The Wellington Files

  • An Honest Opinion

    When Owl Chatter throws its weight around, there’s no limit to what can be accomplished. Happily, our recent story excoriating the LA Dodgers for caving to right-wing pressure and dropping the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride night lineup helped the team see the error of its ways.

    After a vehement backlash from LGBTQ+ groups, their allies, and Owl Chatter, the Dodgers reversed course — re-inviting the Sisters’ LA chapter to be honored for its charity work and apologizing to the LGBTQ+ community. Bravo team!

    In a brief ceremony held on the field, the Dodgers gave a Community Hero Award to the Sisters. The public-address announcer said the group supports meal programs in the LA area and cited “their outstanding service to the LBGTQ+ community.”

    The team was lambasted in a statement from Archbishop José Gomez of LA, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of NY, and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio. They asked Catholics to pray on Friday “as an act of reparation for the blasphemies against our Lord we see in our culture today.”

    “A professional baseball team has shockingly chosen to honor a group whose lewdness and vulgarity in mocking our Lord, His Mother, and consecrated women cannot be overstated,” the archbishops said. “This is not just offensive and painful to Christians everywhere; it is blasphemy.”

    Cannot be overstated! Owl Chatter questions where the outrage was when children by the hundreds were sexually abused by the Church whose consistent response was a wide-ranging cover up. Are you kidding me? That these f*ckers still pretend to hold any moral office is chutzpah with a capital chutz.

    But don’t get me started on the Church, puh-lease.

    Sister Jeannine Gramick, has ministered to LGBTQ+ Catholics for more than 50 years and is a co-founder of New Ways Ministry, which advocates on their behalf. She publicly shared a letter she wrote to the Dodgers, welcoming the re-invitation. “I believe that any group that serves the community, especially those who are less fortunate or on the margins of society, should be honored.”

    Let’s leave the last word to Mike Milligan of West Hills, CA, who wrote to the LA Times. He reassured the right-wing haters that there was no way the Dodgers sold their soul on Pride night. If they had, he reasoned, they would have come out of it with a much better bullpen.

    Amen to that, right Mookie?

    Crossworld is all in a snit over the developments in Russia. How the hell is YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN going to fit into a grid? There’s a reason why Mstislav Rostropovich never shows up — these f*cking Russians are impossible to cross clue.

    Yevgeny — where is the anger coming from? Use your calming tools. Breathe. Breathe. He’s damn photogenic, though — I’ll give him that. The eyes aren’t smoky, but they’re knockout eyes. You nailed him Philly.

    Maybe we should slip into some YOGA PANTS to calm down? A pair was in the puzzle today at 19A, clued with “Relative of leggings.” Girl! — Where your mat at? That floor doesn’t look very forgiving.

    The puzzle had two nice 15-letter answers that spanned the grid. One was clued with “‘Elvis has left the building,’” and the answer was EVERYBODY GO HOME! The other was “Words accompanying a snap, perhaps,” and the answer was QUIT DAYDREAMING! (I’ve been there. I live there.)

    Also, it was a “pangram,” which means all 26 letters of the alphabet were contained in the grid. That only happens a handful of times during the year, it seems to me. As a point of pride, I was the first commenter on Rex’s blog to point that out today. And if you’re thinking I have to dig pretty low to score a point of pride these days, I can only say — you got that right.

    Poet and essayist John Ciardi was born on this date in 1916. Some of you may remember him (as I do) from his short segments on the language on NPR in the mornings, a long time ago. His 1959 book How Does a Poem Mean? is still used in high school and college English classes.

    Born in Boston, Ciardi touched some Owl Chatter bases, earning his graduate degree at U. Mich, and living for many years in Metuchen, NJ. He once said: “The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn’t deserve it, give it to him anyhow.”

    Back to the Church, favorably, for once. The Times reported on a goodwill meeting between the Pope and a bunch of artists from various parts of the world to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Vatican’s art collection, which includes works by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Marc Chagall. The Pope called on the artists to strive for social justice.

    Among the invitees was the American Andres Serrano whose photo “Piss Christ” is an image of a plastic crucifix submerged in a tank full of urine. It was considered blasphemous when it debuted in 1987. Yet on Friday, as reported by the Times, “Francis blessed Mr. Serrano and gave him a cheery thumbs up.” Serrano was delighted and said he was sure the Pope knew exactly who he was. “It was a great, mischievous smile,” he said.

