The Wellington Files

  • 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 . . .

  • Birchbark

    In a Congressional hearing recently, Banana Republican Congressman from Florida, Matt Gaetz, asked a pointed question of Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, based on an article in Global Times.

    Kahl replied, “I’m sorry, is this the Global Times from China?” Gaetz said no, then checked and said yes, it was, and asked Kahl if that made it untrustworthy. “As a general matter, I don’t take Beijing’s propaganda at face value,” Kahl answered. Gaetz said: “Fair enough.”

    Yup.

    How about a 3rd Grade grammar lesson from Jaime Raskin of Maryland? Noting Colorado Republican representative Lauren Boebert’s reference to a “Democrat solution,” Raskin said  “I would like to educate our distinguished colleagues that ‘Democrat’ is the noun. When you use it as an adjective you say the ‘Democratic member.’ Or the ‘Democratic solution.’”

    He said he was beginning to suspect that this usage was intended to be “an act of incivility.” [Ya think?]

    He went on to say it would be like the Dems saying “Banana Republican” every time they said “Republican.”

    “But we wouldn’t do that,” he said. “So, out of pure political courtesy, when it’s an adjective, refer to the ‘Democratic’ congresswoman or the ‘Democratic’ member.”

    Will that be on the test, Mr. Raskin?

    Some of you may have noticed baseball is back. Hurrah! I watched a few innings of a Mets-Nats spring training game and was thrilled to find their crack announcing team at work — Gary Cohen, the old pro, along with Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling. Get this — the question came up about a team’s batting order being in alphabetical order. The odds are very high against that happening. Cohen said it was some number over 300,000 to one. Yikes! But I did the math. (Judy — pay attention!) The odds of the highest lettered player being in the #1 slot is 1/9, right. Then for the second highest to be in the second slot is 1/8, etc. So I multiplied 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2 and got 362,880. So the chances of a batting order being in alphabetical order is 362,880 to 1. In fact, Cohen said, in the entire history of baseball, it only happened once — back in 1933 or 34 (I forget). And I think the team was St. Louis — the Gas House Gang. I tried to track it down, but failed. Cohen did note that he did not know if the alphabetically ordered batting order occurred by intent or randomly.

    Here’s Keith with his first wife Sue. They had three daughters together and look like a hot couple, but they divorced way back in 1983 after only four years of marriage. Go figure. The Mets retired his number last year (17). We’ll catch up with him at some point in the future. Don’t worry — he’s an Owl Chatter favorite.

    The puzzle got off to a good start today at 1 across. The clue was “Like some plants that don’t need watering.” Four letters, starting with F. Some commenters said they were hoping it was FACE. You know, a “face plant,” defined as falling face first into something. But it was FAKE — fake plants don’t need water. That wasn’t bad either.

    And 31A had a good clue for the simple word LINE. It was “common theme park sight.” We’ve all been there.

    ANZAC day was in the puzzle, as a “Down Under holiday.” According to Anonymous, “it stems from the acronym Australian New Zealand Army Corps which was the name given to armed forces fighting in World War I. April 25 is the day that Australia commemorates the storming of beaches in Turkey by ANZAC ‘diggers’ on orders from British commanders where they were swiftly mowed down by Turkish machine guns. The event is seen now as the birth of a nation as Australia was only federated a few years earlier in 1901 and many see it as the establishment of a national identity.”

    “Cher or Madonna, e.g.,” at 5D was MONONYM. A person known by one name. Here’s LMS on it:

    “When Sage was in high school and fretting that she didn’t know what to do with her life, I said, ‘Hey! You can learn photography and become a world-famous pet photographer! You have a magical connection to animals; they’ll do any pose you ask! Fancy movie stars will hire you for their Christmas cards. Dog food advertisers will insist that they book ‘Sage’ for the shoot! You’ll be so famous that you’ll be known just as ‘Sage’ like Cher!’  She looked at me for a minute and said, ‘Mom. I want to do something meaningful that helps people.’ I felt shallow and pedestrian.

