The Wellington Files

  • Messing Around on a TV Set

    Before playing a selection by Brahms this morning, the WQXR host, Paul Cavalcante, introduced and then played a scene from John Cleese’s show Fawlty Towers, an Owl Chatter favorite. Cleese’s wife had been away, and when she got back to the inn she saw that Cleese had not taken care of any of the things he should have. She said something like, “This place would be in much better shape if you would do something instead of just listening to that racket!” And Cleese says:

    Racket!!??

    That’s Brahms!!

    That’s Brahms’ Third Racket!!

    The host went on to say: Here’s the second movement of Brahms’ Third Racket.

    Zoey! Shove over, sweetie — make a little room for Cleese in the “makes life worth living” folder.

    As you may have heard by now, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last weekend, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said that “for the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely—the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” The audience applauded loudly.

    Leaving aside the redundancy of “eradicating entirely,” many in the media couldn’t help but notice it sounded a little “Hitlery.” Knowles was miffed at the comparison and insisted that “eradicating transgenderism” was not the same thing as eradicating transgender people.

    Wait, what?

    Is it me? Is something in that explanation askew? If Hitler had called for the eradication of “Judaism from public life entirely at every level” that’s okay? Would a Jew be able to relax upon hearing that? Can the parent of a transgender child struggling to cope appreciate the clarification? Red states are passing laws banning established medical procedures that help transgender kids. Is it crazy to view those laws as Hitlery?

    Lincoln knew the danger to democracy of setting a portion of the populace aside and branding it as inferior (“preposterous”). Either people are equal, or they are not. “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it — where will it stop?”

    Who better to lead us back to humanity than our favorite baseball announcer Keith Hernandez? Keith was getting some sort of honor last year, and his partner in the booth, Gary Cohen was a bit too generous with his praise, Keith thought. When Cohen finished Keith just said, “Tell that to my ex-wives.” Here are some quotes that may help you get to know him a little bit.

    I remember, as a kid, I couldn’t wait to get my library card, get my first book. There was a sphinx on the cover, and I figured I was going to read about the Egyptians. But it was archeology. It was so dry. But I forced myself to read it because it was my first book out of the library. Should have gotten a ‘Hardy Boys.’

    When I was little, my older brother, Gary, was forced to read a book a week in fourth grade. The books he liked he threw on my bed when he was finished with them. This continued throughout my childhood and made me a reader for life.

    I like to write, and I try to be positive and optimistic. I’m pretty sure when I need a comma; I’m not so sure about a semicolon. The best class I ever took in high school was typing.

    In New York, I have a photo of my parents on their wedding day in 1947. They’re beaming at home plate in Houston’s Buffalo Stadium. I love the photo because my dad is smiling. He didn’t smile much in his later years.

    This poem is by Robert Bly and is called Things to Think. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac.

    Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
    If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
    Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
    Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

    Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
    Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
    Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his
           antlers
    A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

    When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s
           about
    To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
    Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that
           it’s
    Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

    Special Owl Chatter thanks to friend Don who confirmed that “Mercy” is unquestionably associated with late Boston announcer Ned Martin. It hit him as soon as he saw the word — even before the issue was raised.

    The Owl Chatter mailbox was also visited by friend Nancy who noted good-naturedly that the ratio of beautiful women to handsome men in OC is out of whack! I reminded her I recently included The Gill-Man — exactly her type — tall, dark, and fishy.

    I was proud of myself for finishing today’s puzzle. Add that to my first “two” in Wordle in a long time, and it makes for a good puzzle day. Look at some of the words I had to get:

    3D, HORCRUX: “Bit of dark magic in Harry Potter”

    44A, FOVEA: Tiny pit in the retina.

    43D, TOONIE: “Coin with a polar bear on its reverse, informally”

    11D, CHAGRIN: “Discomfiture.”

    13A, COOLIO: “Sweet!”

    14A was BRIOCHE for “Patisserie offering,” but someone noted “I’m splitting hairs here, but BRIOCHE would be a Boulangerie offering, not a Patisserie offering.” Okay. Noted.

    The central clue/answer was at 33A, “Apt anagram of ‘I sew a hole,’” and the answer was ELIAS HOWE — inventor of the sewing machine.

    Only one guest star in the grid today, but she’s very special to some of us. It’s DEBRA Messing, cutely clued with “Messing around on a TV set?”

    Debra is 54, Brooklyn-born, and Jewish. She had a bat-mitzvah. Her parents supported her dream of going into acting but urged her to get a liberal arts degree first, and, in college, to take at least 75% of her classes outside of theater. Following their advice she graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University, Owl Chatter’s alma mater. Hurrah!

    She met her hubby, actor/writer Dan Zelman, in grad school (NYU) and they had a son, Roman, who will be 19 next month. But the marriage broke up after 11 years.

    Messing posed nude for Allure magazine in May of 2012. Debra!! What will Aunt Helen say?? — Bernie! — stop looking at that!!

    We asked her to throw some clothes on for Owl Chatter. Thanks for stopping by, Deb — say hi to the family.

    See you tomorrow! Israel takes on Nicaragua at noon in the World Baseball Classic. Owl Chatter Sports will be on hand (albeit probably drunk).

  • Sunrise, Sunset

    What a star-studded puzzle today! First, “Page of football” was Alan Page, Hall of Fame defensive lineman for 15 years mostly with the Vikings. Page, who, oddly, has not a drop of Viking blood in his ancestry, has two children, a daughter Paige Page, and a son Back Page. [Ignore that last sentence.] Page and his wife Diane were married for 45 years until her death in 2018. They had four children. Page’s daughter Kamie and he wrote four children’s books, one with the neat title: Alan and His Perfectly Pointy Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky. All of the proceeds from the books go to Page’s Educational Foundation.

    But that only begins to tell his tale. He went to college at Notre Dame (leading them to a National Championship in 1966), but later earned a law degree at U. Minny. He knew he wanted to be a lawyer when he was a child. After a time in private practice, in 1992 he was elected to the Minnesota Supreme Court, becoming the first African-American to serve on that court. He was reelected in 1998 as the biggest vote-getter in Minnesota history, again in 2004, and for a final time in 2010. He served until mandatory retirement at age 70. He’s 77 now,

    Page was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018. Get this: before college he worked for a time in construction and was on a crew that laid the foundation for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, where he was enshrined 25 years later. In 1971, Page became the first ever defensive player to be named league MVP. Only Lawrence Taylor has joined him since. A Middle School in Minneapolis is named after him, and an elementary school with his name is being built. In 1988, the Pages established an Educational Foundation to assist students of color. Not too shabby a life, Page. Owl Chatter salutes you.

    Here’s a recent shot of him — Hey, check out that “perpendicular pinky!”

    The Israeli actor Topol died in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. He was 87. Although Zero Mostel made the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof famous, it was Topol who played it in the movie version (1971) and on stage over 3,500 times (by 2009). He did not think non-Israelis could pronounce the “Ch” sound in his first name, Chaim, so he went professionally just by Topol — A “mononym” like Cher or Madonna, as noted about them in a recent puzzle.