    Owl Chatter’s Phil was one of the honored invitees, of course, and he managed to catch the Serrano moment.

    According to the Times today, a federal judge in Florida, Gregory A. Presnell of Orlando, essentially called DeSantis a hateful idiot in blocking one of his ridiculous anti-gay laws: the one penalizing businesses that allow children in to see drag shows. Is that really where Florida is these days? Sheesh. Florida has also been busy restricting the discussion of personal pronouns in school — clearly a life-and-death matter — and forcing people to use certain bathrooms.

    The State filed a complaint against a theater that hosted a Christmas drag show that had three kids attending with their parents. But undercover agents found no lewd behavior occurred. So there.

    Hamburger Mary’s, a restaurant that hosts drag shows, sued the state claiming the law violated its right to free speech. Anybody remember that one? It’s, like, the first. The judge agreed, and noted that existing obscenity laws were sufficient to protect children from whatever the state was worried about. Of course, there’s a lot of hate out there — who knows what will happen on appeal.

    Here you go, DeSantis: Public Enemy Number One.

    This is from Met Diary this week, shared by Lenny Shine. It took place on Broadway and 19th.

    Characters: Me, walking north in a hurry while eating a sandwich, and a woman walking south at a quick pace, also eating a sandwich. We make eye contact.

    Me: “Two fried eggs on a toasted roll, no meat, no cheese.”
    Her: “Ham, egg, and cheese on a roll.”
    And on we went.

    I was on a walk once and was on a long stretch where you can see the people coming towards you for quite a distance. A couple was down the way a bit walking towards me. They were in their 40’s, and had a nice look about them. Suddenly, the wife turned and punched the husband on his arm, quasi-playfully. When they got up to me, I said to the wife: Don’t hit him! And the husband said to me: Tell her!

    Rex noted that PRIDE FLAGS was in the grid today, but that there was also (probably unintentionally) a British gay slur: PONCE, clued as the Puerto Rican city. Apparently, it’s a derogatory word for an effeminate male. One commenter took umbrage at Rex for “advancing the gay agenda.” But Weezie shot back: “There’s no such thing as ‘the gay agenda.’ There’s just human rights, and we’d like to have the same ones as everyone else, thanks very much.”

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for putting up with the rants today.

  • Eyes Up Here, Rudy!

    This beautiful woman with smoky eyes is Anna Akhmatova, the poet, born near Odessa on this day in 1889. С днем рождения, Anna! Her major work was Requiem, a tragic masterpiece on Stalinist terror.

    In Paris, she met the artist Modigliani, who painted more than 20 paintings of her, several of them nudes. He was passionately in love with her, and for the rest of her life, no matter where she lived or what her circumstances, she kept one of his nude portraits of her above her couch.

    Folk singer Iris Dement’s album The Trackless Woods is comprised of songs the lyrics of which are poems of Akhmatova’s in translation. Here’s a short one called “Prayer.”

    Give me comfortless seasons of sickness,
    Visitations of wrath and of wrong
    On my house; Lord, take child and companion,
    And destroy the sweet power of song.

    Thus I pray at each matins, each vespers,
    After these many wearying days,
    That the storm-cloud which broods over Russia
    May be changed to a nimbus ablaze.

    Anna’s popularity kept Stalin from arresting her, although he imprisoned her son and common-law husband. She spent 17 months in line outside the Kresty Holding Prison with thousands of wives and daughters, waiting to catch a glimpse of their loved ones and to give them bread. Her son once refused a loaf of rye from her because she forget to ask for it with seeds. [No he didn’t.]

    She worked on Requiem for over 30 years, fragment by fragment. Terrified of being discovered, she had friends memorize the fragments, and then she would burn the pieces of paper. There is now a statue of Anna across from the Kresty Prison. She died in Moscow in 1966, at age 76.

    Owl Chatter is blessed today with another beautiful woman, Golfer Michelle Wie West, who visited the puzzle at 42A. [I don’t know what Phil said to her that she was so miffed about for this shot — he’s generally a whiz at getting pretty smiles.]

    Since she was clued with her married name (West), a Rex commenter opined that he hoped she didn’t marry Kanye West, God forbid! Well, the good news is I was able to let him know:

    Michelle Wie married Jonnie West, the Director of Basketball Operations for the Golden State Warriors, — he is the son of legendary NBA player Jerry West. Wow! Stephen Curry attended the ceremony, but only gave them a shitty blender as a wedding gift. (I made up the last part of that sentence: I’m sure he was quite generous.)

