The Wellington Files

  • The Ship of Theseus

    So let’s say George Washington really did chop down that cherry tree many years ago. And the axe was saved and continued to be used. After a few years the blade wore out so it had to be replaced. And after a few more years, the handle wore out and had to be replaced. So none of the original parts remained in the axe. Could it still be called “Washington’s axe” if none of the original parts were in it?

    That’s the “thought experiment” posed by today’s puzzle. It’s called the Ship of Theseus. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. After several centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship? Plutarch wrote it up in his “Lives” (in the one on Theseus, duh), and said philosophers were split over whether it was still the same ship.

    Hobbes expanded the issue. He said, suppose each time a part of the ship was replaced the old part was saved. And when all of the parts were replaced, the old parts were put together to form a “new” ship out of all of the original parts. Which of the two ships is the Ship of Theseus – the one with the new replacement parts and none of the original parts, or the one made entirely of the original parts?

    It raises questions of “identity.” Hobbes said his two ships represent two concepts of identity. If the identity of the ship is the idea or form of it, then the ship with the new parts has never stopped being considered the Ship. But if identity is comprised of specific “matter,” then the ship remade out of the original discarded parts is the Ship.

    The way it was used in the puzzle was brilliant IMHO. SHIP OF THESEUS was the answer for 22A, clued by “Thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same object if its parts are replaced one by one.” And the word SHIP appears in shaded squares. Then, the grid works you down a “word ladder.” Do you know what that is? You change one letter at a time to form new words of the same length. So working down the grid, the theme answers give you a series of shaded words that replace SHIP one at a time, but then build back up to SHIP. It goes: SHIP CHIP CHOP CHOW SHOW SLOW SLOP SLIP SHIP. And the clue for that last SHIP (at 121A) is the same as for the first one: “Thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same object if its parts are replaced one by one.”

    So it’s posing the question: Is that SHIP at the end the same as the SHIP at the beginning, despite all the parts (i.e., letters) having been changed?

    Here’s an image of the ship:

    What was your favorite part of Trump’s deposition? Lemme guess. Was it when he mistook the plaintiff for his ex-wife Marla Maples after reiterating that she wasn’t “his type?” Was it when he called Roberta Kaplan (the questioning lawyer) a disgrace and said she wasn’t “his type” either? Or was it when he doubled down on his Access Hollywood statement that stars like him can do anything — even grab women by the p***y? He said that’s been the case for millions of years “unfortunately, or fortunately.”

    Owl Chatter is having a tough time choosing a favorite between “or fortunately,” and gratuitously noting that Kaplan was not his type either. Each one is classic A-plus material. Delicious.

    FYI: On the left, not his type; On the right, his type.

    For a good rat’s nest of misogyny, the South Carolina Senate will do nicely. For three years Katrina Shealy was the only woman Senator, a Republican, and the leadership continued to address the body as “Gentlemen of the Senate.” One “colleague” said “women should be barefoot and pregnant, not in the legislature,” and said women are a “lesser cut of meat.”

    Kudos then to Ms. Shealy who now has four other Senators who are women and all five are refusing to go along with anti-abortion legislation, even the Republicans. It’s enough to defeat it. They do not accept the men’s nonsense about protecting women — it’s about controlling women. Republican Sandy Senn addressed her male colleagues (while wearing flip-flops for comfort) saying: “We the women have not asked for, nor do we want, your protection. We don’t need it. We don’t buy into the ruse that what you really want is to take care of us.”

    Here is the fivesome. Whaddya think — any of these Carolina babes Trump’s type?

    Yesterday’s puzzle had some unusual items. “What a helicopter might fly out of?” was MAPLE. WTF? It’s one of those little twirly helicopter thingies that fall to the ground. They come from maple trees (ash and elm too). Their official name is samaras.

    Next the clue was “Takes off, with ‘it’” and the answer was BOOKS. That was new to me. A slang meaning for book as a verb is to take off quickly. “With the cops on the way, we booked out of there.”

    Then there was “Extremely hot peppers named for their scythelike tails,” and the answer spanned the grid: CAROLINA REAPERS. They sound “grim,” and look scary.

    Owl Chatter looks forward to celebrating its 200th post this week. Yikes! Special invitations have gone out to Taylor Swift, Ana de Armas, Ted Kooser, and other OC faves. Zelensky may stop in too, if the offensive hasn’t started yet. Volodymyr! — we’ll try to scrounge up some rocket launchers for you — can’t send you back empty-handed!

    We hope they can all make it. Hope you can too!

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in.

  • Woven Hearts

    Here are the first six lines in the first sonnet by Dylan Thomas from Altarwise by Owl-Light.

    Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
    The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
    Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
    And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
    The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
    Bit out the mandrake with to-morrows scream.

    I can’t make any sense of it. I thought abaddon might be a typo (for abandon or a bad one), but it isn’t. (It means Hell or the Devil.) Hangnail? Atlas-eater? Why is “to-morrows” hyphenated?

    Anyway, the only reason I dug it up was the puzzle yesterday had the unusual clue “owl-light.” It means DUSK. Nice, right?

    While we’re here: A mandrake is a plant of the nightshade family, with white or purple flowers and large yellow berries. It has a forked fleshy root that creepily resembles the human form and was formerly used in magic. Legend has it it shrieks when pulled from the ground (thus, the “scream” above?).

    Here are some mandrakes. Yeah, I can see it.

    This is the lead item in Met Diary tomorrow. It’s by Esther K. Smith.

    After we wove paper hearts at the Met Museum
    on that cold, cold Friday night
    we took the subway home.

    A woman was singing a Beyonce song
    and I asked if she was Beyonce
    and she said she was.

    Another woman was folding red foil paper.
    I saw she was making an origami heart.
    So I took her one of our woven hearts
    and she gave me hers.

    In his daily post on the puzzle, Rex Parker sometimes lets spill a left-leaning comment. E.g., if MUSK is an answer, he’ll register some level of disgust. (Owl Chatter readers may recall his loathing of J. K. Rowling for her anti-trans comments, and the discussion it engendered.) I mostly agree with him, though I may not mind a reference in a puzzle as much as he does (it’s just a puzzle). But once in a while it elicits some right-wing blather in response. That occurred two days ago, when “Andrew” let loose in a fairly obnoxious post. Here’s how he started: “Rex never fails to put his extraneous neoliberal politics into any apolitical xword. Along with his squeamish take on people, places or things he finds objectionable.” It got smarmy pretty quickly and left a bad taste.

    Rex’s defenders mobilized immediately. Here was a nice response from whatsername:

    “Andrew — I always take the time to read your comments because I enjoy hearing your take on the puzzle. But I don’t really like to be lectured about politics from either side of the house. In that vein, I do not wish to debate with you but just feel the need to say a few words in defense of our blog host.