    Norman Jewison, director of the Fiddler film, said casting Tevye was the most agonizing thing he ever went through. Mostel wanted the role, as did Rod Steiger, Danny Kaye, and (get this) Frank Sinatra. After turning down Sinatra, Jewison was lucky not to find a severed horse head in his bed, amirite? Topol didn’t even seek it at first. When he first saw the show it was with Zero Mostel who was going a little nuts with it at the time, ad-libbing with the audience, for example. He’d say things like “Mrs. Finkelstein, are you yawning because I’m boring you, or did your husband keep you up all night?” Topol didn’t want to go near it, but later saw a production in Tel Aviv and it won him over. How could it not?

    He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the movie and won a Golden Globe for it.

    Starting out, one of his strengths was the ability to seem like an old man, physically. When he was in his 70’s he said, “At 29, I knew I had to restrain some muscles to make sure I didn’t suddenly jump in a way that destroyed the image of an elderly man. I walked slower, made sure I wasn’t too erect when I danced. It was quite a job. Now, as I pass the age of 55 by 20 years, I feel totally free to jump and dance as much as I feel like.”

    In 2015 he was awarded Israel’s highest cultural honor, the Israel Prize, for his philanthropic work as well as his acting. He married Galia (his Goldie) back in 1956, and is survived by her and their three children, nine grandchildren, a horse, and two mules.

    Reviewing the movie, Pauline Kael, who was notoriously hard to impress, wrote of him: “He’s a rough presence, masculine, with burly, raw strength, but also sensual and warm. He’s a poor man but he’s not a little man, he’s a big man brought low — a man of Old Testament size brought down by the circumstances of oppression.”

    Topol said: “I did ‘Fiddler’ a long time thinking that this was a story about the Jewish people. But now I’ve been performing all over the world. And the fantastic thing is wherever I’ve been — India, Japan, England, Greece, Egypt — people come up to me after the show and say, ‘This is our story as well.’”

    Rest in peace, Tevye — you didn’t fool us — you were a very rich man.

    Due to copyright restrictions, Owl Chatter was not able to get footage from the film version of Fiddler, so instead I’m posting Linda’s and my wedding video, which was pretty much along the same lines. If you’ve got six minutes (and some tissues) you could do worse than clicking on the red arrow.

    Not many folks could follow a segment like that. But Olga Kurylenko from the puzzle today at 50D will have no trouble at all. She’s “worse than beautiful,” as Napoleon would say.

    Olga was born in Ukraine and has French citizenship. Her modeling and film career are going very well. She was a “Bond girl” in a James Bond film. She’s 43 already — it goes fast. Two marriages tanked (had to be the guys’ fault), but she has a son from a different partner.

    Look how beautiful. She’s not even trying here.

    Can’t imagine a better image to close with tonight.

    Thanks for popping in! See you tomorrow!

  • Worse Than Beautiful

    So I have tax exams to grade, a zoom meeting at four for school, and a couple of tax returns to do. This is the closest I’ve come to real work in months and I don’t like it. It’s interfering with my Owl Chatter obligations! Maybe Welly and Wilma can help with the exams — at least the short-answer part.

    At the risk of coming across as a dirty old man (a ship which has long ago sailed, I know), the clue for HOOKS today at 62A was “Memorable parts of songs,” and I suggested in a comment that a better clue would have been “Memorable parts of bras.”

    Speaking of bras, it’s about time Owl Chatter chattered a bit about Napoleon and Josephine, don’t you think? It’s their wedding anniversary today! Mazel Tov, kids! — 227 years ago.

    Josephine’s given name was Marie Josephe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie and she was known as “Rose.” But Bonaparte preferred “Josephine,” and occasionally called her Gumbo. [No he didn’t.] She was sexy, with a low voice. He wasn’t the first man to fall madly in love with her. Her first husband, Alexandre François Marie, Viscount of Beauharnais, lost his head over her, — literally. He was guillotined during the Revolution.

    Napoleon called Josephine, “worse than beautiful.” He once wrote to her, “I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses.”

    Still, he showed up two hours late to the wedding. They were lucky the rabbi didn’t have another one to perform that day, like Rabbi Rosenberg did when Linda and I got married. Like we needed the extra pressure.

    Anyway, back to Jojo — she had two kids with Alex, but was unable to bear children for NB, so they split. Of his new wife Napoleon noted “I married a womb.” Nap and Joe were still so in love that they read statements of devotion to one another at the divorce ceremony. (Not kidding.)

    Here’s a shot of her. I can see the draw. She’s electric.

    The clue at 65D was “Walker’s charge,” three letters. Some folks bristled at having to erase their first answer: DOG, and insert the correct answer PET. They noted that dogs are the only pets that can be walked. But Barbara S. shared the following:

    “The notion of walking a PET other than a dog reminded me of a story my mother once told about being in a florist’s shop in a hotel. The only other customer was a woman walking a gorgeous and amazingly well-behaved cat on a leash. My mother couldn’t contain her curiosity and asked. The woman said she travelled a lot and took her cat everywhere. The cat had been trained to the leash since kittenhood and had adapted completely. And they were in the florist’s because the cat didn’t get a chance to spend much time in nature and enjoyed walking around and sniffing the flowers!” 

    And Diane Joan said:

    “I grew up in a small city and oddly there was a tiny dairy in this town. Yes I can verify that many pets can be walked as it was common to see the farmer’s children walking their pet raccoon around the city streets.”

    Here’s a cat walker.

    This poem is called Field Guide, by Tony Hoagland.

    Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
    up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

    I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
    floating on the tension of the water

    at the very instant when a dragonfly,
    like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

    hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
    That’s all.

    I mention this in the same way
    that I fold the corner of a page

    in certain library books,
    so that the next reader will know

    where to look for the good parts.

    Ian Falconer, who died on Tuesday at 63, was hugely successful at every turn. Children’s books? He created Olivia, the piglet who stayed on the best-seller list for 107 weeks. Set designs for operas? A reviewer in the Chicago Tribune once wrote: “The new ‘Turandot’ that concludes Lyric Opera’s 1991-92 season is a show from which you emerge literally humming the scenery.” He also designed costumes. Artwork? He drew 30 covers for The New Yorker. Here are two of them. The first was a personal fave of his, and the second is a sweet Valentine’s Day cover.

    Noting the enduring success of Olivia, he said, “It’s a little embarrassing. All these years, I’ve been working so hard to paint and draw, and I’m going to be remembered for this pig. Still, there are worse things that can happen to me.”

    With baseball slowly elbowing its way back into our lives, it’s worth mentioning that 68A was “Goodness,” with the answer MERCY.

    Pabloinnh said: “My favorite answer was MERCY which made me think of the late great Red Sox radio announcer Ned Martin, who would describe a truly fantastic and amazing unbelievable play and simply sum it all up with ‘MERCY.’ Still miss him.”

    Don, you concur?

    How about 27D? — “Singer Scaggs with the 1970s hits “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle.” BOZ, of course. I liked him and went to see him perform once. Get this, he’s 78 now and still touring. He’ll be at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown, PA on May 21st, kinahora. Let’s let his “Lido Shuffle” usher us out today.

    We had smoky eyes in the puzzle a while ago, which were very pretty, and today we had DEEP SET eyes, clued as “like eyes beneath a prominent brow.” They sound a little neanderthalic, but the pictures don’t bring that out.