    Wie and West have a gorgeous little girl named Makenna Kamalei Yoona West. She’s two years old and dribbles (except when using a sippy cup).

    Wie got into a flap with Rudy Giuliani, of all people. BTW, the hapless men of my generation owe Rudy a big Thank You. No matter how boorish and loutish we are, we can only look good next to Rudy, and I’m not even talking about the black dye dripping down his head.

    Anyway, Giuliani told a story on Steve Bannon’s podcast. He and Rush Limbaugh attended a women’s golf tourney, and Limbaugh complained that there were too many photographers on hand because of Giuliani. So Rudy said, “It’s not me – it’s because Michelle Wie is playing. She has an unusual putting stance in which she bends over and you can see her panties — so that’s why the photographers are here — it’s not for me.”

    Wie shot back:

    “What this person should have remembered from that day was the fact that I shot 64 and beat every male golfer in the field leading our team to victory. I shudder thinking he was smiling to my face and complimenting my game while objectifying me and referencing my ‘panties’ behind my back all day.’’

    She added: “What should be discussed is the elite skill level that women play at, not what we wear or look like. My putting stance six years ago was designed to improve my putting stats (I ended up winning the US Open that year), NOT as an invitation to look up my skirt!”

    Hrummph! You tell ’em, MW!

    From the new New Yorker. We’ve all been there:

    One last guest today, from the puzzle — Marie OSMOND at 19A. Hi Sis!

    Phil! — What the hell kind of pose is that? — It can’t be comfortable. Help her up!! — She’s 63 and has eight kids! — what the hell’s wrong with you??!! She may never walk again!

    See you tomorrow folks! Thanks for stopping by.

  • Roet and Bohr

    If you attend a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony and the names of victims are read aloud, it is due to the efforts of Haim Roet, who survived the Holocaust and died on May 22 at age 90 at his home in Jerusalem. Look at this sweet face.

    It started with a protest in front of the Dutch Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1989. The Dutch Government had released two Nazi war criminals from prison. Mr. Roet and a group of like-minded Israelis of Dutch descent read some of the names of the 107,000 Dutch Jews who had died in death camps.

    “It was a very moving event,” Mr. Roet said. “People cried. You see the names, and suddenly you see what’s behind it. You see the date, you see the children, how each of the victims had a life of their own.” He created “Unto Every Person There is a Name,” a memorial project that involves annually reading the names of Nazi victims in public around the world. He spoke at the UN.

    Roet himself survived the Holocaust, hiding in Nieuwlande, a small village in the Netherlands that sheltered more than 100 Jews during the war despite the threat of execution by the Nazis. He lived with Alida and Anton Deesker, who had three children and introduced him to strangers as their nephew.

    Before the Resistance placed him there, the Nazis picked up his sisters and grandfather, whom he never saw again. The next morning, the SS officers returned for the rest of the family. But his mother, who spoke German, shouted and argued with them so vehemently that they left. Remarkable. He was eventually reunited with his parents and brothers, moved to Israel, married, and worked for the Ministry of Finance.

    In addition to his daughter Vardit Lichtenstein, VP of an OB-GYN group, Mr. Roet is survived by his wife, Naomi Echel; another daughter, Avigail Omessi, a manager for a CPA firm; a son, David Roet, the head of a division of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a brother, Abraham; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren, every one of whom has a name.

    The puzzle today was very cute, if you like babies. The central across answer was THE BABY IS ASLEEP, and in four places the letters SHH were squooshed into single square. [When that happens it’s called a “rebus.”] For example, there was RO[SHH]ASHANA, and BRITI[SHH]UMOR. Rex included an hysterical Talking Heads video of the song “Stay Up Late,” which it is not beneath Owl Chatter to steal shamelessly.

    BTW, I just learned that Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth married their drummer Chris Franz in 1977 and they have two sons and are still married, kinahora. Here’s the band in the hospital room soon after one of the boys was born.

    Since ROSH HASHANA was in the puzzle today, boringly clued with “First of the Jewish High Holy Days,” I couldn’t resist posting one of my favorite jokes on Rex’s blog. I hope it’s not viewed as racist, anti-Semitic, or both.

    Here it is:

    Two Black gentlemen are talking.