    Sadly, one of the Rex commenters was bidding goodbye to everyone today (for some reason I am not aware of). His “name” is Birchbark, and he was very much loved for his input by the veteran commenters. (I’m a noobie.) This was a very pretty goodbye note posted by Barbara S. She found a poem to share. I don’t quite understand it (duh), but it seems beautiful.

    Barbara S — I’ve just now looked at the blog for the first time today, only to find that we’re saying goodbye to @Birchbark. You will be missed. For you, a poem.

    BIRCH BARK
    by Michael Ondaatje

    An hour after the storm on Birch Lake
    the island bristles. Rock. Leaves still falling.
    At this time, in the hour after lightning
    we release the canoes.
    Silence of water
    purer than the silence of rock.
    A paddle touches itself. We move
    over blind mercury, feel the muscle
    within the river, the blade
    weave in dark water.

    Now each casual word is precisely chosen
    passed from bow to stern, as if
    leaning back to pass a canteen.
    There are echoes, repercussions of water.
    We are in absolute landscape,
    among names that fold in onto themselves.

    To circle the island means witnessing
    the blue grey dust of a heron
    released out of the trees.
    So the dialogue slides
    nothing more than friendship
    an old song we break into
    not needing all the words.

    We are past naming the country.
    The reflections are never there
    without us, without the exhaustion
    of water and trees after storm.

    Thanks for wasting a little time with us. See you tomorrow (Anne Hathaway may drop in!)

  • Furling a Wieldy Umbrella

    The beautiful, talented, classy, dark-eyed Emma Watson graced our puzzle today, clued by her role as Hermione in the HP films. But in the following clip, she is Belle, from the film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a real nice song and Watson does her own singing. [Warning: the scene contains mud-splattering.]

    Emma was born on April 15, 1990 in Paris, but she is British, born to parents who are both lawyers. She knew from age 6 she wanted to act. She did no professional acting before landing the Harry Potter role. As a child actress she was tutored privately on the set 5 hours a day and did very well on her exams. She earned her college degree from Brown University in English Lit in 2014.

    Watson has been associated with many progressive causes, including Palestinian rights, which has not endeared her to the Israelis. This is from her Wikipedia writeup:

    “Watson is an outspoken feminist. She has promoted education for girls, travelling to Bangladesh and Zambia to do so. In July 2014, she was appointed a UN Women Goodwill ambassador. That September, an admittedly nervous Watson delivered an address at UN Headquarters to launch the UN Women campaign HeForShe, which aims to urge men to advocate for gender equality. In that speech she said she began questioning gender-based assumptions at age eight when she was called ‘bossy’ (a trait she has attributed to her being a ‘perfectionist’) while boys were not, and at 14 when she was ‘sexualized by certain elements of the media.’ Further, Watson’s speech described feminism as ‘the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities’ and declared that the perception of it as ‘man-hating has to stop.’ The speech made worldwide headlines; the organization’s website crashed after press coverage of the event. Watson received threats shortly after making the speech, which left her raging. ‘If they were trying to put me off [women’s rights work], it did the opposite.’ Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka [pronounced exactly as it is spelled], the executive director of UN Women, stated, ‘For a time, there was a conversation about whether ‘feminism’ was a good thing or a bad thing. Her speech gave us the word back.’”

    The camera is very much her friend. I had a hard time picking out this photo. (Chris — you’ll have to go looking for the bikini shots on your own.)

    The clue at 71A was “neat and tidy” for KEMPT. You know, the opposite of unkempt. LMS had a long post using a bunch of “opposite” words like “gruntled, ept, heveled, and sipid.” And then burtonkd dug up this New Yorker piece by Jack Handy, called How I Met My Wife. It rewards careful attention.


    It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to rush it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

    The puzzle theme today was GREEN EGGS AND HAM, which ran across the grid in the center. And four theme answers were: ON A BOAT, IN A TREE, IN THE RAIN, and WITH A GOAT.

