The Wellington Files

  • Nighthawks

    The great upset victory of the Iowa women over South Carolina on Friday apparently emptied their tank, and they fell in the final to a strong LSU team this afternoon. Owl Chatter is already looking forward to next year.

    Here is the winning coach, LSU’s Kim Mulkey, who dressed in outrageous outfits for the games.

    Mulkey was Britney Griner’s coach at Baylor and has some issues with the gay community. Her approach seems to be, keep it to yourself — it’s nobody’s business. But that resulted, in Griner’s case, in her living a lie during her college years and she looks back sadly on them.

    Gladys Kessler died on March 16th at the age of 85. She was a federal judge who stuck it to the tobacco industry back in 2006. It was the big case brought by the Justice Department in 1999 that lasted over a decade. She found the tobacco industry violated civil racketeering laws for decades by “repeatedly, and with enormous skill and sophistication” deceiving the public about the health hazards of smoking,

    Her 1653-page opinion stated the defendants marketed their “lethal” product with zeal and “with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted.” The decision ended the debate on the vileness of the industry.

    Kessler strongly took to task the lawyers for the industry for enabling their sordid and deadly activities. She wrote, “What a sad and disquieting chapter in the history of an honorable and often courageous profession.”

    Amen to that, Your Honor. Rest in peace.

    The puzzle’s theme today was art-related. Very well constructed, but not very stimulating, IMHO. Here’s one of the works it referred to. Hopper’s Nighthawks.

    It was inspired by a diner in Greenwich Village, Hopper’s neighborhood. The specific diner was later demolished, or was only ever a composite in Hopper’s mind. The theater lighting manufacturer Electronic Theatre Controls has a human-sized scale model of the diner in the lobby of their headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin. Here’s what it looks like on site.

    Thanks for stopping by!

  • The Secret

    All Hail Caitlin Clark! — never better in defeating the big bad South Carolinians last night. One more to go!

    Here she is with Coach Bluder.

    Owl Chatter is on the move today. Heading down to Philly for a nice event with some friends. Not sure we can write later.

    But here’s the poem of the day from the Poetry Foundation.

    It’s by Denise Levertov, and it’s called The Secret.

    Two girls discover
    the secret of life
    in a sudden line of
    poetry.

    I who don’t know the
    secret wrote
    the line. They
    told me

    (through a third person)
    they had found it
    but not what it was
    not even

    what line it was. No doubt
    by now, more than a week
    later, they have forgotten
    the secret,

    the line, the name of
    the poem. I love them
    for finding what
    I can’t find,

    and for loving me
    for the line I wrote,
    and for forgetting it
    so that

    a thousand times, till death
    finds them, they may
    discover it again, in other
    lines

    in other
    happenings. And for
    wanting to know it,
    for

    assuming there is
    such a secret, yes,
    for that
    most of all.

  • You What?

    Yesterday’s puzzle was excellent, if hard, — a gem by Brooke Husic, a terrific constructor, partnering with Adam Wagner, also terrific. It took me forever to figure out the theme. In five places there were clues that were a repeated word separated by a slash. E.g., “Tease/Tease.” It turns out our job was to find a two-part word or phrase each part of which answers the clue. The answer to Tease/Tease was RIB ROAST. To RIB someone and to ROAST someone can both mean “tease.”

    “Toilet/Toilet” was POTHEAD. Get it? Both POT and HEAD can mean “toilet.” Hard, right? Even Rex called it “Medium-Challenging,” and was impressed.

    To round it out, if you’d like a little mental exercise, the other three were: “Quit/Quit,” “Drat!/Drat,” and “Heard/Heard.” Answers below the next separator.

    Dropkick, Crapshoot, Got Caught.

    The puzzle wanted us to know that the actress Awkwafina’s real name is Nora LUM.

    So, one fellow noted that LUM is also the name of Mike LUM, a former ballplayer who, he said, was the only player ever to pinch hit for Hank Aaron! Well, Aaron had a long career, so I thought that was pretty amazing. But I did a little digging, and get this — at the time, it was wrongly reported in the press that Aaron was never lifted for a pinch hitter before Lum (on May 22, 1969). But Lee Maye had pinch hit for Aaron in ’62, as had Johnny Blanchard in ’65. And Johnny Briggs, Marty Perez, and Mike Hegan did it after Lum. Crucial information available to you only on Owl Chatter! BTW, Lum hit a two-run double with his historic opportunity.