    “Rex Parker has his views, you have your views, and I have mine. We come here to express those views, and we have the right to say what we please about the puzzle because it’s a product we pay money for, like writing a review about a book purchased on Amazon. But no one is required to pay for what Rex Parker faithfully produces every single day of the year without fail. Not only that, but he also generously provides this forum – again, free of charge – so that we may all share our common love of crosswords. In doing so, he generally allows a wide range of opinions, even political ones, with very reasonable moderation and rarely a censure. I believe at the very least, we should afford him the same courtesy.

    “I don’t know about you but I think of this group as a community of friends. Being able to share my thoughts with them feels like a bonus gift that comes with my subscription. And it seems to me that when someone consistently offers me a free gift every day without expecting anything in return, I can either graciously accept it or politely say no thank you. But it really isn’t my place to critique them on how they package it.”

    Someone else said when she sees Andrew has posted she just says UGH.

    And then, yesterday, Andrew posted an apology. In this age where it seems like everyone “doubles down,” and no one ever relents or re-thinks, it was lovely. Here it is:

    “After reflecting on yesterday’s comments, I want to apologize for making so many of my posts political – and highly contentious at that.

    You’re right, this is Rex’ blog. It’s also not an appropriate forum for politics from the peanut gallery (me being front and center).

    It’s about crosswords, not cross words! Sorry I sent out the latter.

    “Ugh, it’s Andrew” is a phrase I never want to read – or cause – again. Will try to send cyber hugs – not Ughs – going forward.

    Again, I’m sorry. Mea culpa.”

    It was very well received.

    “It’s Siggy’s birthday today!! On this day in 1856 Freud was born, the revolutionary women’s fashion designer. His “slip” is still popular today, both full and half. Here’s one of my tax students modeling a fairly modern one. Thank you, Ms. Peters!”

    So this woman is at her shrink and he asks her if anything noteworthy happened since he last saw her. She says “Yes, I had a Freudian slip that you might find interesting. I was having dinner with my mother last night, and at one point, I nodded at the basket of rolls on the table, and what I meant to say was ‘Would you please pass the rolls, Mom,” but what came out was “You ruined my life, you f*cking b*tch.”

    Yesterday’s puzzle had the cute pairing of TATTOO and TATOOINE. TATTOO was clued with “Needle work.” TATOOINE is the fictional planet in the Star Wars series, a desolate desert planet. It’s the home planet of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

    In August 2019, rapper Kanye West announced that he was designing prefabricated homes inspired by the settlements on Tatooine to serve as low-income housing. His prototypes in Calabasas, CA, were torn down after he was cited for not obtaining the proper permits and receiving complaints about the “gumdrop-shaped” structures.

    When Sam graduated from UMich in 2012, Sanjay GUPTA gave the address in The Big House and did a very nice job (he’s a Michigan man: Go Blue!). Sanjay’s in the puzzle today. He told us how his parents met. As soon as his mom arrived in Ann Arbor, her car broke down. (It was a ’63 Nova.) She had very little money and knew no one. She went to a phone booth and looked through a phone book (remember those?) for an “Indian-sounding” last name. She picked one and called. The person she asked for wasn’t home, but the fellow who answered the phone had graduated from U. Mich Engineering and loved cars. Of course, he was happy to help. It was love at first tow.

    In the photo, the parents are on the right, and Sanjay’s brother Suneel is in the center. Sanjay’s wife, lawyer Rebecca Olsen, and two of their three daughters are next to him. Suneel has a law degree and ran for Congress from Michigan in 2018, but lost in the Democratic Primary.

    In 2007, Sanjay got into a fight with filmmaker Michael Moore over Moore’s film Sicko. Gupta reported on CNN that Moore’s film “fudged facts.” Moore said that Gupta’s report was inaccurate and biased, and posted a detailed response on his website.  He accused CNN of bias in favor of the drug industry because most of the sponsors for their medical coverage were drug companies.

    Gupta debated Moore on Larry King Live after which CNN apologized for a transcription error in their on-air report, having stated that in the film Moore reported Cuba spends $25 per person for health care when the film actually gave that number as $251. But CNN defended the rest of Gupta’s report responding point-by-point to Moore, contending that the comparison of data from different sources in different years was “cherry picking,” at the cost of statistical accuracy.

    Let’s close today with the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. It’s by the current Poet Laureate of the U.S., Ada Limon, and is called “How to Triumph Like a Girl.” Limon is Mexican-American, and the first Latina U.S. Poet Laureate. She grew up in California but earned her MFA at NYU.

    I like the lady horses best,
    how they make it all look easy,
    like running 40 miles per hour
    is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
    I like their lady horse swagger,
    after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
    But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
    that they’re ladies. As if this big
    dangerous animal is also a part of me,
    that somewhere inside the delicate
    skin of my body, there pumps
    an 8-pound female horse heart,
    giant with power, heavy with blood.
    Don’t you want to believe it?
    Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
    the huge beating genius machine
    that thinks, no, it knows,
    it’s going to come in first.

    Here’s a shot our Phil snared of Ada. He’s a genius at getting the nicest smiles. Good work earlier with my tax student too, Philly – we don’t pay you enough! See you tomorrow, everybody!

  • Cheese Sticks

    ERIN was in the puzzle today at 63A, as in ERIN Burnett of CNN. Burnett is not only good-looking, she has many “good looks.” Ever get one of these?

    Or this?

    Or how about this?

    You’ve been there.

    Also in the grid today was ELI Apple. Even if you’re a sports fan there’s a chance you haven’t heard of him. Here’s what I posted on Rex’s blog:

    “When Eli Apple (5D) was drafted tenth in the 2016 NFL draft by the NY Giants he became the latest in the short line of professional fruit athletes. Before him were Milt Plum and Raymond Berry of the NFL, Don Cherry of the NHL, baseballers Chet and Bob Lemon, and, of course, Daryl Strawberry. Their mascot is Otto the Orange, of Syracuse U.

    “Eli was actually born Eli Woodard, but adopted the surname Apple to honor Tim Apple, the man who raised him from infancy and married his mom. Apple is a Jersey man and was all set to attend Rutgers when its coach (Schiano) left for the pros, so he went to Ohio State instead and had an outstanding college career, which included winning the National Championship in 2015. As a pro, he had some behavioral/personality issues with the Giants and no longer plays in the ‘Big Apple.’ He’s with the Bengals now.”

    Here’s Eli, and then Daryl, watching one of his shots sail into the stratosphere.

    Sending a special Owl Chatter thank you to Delaware Nancy for help with the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” material yesterday. Back in 1969 (’70?) we took each other (and another Nancy) out to a Senators-Yankees ballgame in DC. It lasted 18 innings and the Yanks won 2-1. We stayed for the whole game and had a million laughs.