    Hey, I have off tomorrow — do you?
    No, it’s Tuesday — why are you off?
    My boss is a Jew and it’s Yom Kippur, we’re closed.
    Yom Kippur? What’s that?
    Damn — you don’t know what Yom Kippur is?
    No — what the hell is Yom Kippur?
    Well, you knows what Shabbos is, right?
    Sure — I knows what Shabbos is.
    Well, next to Yom Kippur, Shabbos ain’t shit!

    The pioneer in atomic theory at 44A was Niels BOHR, born in Demark in 1885. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. His dad was a physiology professor (not Jewish); his mom came from a wealthy Jewish banking family. He loved soccer, as did his brother, who played on the Danish national team in the 1908 Olympics.

    Despite finding him to be a great Bohr, Margrethe Norland married him in 1912 and they had six sons. Get this — their son Aage became a physicist and also won the Nobel Prize in Physics (in 1975).

    After Denmark was occupied by the Germans, word reached Bohr that he was in danger of being arrested because of his Jewish mom. The Danish resistance helped Bohr and Margrethe escape by sea to Sweden. The next day, Bohr persuaded King Gustaf V of Sweden to make public Sweden’s willingness to provide asylum to Jewish refugees. The mass rescue of the Danish Jews by their countrymen followed swiftly thereafter. Some historians claim that Bohr’s actions led directly to the mass rescue, while others say that, though Bohr did all that he could for his countrymen, his actions were not a decisive influence on the wider events.  Eventually, over 7,000 Danish Jews escaped to Sweden. Bohr eventually reached Britain and was part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project.

    He received numerous honors, including postage stamps and bank notes featuring him. An asteroid and a lunar crater were named after him, as was a chemical element, Bohrium, with the atomic number 107. No Barbie doll (yet). He died in 1962, back in Copenhagen, at age 77.

    Here’s Niels and Margrethe, and then Niels with 5 of the boys.

    See you tomorrow!

  • I Yam What I Yam

    Owl Chatter’s Dirty Old Man Division perked up whatever it can still perk up upon learning that the U.S. Army announced that it developed its first combat-ready bra. It’s addressed in The New Yorker of June 26 in an article by Patricia Marx called “Show of Support.” Marx confessed that she decided early on that she needed to try one on. It’s called the Army Tactical Brassiere (“ATB”) and, not surprisingly, is still being tinkered with, because, well, who wouldn’t want to tinker with a bra?

    BTW, how about a special Owl Chatter shoutout to Robert Shurtleff, of the Revolutionary War’s Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, the first American soldier ever to wear a bra! He served for close to a year and a half before losing consciousness from a fever. While receiving treatment, it was discovered he was actually Deborah Sampson – a woman. Sampson disguised herself so she could serve her country — women were not allowed in the army back then. As to our topic, for a bra, she bound her breasts with a linen cloth. (She was kicked out when she recovered, of course.)

    The Army says the ATB will improve “overall performance and lethality.” Marx’s comment: “Gadzooks! Yes, it’s flame-resistant, but what else can it do? Shoot bullets? Hypnotize the enemy? Turn its wearer invisible?”

    It’s made of proprietary compression-knit fibers designed to wick moisture and dry quickly, and is designed to remain intact after 100 launderings, since mending is tricky when you are being shot at. Its hardware and seaming placement is designed for compatibility with other military garb. The really complex part is the sizing: the Army tried to fit the fifth through ninety-fifth percentile of its population, by taking a zillion measurements from female soldiers. The Army also polled soldiers and learned that some bind themselves with tape or Ace bandages to reduce bounciness, buy sports bras smaller than they usually wear, or wear two or three bras at once to increase support. Everyone said they wanted the bra to be black so it won’t show dirt and grime. The men who were polled all stressed that it should be very easy to take off. [No they didn’t: they weren’t polled.]

    The Army was hesitant to let Marx try one on, for fear she’d give it a bad review. But she persisted and was given the chance. Her report: “I pulled up the zipper with ease and immediately felt cozily swaddled. The synthetic support was robust and made me think I might enjoy being a mummy.”

    As exciting as it has been to write about bras, Owl Chatter questions whether the project was worthwhile and a good use of taxpayer funds. As a female officer from Kansas told Marx: “Everyone has different wants and needs when it comes to a bra. I’d rather get a stipend to buy my own.”

    Here’s a photo released by the Army. Could it possibly be less sexy? It’s followed by one much preferred by Owl Chatter for obvious reasons.