    Lum was the first major leaguer of Japanese ancestry. He was born in Hawaii and his mom was Japanese. (As of 2017) he holds the record for most games played by someone from Hawaii (1517). On July 3, 1970, he hit three home runs in one game for the Braves against the Padres.

    Clue/answers that set LMS off were “Lax LAX option” for TSA PRE. (LAX is the LA airport.) And “Potential response to ‘Look! I colored on the walls!,’” was YOU WHAT! Also “One might be turned down,” was BED.

    Here’s her comment:

    TSA PRE was new to me. I guess you apply for it so that you can breeze past the line of hapless people like me fretting over making the flight even though they’re there like three hours early? I leave tomorrow morning at 7am for the ACPT (American Crossword Puzzle Tournament), and I’m already at the gate just in case. Just kidding. But my sister will drop me off at the airport at 4:45am. No, really. I don’t travel much, so the hideous scenarios I imagine are exhausting. There will be a wreck on the interstate, and I won’t be able to get to the airport. They’ll have no record of my ticket. All flights to NY will be cancelled because of a rogue blizzard. They’ll lose my luggage. The car service I arranged to take me to Stamford was a scam, and I’ll have to walk, dragging my suitcase, because the idea of figuring out a train or bus is beyond my ken. The Marriott will have no record of my reservation even though I’ve called three times now confirming. Like all other times I fly somewhere, I’ve made myself sick with worry.

    Loved the clue for YOU WHAT?!

    (All by “Mom”)

    “I decided to cut Sage some bangs.”
    “I ate that last piece of ham I found in the back of the fridge drawer stuffed behind the Brussels sprouts.” (I had hidden it for a future sandwich.)
    “I decided to start selling Amway.”

    I also liked the clue for BED, “one might be turned down.” I did an Outward Bound winter camping and dogsledding week in the Boundary Waters (Minnesota, February) for my 40th birthday, and it was beyond cold. Like, colder than 30 below at night. When we got back to civilization, we invited one of our instructors to sleep in our heated cabin on a real bed. She actually declined and slept outside in her sleeping bag. Wait. She WHAT?

    Many (including me) found 28D to be a WOE (what on Earth?). The answer was ERHU and the clue was “Two-stringed Chinese instrument.” Here’s what one fellow said: Well, it’s all a question of what’s in your wheelhouse. Big erhu fan here, so no worries. The koto is Japanese, by the way. A close Chinese relative (I.e., both are zithers) is the qin, a very useful instrument in Scrabble.

    Of course! And commenter Amy tells us to check out the KORA, a West African instrument. Here’s a pretty Erhuist:

    My favorite was “Tricep curls?” (a play on bicep curls). The answer was ARM HAIR. (Get it?)

    Many were upset, claiming “tricep” is incorrect. The singular of triceps is also triceps.

    The puzzle today was murder: much harder than yesterday’s. I had to return to it about five times until I could hack my way through it. So it was satisfying to finish. (I refuse to resort to Google if I’m stumped. I keep returning and if I can’t crack it, I give up, consider it a DNF (did not finish), and look at the answer key just to learn stuff.)

    Today’s was themeless but had a nice pair of answers that were linked. There was TOY PIANO, and the Peanuts character SCHROEDER, who played it. They weren’t perfectly placed to have Schroeder sitting at it, but almost.

    I was today years old when I learned that “demonym” is the term for what you call someone from somewhere. So Brooklynite is the demonym for Brooklyn. In the puzzle, the clue was “Harvard or Cambridge grad,” and the answer was CANTAB. It’s short for Cantabrigian, which is the demonym for Cambridge. (Apparently, Yalies call (or used to call) Harvard students Cantabs.) We’re all smarter now, right?

    The INDY 500 was in the puzzle, prompting this comment from someone who is clearly not a NASCAR dad:

    “Maybe, you can explain why people watch the ‘Indy.’ I sat through one in person and the only thing that kept me from thinking about how bored I was, was thinking about how hot I was. The cars go round and round. That’s about it. Are you waiting for a crash or mishap? Someone burning alive? Blood and gore? I was kinda into it the first five laps or so, but by number 500, I just wanted out desperately. Actually I wanted out at lap 6. What is the point? What is of interest?”