    One of the cute clues in the puzzle was at 44A: “You might calmly tell someone not to do this.” The answer was WORRY. But it led LMS down a different path:

    “You might calmly tell someone not to do this.” Hmm. DON’T YOU THROW THAT CHEESE STICK ACROSS THE ROOM! I could see it in her eyes – when someone asked her if he could have it – she was gonna throw it. (The background story is that she is at my school for attacking a teacher. And she towers over me.) Not taking her eyes off mine, she winged it across the room. Shit. Now what. Our eyes were still locked as I walked over to her, looked up, and said I’m so disappointed and hurt that you just threw that. She was still. I went on, fanning my face, I think I’m gonna cry. She said, Don’t cry, Ms. Smith. I sniffed, Wanna hug it out? She laughed, Oh God, no. I just said, Don’t do that again or we’re gonna have a real problem. I know I handled it wrong; I should have written her up and kicked her out as a message to her and the other kids, but, well, heck. Baby steps and all that. She’s been good for me ever since.

    Hard to imagine there’s a better teacher on this planet. How would she have written it up anyway? — Assault with cheese stick?

    She chimed in on another clue/answer. The clue at 62A was “Lead-in to goblin,” and the answer was HOB. Here’s LMS:

    I misread 62A as “lead-in to globin.” When my daughter started a blood-borne pathogens class in vet school, we had an exchange that kind of went like this:

    Me: Sage, here’s what you have to do. You might want to get a pen to write this down. At some point, you have to raise your hand and say, “Professor? These are pretty bad actors, these pathogens, right?” She’ll agree that, yes, they’re bad. So then you have to tilt your head, squint your eyes a little but not too much and say, “So you could argue that they’re, well, hemogoblins.”

    Sage: I’m not gonna do that, Mom.

    Owl Chatter: Worth a try.

    Here are some cute cheese sticks. Go ahead: fling one.

    Pamela Turnure Timmins died of lung cancer last week at age 85 at her home in Edwards, Colorado. Back in 1961, when she was only 23, she was hired to be the press secretary to Jackie Kennedy, the first time a First Lady had one. She was hired at JFK’s behest, at least in part because he was having an affair with her. (Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and others alleged that JFK and she were having the affair. She had worked for JFK when he was a senator. Timmins seldom discussed the matter and maintained her relationship with JFK was platonic.)

    As Jackie’s press secretary she did everything for her and went everywhere with her. When tragedy struck with the death of their infant son, Patrick, Timmins was crucial in handling the media barrage.

    JFK expressed concern one day that their ride in a motorcade could ruin Jackie’s hair. Timmins suggested they not ride in a convertible, but JFK insisted the people wanted to see them. It was the Dallas motorcade and it was their last ride together. Timmins was on Air Force One when LBJ took the oath of office. At one point after the shooting, LBJ turned to Timmins and kissed her on the hand.

    After the assassination, Timmins helped Jackie through all of the difficulties, including dealing with the tens of thousands of letters that arrived daily. She continued to work with Jackie until 1966, when she married investment banker Robert Timmins. She had previously dated Prince Aly Kahn who had been the third husband of Rita Hayworth. (You following this?) After her stint with Jackie, Timmins worked as an interior designer in Manhattan.

    Here’s Pamela with Caroline’s cat, Tom Kitten.

    Frank Bruni’s newsletter this week included the following in its “For the love of sentences” feature:

    In The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead wondered at King Charles’s verbal stumbles: “He is notoriously hostile to modern architecture, and, in a vitriolic 1987 speech to a gathering of distinguished British planners and designers, he proclaimed, ‘You have, ladies and gentlemen, to give this much to the Luftwaffe — when it knocked down our buildings, it didn’t replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.’ Charles’s remarks bring to mind the internet era’s Godwin’s law, which holds that once an argument escalates online someone inevitably invokes the Nazis; usually, though, the comparison is not in the Nazis’ favor.”

    Yesterday’s puzzle reached back for a throb from the past: Britney Spears. The theme answer crossing the entire grid was OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN.

    At 47D, “Metal bars” was INGOTS, and it led pabloinnh to post the following: My favorite answer was INGOTS. It made me think of old friends Bob and Ray again, one of whose “sponsors” was The Monongahela Steel Foundry, Makers of INGOTS for the Home. They were always reminding housewives that their old INGOTS were getting dusty and it was time to replace them with some new and shiny ones.

    Here’s a taste of Bob and Ray from an appearance on The Tonight Show back when Johnny Carson was the host. And then we’ll close with Ms. Spears.

    Good night everybody. See you tomorrow!

  • A Vibrant Patience

    Albert Von Tilzer was born on March 29, 1878 in Indianapolis. His family name was originally Gumbinsky (they were Polish-Jewish immigrants), but even when it was changed to Gumm he eschewed it. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) So he took his mom’s maiden name, Tilzer, and added Von to make it seem classier. He was a songwriter, pounding out tunes by the hundreds, such as: “My Cutie’s Due at Two-to-Two,” “Put on Your Slippers and Fill Up Your Pipe, You’re Not Going Bye-Bye Tonight,” “Oh How She Could Yacki-Hacki, Wicki-Wacki, Woo,” “Au Revoir But Not Good Bye, Soldier Boy,” “Chili Bean,” “I Used to Love You But It’s All Over Now,” and, of course, “The Moon Has His Eye On You.”

    But none of those made Albert’s place in history. For that we have to go back to 1908 and take a subway ride with Jack Norworth, who was also a songwriter. Norworth saw a sign that said “Baseball today — Polo Grounds.” It got him thinking about a girl who was asked out on a date and said yes, but only if the fella took her to the ballgame. Here are the original lyrics he came up with:

    Katie Casey was baseball mad,
    Had the fever and had it bad.
    Just to root for the home town crew,
    Ev’ry sou
    Katie blew.
    On a Saturday her young beau
    Called to see if she’d like to go
    To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
    I’ll tell you what you can do:”

    Take me out to the ball game,
    Take me out with the crowd;
    Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
    I don’t care if I never get back.
    Let me root, root, root for the home team,
    If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
    For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
    At the old ball game.

    There was a second stanza before the famous chorus was repeated:

    Katie Casey saw all the games,
    Knew the players by their first names.
    Told the umpire he was wrong,
    All along,
    Good and strong.
    When the score was just two to two,
    Katie Casey knew what to do,
    Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
    She made the gang sing this song:

    Norworth took the lyrics to Von Tilzer who put them to the tune we all know. Neither Tilzer nor Norworth had attended a baseball game before writing the song, and they only attended their first games decades later. The first time the song was sung at a game was in 1934 in LA at a high school game, but it was also sung in St. Louis at the 4th game of the World Series that year between Detroit and St. Louis. In 1927, Norworth revised the lyrics, but the chorus wasn’t changed.

    In the 1935 Marx Brothers’ film A Night at the Opera, in one of the more unusual uses of the song, composer Herbert Stothart arranged for a full pit orchestra to segue seamlessly from the overture of Il Trovatore into the chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

    In 1955, in an episode of I Love Lucy guest starring Harpo Marx, Harpo performed a harp rendition of the song.

