people wanted to know what LOL does mean now, if not “laugh out loud.” And she was charged with being ageist. Here’s a comment by Anonymous:

    “yes, language changes. lol used to mean little old lady. if it doesn’t mean laugh out loud any longer, why didn’t you tell us what it does mean?
    also, why are you dissing on will shortz age when you can’t come up with an adage? your ageism is unbecoming.”

    Ouch!

    Another comment read:

    “Ah, the ever-online youth…
    LOL now is used as an addendum to indicate that a statement should not be taken seriously, which is SO much different that it requires ageism and generational mockery. The main thing that irks me is that our guest blogger seems to think that only the usage by 26 year-olds in year 2023 is legitimate. Enjoy it while it lasts, 16 year-olds are mocking you as you type…

    Ouch 2.0!

    I think those comments are very unfair. It’s not ageist to note that different generations have different frames of reference. There was a long New Yorker article on that about 7 years ago. And it is on point to note that the clue is out of date if LOL is not currently used as it used to be used. The consensus was that Malaika was not saying that LOL has taken on a particular new meaning, just that’s it’s no longer in use as “ha ha.”

    Enough nonsense for today. See you tomorrow!

  • Beating a Dead Horse Around the Bush

    What a wonderful Gnats game! The pre-paid parking worked and we got by the stadium security hitchlessly. It was CJ Abrams bobblehead day, so we each snapped one up, and found our way to our seats in the upper upper between home and first, with a great view of the entire field. Hey, CJ, looking good! Nod, or bobble, if you agree.

    The weather was perfect. Each team was pitching its ace: Logan Webb for the Jints and Jedidiah Gray for the Gnats. Play Ball!

    Gray started out by pitching 8 straight balls so it was first and second with no outs in like three seconds. Gulp. But a crisp double play followed a strikeout and it was no harm done. Webb set us down easily in the first. Trouble again for Gray in the second: man on second with no out. But a couple of pop outs helped quell the fire and we went to the bottom of the second tied at nil. And that was when all hell broke loose. A flurry of hits including a scorching triple by Alex Call to right center gave us a 4-0 lead, and Abrams (Mr. Bobblehead) lined a shot into the seats — so it was 6-0, sweet, but early. And Webb was gone. Bye, bye.

    Sure enough, the Jints began what is universally known in baseball and sculpting as “chipping away.” They got one back quickly, so our lead was down to five going into the bottom of the fourth. But then we got four more, pounding SF into submission. That’s how it ended: 10-1. Most of the crowd stayed for the whole game which is nice. With the new speed-up rules, it only took about 2.5 hrs. Gray pitched seven and got stronger as the night wore on. A very satisfying win with many excellent defensive plays on both sides.

    On Sunday, a short hike followed by a terrific crabmeat omelet for lunch ended our very nice stay in Charm City. Perfect for a three-night getaway.

    The Gnats may have won but I was thoroughly defeated by the puzzle yesterday. Among several blunders, I had no idea that “‘Victory!,’ in internet shorthand” is the initialism FTW. It stands for “for the win.” I won’t bore you with my other errors. Instead, I’ll bore you with 67D, TAMALES, the clue for which was “Steamed food items eaten with the hands.” Well, the commentariat exploded with as searing a battle as I’ve seen in a long while.

    The first blow was struck by SharonAk at 2:46AM who wrote: “I have eaten many tamales, but never with my hands without a fork in them. Nor have I seen them eaten thus. I have made tamales, rolled by hand – nearly 70 years ago.” An anonymous poster chimed in at 6:15AM with: I agree on the tamales. Burn your fingers eating by hand. And Mack piled on with: Count me as another who has never eaten tamales by hand. I can’t imagine how that can even work. Seems like trying to eat meatloaf with your hands. Joaquin got personal: Wanta a swift rebuke from my Mom? Eat your TAMALES as suggested in 57D (by hand). “No churros for you until you learn some manners.” It was still only 8:33AM.

    [As an ASS-side, before the battle began to rage, Southside Johnny said he was happy to see ASS in the grid again [who isn’t?], clued as “Real so-and-so,” and noted it was wonderfully paired with the nearby CHEEKY, clued with “Fresh.” Ha!]