    Now, Owl Chatter is about to blow your f**king mind. It’s what you come here for, amirite? While you’ve been pronouncing it SOOSE all your life, Geisel himself said it should be pronounced SOYCE (or ZOYCE), and he did not like that it was pronounced SOOSE.

    Or, to make matters verse:

    You’re wrong as the deuce
    And you shouldn’t rejoice
    If you’re calling him Seuss.
    He pronounces it Soice (or Zoice).

    And, get this, from Rex’s guest Claire today: “The vocabulary of Green Eggs and Ham consists of just 50 words and was the result of a bet between Seuss and Bennett Cerf, his publisher, that Seuss (after completing The Cat in the Hat using 236 words) could not complete an entire book without exceeding that limit. The 50 words are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you. ‘Anywhere’ is the only word used that has more than one syllable.”

    Thanks for all the good work, Doc!

    One comment today noted: “I’m disappointed that there is no ASS today, and only one GAM and one TATA, crossing A BRA no less [from abra cadabra].” [Tata is slang for boob, in case you’re not up on these things.]

    I’ve heard the term GAM before for leg. It was clued today as “Leg, in old slang” at 57A. But when I googled it, all I found was: 1. a school of whales, porpoises, or dolphins, and 2. a social meeting or informal conversation (originally one among whalers at sea). But those are in the traditional dictionaries. The Urban Dictionary, which must be put together by dirty old men, has “gams” as “a nice long pair of female legs.”

    Etymology-wise, there’s this for gam: low slang, probably the same word as gamb “leg of an animal on a coat of arms” (1727) and ultimately from Middle English gamb “leg,” which is from French (see gammon). Now, in American English slang, especially with reference to well-formed legs of pretty women, but this was not the original sense.

    The Owl Chatter photographers caught up with one of my tax students after the midterm modeling her gams.

    Cary ELWES, of The Princess Bride, was in the puzzle today. Did you know he waged a twitter war with troglodyte Senator Ted Cruz? It turns out Cruz is a major fan of The Princess Bride. And when he tweeted some swipe at Hollywood liberals, Elwes snapped: “How does it feel to know that not only the entire cast and crew of your favorite movie The Princess Bride, but almost the whole entertainment industry, have nothing but rabid contempt for you?” And he called Cruz a “miserable ROUS” ― referencing the Rodents of Unusual Size (which attack The Princess Bride hero Westley and heroine Buttercup as they traverse a dangerous bog called the Fire Swamp, in case you were wondering).

    One of Elwes’s relatives was the British miser John Elwes, who was the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), having been referenced by Charles Dickens himself in chapter six of his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend.

    When Elwes was a teenager he worked as a production assistant on several films, and was assigned to Marlon Brando on Superman. His job was to get Brando out of his trailer every day. When he introduced himself to Brando, Brando insisted on calling him “Rocky,” after Rocky Marciano. Elwes has no idea why.

    One scene in The Princess Bride called for Count Rugen to hit Elwes and knock him out. Elwes told Christopher Guest to go ahead and really hit him for the shot. But Guest hit Elwes so hard that he was knocked unconscious, and rushed to hospital. He woke up in the ER, still in costume with stitches being sewn into his head. He’s lucky it wasn’t Alec Baldwin, armed.

    It was love at first bite when he met his wife Lisa, a photographer, at a chili contest in Malibu in 1997. They’ve been married since 2000 and have a daughter. He’s a damn good-looking guy, I’ll give him that.

    Here’s the view from my kitchen window this morning. Brrr.

    See you tomorrow!

  • Eggs For Breakfast

    Owl Chatter says goodbye to, and honors the memory of, Shinta Ratri, the leader of an Islamic boarding school that offers a haven for transgender women in Indonesia, where they really need it, to say the least. She died on Feb. 1 in Yogyakarta, a city on the Indonesian island of Java. She was 60 and died of a heart attack.

    Ms. Shinta, who had transitioned as a teenager, founded the school, Pesantren Waria al-Fatah, in 2008, as a retreat and a place to pray. For transgender women in this largely Muslim nation, discrimination is particularly acute at mosques, where men and women generally pray separately.