    Owl Chatter visited the famous raceway when we were in town for a minor league baseball game many years ago. No race was going on. It was neat to see the place. As for that game, at the time, the Indianapolis team played in a gorgeous old stadium (Bush Stadium) that was later used for the film Eight Men Out about the Black Sox scandal.

    In a different sport, Caitlin Clark puts it all on the line tonight against South Carolina. Let’s Go Iowa Women!

    Thanks for stopping by!

  • Play Ball!

    Hi Everybody!

    Owl Chatter had some stuff to attend to, but should be up and running again later today or tomorrow. Until then, to make matters verse, here are two poems. One is in honor of opening day from Baseball Haiku. It’s by Suzuki Murio.

    Over
    the outfielder’s loneliness —
    the summer moon

    And that old codger Ted Kooser has this for us, from Winter Morning Walks:

    For the past two years there’s been
    a white chenille bedspread
    caught up in a barbed wire fence
    along the road to the quarry.
    For a while it looked like a man
    who had fallen asleep on a sofa,
    sad bachelor uncle of a man,
    the soft ball of his bald head fallen,
    long thin arms stretched out
    along the back and trembling.
    But today that was gone, torn away
    by the wind, and there was no one
    but me on the road. My heart
    flapped like a rag in my ears.

  • You Have To Understand

    The writer Nelson Algren was born on this day back in 1909 in Detroit, and died at age 72 in Sag Harbor, NY. He spent five months in jail for committing the perfect writer’s crime: he stole a typewriter. Because of that experience, his writing focused on the down-and-out, rejects and losers. His novel, A Walk on the Wild Side, contains his three rules for life:  “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.” He married and divorced his first wife twice and his second wife once. He was Simone de Beauvoir’s lover and is featured in her novel The Mandarins.

    Algren’s novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award. Leonard Cohen used images from it in “The Stranger Song,” from his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967): “you’ve seen that man before: his golden arm dispatching cards, but now it’s rusted from the elbows to the finger.”

    Yesterday I learned something about the plural of the word HERO. When used in the sense of “the hero who saved the damsel,” the plural is HEROES. And that’s the general rule for the word. BUT, when it’s used in the sense of a HERO sandwich, the plural is HEROS. “Ralph and Sally took two tuna salad HEROS with them on the trip.”

    The puzzle today made use of the expression “dead as a doornail.” It was used famously by Dickens in A Christmas Carol, below. But it stems from a time when the metal in a nail was valuable, so it was common for nails to be stolen out of whatever they were hammered into. So builders would hammer a nail through a door and then, on the other side, hammer that pointy part flat against the inside of the door. That way, the nail could not be pulled out and was deemed “dead.” Here’s Dickens:

    “Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

    Before I had grandchildren, and when my kids had grown up, my memory of what a 5-year-old or a 7-year-old is like was hazy. Who can remember what your kids were like at specific ages? But now when I hear about a 7-year old, I can picture him or her, because my Zoey is seven. Similarly, I can picture a string of younger ages because Leon is 5 and a half, Rafi 4, Isaac 2 and a half, and little Mo out in Michigan is almost one and a half. At the upper extreme, Lianna is thirteen and a half. All gorgeous and wonderful, kinahora.

    So when I read that yesterday’s school shooting in Nashville killed three nine-year-olds, I could picture them as a little older than ZoZo. A substitute teacher was also killed, as was a janitor, and the head of the school. It would have been a lot worse if not for what seems like quick and effective police work. The police received a call at 10:13, and they were on the scene, saw the shooter, and killed the shooter by 10:27. Since the shooter was using assault rifles, the threat of many more deaths per minute of delay was real.

    Nashville Police Chief Drake said the shooter identified as transgender, and officials used “she” and “her” to refer to the attacker. But according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile, the shooter appeared to identify as male in recent months.

    Representative Andrew Ogles (R-TN), who represents Nashville, said he was “utterly heartbroken” by the shooting, and offered “thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost.” 

    In 2021, Ogles, his wife, and two of his three children held guns as they posed for a Christmas card with a caption that read: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”

    This is the poem of the day today from The Poetry Foundation. It’s called The Sound of Music and it’s by Kathryn Nuernberger.