    After 11, a smattering of Anony-mice said you gotta eat ’em with your hands because they are served to you in corn husks which make it perfect for holding. But Simon Says shot back: you need a fork because they are dripping with delicious chili-based sauces.

    A different Anonymous posted a video, which I enjoyed and learned from! Take a look: You can see which side of the matter it comes down on, fairly authoritatively.

    Finally, bocamp conferred with ChatGPT and came up with: “Yes, tamales can be eaten by hand! In fact, eating tamales by hand is a traditional and common way to enjoy them in many Latin American countries. The corn husk serves as a natural wrapper for the tamale, making it convenient to hold and eat without utensils.”

    I’ll leave it at that, and I hope to have one soon. Not sure yet how I’ll eat it. BTW, as the matter was batted around, it emerged that the proper term for a single one of them is not tamale, it’s tamal. Good to know.

    I loved yesterday’s puzzle, despite my DNF (did not finish). It was called Aural Surgery and it playfully took the sounds of two separate words to answer the clue, which was an entirely different word. E.g., for the clue “Nocturnal bird known for its distinct calls, informally,” the answer was comprised of WHO and TOWEL. Get it? Hoot owl, aurally. Here are the rest of them:

    “Some outdoor seats,” LAUNCH HEIRS

    (My favorite) “Equivalent of one gallon.” FORK WARTS

    “Secret lairs,” HIGH DOUBTS

    “‘Anything you want!’” NEIGH MITT

    “Former magazine that featured male nudes,” PLAGUE EARL

    “2 vis-à-vis 8, 3 vis-à-vis 27, etc.” QUEUE BRUTES

    “Lollygagger,” SLOPE OAK

    Another good (nontheme) clue was “One crying ‘Help!’?” The answer was BEATLE.

    Last, several Brooklynites noticed another themer could have been the duo POCKS and SLOPE (as pronounced by a Bostoner).

    The newsletter of historian Hayley Cox Richardson two days ago (7/22) focused on the new education requirements in DeSantis’s Florida. She notes that middle school instruction in African American history includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Puh-leeeze.

    Here’s a poem by Faith Shearin from today’s Writer’s Almanac called “Directions to Your College Dorm.”

    All hallways still lead to that room
    with its ceiling so high it might have been

    a sky, and your metal bed by the window,
    and your crate of books. First,

    you must walk across the deep
    winter campus to find your friend

    throwing snowballs that float
    for years. Then, open our letters:

    shelves of words. You will find
    our coats, our awkwardness, the tickets

    from the trains that witnessed
    our confusion. Love was the place

    where we became as naked
    as morning; it was dangerous and

    dappled and we visited its shores
    with suitcases and maps from childhood.

    I remember our shadows growing
    on your wall while a candle

    swallowed itself. You kept a single
    glass of water on a desk and it trembled

    whenever we danced.

    Once a month Rex turns his column over to a friend. Here’s how she started it off today:

    Hi Barbies and Kens, it’s Malaika here with a guest write-up! Solving Snack is Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk (straight from the pint so I don’t have to wash a bowl) and Solving Music is the new Taylor song “Castles Crumbling.”

    Here’s her note on LOL, clued as “‘That’s hilarious,’ in a text.” I get that it’s boring to say “Will Shortz (70 yrs old) has a different frame of reference from Malaika (26 yrs old)” but here I am, beating a dead horse around the bush, or whatever the saying is. That is simply not what LOL means anymore because language changes and evolves etc etc okay I’m done now.

    And so am I. Thanks for stopping by!

  • We Approve This Message

    I thanked our host (Guy) for recommending Joe Squared and told him how much we loved the pizza. He said the director Martin Brest (“Scent of a Woman”) stayed at the Inn once and when he recommended the pizza, Brest said, “I’m from NY and I’ve been everywhere, so I’m not easy to impress with pizza.” Brest insisted they go together to try it and after his first bite he said “You’re right.”

    Not to dwell too much on it, but I visited the website and discovered that the very pie we had (Bacon and Clams) was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. I challenge you to watch this without drooling.