    “In the public mosque we made people uncomfortable. We needed a safe place for trans women to pray,” Ms. Shinta said. Transgender women in Indonesia are known as waria, an appellation that combines the words for woman (wanita) and man (pria).

    “The first thing I tell every trans woman who comes here is, being a trans woman is not a sin,” she said. “In this world it’s not just men and women who exist. There’s us. We trans people exist as well.”

    The school faced a defining crisis in February 2016 when a mob from the hardline Front Jihad Islam raided it and forced it to close for five months. Ms. Shinta turned the raid into a lesson in courage and affirmation.

    “When the fundamentalists sent us a threat through social media that they would attack the school, we tried to evacuate,” said Renate, a student at the school, “But she said, ‘No, I am done running.’”

    Ms. Shinta told the students: “We will defend this place even at the risk of our lives, because this is our fundamental right, our basic right. Because when we are not allowed to pray, to express ourselves, to gather and to learn, of course we stand up against that.”

    What a beautiful woman.

    On a (much) lighter note, commenter Joe Dipinto worked out an hysterical spoof of Simon and Garfunkel’s pretty song “For the Asking.” He rewrote the lyrics for it from yesterday’s puzzle answer “FOR THEE, ASS KING.”

    First, here’s the song:

    So click on it to get it going and replace the lyrics with the following. If you are not shortly roaring in laughter, check yourself in somewhere.

    Song For The Ass King

    Here is my song for thee, Ass King
    Ask me and I will play
    So sweetly, I’ll make you smile

    This is my tune for thee, Ass King
    Take it, don’t turn away
    I’ve been waiting all my life

    Thinking it over, I’ve been sad
    Thinking it over, I’d be more than glad
    To change my ways for thee, Ass King

    Ask me and I will play
    All the love that I hold inside

    Hm hm hm hm for thee, Ass King
    Hm hm hm hm hm hm hm
    Hm hm Hm. Hm hm hm hm.

    Continuing with nonsense, I mentioned recently that quite a few Rexites work the Monday puzzles via the down clues only to make them a more challenging. These folks come across as a little high and mighty. So commenter egsforbreakfast (“egs”) took a swipe at them with this funny note about doing the puzzle via the diagonals, which, of course, is impossible.

    Here is his note, followed by mine:


    “I did this Diagonals Only. The Diagonals-Only approach can be hard at times, given that there are no diagonal clues. But, fortunately, today’s puzzle started with the biggest, friendliest gimme ever seen at 1 Diag: PMLSEEEIONREUN. The rest was Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!, except for a brief piddle at 37 Diag. where I initially had LMNnT. I quickly saw that it had to be LMNIT, and it was off to the races.”

    My rejoinder:

    “@egs– I tried diagonals today too. The lack of clues is daunting for sure, but not having to find “words” as answers is liberating. Also, you can “attack” it from four directions — upper left to lower right and lower left to upper right, of course, but also upper right to lower left and lower right to upper left.”

    In the Serious-Discussion-About-Utter-Nonsense Department, the following back and forth emerged today from the clue/answer: “Tie-breaking soccer shots: Abbr.:” — PKS.

    Ebenezer C. Morley said: “A penalty shoot-out (more properly known as just a shoot-out, because no penalties are involved) is used only in elimination tournaments to determine who advances in the tournament and who does not. But it does not affect the actual score of the game, which remains a draw in the record books.”

    Anonymous said: “Some soccer games are allowed to end in ties. But in soccer games where a winner must be declared (like the World Cup final), if the game “ends” in a tie, each team shoots penalty kicks to decide the winner.”

    Ebenezer C. Morley replied: “Anonymous: – a small technical clarification:

    “In soccer, when a tournament elimination game or final game ends in a draw, the shoot-out determines who wins the Cup or who advances. It does not determine the winner of the game; the game itself remains a draw in the record books. So, while Argentina was awarded the World Cup because it outscored France in penalties 4-2, the actual game ended in a draw, and the score of the game remains in the record books at 3-3.