    In 1994, radio station WJMP, broadcasting to the Akron, Ohio market, played the song continuously during the Major League Baseball players’ strike of 1994 as a protest.

    In 1995 in the ER Season 2 episode “Hell and High Water,” the character Doug Ross tells a child to keep singing the song to keep himself conscious.

    The 2001 children’s book “Take Me Out of the Bathtub and other Silly Dilly Songs” by Alan Katz and David Catrow, recast the end of the chorus as “I used one, two, three bars of soap. Take me out…I’m clean!” in its title number.

    In the series Homeland, Nicholas Brody teaches the song to Isa Nazir to help him learn English.

    In 2001, Nike aired a commercial featuring a diverse group of Major League players singing lines of the song in their native languages. The players and languages featured were Ken Griffey Jr. (American English), Alex Rodriguez (Caribbean Spanish), Chan Ho Park (Korean), Kazuhiro Sasaki (Japanese), Graeme Lloyd (Australian English), Éric Gagné (Québécois French), Andruw Jones (Dutch), John Franco (Italian), Iván Rodríguez (Caribbean Spanish), and Mark McGwire (American English). C’mon, man — you couldn’t get Max Fried to sing it in Hebrew? Well, he was only 7 years old.

    Tilzer died in LA at age 78 in October of 1956. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is listed at #8 in Songs of the Century.

    Here’s Harpo’s version. It’s beautiful.

    Today’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac is by Dorianne Laux.

    Girl in the Doorway

    She is twelve now, the door to her room
    closed, telephone cord trailing the hallway
    in tight curls. I stand at the dryer, listening
    through the thin wall between us, her voice
    rising and falling as she describes her new life.
    Static flies in brief blue stars from her socks,
    her hairbrush in the morning. Her silver braces
    shine inside the velvet case of her mouth.
    Her grades rise and fall, her friends call
    or they don’t, her dog chews her new shoes
    to a canvas pulp. Some days she opens her door
    and musk rises from the long crease in her bed,
    fills the dim hall. She grabs a denim coat
    and drags the floor. Dust swirls in gold eddies
    behind her. She walks through the house, a goddess,
    each window pulsing with summer. Outside,
    the boys wait for her teeth to straighten.
    They have a vibrant patience.
    When she steps onto the front porch, sun shimmies
    through the tips of her hair, the V of her legs,
    fans out like wings under her arms
    as she raises them and waves. Goodbye, Goodbye.
    Then she turns to go, folds up
    all that light in her arms like a blanket
    and takes it with her.

    In today’s comments on the puzzle, Weezie said she liked its “contemporary/pop culture bent.” It includes Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa, for example. She noted the coincidence of its appearing the day after the posh Met Gala in NY. Then she confessed to being “obsessed with Jenna Ortega’s look.” We sent our photographer Phil to check it out. Yup. Good shot, Philly. It’s Jenna at the Gala. Matadorial.

    There are some other nice pairings in the puzzle: MT RAINIER and SUMATRA, two gorgeous sites; CABANA and HUT; AMOROUS right next to ROM-COMS; BURRATA and BURRITOS; and the sexy DOMINATRIX with MADAMS and CUFFS (!) — pretty hot for the NYT. Constructor Aimee Lucido put a nice grid together.

    Burrata is an Italian cheese made from cow or buffalo milk combining mozzarella and cream. The outer surface is solid cheese and the inner part is cream mixed with bits of mozz. It dates back to around 1900, but only became more widely available in the 1950’s. Here, try some.

    And here’s a shot of Sumatra. You may have had some coffee from the island. There’s a strong Starbucks blend that features it.

    The puzzle’s theme today was based on James Bond’s famous drink order: “Vodka martini, shaken not stirred.” But several commenters came down hard:

    First, for a guy who’s supposed to be classy and sophisticated, he orders a completely blasphemous cocktail. For starters, real martinis use gin, not vodka. Vodka is a cheap booze, lacking nuance. Second, never ever shake a martini. It over dilutes, creates ice shards and the drink loses complexity during the tasting. The very request would indicate a person lacking knowledge of potent potables, and not in line with our Mr. Bond.

    Next, shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of gin and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. James is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it.

    And, finally, Ian Fleming was a fine writer, but he created a character who didn’t know what a martini is. It is 3 parts GIN, 1 part dry vermouth, optional bitters – STIRRED with ice (to minimize air bubbles so the end product is a lovely crystal clear), served in a cocktail glass with a garnish of seeded green olive(s).

    Hrrrrumph!

    Question from Joaquin: If James Bond sleeps through an earthquake, can you say he was shaken but not stirred?

    Enough nonsense for now. More tomorrow.

  • Bear Crawl

    Today is the birthday of Joe Heller, author of Catch 22. He was born to poor Jewish Russian-immigrant parents in Coney Island, Brooklyn, in 1923. He met his first wife Shirley Held at a dance contest at Grossinger’s Hotel. They were married for 38 years and had two kids, but it was a stormy marriage that ended in divorce. After the divorce Heller begged his daughter Erica to get his ex-wife’s secret pot roast recipe, even offering Erica $10,000 in cash for it. She refused and Erica said that on her deathbed, her mother extracted a promise from her: “No matter what, don’t ever give him the pot roast recipe.”

    Erica recalls that during the era she calls “B.C.” — that is, Before “Catch” — she would receive a kick under the table if she tried to order a shrimp cocktail at the local Italian restaurant. “After the publication and eventual success of ‘Catch-22,’ ” she reports, “the kicks under the table at Tony’s suddenly stopped. It was in this way that it dawned on me that my father’s book must have been successful.”

    Osner’s typewriter repair shop at 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue was very important to Joe and was part of a ritual. “Typewriters there were a religion, and the shop had cared for the machines of Isaac Bashevis Singer, David Mamet, Alfred Kazin, Erich Maria Remarque, Roger Kahn, Philip Roth, Howard Fast, and Murray Schisgal,” Erica recalls. “Dad always went there when a book was finished to announce that he was done.”

    In 1981, Heller was stricken with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and was in a very weakened condition for about five years. He was greatly helped through it by close friends Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo, and Dustin Hoffman. After he pulled out of it, Heller married Valerie Humphries, a former nurse of his, and they were together until his death did them part, in 1999.

    Heller wrote other books and a play after Catch 22, but none as successful. When asked (as he often was) why he never wrote another book as good as Catch 22, his answer was “Who has?” I was today years old when noodling around for this short piece that I learned that Yossarian’s first name was John. Was that in the book? I don’t remember.

    Here he is with daughter Erica and his typewriter.

    Happy 100th Birthday Joe!

    Since it’s Monday, when Rex and several others do the puzzle “down clues only,” the rest of us cast about for other ways to increase the challenge. Joseph Michael posted: “This puzzle was nearly impossible, especially for a Monday. I was solving blindfolded while doing a bear crawl and I couldn’t get a single answer.” [Bear crawl was an answer in the puzzle.]