    It was Ernest Hemingway’s birthday yesterday, Oak Park, IL, 1899. It was also the day, in 1925 that he began his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Cheers fans may recall that this is the book, a first edition of which Diane borrowed money from Sam to buy. When Sam saw it, he scoffed and said: “The sun also rises — that’s profound.” I know I’m digressing badly but it was such a good episode. Sam eventually borrows the book, reads it, and loves it! But he took it with him to read as he was taking a hot bath and dropped it in the bathwater. So he brought it back all puffed up and bloated. Sorry, that’s all I remember.

    Back to Hemingway, when the novel was published, it got good reviews in the NY papers, but was not well-received elsewhere in the country, including his hometown Chicago. Get this — his own mother wrote to him: “It is a doubtful honor to produce one of the filthiest books of the year. […] Every page fills me with a sick loathing — if I should pick up a book by any other writer with such words in it, I should read no more — but pitch it in the fire.”

    A sick loathing! Ouch, Mom!

    It was published by Scribner’s with Maxwell Perkins as the editor. For Hemingway’s second novel, Perkins had to defend the colorful language to his boss, Charles Scribner, but was so uncomfortable saying the words that he had to write them on a memo pad for Scribner. In the end, three words were not included in A Farewell to Arms, and were replaced by dashes. Hemingway wrote them back in by hand on a couple of copies, including one that he gave to James Joyce.  You all know what he looked like, right? So here’s his granddaughter Mariel, born four months after his death by suicide just shy of his 62nd birthday.

    This poem from Today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Jane Kenyon, and it’s called “Coming Home in Twilight in Late Summer.”

    We turned into the drive,
    and gravel flew up from the tires
    like sparks from a fire. So much
    to be done—the unpacking, the mail
    and papers…the grass needed mowing….
    We climbed stiffly out of the car.
    The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.

    And then we noticed the pear tree,
    the limbs so heavy with fruit
    they nearly touched the ground.
    We went out to the meadow; our steps
    made black holes in the grass;
    and we each took a pear,
    and ate, and were grateful.

    An amazing exhibit in Baltimore’s wonderful Visionary Art Museum is a series of over 30 embroideries by Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz. She was a seamstress and dressmaker in her own shop, so was no stranger to needlework, but she didn’t view the embroideries as art — for her they were a way of telling her story. The museum ran a video of her discussing them. This one, the one I asked Phil to shoot for us, shows her family and neighbors leaving their homes under Nazi orders to walk to the train and their eventual deaths. Esther’s mom had her and her sister run to a gentile friend’s house who helped them escape. The rest of the people in the embroidery perished, including Esther’s family. She remembered the sky was black on that day, and vultures circled. At the bottom of most of the works, she embroidered the date and an explanation of what was portrayed. You can see the small letters, but they are not legible in this photo.

    This heartbreaking embroidery in retrospect is of her childhood home and family, before the war.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene is so divorced from reality that she had no idea that a recent speech she gave lambasting Biden would be viewed by most people on Planet Earth as praise. Biden’s campaign actually repeated it with the note: “We approve this message.” The speech said Biden “had the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on: programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, labor unions.”

    OK Greene. Anything else?

    We drove up to Cockeysville, MD last night (it’s right next to Poopietown, Raffi would say) to see a romantic comedy called No Hard Feelings starring Jennifer Lawrence. Some of the scenes tried too hard and didn’t work, but we enjoyed it and liked how it resolved things. Matthew Broderick was sensational in a secondary role. There was one excellent line that I am about to spoil for you — so if you plan to see the movie, skip down to the next separation bar. Jennifer Lawrence is applying to adopt a dog, and the guy is interviewing her to make sure she’s a suitable pet owner. He asks her – “Why are you adopting a dog?” and she says, “Because I can’t have my own.”

    Tonight is our last night of what has been a very good getaway so far, kinahora. Good weather, good eats, nice people and activities. We’ve put this evening in the hands of the Nats — we have tix for their game against the Jints down in DC. Ace Josiah Gray is pitching for us (I call him Jedidiah), so we may have a chance. I prepaid for parking (it costs more than the tickets) so I’m a little worried about how that will work.