    Federal District Court Judge James M. Moody, Jr., is Owl Chatter’s Hero of the Day. His vigorous 80-page decision protecting the rights of trans children lays bare the perfidy of GOP efforts to target them. At issue was an Arkansas law forbidding medical treatments for trans kids. To his credit, former Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed it, calling it “off course.” (Not to his credit, though, he called it “well-intentioned.” Gimme a break.) He recently said he stands by the veto, calling the law an intrusion into parental rights. In any event, the troglodytic legislature overrode the veto and Hutch has since been replaced by Trump sycophant Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

    But never mind them. Here come da judge! Moody held that the law discriminated against transgender people and violated the constitutional rights of doctors. “Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing.”

    The challenge was brought by the ACLU of Arkansas and argued that the ban violated transgender people’s constitutional rights to equal protection, parents’ rights to make appropriate medical decisions for their children, and doctors’ rights to refer patients for medical treatments.

    “There is no evidence that the Arkansas health care community is throwing caution to the wind when treating minors with gender dysphoria,” Judge Moody wrote, adding that “the state has failed to prove that its interests in the safety of Arkansas adolescents from gender transitioning procedures or the medical community’s ethical decline are compelling, genuine or even rational.” (Owl Chatter emphasis.) Good job, Your Honor!

    Frank Bruni includes the following in his “For the love of sentences” feature this week. It’s by Andrew Coyne, writing about Trump in The Globe and Mail of Toronto. Re: How Trump in the wake of his federal indictment, is trying “to bring the whole U.S. justice system down around him. This is not the reaction of a normal person. It is not even the reaction of a mob boss. It is the reaction of a Batman villain.”

    I was today years old when I learned that ACHOO (in the puzzle today at 37A) is not only a made-up word that mimics a sneeze. In the medical world, ACHOO is an acronym (backronym?) for a sternutation disorder called Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome that results in uncontrollable sneezing. The D and the S are sort of fudged. [Sternutation means “the act of sneezing.”] Stand back!

    Yesterday’s puzzle revealed an interesting connection between Popeye and Shakespeare. “ET TU, Brute?,” of course, is what Caesar famously said to Brutus as he was getting stabbed. And BLUTO was “Popeye’s burly foe.” The two answers (ET TU and BLUTO) crossed each other in the grid yesterday. I didn’t see any connection, but it turns out that the comic strip character Bluto had his named changed to Brutus when Popeye went on TV as a cartoon show. The producers wrongly thought they couldn’t use the name Bluto for copyright reasons. The name later reverted to Bluto for a Popeye movie and other productions. Popeye may have been able to say “I yam what I yam,” but for Bluto/Brutus, it was more confusing.

    Don’t get up! I’ll let myself out. See you tomorrow.

  • Sixteen and College-Bound

    Who among us is not painfully aware of Billie Joe McAllister’s death by suicide; of his famous and fateful leap from the Tallahatchie Bridge? “It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.” BJ must have been the unluckiest guy in the world: according to Leflore County records, 40 to 50 other men jumped off that 20-foot high bridge and not one of them died. The county established a fine of $180 per jump. Even in 1969 dollars, it seems like a bargain, although maybe not in Mississippi. The bridge was destroyed by a fire set by vandals in 1972 and has been rebuilt. It crosses the Tallahatchie River at Money, MS, ten miles north of Greenwood. It sure meant money for Bobbie Gentry, who is 80 years old now, with a net worth estimated at $110 million. The very first clue in the puzzle today, for the word ODE, referenced the famous song. Here’s a nice photo of her. Jeez Louise! – what size shoe does she wear — 28?

    Here she is crossing that bridge (when she got to it).

    As you may recall, Billie Joe and his girlfriend threw something off the bridge, but the song does not say what it was. It raised quite a fuss. Was it a baby? (God forbid!) A wedding ring? Given the era, some suggested a draft card or LSD. Gentry says she knows what it was but she never told anyone — not even her mom. She says it doesn’t matter — it’s not important. The point of the song was the nonchalance which which the family treated the horrific news. In an interview Gentry called the song “a study in unconscious cruelty.” Gentry, it should be said, was not a brainless country-western star. She majored in Philosophy at UCLA before transferring to the LA Conservatory of Music, where she studied composition, music theory and arranging. Here’s a live version of the Ode to Billie Joe:

    Bob Dylan, on his Basement Tapes, wrote and sang a parody of it called Clothes Line Saga. The event bandied about in his ballad, as the laundry is discussed, is the Vice President going mad. It’s worth a listen — you’ve wasted so much time on this already — what’s a few more minutes?