    Sign in an optician’s window: EYES EXAMINED WHILE YOU WAIT.

    Now, where did I put those exams? Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.

  • Oily Odor of Tanbark

    I’ve been mispronouncing the word RIBALD. TIL (today I learned) it’s pronounced like “dribbled” without the first D. I’m lucky it hasn’t come up that often. (How did I learn this? — it was in the puzzle today, and a comment pointed it out so I checked.)

    Do you know that expression: He (or she) has a face for radio? Well, Jessica Hansen has the exact opposite kind of face, and she’s been reading the donor announcements on NPR for years. The reason the owls are chattering about her today is she was written up in a Brandeis alumni story because her voice was used in the Oscar-nominated movie Tar. She was asked to read a fake NPR announcement that Cate Blanchett mocked.

    Here’s what Hansen says about her 20 seconds of fame:

    “Cate Blanchett’s character, Lydia Tár, she’s in New York, getting ready for bed and listening to NPR. It’s not just me, there are three or four of us you’ll hear. But she hears me come on, and the director wrote some spoof credits, so they don’t quite make sense. They’re inside baseball jokes, like what is this that people talk about on NPR? And she’s mimicking me. And she has this moment where she realizes what she just said and she’s thinking about it. I have watched that 20 seconds many times, just to watch Cate, because every time she mimics me, the craft of her acting is so specific and so subtle. It’s remarkable. You know, because she’s Cate Blanchett.”

    She may be Cate Blanchett, but Brandeis-grad Hansen is way prettier.

    Today’s puzzle contained a recipe for guacamole. It includes CILANTRO (see below). And this was noted in a comment: “Cilantro leaves contain the same aldehydes used in soap-making, which is why many people experience a soapy flavor. I definitely taste it. It put me off at first, but now I don’t really mind it.”

    Here are the clues (and answers) that comprise the recipe. The garlic and cumin raised a few eyebrows.

    1/2 cup coarsely chopped, for bright (or soapy) flavor: CILANTRO

    Three cloves minced, for depth and aroma: GARLIC

    One teaspoon, pink or black, for emphasis: SALT

    About two cups cubed, after peeling and pitting: AVOCADO

    One small juiced, for citrus notes, and to preserve color: LIME

    One seeded and minced, for heat: JALAPENO

    One small red minced, for crunch and tang: ONION

    1/2 teaspoon, for a little extra flavor … really, try it!: CUMIN

    One vine-ripe chopped, for texture and color: TOMATO

    (Pam — you on it?)

    Who’s sexier than Liz CHENEY? — in those librarian glasses skewering the bad guys like shish-kebob from her committee seat? She’s in the puzzle today as “Former Wyoming representative Liz.” She said this about Jan. 6th:

    “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone but your dishonor will remain.”

    OTOH, she also says stuff like:

    “Rarely do I disagree with best VP ever [her father] but @SarahPalinUSA more qualified than Obama and Biden combined. Huge respect 4 all she’s done 4 GOP.”

    Dammit, this is the best I could do to find a sexy shot of her. I can’t believe no one has ever caught her in a bathing suit. What the hell is wrong with this country!! You can put a man on the moon but you can’t get a photo of Liz Cheney in a bikini. Hrummmph.

    Owl Chatter is running out of steam tonight. I’m tired from my classes today. Here’s a poem by Ted Kooser from Winter Morning Walks to bid us goodnight.

    The beaver’s mound of brush and cornstalks
    stands at the edge of silence this morning,
    a pyramid on an untracked desert of snow
    with black, open water shining behind it.
    Somewhere inside are the hidden mysteries:
    an old yellow-toothed pharaoh, wrapped up
    in bandages of sleep, and on his shallow breath,
    oily odor of tanbark and the priceless perfume
    of summer willow leaves.

  • The Birds Are Flying

    The puzzle’s rock band today was TAME IMPALA, “Grammy-nominated psychedelic music act with an animal in its name,” at 10 Down. But Owl Chatter will chatter instead about Lynyrd Skynyrd, in light of the death last Sunday of guitarist Gary Rossington at age 71, probably from heart problems. He was the last surviving member of the original band. He co-wrote the classic song “Sweet Home Alabama,” which I just heard playing at my dentist’s office. What are the odds?

    Neil Genzlinger, who wrote the NYT obit, called the group the quintessential Southern rock band and said Rossington’s guitar helped define its sound. Rossington and some friends, including Ronnie Van Zandt, formed the band as teenagers and took the name from Leonard Skinner, their gym teacher who tormented them because of their long hair. It was a seven-piece band with three guitars. They played their asses off all over Florida and wherever they could get gigs, and when Al Kooper heard them play in Atlanta in 1973 he took them under his wing and they took off.

    By 1977 they had released four albums including Sweet Home Alabama. “Free Bird” was also an enormous hit, featuring Rossington’s slide guitar solos. And then — Kaboom! On October 20, 1977, their chartered plane ran out of fuel and crashed, killing Ronnie Van Zandt, several other band members, and several other passengers. And the band shut down.

    Ten years after the crash, Rossington put together a tribute tour with the surviving band members, and Van Zandt’s younger brother took over on vocals. The “new” version of the band was a hit and it continues to tour and release records.

    Rossington was born in Jacksonville, FL. His dad died when he was young. His mother was a key force in his life, and he named his first serious guitar after her, Berniece. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

    When Rossington and the others gave their first concert with the tribute band in Nashville after the ten-year hiatus, they played “Free Bird” as an instrumental. The audience filled in for the absent Ronnie Van Zant. “You could hear 16,000 people singing,” Rossington said, “and it sounded like a million.”

    Rest in peace, Rossington.

    Here’s the original band playing Free Bird for a bunch of hippies at the Oakland Coliseum a few months before the fateful crash.

    The clue at 56D was “Awful amount of time to be stuck in traffic,” and the answer was HOURS. Here’s LMS on it:

    Honestly, any amount of time you’re in traffic for longer than expected, it’s awful. HOURS? Jeez Louise – a descent into hell. My sister, Meagan, and her husband got caught recently on an interstate, and after being at a standstill for like forever, Meagan (huge water drinker – this does not end well) finally had to, ya know, “go.” She left the car and went over to the shoulder where there was this short little concrete barrier. She had just jumped it when the traffic started moving. Her husband had no choice but to start going – before Meagan was able to start going, and she had to run between the cars to catch up to him. They weren’t going fast, but still. She says she imagines it was quite the spectacle. And she didn’t even get to accomplish her number one priority.

    (“Number one” priority — get it?)

    So glad you could drop by the grid today, Ladies. Hey, readers, it’s Marisa TOMEI at 20 across, and LAURA Dern at 27 down! C’mon in — take a load off. Move all that crap off the couch. Marisa popped by once before, but this is Laura’s first visit to Owl Chatter. What an honor!

    Laura just turned 56 and has earned acting awards up the wazoo, to the delight of her actor parents no doubt (Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd). She was married to Grammy-winning musician Ben Harper from 2005 to 2013 and they have two kids, Ellery and Jaya.