    Here’s a shot of Nats Stadium on the day Jesus came down to the game. They still lost. D’oh!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Cabbage Patch

    When Granddaughter #1 (Lianna) stays with us, the breakfast I make for her is either french toast, an omelet, a buttered roll, or cereal. Of the cereals we have, she always asks for Rice Krispies. But when I gave her the Rice Krispies the other day, I asked her if that was her favorite cereal overall and she said No, it’s Lucky Charms (which her mom keeps on hand). So being the good grandfather that I am, I ran out to pick some up. Incredibly, they were on sale: just $4 for two big boxes! That made my day. But then I realized I shouldn’t have been too surprised — after all, they are “lucky” charms. In any event, the next time she stayed over I poured a bowl for her to surprise her with when she came downstairs, and was impressed by how beautiful it looked. She enjoyed them! This is the actual bowl, pre-milk.

    Yesterday’s puzzle was a bruiser. Even Rex rated it Medium-Challenging. There were Z’s all over the place for no apparent reason. They would make sense in one direction, e.g., “Polo competitor” was IZOD, but the Z made no sense in the crossing word. I couldn’t get any regions nailed down and just tried filling in as many answers as I could. Then I reached the “revealer.” “Accommodation for a long train trip … or a hint to entering a certain letter 14 times in this puzzle.” It turned out to be SLEEPING CAR and I realized the answer I, CLZZZZUS, had to be I, CLAUDIUS — the Z’s (sleeping) converted to a “car” — an AUDI. That happened three other times and I managed to finish: upFOR Debate; sKI Area; and iBM Watson.

    At 63D, the clue was “The Devil’s Lettuce,” and the answer was POT. It confused some because pot looks nothing like lettuce. So I did a little digging and was able to post: On “Devil’s Lettuce,” one theory is the name arose from an anti-pot government film that was called The Devil’s Harvest. Another is that it was confused with a plant that marijuana looks like called Amsinckia tessellata, a species of fiddleneck which has several nicknames including devil’s lettuce.

    In any event, I cautioned the gang not to confuse it with Trey Cabbage, a ballplayer for the Angels who made his MLB debut this year.

    Owl Chatter’s first day in Baltimore was excellent. It started with a nice picnic lunch on the Bay in Havre de Grace on the way down. Phil took this shot from the “promenade.”

    After checking in at the inn, we found a nice coffee place (Dooby’s) to get some reading done and went for a short stroll. Baltimore’s a tough town. Look at the name of this cafe/record shop. Ouch!

    Dinner was at a place recommended by our host, Joe Squared (that’s the place), and it was spectacular. Great music and art, real young vibe, terrific local beer and one of the best pizzas we’ve ever had: clam, bacon, and onion. Amazing smoky crust. If you are ever within 200 miles of Baltimore, it’s worth a stop.

    Art-guy-friend Bob recommended the Baltimore Museum of Art and it’s open late on Thursdays (and always free!), so we shot over there after dinner. Terrific collection including this one by Matisse.

    Whatever Phil did in getting that shot apparently broke some ridiculous rule, because he ended up being chased through the building by some of the guards. He’s quick but his equipment slowed him down and they caught up with him. We’ll have to see about bail. Maybe after lunch.

    Today’s puzzle was by everyone’s favorite constructor Robyn Weintraub, and it was universally loved, although some thought it was a little too easy for a Friday. Examples of her clever cluing: 22D “One who’s out and about?” SLEEPWALKER. 21D “Exchange rings?” PLAY PHONE TAG. And did you know that ALLIGATORS can regrow a lost tooth up to 50 times? That was 57A.

    Gotta go have breakfast! Another museum today (Visionary Art) and a walk around Fells Point. See you later!

  • To Be or Not To Be

    I wanted to strangle this woman on the subway today. A bunch of us were waiting on the platform for the train. It arrived and the doors opened, and she got on first and just stood there — blocking the way! Hello? Remember us? The ten other people you were standing with, like, four seconds ago? Did it not occur to you there was a good chance we wanted to get on the train too?

    So we walked around her. There is no sense confronting these assholes, or even saying something like “I’m sorry — I didn’t know you are the only person on the planet.” You have to assume (1) they are lunatics, and (2) they have guns.

    Hrummmph!

    I entered the New Yorker cartoon contest a few weeks ago and found out today that I wasn’t a finalist. Here’s the cartoon at issue:

    My entry was: “No, I’m fine with your mom’s visit. Why do you ask?”

    I like one of the three finalists: “You don’t have to say ‘Excuse me’ every single time.”

    I concede defeat.