    I took issue with that, posting the following (under my posting name, Liveprof): “I disagree on the level of difficulty, JM! — I solved it using only every third letter in the clues. (So, e.g., “Rower’s implement” becomes WSPMT.) I was still able to finish in 5/8 of a second — close to my best for a Monday.

    JM shot back: “Congratulations on your impressive time, Liveprof. However, it’s not a fair comparison. I do every-third-letter solving now and then and it has never had much impact on my solving time. Try a blindfolded bear crawl next time and perhaps you’ll understand the difficulty I experienced.”

    My last word was: “Excellent points, JM. On the BBC (blindfolded bear crawl), I’m a little concerned about things like wrenching my back, tumbling down stairs, or falling off buildings. But I’ll check out some youtube videos on techniques. Thanks!”

    Whatsername chimed in with a very nice note saying that JM and I had her “snorting helplessly.”

    Here’s a joke from Vermont Lizzie’s daughter Bridgette. (Lizzie tucked it into an email she wrote me responding to my email to her complaining about my bladder. How I have any friends left is a mystery.) Anyway, Lizzie described B’s joke as a “groaner.” I’m afraid that’s way too kind, as you’ll see. It goes without saying that I love it, but I must confess I didn’t “get it” at first, and, too embarrassed to admit that by asking Lizzie, I emailed Boston-friends Don and Jenny to see if they could help me. While in the act of drafting my email, the light dawned. (Don got it too.) Here it is:

    What did one egg say to the other egg two hours into the keg party?

    Ahm lit!

    So, here’s the joke — the two of them are eggs and “Ahm lit” is omelet.

    Leonard Cohen used to say if he knew where the great songs came from he’d go there more often. Where do these jokes come from? I wanna move there!

    Thanks Lizzie!

    Ooooooh! — and this one looks great! Berries!

    There were two dances in the puzzle today: RUMBA and FOX TROT. Here’s what LMS had to say:

    “I liked seeing RUMBA sharing the grid with FOXTROT. I took ballroom dance lessons for a while and let me tell you – the RUMBA is way harder than the FOXTROT for a buttoned-up non-dancing Capricorn. The RUMBA is slow and sultry, and you have to do dancerish stuff with your arms when they’re not connected to your partner. Like, sexy come-hither stuff. With faster dances like the FOXTROT, it feels like you can disguise your ineptitude more easily in the bouncy happy steps. With a slow dance like the RUMBA, Everything is exposed. Doing a FOXTROT is like wearing an oversize clunky sweater; doing the RUMBA is like wearing a wet TEE shirt.”

    We sent our intrepid Owl Chatter photographer Phil down to Miami to sort out the Rumba scene. Wow! — good work Philly — as usual! Hot stuff! Whose shoes are hotter — hers or his? Don’t let go, Miguel!

    See you tomorrow!

  • Diabolo

    Would you buy a cheesesteak from this Pakistani guy? [Is he smiling? Can’t tell.] He’s a chef named Mazar Hussain. I would. Have to go to Pakistan though. D’oh!

    In the Fall of 2021, Hussain met a man from Philly who introduced him to the cheesesteak. He opened a shop and they are selling like, well, cheesesteaks, i.e., very well. They are not exactly like the ones you’d get at Pat’s or Tony Luke’s in Philly — they’re infused with local spices — but they are essentially the same. They are served on paper plates and go for the Pakistani equivalent of about two bucks. This one looks droolingly eatible, and there’s the shop on the left; it’s above a hair saloon.

    Owl Chatter was down in Philly a few weeks ago and we had good ones at Woodrow’s Sandwiches on South Street. I did some research online to find it. They were excellent. Good scene too. BYOB.

    There was much disgruntlement about an answer in today’s puzzle. The clue was “Put on a pedestal,” and the answer was HEROIZE. It does seem like a botched version of LIONIZE, but it’s a legit word in the dictionary. The “OI” just makes it clunky. Here’s a note from LMS:

    I just found out that two of my students – freshman boys with ankle monitors – go home every day and are the primary caregivers for their younger siblings (4 each!) while their mothers work the night shift. The ages of their charges range from 9 months to 4 years. I was stunned. One of them changes diapers, and they both give baths. And they weren’t whining about it – it is what it is. Had this been my lot at age 15, I would have been a big, complaining baby. I asked them if they ever read them books, and Quintrez said once he had read them The Cat in the Hat, but that was it. So I went to a Goodwill-type place yesterday and got some children’s books to give them. I dunno – they may not use them, but who knows…. Whatever the case, I’m officially HEROIZING Ja’Quiontis and Quintrez. I tell ya, I’m humbled every day at that school.

    A term that was new to me was SIN BINS: “Penalty boxes, in hockey lingo.”

    Egsforbreakfast noted: It seems like SINBINS could also be slang for confessional booths. Now that I think about it, they should station a priest in the hockey penalty box to hear the sins of the players. “Forgive me father, for I have cross checked.” “In 2 minutes, you may go take the ice in peace.”

    Also learned about the DIABOLO today — “a string and spool toy.” It’s related to the yo-yo. Here’s a champ at it:

    “Tony winning musical with puppets” was AVENUE Q. Anne Harada played the character Christmas Eve in it, a heavily accented Japanese therapist. She’s the only actress who was in both the original London and Bdwy casts.

    Here’s today’s Tiny Love Story, by Jane Fennell from the NYT:

    The neurological examination was over. Alan had done better than expected, remembering two of the three words (“pencil” and “watch”) and the incumbent president’s name. As the doctor wrote his prescriptions, I stood by my very tired and stressed 88-year-old husband of 40 years. Answering questions puts a strain on him. He knows his memory is failing. Later, I asked if he remembered the three words. He looked at me blankly, then nodded. I said, “What were they?” Quietly, and with such sincerity, he looked into my face and said, “I love you.”

  • The Devil’s Fingers

    Marriage is like a game of chess except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke, and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.

    Jerry Seinfeld, who said that, is happily married with three kids. Happy Birthday Jerry! He’s 69 today.

    Today is the day that, in 1913, a Swedish engineer named Gideon Sundback, living in Hoboken, NJ, patented the modern zipper under the name, “Hookless No. 2.” Preachers called it “the Devil’s fingers” because it eased the process of removing clothing. Now, of course, we’re more worried about the preacher’s fingers.

    Here’s how the zipper figures into the aging process: First you forget names. Next you forget faces. Then you forget to zip up your fly. And, last, you forget to zip down your fly. I’m in stage three. Several years ago, one of my students came up to me after class, and she whispered “You’re fly is down.” I whispered back: “Thank you. Next time tell me before class.”