    Dern’s great-great-uncle was poet and writer Archibald MacLeish, who won three Pulitzers. At the behest of FDR, MacLeish also served as the Librarian of Congress for five years, and was notorious for going after Congressmen for those 5-cents-a-day overdue fees, often showing up at their homes at night with a glaring look on his face. Dern’s godmother was Shelley Winters. (Loved you in The Poseiden Adventure, SW!)

    Here’s the young Laura Dern (with boyfriend Kyle MacLachlan) in Blue Velvet, way back in 1986. And, of course, the always lovely Marisa. Oooh, that reminds me — I have to get the oil changed in the Odyssey.

    The clue for 7D was “Work it on the catwalk,” — STRUT.

    Hot stuff!

    The New Yorker today (March 13, 2023) recounts how the GOP candidates at the first primary debate back on August 6, 2015 were asked if they’d support the 2016 GOP candidate whoever that might be, and that Trump refused. And just last week the RNC said it would ask for a loyalty pledge of the candidates this time around, and some have already signaled their reluctance.

    In that light, Owl Chatter suggests the RNC consider asking for a less onerous loyalty test, — maybe one that just asks the candidates to pledge not to call for any of the other candidates to be hung. Just a thought.

    Here’s a drawing that’s in my kitchen. It’s by my Zoey, who drew it a while ago when she was five or six.

    Thanks for dropping in for our nonsense. See you tomorrow!

  • Creature Dead. Lagoon to Reopen.

    Ricou Browning, who played the creature in the 1954 horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon died on dry land in Florida last Monday at the age of 93. Actually, Browning only played the creature when it was under water. Ben Chapman played it on land. The creature was also known as the Gill-Man.

    Browning was 23 when he was asked to show some visitors around Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee, FL. It turned out the group included Jack Arnold, who directed the movie, and Scotty Welbourne, the cameraman. Scotty asked if Browning would mind getting in the water and swimming in front of the camera, so they could get some perspective. They loved the location and loved Browning’s swimming. He got the part.

    Part of the story, you may recall (I don’t), is that the creature falls for one of the scientists, Kay, played by Julie Adams. In one scene, she goes for a swim and he swims below her, enraptured. The Times called the scene both creepy and oddly poignant. It elevated the film from a simple monster feature to a “Beauty and the Beast” sort of deal. Browning reprised the role in two sea-quels: Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us.

    When Browning was a teenager he worked in those waters, swimming deep for tips from tourists in glass-bottomed boats. He made good money that way, he said. After playing the Gill-Man he continued to work in films, e.g., he directed Mr. No Legs (1978), a crime drama about a mob enforcer who was a double amputee (not kidding), and — get this — he was Jerry Lewis’s underwater stunt double in the 1959 comedy Don’t Give Up the Ship.

    His second wife died in 2020. He is survived by four children, ten grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren, all human.

    Here’s the girlfriend from the lagoon. I can see why the Gill-Man fell for her.

    Who doesn’t love FRIAR Tuck? He was in the puzzle today (“Title for Tuck”). His first encounter with Robin Hood in the Tales is often a battle of wits between them to decide who is to carry whom across a river. Tuck ends up carrying Robin, but throwing him in the water mid-way. He is typically portrayed as fat, bald, and jovial.

    In Mel Brooks’s hands, he’s Rabbi Tuckman, and is a “mohel extraordinaire.” In a 1958 cartoon Robin Hood Daffy, Porky Pig plays the Friar. In a 1997 article in “The Journal of Popular Culture,” Anne Kaler compares him to characters such as Santa Claus, Falstaff, and Winnie the Pooh, calling him our belly cheer, our Lord of Misrule, our occasional defiance of authority, our spirit of seasonal joy. (Burp!)

    On the other hand, a pattern in the dermatologic disease trichotillomania (compulsive pulling out of scalp hair) has been named after the pattern of hair of the good friar. Not the best way to be remembered.

    Here he is, having a nosh.

    If you’re a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you know how funny Kaitlin Olson is. Her middle name is Willow. Thanks for popping into the puzzle today and joining us at Owl Chatter, Kaitlin! Can you stay for the Megillah reading? It’s Purim!

    Her husband is funny too: Rob McElhenney who is also on the show and is one of its creators. They’ve been married since 2008 and have two sons. Kaitlin went into labor with the first one at a Phillies-Dodgers game in LA. She said she was okay leaving early to have the baby once Ryan Howard hit a 3-run homer to give the Phils a 6-1 lead. She’s an Oregon girl, born in Portland, and has a degree in Theater Arts from U. of Oregon. Go Ducks!

    Here’s a dirty joke in honor of Purim.

    Abe’s at the doctor.

    The doctor says, “Abe, you’re going to have to stop masturbating.”

    Abe says, “Why?”

    The doctor says, “So I can examine you.”

    How much time between slipping on the peel and slamming your head on the pavement? One bananosecond.

    Here’s a sweet exchange between two members of the commentariat.

    Pabloinnh wrote: Late to the party this morning as just as I finished the puzzle, my 9-month-old grandson decided to take a nap (I was holding him in my arms) and he woke up 2 hours later.

    And then Weezie said…

    “Whenever my dog or one of my nieces or nephews falls asleep on me, I say ‘Welp, that’s it, guess I’m never moving again.’ It’s a truly special feeling to have someone trust you like that, worth all the limbs falling asleep and rearranging of plans in the world. I’m sure your grandson must be very grateful for your support!”

    Are you familiar with that term “welp?” It replaces “well,” when it precedes a statement of resignation or disappointment. “Welp, it looks like the goddamn Nats blew another lead.” It’s first known use was in 1987, but I’ve only been hearing it lately. It’s been in the puzzle.

    Happy Purim, everybody! Help yourself to a couple hamentashen. Don’t be shy. See you tomorrow!

  • Address Purpose

    Veteran puzzle constructor/solver and Rex blog commenter Nancy is beloved by all. She posted this hysterical tale of woe yesterday.

    “My bank, HSBC, closed permanently a few months ago. My accounts were switched to a new bank. For the last three years, the NYT has been wiring payments for the puzzles I’ve constructed directly to my account. I forgot to inform them of the change and got a notice that the payment for my last puzzle hadn’t gone through and that I needed to send them instructions by filling out an online form. It could not be handled any other way and ‘Action’ was ‘Required! Within two business days!’

    “The little horror they sent me via email is called the ‘Coupa Supplier Portal’ (no I don’t know what it means either). And yesterday I manfully –or rather womanfully — tried. Really I did. Cross my heart.

    I filled in the usual easy stuff. Then I came to the box that asked for ‘address purpose.’ What on earth did that mean????? Whose address? I assume mine, or was it the bank’s? No reference to an address had come in any of the previous lines. And what’s an address’s ‘purpose?’ I tried to type in ‘Receive a check’ and was told ‘Not valid answer!’ I tried ‘to live in’ and was told ‘Not valid answer!’ I typed in ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re asking me’ and was told ‘Not valid answer!’

    “I skipped over the question and then tried to press ‘Enter,’ but the cyberbot stopped me in my tracks. It just wouldn’t let me proceed without that piece of info inserted.