    “Think of it as two candidates for office who receive the same number of votes. Only one of them can take office, so there needs to be an extraordinary post-election mechanism for determining which one can legally take office; in many municipalities this is something as simple as a coin flip. But neither candidate actually wins the election – rather, one candidate is legally permitted to take office, and this is determined through a post-election extraordinary mechanism.

    “In this regard, soccer differs from many other sports that use tie-breakers to actually determine a winner of the match or game itself (e.g., tennis and golf). In soccer, it is a post-game extraordinary mechanism used because only one side may advance (or receive the Cup).”

    Anonymous came back with:
    “FIFA’s own website, in black letter, describes the Final’s result thusly ‘Argentina wins 4-2 on penalties.’

    Anonymous“The more I read your post Ebenezer the more baffled I am
    You write that ( in tournament play) when an elimination game ends in a draw….
    That ‘s nuts. The match hasn’t ended. The match continues with PKs.
    And if the PKs aren’t a de facto continuation of the match, what are they?
    And why would a match’s prize be determined by something that wasn’t part of it?”

    Ebenezer C. Morley came back with the following:

    “Because the match is a game. And the the game is over after regulation time and the overtime. If the game ends in a draw, a separate competition, the penalty kicks, determine who advances.

    “That is because in an elimination tournament, there needs to be a way to determine who is eliminated and who moves to the next stage – so that they don’t have to replay the game. The penalties take place after the games ends, for the sole purpose of determining who is eliminated and who moves on. But the penalties do not change the outcome of the game itself – which is and always will be a draw in the record books.

    “And Argentina advanced to the world cup title. But not because it won the final game. It did not; it drew that game. It won the world Cup because it beat France in penalty kicks. And those are two distinct things.

    “Like it or not, that’s how soccer does it, and those are the rules.”

    But it just couldn’t get through to Anon who just kept getting angrier and angrier, . . . as you all will if I don’t let go of this right now!

    The theme of the puzzle today was “BEAR WITH ME,” and 4 long answers contained a type of bear and the letters ME. E.g., POLARoid caMEra was one (see it?). And last one used a SUN bear, which many of us had never heard of. It’s an adorable mini-bear, sort of. This is from Wikipedia:

    “It is the smallest bear, standing nearly 28 inches at the shoulder and weighing 55–143 pounds. It is stockily built, with large paws, strongly curved claws, small rounded ears and a short snout. The fur is generally jet-black, but can vary from grey to red. Sun bears get their name from the characteristic orange to cream colored chest patch. Its unique morphology—inward-turned front feet, flattened chest, powerful forelimbs with large claws—suggests adaptations for climbing. It’s the most arboreal (tree-living) of all bears: the sun bear is an excellent climber and sunbathes or sleeps in trees 7 to 23 feet above the ground.”

    I liked this short comment: “I’ve lived with my wife for 37 years. She knew all about sun bears, what they look like, where they live etc. I’ve never heard of them. Weird.”

    Now I’m gonna try to find one to say good night to you. See you tomorrow!

  • The Umbrella of Opinion

    Last week, the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter with 20 co-signers of a like mind to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The letter complained that the federal government had not responded effectively to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It referred to a preliminary report by the “Department Of Transportation’s National Transportation Safety Board” and demanded Buttigieg provide “all documents and communications regarding NTSB’s progress on the cause of the derailment.” 

    Buttigieg responded: “I am alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks that the NTSB is part of our Department. NTSB is independent (and with good reason).”

    C’mon Pete — how are we supposed to know that? Just be happy he spelled your name correctly. (Wait, did he?) Kudos for not referring to the blunder as an “oversight.” Glad to see you’re bigger than that.

    I loved today’s puzzle, but was in the minority. Curmudgeon Rex rexcoriated it, as so often happens. Anyway, it took common words or expressions and changed their meanings by doubling up a letter or two. E.g., take the expression “admits defeat.” Use the clue: “Update Wikipedia after the 2012 election?,” and you get: ADD MITT’S DEFEAT.