    When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
    And the stars begin to twinkle in the night
    In the mist of my memory, you wander on back to me
    Breathing my name with a sigh

    In the still of the night once again I hold you tight
    Though you’ve gone, your love lives on when moonlight beams
    And as long as my heart will beat, sweet lover, we’ll always meet
    Here in my deep purple dreams

    Here’s April Stevens singing Deep Purple with her brother Nick Tempo. It’s worth a listen, both as time-travel and a good very-oldie.

    April’s “talking” the lyrics came about by accident. Nick hadn’t yet learned the words the first time they performed it, so April whispered them to him as he was singing. The effect was terrific and they kept it in. They used the technique in later songs as well.

    Deep Purple hit the top of the charts on Nov. 16, 1963. A week later JFK was shot and the country’s interest in music fell off for a time. But the song sold a million copies, and April and Nick won a Grammy for it. They never reached No. 1 again, as the “British invasion” soon took over.

    Get this: In 1959, she released a song called “Teach Me Tiger” that her NYT obit described as “sultry,” but that’s a whopper of an understatement. It’s over-the-top sexy. (Marilyn Monroe recorded a sexy version too.) The lyrics include lines like “Take my lips, they belong to you, But teach me first, teach me what to do. . . ” Did they have stuff like that in 1959? Hear it for yourself:

    But I haven’t gotten to the “get this” yet. On April 6, 1983, the astronauts aboard space shuttle Challenger requested the song as their wake-up call. NASA obliged the crew, and April was invited to watch their landing.

    April Stevens (born Caroline LoTempio) passed away on the 17th of April, at age 93, leaving behind her husband of 38 years, her brother and duet partner Nick, four step-children, six grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren. As the song says, though she’s gone, her love lives on like moonlight beams.

    The shortstop for the World Champion 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, Dick Groat, passed away at age 92 in a Pittsburgh hospital on Thursday. He was a terrific player who may still get into the Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee since he compares favorably to a number of players who are in, e.g., Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, and teammate Bill Mazeroski. Speaking of Maz, it was his historic homer that won the 1960 WS vs the Yankees, but Pittsburgh was trailing 7-4 in the 7th inning and it was Groat’s base hit that ignited a key 5-run rally. 1960 was a great year for Groat: he won the batting crown with a .325 average, and was named NL MVP.

    Groat again beat the Yanks in the WS in 1964 with the Cardinals, and was an All-Star eight times in his 14-year career. His lifetime average was .286, with 2,138 hits. Just nine days before he died he was notified that he was voted into the Pirates Hall of Fame.

    Groat was a sensational basketball player at Duke, setting the NCAA scoring record in the ’51-’52 season, and he was named UPI Player of the Year. His jersey number (10) was the first to be retired by Duke, and it retired no other number for 28 years. He is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.

    Groat was planning on a two-sport pro career and played 26 games for the then-Ft. Wayne Pistons of the NBA in 1952 until he enlisted in the army. He was the Pistons’ first-round draft pick. When he was discharged, however, Branch Rickey adamantly insisted he play only baseball, so as not to risk injury.

    When his playing days were over, Groat spent 40 years as the color analyst for the Pitt Panthers basketball broadcasts. He is survived by three daughters, six grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, and millions of appreciative Pirate fans who remember 1960.

    Much of the cluing in the puzzle today was very sharp. At 47D, the clue was “F words?,” and the answer was SEE ME. Wait, what? It’s from when a teacher hands back your failing (F) paper, and writes “See me” on the top. Ouch! Cutely, it was right next to 42D: “Philosophy associated with beaches,” which was NUDISM. Get it? SEE ME next to NUDISM.

    At 1D, “One of three in many baseball fields,” turned out to be a very creative clue for ACRE. I had no idea the area of a typical MLB ballfield is close to 3 acres.

    At 5A, “Target for a certain mallet” was CRAB CLAW. Yum!

    “Cry of amazement” was WOWIE ZOWIE, right atop ALL SMILES (“Outwardly very happy”), and symmetrical with WHAT A TREAT! (“I’m so enjoying this!”). That pretty much sums up how we feel when reading Owl Chatter, amirite? See you tomorrow!

  • Whitey on the Moon

    I was planning to skip discussing Jerry Springer’s passing yesterday at age 79, but he had a few good self-deprecating lines I’d like to share. (FYI, if you’re not familiar with the term “self-deprecating,” it means to deprecate yourself.)

    Springer was born on Feb. 13, 1944 in the Highland station of the London Underground, which was being used as a shelter from German bombing, and set up as a maternity ward for late-term pregnant women. His parents were German Jews who fled Poland to escape the Nazis. Both of his grandmothers and a great uncle were killed by the Nazis. His family moved to Queens when he was four. He attended Forest Hills HS, then Tulane U., and then Northwestern for his law degree.

    Springer’s first taste of broadcasting was at the radio station at Tulane, WTUL, with which he kept in touch over the years. On its 50th anniversary in 2009, he sent them a note observing that he got his start at WTUL, and “it’s been downhill ever since.” He worked briefly in a law firm in Cincinnati, but then entered politics. He was the mayor of Cincy at one point. He was embroiled in a minor scandal when it was discovered that he wrote a check to a massage parlor for prostitution services. He later sought to use that to his advantage in a campaign by saying, “you know my credit is good.” But, of course, he gained his notoriety with his mishegas on his crazy TV show.

    When he was invited to give the commencement address at Northwestern in 2008, some students protested, and in his speech he conceded that he would also have chosen someone else. And he said:

    “I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy a comfortable measure of success in my various careers, but let’s be honest, I’ve been virtually everything you can’t respect: a lawyer, a mayor, a major-market news anchor and a talk-show host. Pray for me. If I get to heaven, we’re all going.”

    Rather than dredging up a photo of JS, here’s Miss Universe from 2008. (Jerry hosted the pageant that year.) She is Dayana Mendoza, representing Venezuela about as well as it can be done, IMHO. She’s an orthodox Jew. [No she isn’t.] (Later we’ll see whom she edged out.)

    The puzzle was a real bear today. I couldn’t make headway for the longest time, so I was pleased to only blow a few squares by the time I finished. For “Zesty liqueur” I had LEMONCELLO instead of LIMONCELLO. D’oh! And I didn’t know “Actress Mitchell of “Pretty Little Liars.” I had SHA–, and didn’t know it was SHAY. I took comfort in Rex rating it “challenging.”