    “I pressed the ‘Chat with a staff member’ key, but nobody came. I pressed the ‘Help!’ key, but nobody came. I found an empty space to type in my phone number, but nobody called.

    “I cried ‘Uncle,’ left the computer and hit the wine bottle. Hard. Well, it could have been worse; it could have been vodka. I made a somewhat drunken phone call. I then sent a drunken email to ‘Accounts Payable.’ I then found the phone numbers of two more people and made two more drunken phone calls. I may have said ‘so then don’t bleeping pay me, but I cannot possibly use your ridiculous online form, I simply can’t!’ (We’re not talking pin money here. We’re talking $375.)”

    [Nancy eventually had a friend come over who did something to get the form submitted. It took him 40 minutes. He may have just filled in “other” for address purpose. She still does not know if she’ll get the payment.]

    Joe Dipinto followed up with this:

    @Nancy – For “Address Purpose” did you try filling in:

    That these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth?

    I responded by sharing the following with the community:

    I loved Nancy’s story about her battle with the form yesterday. Here’s one I waged about ten years ago. My daughter fell off of my insurance when she turned 26, so we signed her up with her own coverage but it came through with an incorrect date of birth on it — May 7 instead of May 17. There was an email address on the papers, so (pretending I was Caity) I wrote a note thanking them for their excellent service but asking them to correct my date of birth to May 17th. They emailed back that they “checked their records and there was no error.”

    I had to read their note several times to believe what I was seeing. They were telling me that I didn’t know my own birthday. Apparently, I had been using the wrong birth date since birth — actually since ten days before birth!

    I wrote back and said: I am holding in my left hand my birth certificate issued by Essex County, NJ, my driver’s license issued by the State of NJ, and my passport issued by the U.S. State Department, all of which have May 17th as my date of birth. What records did you check?

    It took around six months for us to get the correction made and when it came through we went out to celebrate at a nice restaurant. God Bless America!

    This is how Anthony Lane’s review of “Cocaine Bear” starts in The New Yorker of 3/6/23.

    “Darkness falls. Out in the woods, under the pelting of a pitiless storm, a middle-aged American male, stripped to the waist, fights a furious bear. This elemental sequence comes from a 1977 film, scarily titled ‘Day of the Animals,’ and the joy of it is that the battling man is played by Leslie Nielsen, and that the movie is not — repeat, not — intended as a comedy. What, you may ask, could top that?

    “One answer is ‘Cocaine Bear,’ a new film written by Jimmy Warden and directed by Elizabeth Banks. Allegedly, it’s based on true events, in much the same way that ‘Pinocchio’ is based on string theory.”

    He goes on to say later:

    “From what I saw, she has simply made a film about a bear that does coke. It’s as if Quentin Tarantino kicked off his career with a tale of some dogs who visit an actual reservoir.”

    [Shit – now I’ve gotta see it.]

    Get this — Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, describing it as a “wildly entertaining and darkly hilarious B-movie blood-fest” and “genuinely well-crafted horror.” In a same-star review, ReelViews reviewer James Berardinelli concluded that the film was “silly but not stupid.” Likewise, Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com criticized the characters but her review was also overall positive. She noted that the film was “not that profound.” Ya think?

    The director is the very popular and beautiful actress Elizabeth Banks, born on February 10, 1974 in Pittsfield MA, home of the Pittsfield Suns of the Futures League. (So she’s 49.)

    Banks met her husband, Max Handelman, a sportswriter and producer from Portland, Oregon, on her first day of college at the University of Pennsylvania on September 7, 1992. They were married in 2003 and have two sons, born via surrogacy.

    Banks went through parts of conversion to Judaism, her husband’s faith (duh), and studied with rabbis. [I’m betting the rabbis are still talking about it. I’m betting the rabbis remember that particular student for quite some time.]

    In 2013, speaking of her religion, she stated that she practices Judaism, though “I did not have my mikveh [ritual bath], so, technically, I’m not converted,” but that she has “been essentially a Jew for like 15 years,” adding “Frankly, because I’m already doing everything [practicing religious rituals], I feel like I’m as Jewish as I’m ever going to be.”

    I think that goes for a lot of us. I’m certainly as Jewish as I’ll ever be. How about you, readers –as Jewish as you’ll ever be?

    Today’s puzzle plopped its ASS right down at 82 down, clued as “Wild donkey.” It also had ANATOMY at 113A, clued as “Gray matter?” It prompted egs to note: “Any puzzle that features ASS and ANATOMY will likely be banned in Florida.”

    There were some clever clues:

    “Star close to Venus” was SERENA. (Get it? Think tennis.)

    “They may be long and shocking.” EELS

    “Ear piece?” KERNEL

    “They can be passed but not failed.” LAWS

    (Mount) ETNA is a very common puzzle answer, so it’s hard to clue it creatively. Today’s was good: “Virgil described its ‘cloud of pitch black whirling smoke.’”

    Same for AHAB, clued today with “Literary character who cries, ‘I am madness maddened!’”

    And ART, clued as “‘Coming face to face with yourself,’ per Jackson Pollock.” You concur with that, Bob?

    Our friend Vermont Lizzie called our attention to a beautiful young actress who is a close friend of her daughter’s (and hers), and is performing this month in a production of AIRNESS in Burlington VT, “A rock n roll air guitar comedy.” She is from Vermont and goes by the unusual name of Grace Experience. The Boston Globe has stated: “Grace Experience is simply hilarious.” How great is that?

    Rex opened a bit of a hornet’s nest today. Here’s what happened. The puzzle had “Pulitzer-winning columnist Stephens” at 60D, for BRET Stephens, a conservative OP-ED columnist for the NYT. He gives the page “balance.” Among other things, he jousts weekly with liberal Gail Collins, good naturedly. Anyway, Rex, as is often the case, lambasted the puzzle. His attack included: “Add to all this the puzzle’s bizarre, perverse commitment to gratuitously inserting some of the very worst human beings into the grid (BRET Stephens!?!? SAM Bankman-Fried!?!? Whyyyyyyyy? What are you doing? Who is that for?), and you’ve got … well, I don’t know what, but nothing I would care to re-experience, that’s for sure.”

    So, many commenters thought Rex went too far on Stephens (“very worst human beings”). They noted he’s a strong anti-Trumper and you can disagree with his positions without such a personal attack.

    Rex replied to the requests that he expand on his position — not just take the swipe:

    “Since you asked in good faith I will answer in good faith and say that it is not politics but good faith, or complete lack thereof, that has shaped my feelings about the writer in question [Stephens]. There is an intellectual dishonesty there, a dehumanizing, supercilious, ultimately power-serving POV dressed up as if it were the product of erudition and reason. The NYT’s opinion page is a wasteland because they just want “engagement,” which means making liberals mad, which is like shooting fish in a barrel. (Liberals: please stop sharing stupid takes from famously stupid people—you aren’t fighting the system, only making the system stronger). Meanwhile, Black people poor people queer people all people outside a comfy white media elite are treated w/ dehumanizing disdain, w/ zero genuine concern or even curiosity.