    When I tell you I love
    the song “Edelweiss”
    you have to understand
    that even though I too
    am a sophisticate
    who scorns musicals,
    I was once a little girl
    who stood in my grand-
    father’s living room
    singing, Cuckoo!
    Cuckoo!     while he sipped
    his scotch and laughed
    at my preciosity.
    And when I sing the lyrics
    in your ear—Small and
    bright, clean and white,
    you look happy to meet me
    —you have to understand
    my grandfather only ever
    had one friend, a jeweler
    who also drank scotch,
    and left his $10,000 Rolex
    to my grandfather, who
    wore it even though
    it turned his wrist green,
    wore it to the funeral,
    where the daughter sang
    in her ethereal voice. Blossom
    of snow may you bloom
    and grow, bloom and grow
    forever.     She couldn’t take
    her eyes off the casket.
    You have to understand that
    my grandfather kept spinning
    that heavy gold around
    his wrist, and when he raised
    his voice to join in, he cried
    to sing it. Edelweiss, edelweiss,
    bless my homeland forever.

    Bobbi Ercoline passed away on March 18 in Pine Bush, NY. She was 73. She and her husband, then-boyfriend, Nick Ercoline, became the quintessential symbols of hippiedom when a photo of them embracing amid the scene at Woodstock in 1969 became the photo on the Woodstock 3-LP set. Here’s the shot:

    In fact, they were not hippies. They were both observant Roman Catholics. Bobbi was working as a bank clerk, and Nick was working in construction and bartending, putting himself through college. Their friend Corky Corcoran, who was in the photo sleeping nearby, had just returned from serving in Viet Nam with the Marines. (Bobbi’s sister Cindy later married one of Corcoran’s brothers.)

    They did not plan to attend the festival originally, put off by the steep ($18) ticket price. But when all the hoopla was reported about the first day, they decided to go the morning of Day 2. They drove as close as they could get, ditched the car, and proceeded on foot for the last few miles. Bobbi found that blanket on the walk. They also “picked up” Herbie along the way, who was on a bad acid trip. Herbie supplied the large plastic butterfly you can see in the upper left of the photo, attached to the wooden staff.

    The photo was taken by a freelance photographer for the Magnum agency, Burk Uzzle. He made use of advice from the founder of the agency, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who had told him to study the detailed compositions of the Quattrocento painters of Renaissance Italy.

    “I walk up and I know the curvature of the hill has to work with the curvature of the heads,” he recalled. “And there’s the flag, it’s going to have to be there, and just enough of the people.”

    When the album came out, with the photo right on the cover, Bobbi had to fess up to her mom that she missed church that day — it outed her!

    The couple married in 1971, and had two kids. Bobbi became a school nurse, and Nick a union carpenter and a construction inspector.

    Alex Traub, who wrote Bobbi’s obit for the NYT, ended it with this paragraph:

    “The Ercolines became frequent interview subjects for historians of Woodstock, and they often spoke about their marriage as a symbol of its lasting influence and an example of peace and love in action. Every morning when they woke up and every night before they went to bed, they kissed and held each other for about a minute — just as they had on a grassy hill in the summer of 1969.”

    In addition to Nick, Bobbi is survived by their sons Matthew and Luke; a brother, John; a sister, Cindy Corcoran; four grandchildren; and the rest of us, attendees and non-attendees alike, half a million strong.

  • The Owls

    We’re too tired to chatter tonight. See you tomorrow!

  • This Side of Paradise

    The book on Jewish Comedy by Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber is not an easy read. He finds seven “strands.” The first one says it’s a response to persecution and anti-Semitism. But he includes a very interesting joke in his introduction, which is new to me. He says it may be the second-greatest ever Jewish joke, but he concedes it splits 50-50 between those who find it terrible and those who find it hilarious. You can decide where you fall. Here it is:

    Two old men settle onto a park bench in Tel Aviv; after a moment, they recognize each other as long-lost friends. “Reuven!” says the first, “Reuven, how are you? It’s been decades! Since we were young men from the same small town! How are you? How are your parents?”
    “Oh,” said the second man. “Oh, they died decades ago. We’re old men now, Shimon.”
    “Yes, well, of course,” Reuven replies. To be expected, I suppose. My condolences. But your siblings–I loved spending time with them. How are they?”
    “Oh,” said Shimon. “Oh, you haven’t heard. My brother died ten years ago. Cancer.”
    “I’m very sorry,” Reuven said. “That’s terrible news. But what about your sister? She was so lovely.”
    “Oh,” Shimon said. “We really haven’t been in touch, have we? She died fifteen years ago. A stroke.”
    “Ahh. . .” Reuven replies, casting about. “Well how is that beautiful wife of yours! I haven’t seen her since she was a young mother. . . “
    “Oh,” Shimon said. “You didn’t hear. She died five years ago. Bus bombing.”
    Reuven is now completely discombobulated. “Your kids!” he finally gets out. “How are your kids?”
    “You’ll laugh,” Shimon said. “But they’re dead too.”

    So where do you come out? Terrible, or hilarious? For the record, Owl Chatter comes down on the hilarious side, but we’re not proud of it.

    It’s similar, but much darker, than a joke I heard years ago about a man who goes to the undertaker to order a casket. The undertaker says, “Who died?” The man says, “My wife. She died two days ago.” The undertaker says, “Your wife? When did you get married?” The man says “Just last August.” And the undertaker says, “Wow! Mazel Tov!!”

    You may be wondering what Dauber thinks is the greatest Jewish joke, if the one above is the “second greatest.” I am too, but he’s making us wait.

    Today is the birthday of the poet Robert Frost, born in 1874. He was the inspiration for Frosty the Snowman. [No he wasn’t.] He is associated with New England, but was actually born in San Francisco. His mom and he moved to Lawrence MA after his dad died when Robert was eleven.

    The first poem of his that was accepted for publication was “My Butterfly: An Elegy,” and it appeared in the NY Independent when he was 20 years old. He was paid $15 for it (about $400 today). Frost was so excited to be a published poet that he proposed to his high school sweetheart. She said yes! They had six children, but four died before Frost did, and his wife, Elinor, died young too, at age 43, from heart failure. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times. Here are Elinor and Robert:

    And here’s a postage stamp issued in his honor.

    Sticking with the literary, on this day 103 years ago F. Scott Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise. It’s a love story inspired by his romance with Zelda. Unfortunately, the summer before the book came out she broke up with him. His plan to win her back was to publish a book that was a big hit. It worked! They got married a month after it came out. Here’s a nice shot of the lovebirds.

    I was happy to learn that the radiated tortoise gets its name from the design on its shell that radiates out from the center, not from getting radiated like with radiation. They can be up to 16 inches long, weigh around 35 pounds, and often live for over 150 years. Pickles is the oldest animal at the Houston Zoo. He’s 90, and he and Mrs. Pickles, who is 53, recently had three babies: Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño. The couple have been together since her arrival at the zoo in 1996. They are an endangered species so this is wonderful news. Here are three little tykes:

    At 40D in today’s puzzle, the city at the foot of the Adirondacks was UTICA, NY. A little digging revealed that Annette Funicello is from Utica as well as the fictional character, Alice Kramden’s Uncle Leo. Here’s a sweet shot of Alice and Ralph, which I don’t recognize from any of the episodes. They look like a real and affectionate couple.

    Thanks for stopping by! See you tomorrow.

  • A Backward-Walking Chicken

    Regular followers of Owl Chatter know that we are fans of the Metropolitan Diary column in the Sunday NYT. It often has pieces where nothing happens. I sent in a parody piece once that was something like this:

    In 1984, I had just moved to New York City and I had to travel uptown from my apartment to a doctor’s appointment. I hailed a cab on East 15th Street and Third Avenue, and when one pulled over, I settled comfortably into the back seat.

    “Where to?,” the driver asked.

    I gave him the address in the West 80’s, and off we sped northward!

    To no surprise, it wasn’t accepted. By way of contrast, here’s a piece by Kathy Kumar from tomorrow’s MD that is just about perfect:

    Dear Diary:
    It was a warm sunny afternoon. I was walking on East 4th Street in Manhattan when something fell from above and almost hit me. Looking down, I was surprised to see a denture.
    Just then, I heard a woman shout from an upper story window.
    “Is it okay?” she said.
    I shouted back that it looked fine, and waited until she came down to retrieve it. When she did, she said it had shot out of her mouth when she sneezed while standing at the window.