    The Taylor Swift phenomenon has more than spilled over into the mainstream — at least as Owl Chatter taps into it, — it’s a deluge. We discussed the New Yorker review recently. Today, TS was the subject of a glowing lead story on the editorial page of the Times.

    It’s a guest essay by Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell, a psychiatrist in private practice and the founding director of the Academy for Medicine and the Humanities at Mount Sinai. Clearly a moron and a hack.

    Many of her patients are adolescent girls and young women and, as the tour was approaching, they were having trouble calming down. Garfinkle-Crowell was already a casual fan, but, she says, “I couldn’t really understand why this artist and this tour were so powerful — and so disruptive. So I started listening. And listening more. And then I went to the show with my daughter. And now I, too, cannot calm down. Swiftmania is a very different kind of high from what I experienced listening to music as a teenager — a high that is worth the pain. It’s not just the plethora of songs to discover, but the nonstop Swiftie culture itself — a party that is raging all day and all night.”

    “’What would Taylor Swift do?’ is a refrain among certain patients in my practice. Teenagers suffer for many reasons. One is being fragile and in formation — a human construction site. Ms. Swift articulates not only the treachery of bullying but also the cruelty just shy of it that is even more pervasive: meanness, exclusion, intermittent ghosting. She says: Borrow my strength; embrace your pain; make something beautiful with it — and then you can shake it off.”

    Most importantly, Garfinkle-Crowell goes on to highlight the same aspect that the New Yorker reviewer did – the community Swift engenders. She writes:

    “What is singular about this artist, in this time, is the access she has created to a cohesive community, particularly for the pandemic generation, whose social connections grew tragically elusive. Whatever you are upset about, the poet laureate of this generation has got a song somewhere describing that precise feeling. She is not going to solve whatever problem you are having, but she is going to sit with you in it until the passage of time does its work: Look at her now. You may dress up as a “1989” party girl, but it’s understood by everyone here that you are also heartbroken and rageful and forgiving and brave.

    She goes on,

    “We will all eventually calm down, but for now, I am leaning into this fever dream, this restlessness and sleeplessness and decline in focus on anything else. Sometimes it’s good to let yourself be disrupted, to be a little less productive, to stay stay stay in an enchanted place as long as you can. Especially when there is someone new in your life who shows you colors you can’t see with anyone else.

    “My patients have their own dedicated professional to listen to them for 45 minutes a week. But few teenagers have access to this kind of support. It’s confusing to be human and to be female, and I’m glad, both for my patients in their midnights and for their populous, shimmering community, that they have someone so articulate, so generous and so endlessly present to talk to.”

    Here’s a poem from The Writer’s Almanac about a summer job before starting college. It’s called “Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In,” and it’s by Barbara Crooker.

    First job. In tight black shorts
    and a white bowling shirt, red lipstick
    and bouncing ponytail, I present
    each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet.
    I’m sixteen and college-bound;
    this job’s temporary as the summer sun,
    but right now it’s the boundaries of my life.
    After the first few nights of mixed orders
    and missing cars, the work goes easily.
    I take out the silver trays and hook them to the windows,
    inhale the mingled smells of seared meat patties,
    salty ketchup, rich sweet malteds.
    The lure of grease drifts through the thick night air.
    And it’s always summer at Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In—
    carloads of blonde-and-tan girls
    pull up next to red convertibles,
    boys in black tee shirts and slick hair.
    Everyone knows what they want.
    And I wait on them, hoping for tips,
    loose pieces of silver
    flung carelessly as the stars.
    Doo-wop music streams from the jukebox,
    and each night repeats itself,
    faithful as a steady date.
    Towards 10 p.m., traffic dwindles.
    We police the lot, pick up wrappers.
    The dark pours down, sticky as Coke,
    but the light from the kitchen
    gleams like a beacon.
    A breeze comes up, chasing papers
    in the far corners of the darkened lot,
    as if suddenly a cold wind had started to blow
    straight at me from the future—
    I read that in a Doris Lessing book—
    but right now, purse fat with tips,
    the moon sitting like a cheeseburger
    on a flat black grill,
    this is enough.
    Your order please.

    More nonsense tomorrow. Thanks for dropping in.

  • 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.

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is susan1.jpg

    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!

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is mermaid.webp
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    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.