    “Marginal groups become mere thought experiments for people who have mistaken expensive formal education for wisdom. Dude [Stephens] is a cog in a shitty clickbait system, and I’m unwilling to give “conservatives” any credit for simply being Not Trump. Not good enough. That’s the kind of weak mindedness that gets us the Florida governor as our next president. See, I’ve thought through this shit a lot, actually. I think BS’s position of power confers great responsibility on him and he repeatedly abuses it, In Bad Faith, for clicks.

    “I know and love (and am related to) conservatives of one kind or another. Hell, in some quarters, in some contexts, I am the conservative. And I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, or being merely wrong. But bad faith … that’s 8th ring stuff—9th if you’ve been entrusted w/ a position of public prominence. I hope I have answered your question. Thank you for asking w/o the snide, derisive tone I’m used to from defenders of Rowling, Stephens, et al.

    “If you enjoy reading in order to stay well informed, particularly on the issue of open-mindedness, I suggest this: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/06/the-maddening-dishonesty-of-the-new-york-times-op-ed-editor

    [The article in the link centers on the crap the NYT took for including an OP-ED piece by troglodytic Senator Tom Cotton recently.]

    Getting back to lighter terrain, 91D was “Robin Hood’s love,” which, of course was Maid MARIAN. The role has been played by over 20 women, including Olivia de Havilland, Cate Blanchett, Audrey Hepburn, and Uma Thurman. Here’s a shot of Kate Moss, who also played Marian. It left our OC photographers stuttering for a few hours, but when they regained the power of speech, they said she was very sweet.

    BTW, I’ve been terribly remiss in failing to give credit where it is due, viz., to our wonderful Owl Chatter photographers who travel the world over to bring us so many wonderful shots of celebs, owls, nature scenes, flora, you name it. They have even braved war zones, if you recall our coverage of the Great Emu War in Australia. So let me introduce you to them, one at a time, over the coming weeks. Here’s Phil Peppard. Phil’s been with Owl Chatter the longest. Hey Philly! — thanks for all the good work!

    See you tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by!

  • Fleece Navidad

    On this date 226 years ago in Philly, John Adams was inaugurated as the second President of the U.S. after serving as George’s veep. TJ was Adams’s veep. Owl Chatter hereby anoints Adams as the patron saint of all of us who hate getting dressed up. Here’s what it said about the event in The Writer’s Almanac: “Adams was dressed in a suit of gray broadcloth. He must have looked frumpy next to the tall and elegant Jefferson, who was clad in a long blue frock coat, and the stately Washington, dressed in black velvet.” It didn’t say if Adams was wearing slippers.

    Jackie Mason has some funny material on restaurants that serve dishes that are “blackened.” “They give you a piece of fish that’s burnt and charge you $42. If the fish turns out like that at home, you throw it out, Who wants to eat something that’s burnt? They tell me I have to develop a taste for it. Why should I have to work to like something they ruined? Develop a taste? You learn to like a daughter-in-law because you have no choice. But why do I have to learn to love a piece of burnt fish?”

    Here’s an item on that topic by Marianne Kobbe in tomorrow’s Met Diary:

    Dear Diary:

    I was furnishing my first apartment, circa 1982. I bought a velour sofa, a Ming-style side table, and a lamp with a porcelain Chinese goddess base at Macy’s.

    I decided to return the lamp. When I got to the store, there was a long line at the return counter.

    As I was waiting, the man ahead of me turned around, looked at me and then looked at the lamp.

    “Take it home and learn to love it,” he said and turned back around.

    Today’s puzzle got the better of me. I just blanked out over a simple clue and couldn’t crack it. The clue was “Targets of some orthodontic treatments,” and it was 4 letters and started with a G, so I put down GUMS, and held onto it for dear life. But it was GAPS and my error gummed up the whole little region for me. Rats!

    I did some excellent work elsewhere in the grid, e.g., getting GUINEA BISSAU for “Neighbor of Senegal.” It’s a country in West Africa roughly 14,000 square miles in size with a population of 1.7 million. After getting their fill of the local cuisine, the OC photographers took these shots of a beautiful young native woman, and an adorable little girl.

    The A from GAPS led to ANNA Chlumsky, the actress from Veep. That’s got to be her real name, amirite? Who would choose that? Her role in Veep earned her six Emmy nominations for Supporting Comedic Actress.

    Anna is Catholic and of Czech and Croatian descent. Her mom was a singer, actress, and former flight attendant, and her dad was a chef and saxophone player, who often used a large slab of mozzarella as a mute. [No he didn’t.] Anna and hubby Shaun So have two daughters and will celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. They met when they were students at U. of Chicago. He was in the military for close to ten years, including a deployment in Afghanistan, but runs a private company now. Their oldest daughter, Penelope (8), is named after Odysseus’ wife who waited 20 years for her husband to return from war. Anna didn’t have to wait that long.

    “Got down, in a way,” was KNEELED. Commenter kitshef noted: KNEELED gave me pause because although it is obvious and familiar, I would say ‘knelt’ and I’d guess that I’ve heard ten ‘knelt’s for every ‘kneeled’. And kneel/knelt and feel/felt are weird, aren’t they? “I knelt down and pelt ten pounds of potatoes on KP. When I was done, I felt so elated I cartwhelt down the hallway,”

    “Seven days without a pun makes one weak.” So it says on a website seeking to make April 19 National Pun Day because that is the day on which punster Mark Bottineau was both born and died. His friends and loved ones are seeking signatures for a petition to honor him in that fashion. Unless and until they succeed, National Pun Day is celebrated today — March 4th, which is also known by some as Soldier’s Day — March forth!

    Two silkworms were in a race. They ended up in a tie. (Get it? Silk? A silk tie?)

    How do you know when it’s raining cats and dogs? When you step in a poodle.

    What do sheep say during the holiday season? Fleece Navidad!

    Don’t let me eat too many donuts — I’ll get that glazed look in my eyes.

    On the other hand, some consider National Pun Day to be May 15th, which is O’Henry’s birthday. Did he use puns in his writing? March 4th gets my vote, though, because it actually is a pun. Plus, O’Henry was born on September 11th, not May 15th.

    The clue for 25D was simply “Jail,” and the answer was CONFINE. Remember how I said some answers are little doors that bring you somewhere? This is from LMS’s post today:

    “Jail” – CONFINE struck me this morning because yesterday I was poking around for poems other than the ones I’m supposed to teach that might actually engage my kids, get them to buy in rather than check out. I’m ashamed to say that I had never read Angelou’s “Caged Bird” (poetry is just not my thang), but I was stunned and then moved to tears by the tragic beauty of its truth, especially for the demographic that I teach, the kids who find themselves CONFINEd in an endless cycle of despair with no hope, — the kids who are just written off, shipped off to languish in an alternative school that is hemorrhaging teachers.

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

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

    Jeez Louise, I’m sorry I got so dark. It had been my plan to run off at the mouth about KNEELED not knelt, learned/learnt, dreamed/dreamt, pleaded/pled. . . ( hi, @kitshef), but I got sweeped up in an outrage born of impotence (mine) and apathy (society’s).