    Do you know the “Gil Scott-Heron poem inspired by 1969 events?” It’s WHITEY ON THE MOON,” and it’s pretty hard-hitting. Here are the lyrics, with GSH performing it, below:

    A rat done bit my sister Nell
    With whitey on the moon
    Her face and arms began to swell
    And whitey’s on the moon
    I can’t pay no doctor bills
    But whitey’s on the moon
    Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still
    While whitey’s on the moon
    The man just upped my rent last night
    Cause whitey’s on the moon
    No hot water, no toilets, no lights
    But whitey’s on the moon
    I wonder why he’s upping me?
    Cause whitey’s on the moon?
    Well I was already giving him fifty a week
    With whitey on the moon
    Taxes taking my whole damn check
    Junkies making me a nervous wreck
    The price of food is going up
    And as if all that shit wasn’t enough:
    A rat done bit my sister Nell
    With whitey on the moon
    Her face and arm began to swell
    And whitey’s on the moon
    Was all that money I made last year
    For whitey on the moon?
    How come I ain’t got no money here?
    Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon
    Y’know I just ’bout had my fill
    Of whitey on the moon
    I think I’ll send these doctor bills
    Airmail special
    To whitey on the moon

    It led to this back-and-forth between two Rex commenters:

    First, from “Bob,”

    WHITEYONTHEMOON was a real poem. But the clue refers to 1969 events [i.e., plural]. Was the fact that the astronauts were Caucasians a separate event from the moon landing itself? This struck me as an example of racism in reverse, a little bit like saying, “Darkie on the basketball court.” A really regrettable choice of title for poetry.

    And this response from “Weezie:”

    Bob, I don’t think we’ll change your opinion here, and maybe this is discourse you’ve already engaged with, but I wanted to respond in good faith in case you’re open to it.

    For something to be racist, it needs to exist within a societal pattern of oppression, power, and control in which that systemic power is maintained (intentionally or not) by marginalizing a particular racial identity. Because we white people as a category in America have historically and still do directly and indirectly benefit from the oppression and disenfranchisement of Black people/ Indigenous people/ people of color (BIPOC), we can’t experience racism. Meanwhile, Black folks daily live in fear of police violence, are less likely to be interviewed than white folks if they have a “Black-sounding” name, are more than 2.5 times as likely to die in childbirth than white people, and are criminalized for trying to ensure that their history is taught in schools.

    White people can experience *discrimination*, sure, and I’d agree that the term is *discriminatory* against white people. And, I’d say that’s fair/fine with me, given all that’s been done to BIPOC in this country by white folks – the poem/song was written in 1970, just 16 years after segregation was declared illegal, for context. And, in cases like this poem, I would argue that it’s more about someone who has experienced racism and violence so profound from white institutions and individuals that he’s leveraging the punch of that word to make a cutting point about his country’s priorities.

    Then there were these two “anonymous” comments:

    I saw a cabaret singer with a piano guy sing Whitey on the Moon around 1990. The singer was transvestite and they played it very seriously. For some reason it was one of the most poignant things I’ve ever experienced.

    And:

    I don’t know why everyone is so worked up. The poem is actually about Yankees’ Hall-of-Famer Whitey Ford and that time he went to the moon.

    After that, the discussion was renewed. First, Bob wrote:

    For Weezie; Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Forgive me for extending the argument, but assuming you’re right that the poet had suffered from discrimination personally, why does that constitute permission to delegitimize a remarkable scientific achievement, simply because the astronauts happened to have white skin? Did Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin ever discriminate against African-Americans? I promise to let you have the last word. Thanks again for the dialogue.

    And then Weezie:

    Yes Bob, more than happy to respond. The piece actually doesn’t have much at all to do with the moon landing itself, I think, and in my opinion, it has nothing at all to do with the individual astronauts who landed upon it. “Whitey” in those days was a stand-in for the *institution* of white supremacy as exemplified by the US government at the time, which was hungry to conjure up goodwill with something like the moon landing while distracting from the very real problems at home and abroad here on Earth. (e.g., the Vietnam war, as mentioned by @jberg). The author describes the violence of poverty – a rat biting his sister, inaccessible healthcare, rising rents and taxes – speaking to deep social issues which were being obscured and de-centered by all the hoopla around the moon landing. He isn’t *able* to be excited about the scientific advances in space, because he and his people’s basic human needs and rights aren’t being met right here on earth.

    And to be clear: I like space exploration and I think it’s important for the longevity of humanity (though I wish we’d take trying to save this planet more seriously.) I just don’t blame Scott-Heron for seeing it through the lens that he did at the time.

    The clue/answer at 13D was neat: “I think I can see a future with him” was the clue, and the answer was IT’S SERIOUS.

    “[This is looking very bad for me]” was a good clue for GULP.

    How about this one: The clue: “Deification.” Answer: APOTHEOSIS. [Murder, right?]

    And 30D was completely new to me. The clue was “Sexy selfie posted on social media, in lingo,” and answer was THIRST TRAP.

    The following is from Wikipedia:

    Often, the term “thirst trap” describes an attractive picture of an individual that they post online. It can also describe a digital heartthrob. For instance, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has been described as a political thirst trap.

    “Gatsbying” is a variation, where one puts posts on social media to attract the attention of a particular individual. The term alludes to the novel The Great Gatsby where Gatsby threw extravagant parties to attract Daisy. “Instagrandstanding” is an alternative name for this.

    And then there’s “wholesome trapping,” where one posts pictures of more meaningful aspects of life, such as spending time with friends, doing outdoor activities, or reading Owl Chatter. [I know, — Bore. Ring.]

    Aaron Judge, who signed his gargantuan contract with the Yankees this year, had to leave the game yesterday due to discomfort in his hip. Apparently, the hip is stressed from carrying his wallet in his pocket.

    New Yorker cartoon from a long time ago: Two old guys are sitting at a bar. One of them says: “I’m like a workaholic, but with alcohol.”

    As promised above, in case you were wondering about the first runner up in that 2008 Miss Universe contest, it was Miss Colombia, Taliana Vargas. Tough competition!

    More nonsense tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Two Straight Lines

    Ludwig Bemelmans was born on this day in 1898 in what was then Austria-Hungary, but is now Italy. When Lud was five or six, his dad left both his mother and his (Ludwig’s) governess when they were pregnant with his child for another woman. (Jeez Louise!) So Ludwig was raised by his mom for a while, but was a problem child so was sent off to work in his uncle’s hotel in Austria. However, he was beaten regularly there by the headwaiter until he retaliated by shooting him. The headwaiter was seriously wounded and Lud was given the choice of reform school or emigration to America. He chose the latter.

    After bumbling around a bit in the army and the hotel/restaurant business, he started working on children’s books and, of course, gained fame with his Madeline series. Madeline was his wife’s name. They had one daughter and three grandchildren. He died in 1964 of pancreatic cancer and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

    The opening of the first Madeline book is pretty much perfect. Here it is:

    “In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread, and brushed their teeth, and went to bed. They smiled at the good, and frowned at the bad, and sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine, in two straight lines, in rain or shine. The smallest one was Madeline!”

    And here she is, way on the right, next to the dog and the nun:

    From Owl Chatter’s Chutzpah With a Capital Chutz Department:

    “I wanted to address my senators, Cruz and Cornyn,” Amanda Zurawski told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary at a hearing on reproductive rights. Zurawski’s water broke 18 weeks into her pregnancy, making it impossible for her fetus to survive. Because of the vague and extreme Texas antiabortion law, her health care providers refused to treat her as long as the fetus had a heartbeat. Zurawski developed sepsis and, after giving birth to a stillborn daughter, spent three days in intensive care. 