    Today’s puzzle was by a very well-liked constructor, Robyn Weintraub. She lives in Rye Brook, NY, and her first puzzle was a NYT Monday puzzle back in March of 2011. An interviewer once asked her “Why do you do this to yourself?” She said: “Can’t help it. When I’m constructing a puzzle I enter that state of ‘flow’ where time just stops. I can work on a puzzle from morning until night, and only barely register the fact that I haven’t eaten or gone to the bathroom the entire day.”

    Her cluing is fresh and creative. For example, today, an answer was CUBA, and this was her clue: Home to the world’s smallest bird, the bee hummingbird, which measures just 2.25″.

    The “world’s smallest bird” — how wonderful.

    Her long answers are often conversational. Two today were: “Common request at a bar.” Ans: CAN I SEE SOME ID? And “Response to a wild story.” Ans: YOU DID WHAT?

    It’s Gloria Steinem’s birthday today, she is 89, kinahora, and was born in Toledo, Ohio. She was married to David Bale from 2000 until his death in 2003. He was the father of actor Christian Bale. The marriage ceremony took place in the home of Steinem’s friend Wilma Mankiller, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

    She once said: “So whatever you want to do, just do it…Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.” Amen to that, Steinem! Not a day goes by . . . .

    It’s also the birthday of Flannery O’Connor, who changed her name from Mary O’Connor which she thought was too plain for a writer trying to sell books. She was born in Savannah, GA, in 1925 and died of lupus when she was just 39.

    When she was six, she was filmed by a British news service while a chicken that she’d personally trained walked backward. The newsreel was shown around the world, calling her “Little Mary O’Connor.” She said, “Everything since has been an anticlimax.”

    Hurrah for the Iowa women, who dispatched the Colorado Buffaloes last night in a tight, intense battle. Clark scored 31. Couldn’t relax till the last minute or so. It’s on to play Louisville next, and then, God willing, the Final Four.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Emotional Intestines

    Lianna and I figured out yesterday that a strategy for a game played with breath mints on a social media platform would be a Tik Tok tic tac toe Tic Tac tactic. I posted that on Rex’s blog today as a comment on the answer TACT. I’ll let you know if I get any grief for it. So far, thankfully, it’s being ignored.

    I was about to write, “but enough nonsense,” but there’s never enough nonsense! Owl Chatter is here today to laud the amazing Iowa Hawkeye’s women’s basketball player Caitlin Clark, whom we fell in love with last year during the Big Ten tournament. It’s going to be tough for any team to get by powerhouse South Carolina, but you can be sure Iowa will do its best behind Clark.

    The dark-haired Clark excels at every aspect of the game, but her long 3-point shots are garnering the most attention. Against Michigan last year, she scored 46 points (25 in the last quarter), including two three-pointers from the blue M logo at midcourt. Take a look:

    When Caitlin was growing up, her dad had to pave over part of their front lawn to create an area large enough for her long shots towards the basket on their driveway. Statistically, she does better from 25 to 30 feet away than from closer in. An analytics firm treats shots from over 30 feet as “heaves.” But Caitlin does so well from that range that the company is considering changing their criteria. She says the most important part of her shot is how she positions her legs and feet. Her dad’s directive was always “feet under your body.” She says when she misses it’s usually because she’s off-balance.

    Caitlin is 21 years old, magnetic, and is Iowa-born and raised.

    According to The Times today, a lawsuit by some kids has been filed against the state of Montana. It claims the state’s very friendly approach towards fossil fuel industries, and hostility towards climate change concerns violates the state’s constitution that guarantees Montanans “the right to a clean and healthful environment.” The constitution also says the state is responsible for maintaining and improving the environment for present and future generations. The state’s response has been a Ralph Kramdenish hamena hamena hamena, and the state is fighting it tooth and nail.

    In connection with the following item, Owl Chatter urges its readers to please refrain from any “dumb southerner” gibes. So what if the Republican Comptroller General of South Carolina, the state’s top CPA, Richard Eckstrom made a small error in the state’s year-end financial report. It was just $3.5 billion. Like you’re all perfect all the time??

    At first, Eckstrom refused to resign. Then the State Senate voted to oust him, and the House voted to reduce his salary to $1. When he got all screwed up on how to reflect that dollar on the state’s books, he finally said “F**k it, I’m quitting.” Eckstrom did not major in accounting as an undergrad at U. South Carolina, but earned a Masters in Accounting there after serving in the Navy. Thank God he didn’t go to Hunter. He is 74 years old and has two children from his marriage to his first wife Peggy. Hold on a sec — make that three children. Yeah, he’s pretty sure it’s three.