    Speaking of caged birds, did you see the full page story (with pics) in The Times about Flaco the owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo recently (when a vandal cut the wire mesh in his enclosure), and has taken up residence in Central Park? He seemed stressed at first (to observers). His flying seemed a little wobbly. “The biggest worry during his first days of freedom was that he wouldn’t know how to hunt and could starve to death — after all, he’d dined for a decade on deliveries of what one zoo associate described as Whole Foods-quality dead mice and rats.” But Flaco honed his predator’s skills fairly quickly.

    “Eurasian eagle-owls are one of the world’s largest owls. And with his nearly six foot wingspan, Flaco thrilled observers at flyout every night: a feline silhouette crouched on a tree limb, suddenly soaring into the nighttime sky, like a giant pterodactyl taking wing across the park. Within a week, he was becoming the apex predator he was born to be, proudly showing off the rats he’d killed with his bare talons.

    “When Flaco was living at the zoo, he had been described by one longtime visitor as a grumpy and slightly pudgy owl — much like those of us stuck at home during the pandemic. But after only two weeks in Central Park, he had become an athletic and handsome prince, enthusiastically hooting his presence to claim his place in the city or find a possible mate.”

    Here’s a photo of Flaco, in the wild, followed by a shot of our beloved Wilma’s fierce talons. Hubby Welly has said he fell for Wilma’s sexy purple feet, but don’t let them fool you — she’ll tear you up good with them if necessary. I certainly try to stay on her good side.

    Thanks for wasting some time with us. See you tomorrow!

  • Danish Mermaid Dies On Dry Land

    Greta Andersen, who spent much of her life wrinkled, died at her home in Solvang, CA, last month. She was 95. Fittingly, her passing was announced by the World Open Water Swimming Association, which I guess could be known as WOWSA.

    Andersen broke 18 world marathon swimming records and was called the greatest female swimmer in history. She was the first woman to complete five crossings of the English Channel. Her second crossing was brutal. She was seasick and dizzy by the fourth mile (it’s 21 miles wide), and as she neared the final stretch, she was hit by a powerful current. The last 300 yards took her an hour and a half. She was going to give up but she saw a chalkboard her husband was holding on shore that said “Hi Greta, you can’t give up.” Out of the 29 swimmers, only five made it, and she was the only woman to finish. She came in first, over four hours ahead of the next finisher. (One of the four men finishers was disqualified for coming out of the water in the wrong place. Idiot!) Andersen was disappointed, though, because she missed setting the record by ten minutes.

    She represented Denmark in the 1948 Olympics in London, the first Olympics held after a 12-year hiatus caused by the war, and won one gold and one silver medal.

    Andersen was born in Copenhagen on May 1, 1927. She was 12 in 1940 when the German occupation began. Her parents cut her hair and dressed her as a boy for 5 years, fearing she would be raped by German soldiers. The ruse worked.

    Andersen’s first two marriages did not go swimmingly and ended in divorce. Maybe she should have let her hair grow back and lose the boy clothes. Just sayin’.

    But she was survived by her third husband, a doctor. She had no children, but had many students in the swimming school she ran for decades.

    She emigrated to the U.S. in 1953, where open water swimming could be lucrative. She was largely undefeated in her career, with one notable exception: the Molokai Channel, 27 miles between the islands of Molokai and Oahu in Hawaii. She attempted a crossing twice in 1961. Here’s how The Times described her second try:

    “On her second swim, which she began just after midnight, she battled sharks — she swam for a time in a specially designed cage — and was bumped by porpoises. She was swamped by 20-foot waves, and stricken with seasickness. There were rain squalls. But it was the current that bested her in the end. She fought it for nine hours, until her crew pulled her from the water at 11:06 that evening, still 9½ miles from Oahu. She had been swimming for nearly 24 hours.”

    She was often called the “great Dane,” a Danish pastry, or the Danish mermaid. An observer once compared her stroke “to watching a gandy dancer drive railroad spikes.” Rip Yeager, the captain of a yacht that was part of her support team said, “I take my hat off to her. She’s a real woman in every sense.”

    “Gandy dancers,” noted above, was the name for the early railroad workers, those who worked on the rails, not the train cars. The name came from the dancing movements of the workers as they wielded a lever-like tool which was either called a gandy or was made by a Gandy tool company. The expression “to take gandy from a baby” comes from this era. [No, it doesn’t.]

    The depot in Ann Arbor for the Michigan Central Railroad was a Richardsonian Romanesque structure built solely of rock-faced masonry. The stones were quarried from Four Mile Lake, located between Chelsea and Dexter. The architectural features of the building, such as arches and lintels are emphasized by changes in color and texture in the stone. The building has a high gable roof with two dormers. The eastern portion of the building has large arched windows, and the western portion has double-hung windows with small circular ones above. The main entrance is through a large round-topped arch; the doorway has been modernized. The interior of the original depot featured an elaborate ticket booth, a ceiling and trim made of red oak, French tile floors, stained glass windows, and a large terra cotta fireplace.

    Owl Chatter saw this building on a visit to Annie Arbor a few years ago. Part of it still serves as Ann Arbor’s Amtrak station. The other part has been converted into a very posh seafood restaurant called Gandy Dancer. Gonna have to try it one day, no question. And the similarly named Wisconsin beer (burp)!

    The puzzle was a knock-down drag-out brawl for me today, I barely escaped with a few guesses. Of course, Rex rated it medium. Argggh.

    You hear of KAMAL Hasaan, “Indian megastar in over 200 films?” I hadn’t. But commenter Dinesh Kithivasan says:  I live in Chennai, India (Kamal’s home turf) and am beyond thrilled to see Kamal Haasan make his debut appearance in the NYT crossword. He is an incredibly multi-faceted personality – he has written and directed some very fine films, and he is an excellent singer and dancer. Above it all, he is a prodigious acting talent who deserves to be as well-known as the Al Pacinos and Meryl Streeps of the world. One of his finest films, Nayakan (Hero), was listed in Time’s All-Time top 100 movies.”

    Al Who? Meryl Who?

    The clue at 23A was “Something squares lack,” and it was HIPNESS.

    LMS said: “HIPNESS looks weird. I tried to investigate why HIP means cool but lost interest pretty quickly. I guess hippy, hippie are related. Hipster. HIPNESS would denote the state of being hip. Hippery could denote stuff like meditating, participating in love-ins, and wearing tie-dye. I spent a year one afternoon at a baby shower for a hipster and was asked to do all kinds of hippery, fun for the like-wow-man-ya know-cool guests, but extremely embarrassing for this buttoned-up Capricorn.”

    I liked the clue for 30A: “Metaphorical throwaway.” The answer was BATHWATER, you know, with which you try not to toss the baby out too. 9D “Some baking discards,” was a good clue for EGGWHITES, although someone noted you don’t “discard” them immediately. You put them in the fridge in a bowl, find them a week later, try to remember how they got there, and then toss them out.

    11D, “Circus covering,” was CLOWN MAKEUP. Did you know some people have a phobia about clowns? It’s called coulrophobia.

    Phil on Modern Family suffered from coulrophobia, which made for some funny episodes when Cam became Fizbo the clown.

    It was a good puzzle despite the absence of starlets. The only tuchas sighting was at 14D: “Rears” for SEATS.

    “Choice chickens,” at 25A was CAPONS. Did you know it was so cold up here this week that I saw a turkey walking with a capon?