    Zurawski said she wanted the two Texas Republican senators to know “that what happened to me is a direct result of the policies they support. I nearly died, and I may not be able to have children in the future.” Neither Cruz nor Cornyn showed up to hear her.

    Cornyn later said Zurawski should consider suing her doctors for misinterpreting the law.

    And here are the Zurawskis.

    Fifty bucks says you don’t know what Ulysses S. Grant’s middle name is. Give up? It’s Ulysses. Wait, what? His actual name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. The Congressman who nominated him for admission to West Point got his name wrong on the paperwork and Grant ran with it. Ulysses became his first name. The S stands for nothing. Hiram is gone. Happy Birthday Grant! He was born on this day in Point Pleasant, Ohio, in 1822.

    Anya Silver, the poet whose poem was in Owl Chatter yesterday, chose not to read War and Peace. This was not as easy a decision for her as it generally is. Her dad was a Russian Lit professor at Swarthmore, and wrote a book about Tolstoy. So her refusal was hard on him. He offered her $100 to read it. She held her ground.

    Anya wrote her first poem (“Snowflakes”) when she was in fourth grade, but her teacher upbraided her in front of the class for staring out the window and daydreaming. Later in life, she told an interviewer: “But that’s basically what I do now when I write a poem — stare out my window and contemplate.”

    Here’s another of her poems, called “Return.”

    When he returned home after many years,
    an enormous oak had split his house in two,
    its trunk growing right through the center hall.
    Though there was nobody living in the tilting
    rooms, he recognized some simple objects:
    a milk jug once filled with daisies, a single shoe.
    Where a mirror had hung, a darkened oval
    remained on the wall. No bark, no call, no singing.
    But though he didn’t understand what he saw,
    he knew the tree, broad and green, was a blessing.

    Thanks for dropping in. See you tomorrow!

  • You Can Learn A Lot From Lydia

    At 49A in yesterday’s puzzle, the clue was “To a greater degree,” and the answer was MORESO. Well, I can’t hear the word “moreso” without bringing to mind Lydia. Lydia the tattooed lady, of course. “She had eyes that folks adore so, and a torso, even moreso.” Here are the lyrics — it was written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen in 1939, and Groucho sang it in the movie “At the Circus.” After the lyrics, below, there’s a clip of Groucho singing it again (on the Dick Cavett show) thirty years later on June 13, 1969. (He was 78.)

    [Has there ever been a more wonderful rhyme than: Here is Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon; Here’s Godiva, but with her pajamas on. I ask you.]

    Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia?
    Lydia, the Tattooed Lady
    She has eyes that folks adore so
    And a torso even more so

    Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopydia
    Oh Lydia the Queen of Tattoo
    On her back is the Battle of Waterloo
    Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus, too
    And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue
    You can learn a lot from Lydia

    When her robe is unfurled, she will show you the world
    If you step up and tell her where
    For a dime you can see Kankakee or Paree
    Or Washington crossing the Delaware

    Oh Lydia oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia?
    Oh Lydia the Tattooed Lady
    When her muscles start relaxin’
    Up the hill comes Andrew Jackson

    Lydia oh Lydia, that encyclopydia
    Oh Lydia the queen of them all
    For two bits she will do a mazurka in jazz
    With a view of Niagara that nobody has
    And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz
    You can learn a lot from Lydia

    Come along and see Buff’lo Bill with his lasso
    Just a little classic by Mendel Picasso
    Here is Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon
    Here’s Godiva, but with her pajamas on

    Here is Grover Whalen unveilin’ the Trilon
    Over on the West Coast we have Treasure Island
    Here’s Nijinsky a-doin’ the rhumba
    Here’s her social security numba

    Oh Lydia, oh Lydia that encyclopydia
    Oh Lydia the champ of them all
    She once swept an Admiral clear off his feet
    The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat
    And now the old boy’s in command of the fleet
    For he went and married Lydia!

    Small point: Who is Mendel Picasso? In the song, he’s the artist who drew Buffalo Bill on Lydia — not Pablo Picasso, who would have cost too much. Mendel (Jewish, of course) was perfectly fine.

    Also, why is her Social Security “numba” among her tattoos? SSN’s were fairly new at the time and one theory holds it was a joking reference to Lydia’s “measurements,” i.e., 36-24-36.

    Enough?

    Just one more Groucho quote: Be open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.

    This love poem, courtesy of today’s Writer’s Almanac, is by Anya Krugovoy Silver, and is called “At the Station.”

    When the girl got off the train at the college town,
    she leapt up and wrapped her legs around the waist
    of the boy she’d come to visit, and they spun
    around, embracing and shrieking with joy.
    Their love set off a piccolo’s vibration.
    Those years are gone for us—I see you every day,
    we eat meals together from decades-old plates.
    But when we lie in bed at night, you take my hand,
    and I feel the orb that’s formed around us tighten,
    while you and I, like knitting needles in a ball
    of yarn, lie beside each other, fingers touching.

    Anya Silver passed away in 2018 after a long battle with breast cancer. She wrote poems until the very end, many of them about life and death. She was pregnant with her son Noah when her cancer was diagnosed. She felt guilty about becoming a mother, knowing that her son was likely to lose her at an early age. But, as she told Georgia Public Radio, “I decided that the joy of life and the beauty and connection of life were more important than the chance of suffering.”

    Owl Chatter will have more chatter about her in the coming days.

    How’s this from the Lemons-to-Lemonade Department? In 2011, Chernobyl was officially declared a tourist attraction. You know, like a theme park. Getting in line?

    Today is the anniversary of the nuclear disaster that occurred there in 1986, causing 100,000 people to flee the area. (Three hundred people refused to leave, resisting the “Go or Glow” campaign.) There were 28 deaths from radiation poisoning within a week of the accident, and experts predict a total of 4,000 deaths when all is said and done.

    OMG, we can’t end on such a dark note. Surely, we can find some nonsense to send us off. Will eyeglasses for chickens do?

    On Jan. 16, 1955, Sam Nadler of the National Farm Equipment Company of Brooklyn appeared on CBS’ popular TV show, What’s My Line? His occupation was “sells eyeglasses for chickens” and he stumped the panel. The show’s director said he was the most unusual contestant in the show’s eight years on the air.

    Chicken eyeglasses, also known as chickens specs or chicken goggles, were small eyeglasses made for chickens intended to prevent feather pecking. They were still in use as late as 1973, as evident by a report in Illinois’ The Hawk-Eye newspaper that a farmer had 8,000 chickens fitted with the rose-colored variety.  One inventor of a form of the glasses proposed legislation in Kansas to require all chickens in the state to be fitted with glasses, but his campaign was unsuccessful.

    There, that’s better. Good night, chickens!