    In the puzzle today, the “city whose welcome sign features Mark Twain” at 2D was ELMIRA. Here’s the sign:

    In addition to Twain, there are Elmirans Tommy Hilfiger, Ernie Davis, astronaut Eileen Collins, Hal Roach, John Jones, and Brian Williams. John Jones escaped slavery in Virginia and walked 300 miles to Elmira where he settled and became active helping others to freedom via the Underground Railroad. A museum honoring his life is in Elmira.

    Here’s what Twain said about his home in Elmira: “We are perched on a hill-top that overlooks a little world – of green valleys, shining rivers, sumptuous forests and billowy uplands veiled in the haze of distance. We have no neighbors. It is the quietest of all quiet places, and we are hermits that eschew caves and live in the sun.”

    Twain married his wife Octavia in Elmira, who said yes on his second try. They are pictured below with their daughters Suzy, Clara, and Jean. Their son Langdon died of diphtheria when he was just 19 months old. [Note the spelling of diphtheria. An extra h is part of the disease.]

    Zoe Saldana visited the puzzle today. Hot stuff! Blue’s a good color for you Zo, but, then, what wouldn’t be?

    Did you hear about the big flap that arose between her and the Nina Simone people? OMG. First of all, Zoe’s 44 and was born in Passaic, NJ. Her dad was Dominican and her mom Puerto Rican. She appeared in the three highest grossing films of all time: two Avatar films and Avengers: Endgame. She dated Bradley Cooper for over a year, but then married an Italian artist, Marco Perego. They’ve been married for ten years and have three kids (two twins and a plus-one.)

    Okay, let’s get to the flap. So Zoe took the role of Nina Simone in the biographical film Nina. Simone’s identity and work was closely linked to the fact that she was a powerful black woman with dark skin and African features. She wrote, “I’m the kind of colored girl who looks like everything white people despise or have been taught to despise.” But she was defiantly proud of her appearance and she fought to change perceptions of what was beautiful.

    Simone’s family, estate, and supporters called the casting of Zoe Saldana an insult to Simone’s struggle and an example of Hollywood’s attempt to sideline women with dark skin. They were outraged that Zoe was fitted with a prosthetic nose and her skin tone darkened for the role, almost as if the role had been given to a white woman in blackface. When Zoe started promoting the film, the estate tweeted bitterly:  “Cool story but please take Nina’s name out your mouth. For the rest of your life.”

    Saldana initially defended the casting, saying: “I made a choice. Do I continue passing on the script and hope that the ‘right’ Black person will do it, or do I say, ‘You know what? Whatever consequences this may bring about, my casting is nothing in comparison to the fact that this story must be told.’” But years later, she admitted it was a mistake, and apologized. As it turned out, the movie was not a critical or financial success.

    Owl Chatter is certain she pulled through it okay — Jersey girls are tough stuff.

    Here’s a crisp, funny poem by Tony Hoagland from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. We’ve all been there, but maybe not exactly. It’s called Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

    On Friday afternoon David said he was divesting his holdings
                         in Stephanie dot org.
    And Cindy announced she was getting rid of all her Dan-obelia,
                    and did anyone want a tennis racket or a cardigan?

    Alice told Michael that she was transplanting herself
                            to another brand of potting soil
    And Jason composed a 3-chord blues song called
                       “I Can’t Rake Your Leaves Anymore Mama,”
    then insisted on playing it
                             over his speakerphone to Ellen.

    The moon rose up in the western sky
                               with an expression of complete exhaustion,
    like a 38-year old single mother
                    standing at the edge of the playground. Right at that moment

    Betty was extracting coil after coil of Andrew’s
                                  emotional intestines
                       through a verbal incision she had made in his heart,
    and Jane was parachuting into an Ani Difranco concert
                        wearing a banner saying, Get Lost, Mark Resnick.

    That’s how you find out:
    out of the blue.
    And it hurts, baby, it really hurts,
    because breaking up is hard to do.

    Here’s Ani D. Her biggest hit, 32 Flavors, was used in an ad campaign back in 1999 by the NFL. It featured players who wore the number 32.