    Here’s a poem from The Writer’s Almanac today.

    I Love You

    by Billy Collins

    Early on, I noticed that you always say it
    to each of your children
    as you are getting off the phone with them
    just as you never fail to say it
    to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call.

    It’s all new to this only child.
    I never heard my parents say it,
    at least not on such a regular basis,
    nor did it ever occur to me to miss it.
    To say I love you pretty much every day

    would have seemed strangely obvious,
    like saying I’m looking at you
    when you are standing there looking at someone.
    If my parents had started saying it
    a lot, I would have started to worry about them.

    Of course, I always like hearing it from you.
    That is never a cause for concern.
    The problem is I now find myself saying it back
    if only because just saying good-bye
    then hanging up would make me seem discourteous.

    But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to
    say it so often, would prefer instead to save it
    for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped
    into the red mouth of a volcano
    with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,

    or while we are desperately clasping hands
    before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,
    which are only two of the examples I had in mind,
    but enough, as it turns out, to make me
    want to say it to you right now,

    and what better place than in the final couplet
    of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.

    Thanks for wasting some time with us today! See you tomorrow!

  • Uptalk

    We’ve all been there — right? Staring into your clothes closet a day before testifying as the lead witness in the murder trial of a homicidal maniac wondering, what in the world should I wear? Linda Kasabian, who died last month at age 73, and whose testimony put Charles Manson behind bars, asked writer Joan Didion to pick out her dress. “Size 9 petite,” she guided Didion. “Mini but not extremely mini. In velvet, if possible. Emerald green or gold. Or: a Mexican-style peasant dress, smocked or embroidered.”

    Linda did not participate in any of the gruesome killings over two nights. The first night, when actress Sharon Tate and four others were killed, Linda mostly waited in the car. The second night, two victims were tied up, but Linda left with Manson before others did the killing. She was granted immunity for testifying.

    A different cult member, Susan Atkins, provided the crucial grand jury testimony in the case, but refused to testify at the trial, so it came down to Kasabian, to the delight of lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, because she was a better witness. For one thing, Atkins had participated in the killings. Bugliosi said Kasabian was not a violent person and was brought along — get this — because she had a driver’s license. Apparently, the California traffic ordinances were more of a concern to them than the ten commandments.

    Her testimony lasted 17 days during which the defense tried relentlessly to catch her in contradictions but failed at every turn, despite having a 20-page summary of all of her interviews with the prosecution and her letters. Years later, appearing with Linda on the Larry King show, Bugliosi left no doubt that it was Kasabian who put Manson behind bars.

    In his book, Mr. Bugliosi recalled his summation to the jury: “Charles Manson, the Mephistophelean guru who raped and bastardized the minds of all those who gave themselves so totally to him, sent out from the fires of hell at Spahn Ranch three heartless, bloodthirsty robots, and — unfortunately for him — one human being, the little hippie girl Linda Kasabian.”

    The British rock band Kasabian, which has released seven albums, is named after her. She was born in Biddeford, Maine and raised in Milford, NH. She had two daughters.

    I heard the late comedian Gilbert Gottfried say he visited Charles Manson in prison once. They brought Manson into the room, and he sat down, looked at Gottfried, and said “Am I crazy? — or is it cold in this room?”

    We heard from Owl Chatter math guru Judy on the alphabetical batting order calculations. She gave us a thumbs up but added: “My only tweak is the order of the numbers: the chance (or probability) of the batting order in alphabetical order is 1 to 362,880 (or 1/362,880).” Thanks Judy! Batter up!

    OMG readers, I am kvelling with anticipation. (There must be a portmanteau in there — kvellipation? anticivelling?) Anne Hathaway was in the puzzle yesterday, and Chatter fave Taylor Swift returned today after way too long a hiatus. Could there be two more beautiful guests?

    Yesterday’s constructor, Aaron Rosenberg, needed an ANNE at 41D and must have had a zillion to choose from. Lucky for us, he picked the glamorous and talented Anne Hathaway, boringly clued as “Actress Hathaway.” Anne is 40 years old and Brooklyn-born. At six, her family moved to Milburn, NJ, right up the road from Owl Chatter headquarters. Her dad’s a labor lawyer and her mom a former actress, and Anne is primarily of Irish descent. She was named after Shakespeare’s wife [not kidding].

    She was romantically involved with Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri, but that exploded when he was arrested and charged with defrauding investors by claiming he was the Vatican’s real estate agent. How’s that for chutzpah with a capital chutz! As part of the investigation, the FBI confiscated Hathaway’s journals from his apartment. He wound up in prison, but Anne was not charged with any crime.

    In 2012, determined to stay away from creeps like Rafaello and marry a nice Jewish boy, Hathaway married actor and businessman Adam Shulman in a traditional Jewish ceremony. They have two sons and live in NY on the Upper West Side. They sold their wedding photo and donated the proceeds to a same-sex-marriage advocacy group. She is active in a broad range of progressive causes as well as support for Ukraine.

    Among her numerous acting awards are an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Les Miserables, and a nomination for Best Actress in Rachel Getting Married (Kate Winslet won for The Reader). She also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for her voice role in a 2010 episode of The Simpsons.

    Here she is looking pretty glamorous. The Owl Chatter photographers told her she’d be appearing alongside Taylor Swift today and she just laughed. Bring her on!

    The puzzle was universally loved today, which is rare. The theme was STEM CELLS, with the word STEM shmushed into a single square (or cell) three times. E.g., “ghoST EMoji” at 38A crossed “lose one’S TEMper” at 10D.

    You know when people talk with every sentence ending like it’s a question? I learned that’s called UPTALK. It was at 11D with the clue: “Speech that ends sentences with rising tones.” Joe Dipinto noted: “Per Wikipedia the ‘official’ name for UPTALK or upspeak is High Rising Terminal (HRT)? In Britain it’s known as Australian Question Intonation (AQI)?”

    Commenter Alice Pollard wrote: “UPTALK is definitely a thing. An annoying thing. People in my office do it all the time. I even asked one young kid who reports to me ‘Why are you talking like that?’ It is something most people grow out of, but not all. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre does it – it is nails on a chalkboard to me.”

    “Palindromic staple in Indian cuisine” was ATTA. Many of us tried NAAN first. As egsforbreakfast put it, “My first attempt at 5 across was a NAAN-starter.” He also noted that Eeyore uses “downtalk.”

    “Sites of many revolutions,” was SOLAR SYSTEMS. Someone noted: SOLAR SYSTEMS is a very timely answer, as last night Jupiter and Venus had a lovely conjunction which I missed cuz clouds. Jupiter is great to look at with a telescope because of its lovely string of 4 moons, discovered by Galileo. Interesting that the latest count of Jupiter’s moons is something like 95. 95!!!! I think when I was a kid it was 6 or 7.

    That’s a shitload of moons. Who needs that many moons? Do they bump into each other?

    Last, “Whom so-called Swifties are fans of,” of course is TAYLOR. Let’s see if she’s popped by yet — Taylor!? Ha! — wonderful to see you again! Gorgeous, as usual. Anne Hathaway’s here — you two know each other? Anything to drink? Settle in . . .