    The best one was part of a mASSive tuchas extravaganza I’ll discuss below. It took the common expression “for the asking.” Then it gave the clue: “Words accompanying an offering to the ruler of the donkeys?” And the answer was FOR THEE, ASS KING. Hysterical, no? Just the type of ridiculous nonsense we live for at Owl Chatter: thank you, Will Nediger! Will’s a veteran constructor. Today’s was his 46th puzzle in The Times.

    Since we’re on the topic yet again, the clue at 5D was “Tuchas,” and the answer was PATOOT, as in “you bet your sweet patootie.” The second T in PATOOT met up with the T in ASSORT. And then — get this! The ASS from ASS KING, above, crosses the answer ASSASSIN — a double! — clued as “Charlotte Corday, to Jean-Paul Marat.” Whew, a breathtaking ass-ault, Nediger — well done!

    It reminded me of a New Yorker cartoon from many years ago. It’s a dad with his grown-up son, and we see them from the back. And they both have identical enormous rears. Enormous. And the dad has his arm around his son and he’s saying: “It’s about time we discussed your inheritance, Andy.”

    Here’s a recent exchange of comments on Rex’s blog (on trans kids):

    “I kept hoping that the people who professed an all-embracing acceptance of all kinds of people would extend that inclusivity to those who have differing opinions.”

    The reply: “A difference of opinion would be about, say, pizza toppings. Human rights do not fall under the umbrella of opinion. You are either right or wrong about them. No one is under any obligation to extend acceptance to people who literally want LGBTQIA+ people dead.”

    Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson, born 1 October 1987, was in the puzzle under her professional name Michaela COEL. She’s a British screenwriter and actress. She won an Emmy for outstanding writing for her work on the 2020 comedy-drama series I May Destroy You. Her parents are Ghanaian but she was born and raised in East London. At an awards ceremony in 2016, Coel wore a dress designed by her mom made out of Kente cloth, a Ghanaian textile. Here’s Ms. Coel, and this may be it. [I can see that fabric making a beautiful owl — amirite, Jenny?]

    We had a choice of three kinds of pancakes in the puzzle: 110A: “Russian pancakes,” BLINI; 101D: “Pancake served with sambar,” DOSA, and, of course, 41A: “Yiddish for pancake,” LATKE. All that was missing was a load of CREPE.

    I was today old when I learned this may be why (from an anonymouse comment): “All the pancakes seem to be throwing a bone to the fact that this past week included Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Pancake feeds are a common tradition in many Christian churches.” [Yeah, but latkes? Sure, what the hell?]

    Please, help yourself to some dosa.

    You may not have heard “of” Marni Nixon, but I bet you heard her. She was clued as “Soprano Nixon” at 96D today. Born Margaret Nixon McEathron on February 22, 1930, she was an American soprano and ghost singer for featured actresses in musical films. She is now recognized as the singing voice of leading actresses on the soundtracks of several musicals, including Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, although her roles were concealed from audiences when the films were released. Nixon also made concert appearances, specializing in contemporary music as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and gave recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Town Hall in New York. In the Disney film Mulan, she was the singing voice of Grandma Fa. She had a very successful career and in 2011 received the George Peabody Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Music.

    She was married three times. Her first husband was Ernest Gold, who composed the theme song for the movie Exodus, starring a young plotz-worthy Paul Newman. Nixon had three kids with Gold before she made her exodus from the marriage. [Yes, I will stoop that low at times.] Sadly, she died in 2016 at the age of 86. I’m guessing she’d like to be remembered in Owl Chatter belting one out.

    Here’s a feel-good story from Met Diary today, written by Len DiSesa, that even an old draft dodger like me could enjoy:

    Dear Diary:

    It was a warm August day in New York in 1969. I was 21 and just back from Vietnam.