    That issue (July 24) also contains a review of the production of Hamlet that is being put on in Central Park this summer, starring Ato Blankson-Wood. The review is respectable but not glowing. The description of one scene, though, caught my eye. It’s the scene, fairly early, where the ghost of Hamlet’s dad appears to Hamlet, and tells him of his murder. Here’s how the reviewer Vinson Cunningham describes it.

    “Instead of using another actor to fill the father’s figure, Leon [the director] shows Hamlet being possessed by his dead father—Blankson-Wood mouths the ghost’s portentous speech. His slinky physicality suddenly becomes regal and strange. His eyes roll back into his head. Fire might as well be spouting from the tips of his fingers. That’s another unexpected thing about grief, how it coaxes you into an attempt at becoming the other, taking on their tics and savoring how they used to talk, fishing a ring out of their jewelry box and stuffing it onto your finger—all evidence of a great hope that, by embodying those details, you might permanently save them.”

    [Wow.]

    Solea Pfeiffer portrays Ophelia “soulfully,” according to Cunningham. Break a leg, Oph!

    Cornelius (C. R.) Roberts died at age 87 in a care facility in Norwalk, CT on July 11. He was a “leapling,” born on Feb. 29, 1936 in Tupelo, MS. His mom felt they had to get out of racist Mississippi and told his dad: “Get our son out of Mississippi or they’re going to kill him.” So they moved to California. C.R. scored 65 touchdowns for his high school team as a running back and was recruited by USC, where he also excelled.

    Thus was set the stage for the extraordinary game in 1956 when USC went down to Texas to play the Longhorns. There were three Black players on USC, and Texas was having none of it. They told USC “the coloreds couldn’t play.” Fearing violence, the USC coaches suggested Roberts stay behind. But C.R. said he’d rather quit the team than stay home. Now get this — his teammates stood by him — they said (and I paraphrase) “F*ck that sh*t — if C.R. ain’t going, we ain’t going.”

    Negotiations were worked out for the entire team to play. Then, the hotel in Texas explained that the Blacks couldn’t stay there and made arrangements for them at a YMCA. USC said: “F*ck you very much,” and found a hotel where they could all stay.

    Be all that as it may, as game-time approached, tensions were sky high and C.R. found himself wondering if he’d make it out alive. He had received death threats and thought he might be taken out by a shotgun blast from the stands. The hatred was pouring down from the crowd — the N word and whatever else they had.

    But C.R. could run, and he ran. A 73-yard touchdown run in the second quarter was followed by a 50-yard TD run. He scored again on a 74-yard run in the third and finished with 251 yards, a USC record that stood for 19 years. Chances are he would’ve broken 300, but the coaches pulled him shortly after his last TD, fearing for his safety. Final score: USC 44 Texas 20. The LA Times described Roberts as an “explosive bolt of searing speed.”

    Roberts played pro ball for 6 years: two in Canada and four with the 49ers, a modest career. He had earned a business degree at USC and ran several businesses after football. His two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by three children and four grandchildren, none of whom roots for Texas. Throughout his lifetime, the Texas game and the emotions it stirred up remained vivid. In an interview he gave the LA Times years later he said: “I didn’t give a damn who we played. We were going to beat them. Everybody had a chip on their shoulder. We played our best game.”

    C.R. is a first-ballot inductee into the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame. Rest in peace, Roberts.

    In the puzzle today, 4D was “Big _____ (serious favor)” and the answer was ASK, with ask serving as a noun. It ran right up LMS’s alley.

    “Loved the clue for ASK, forcing its nounness, a big thumb in the eye to the language police. Y’all seem to hate watching a shift occur in real time. But since language is one ever-shifting, ever-morphing wonder, anything that comes out of our mouths these days is the result of shifts from Old to Middle to Modern English. APRON was originally napron, but we started dividing a napron to an apron, et voilà! (See also umpire and adder.) A similar mis-dividing is occurring right now, right under our feet, and we’re creating a new word. An other is shifting to a nother in “That’s a whole nother story,” and the word has reached the Holy Grail of wordship: it’s in the dictionary. (See also notch, nickname, and newt.)”