    We’ll let Ani play us off stage tonight. Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!

  • Beethoven’s Hair

    Those of you who were planning to have gay sex in Uganda anytime soon, it would be better if you don’t. Under a law passed Tuesday, it’s a crime punishable by life in prison. Just trying to have it will get you a seven-year term. I’m not sure what “trying” means — the article in the NYT didn’t explain. In cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” e.g., if children are involved, the law calls for the death penalty.

    The lawmaker who introduced the legislation said it was needed because there was a “public outcry” over a plot to recruit schoolchildren into homosexuality — an allegation that rights advocates have said is baseless. Also, last month, a high-ranking Ugandan military officer urged health officials not to treat homosexual people in government health centers. The article noted that the U.S. provides close to $1 billion in aid to Uganda annually.

    The national symbol of Uganda is the grey-crowned crane, fabled for its gentle nature. It’s on the flag. Looks a little gay, no?

    Moving from the horrific to the ridiculous, where Owl Chatter is much more comfortable, the puzzle today used the clue “apprehension” for the answer DREAD. It caused LMS some discomfiture:

    I’m still not happy with any definition I see of the word DREAD. For me, it’s usually neither fear nor apprehension. It’s simply that I’m really, really not looking forward to doing something. I’m not afraid of checking Mom’s air conditioning filter. Not at all. Not apprehensive. I’m just not looking forward to her standing at the foot of the ladder scrutinizing my every move, offering suggestions. Honestly, I’ve started telling her that I’m happy to do whatever task (adjust sprinkler, put freeze guard thingies on outside spickets, change a fluorescent bulb), but I tell her that she’s not allowed to watch. Once she had me fix her Kia side mirrors so that they retracted when the engine was shut off. I told her she had to stay away while I did this. When I finished, I jumped out of my skin ‘cause she was peering around the wall of the vestibule in the carport. Watching. Cue Twilight Zone music.

    Today’s constructor was David Kwong, who is not only a cruciverbalist (XW puzzle person), but is a magician. LMS shared this amazing magic trick video in which Kwong combines magic and XW puzzles. Plus, you get to meet Will Shortz.

    The clue at 46A was “Crow known to sing,” and the answer, of course, was SHERYL. Here she is:

    She turned 61 last month — ouch! — and has sold over 50 million records. She was nominated for Grammys 32 times and won 9. She’s from Kennett, Missouri. She received a degree in music education from the U. of Missouri. Go Tigers! Her mom was a piano teacher, and her dad a lawyer and trumpet player. Once when he was arguing a case in court a little too heatedly, the judge said to him, “Easy does it, Satchmo.” [No he didn’t.]

    Sheryl hasn’t been married, but she dated Eric Clapton and Owen Wilson. She was also engaged to Lance Armstrong, but they split after a couple of years when he found out she couldn’t ride a bike. She lives in West Nashville, TN, with two adopted children. She had breast cancer back in 2006 and is being monitored for a benign brain tumor. Owl Chatter hopes she’s okay. Thanks for dropping in Crow!

    According to a front page story in the NYT today, DNA evidence has determined that Beethoven was Jewish. Also that he was a woman. No joke! A lock of hair thought to have been clipped from Beethoven’s head during his final illness was tested and is indisputably the hair of an Ashkenazi Jewish woman. According to the Times, the only other possible explanation is that it wasn’t Beethoven’s hair, which seems preposterous. Beethoven died from liver disease at the age of 56, which, since he would have been dead by now anyway, turns out not to have mattered. Here’s her picture. She looks sort of Jewish, no? Jew-ish?

    Congrats to the Japanese baseball team who beat us fair and square for the WBC title.

    The center fielder for the J-Squad was Lars Nootbaar, an outfielder for St. Louis during the regular season. Lars was born and raised in California. Nootbaar is a Dutch name — his dad was an American of Dutch, German, and English descent. Lars qualified for the team because his mom was Japanese.

    Lars is the great-grandson of businessman and philanthropist Herbert Nootbaar, an early benefactor of Honkbal Hoofdklasse. That’s not a person — it’s the highest level of competitive baseball in the Netherlands. There are nine teams in that league, including Quick Amersfoort, Twins Oosterhout, and the Hoofddorp Pioniers.

    I’ll just let myself out now — no need to get up. See you tomorrow!