    And Judy — did you see your old pal EULER was in the grid today, clued with “Pioneer in calculus notation.” I learned (from Rex) it’s pronounced OILER. Whew, amazing I haven’t made a fool of myself all these years. (On that.) Rex was reminded that he criticized a constructor way back in ’06 for using EULER, whom Rex referred to as “obscure” only to be lambasted for his math ignorance. A comment today chipped in with:

    “As a mathematician I definitely don’t think of EULER as obscure. He’s arguably one of the three greatest mathematicians in the last millennium, along with Newton and Gauss. If you work with almost any kind of mathematics beyond arithmetic you run into some formula, theorem, or method named after him. Even the constant e is named for Euler.”

    And kitshef added: “There is another slightly famous EULER, Carl, who will be known to birders thanks to the Euler’s flycatcher. That ‘Euler’ is pronounced ‘yoo-lur’.’” [And it’s a bird, not a swatter.]

    That’s a nice image to end on. See you tomorrow (unless I can’t broadcast from Baltimore).

  • OMG

    The puzzle today tested your knowledge of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, or, in my case, my ability to recall their names desperately from the crossing answers. It was beautifully constructed by a husband-wife team, Karen and Paul Steinberg. The center answer was GRECO-ROMAN and each corner contained a god/goddess with his or her across name in Greek and the crossing (down) name in Roman. So, e.g., at both 1D and 18A the clue was “Trident-wielding god of the sea,” and the answer at 1D was NEPTUNE and at 18A was POSEIDON. Quite an adventure! The others were ARTEMIS and DIANA (hunter); DEMETER and CERES (harvest); and DIONYSUS and BACCHUS (party-time (burp!)).

    And I learned something. APOLLO is the only one of these gods whose name is the same in both Greek and Roman. Can you guess what it is? It’s Apollo — what’s wrong with you? Apollo did not appear in the grid but was in two of the clues. Here’s a nice shot of him, followed by his place.

    And here’s Diana, who seems to get her hair done at the same saloon Apollo uses. Tell ’em less gel next time, D. Just sayin’.

    Re: yesterday’s puzzle answer “running joke,” Pabloinnh posted this sweet story:

    I wasn’t thinking that I would start a RUNNINGJOKE years ago when my son said something innocuous like “I’m going to the bathroom” and I would say “I’ll alert the media.” I guess he never forgot it and carried on the tradition because one day a while ago I said to his daughter, then four, something like “I’m going out to the car to get my glasses” and she of course said “I’ll alert the media”. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

    Life-With-Seniors Dept. There must be a lot of us old timers in the commentariat on Rex’s blog because the clue today for 9D was “Nonvegan fat in a pie crust.” (The answer was LARD.) And a good half-dozen commenters noted that they read the clue as “Norwegian fat.” Ha! What would Norwegian fat even be — whale blubber?

    Crossworld meets the real world. The clue for 49D today was “Brand for water fun,” and the answer was SEADOO — a Canadian recreational watercraft company. Commenter Anoa Bob reported:  

    Ukraine used an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV)—essentially a drone—to attack the Rooskies’ Crimean bridge. The propulsion system is composed of parts from the Canadian SEA-DOO jet ski company. Whatever it takes!

    The Rex group has become a true community. When someone mentions an illness or problem, many express support or try to help. Today, jberg noted that he did the puzzle while waiting for his wife’s radiation treatment to finish. And he noted she was doing fine. I don’t usually chime in with good wishes —- I feel that I’m too new to the group. But I had something I wanted to share today. So I wrote:

    jberg. I hope this brings your wife a smile. When I was undergoing radiation treatments, I was sometimes met at the door by a big Black guy, one of the technicians, and he’d break into a smile and ask me: Table for one?

    I’m glad to hear she’s fine.

    Others expressed their good wishes too (albeit without a brilliant line like mine), and he posted a nice thank you for us later, saying: Thanks for the kind comments for my wife. The radiation oncology staff are wonderful; all happy and supportive, and when someone finishes their treatment they ring a bell and applaud as they leave.

    Owl Chatter is taking to the road on Thursday — we’re spending a long weekend in Charm City (Baltimore), including scooting down to DC on Saturday for a Nats game. Our official OC photographer Phil is joining us, of course (we have a king-sized bed), so I’m looking forward to having some good shots to share.

    See you tomorrow, everybody!