    I had been drafted into the Army two years earlier, and my second year in Southeast Asia had been the longest in my life. It ended with me returning to the World — Brooklyn — in one piece as one of the lucky ones.

    I took a cab from Port Authority to Bensonhurst. I was in my khaki uniform. The cabdriver, a middle-age man, kept looking at me through the rearview mirror. There was no conversation between us. I was lost in a swirl of emotions.

    When we got to my block, I could see all of my neighbors sitting out on their porch steps. Someone had strung up a large banner: “Welcome Home, Lenny!” They were all cheering.

    Through my tears, I could make out my parents, my sisters and my girlfriend. I was overcome, completely surprised by the reception I was receiving from the people who had watched me grow up.

    What moved me the most, though, was when I reached for my wallet to pay the substantial sum of money showing on the taxi meter.

    “Put your money away, son,” the cabby said. “You’ve paid enough. This ride’s on me.”

    We had a teensy beensy bit of snow yesterday — almost imperceptible. It was a snowless winter here in Jersey. Let’s end today with this poem by Ted Kooser from Winter Morning Walks. See you tomorrow!

    The cedars in the roadside ditches
    are nearly black against the many grays
    of this winter morning, but unlike
    most things with darkness at their centers
    they don’t turn an impenetrable shell
    to the light. Rather, like ink on wet paper,
    their dark limbs bleed into the light,
    reaching farther and farther
    into the whiteness of lightly falling snow.

  • Princesses and Kings

    I lost my brother Jay shortly before 9/11. He was only 63, so I was pretty much robbed, of what, 20 years or so with him? For a time I was working in an office in midtown and he had an office a bit north of there so we met for lunch every week or two. It was during this time that my wonderful niece Alana was born, and, to be honest, I thought I lost my brother over her. Alana was his first, and to put it mildly he went nuts. She was all he could talk about. There was no point in me being there – he wasn’t listening to anything I said, he just went on and on about how gorgeous she was and smart and sweet and gorgeous — did I mention gorgeous? All of that was true — no question, but enough already.

    I came home and said to Linda – “I think I’m losing Jay — there’s just no connecting with him anymore, it’s all Alana — there’s nothing else on the planet. I don’t know why I bother to meet him.” When he wasn’t raving about her, he was pressuring us to schlep up to Riverdale to visit, but that was a tough trip because we didn’t have a car at the time. The same thing happened a few years later when his second was born — my wonderful funny handsome nephew Jared. I remember holding him during his bris (and not watching), which was a great honor that I still very much appreciate. Anyway, the years went by, and I just accepted that Jay had gone totally nuts. Short of not letting the kids play with chain saws, he pretty much gave in to them on everything else. The concept of him ever punishing one of them was too ridiculous even to contemplate.

    And then something happened to us in Brooklyn — we had Caitlin. And I held her in the hospital room and it was “Whoa.” Overwhelming. Indescribable. I remember having two immediate thoughts. First — did my mother love me this much? — Yikes, I wished I gave her less grief over the years. And second, I felt, for the first time, that there was something (or someone) I would give my life for without hesitation if necessary. And of course I felt the same way about Sam when he was born, and the feelings only grew stronger over the years, even over difficult years.

    I remember at one point being surprised that I was so surprised by all of it. We knew plenty of people who had kids — yet we never got any idea of the overwhelming feelings we’d be having. How come nothing tipped us off to the intensity of the love even in any movies we saw or books we read — even books specifically on the topic of parenting?

    And then I remembered Jay. How he fell off the planet when Alana was born. How I complained to Linda how crazy he had become. It turned out he was the only one who conveyed it accurately in his way, who painted the true picture for me, but I couldn’t appreciate it at the time. It was a Catch-22. If he hadn’t gone totally nuts, he wouldn’t have been painting the picture accurately. But I couldn’t take him seriously — the guy was clearly completely nuts.

    I spoke briefly at Jay’s funeral and thanked him for all the gifts he gave me — many of which, like that one, I only appreciated after he was gone.

    Here’s Caitlin and her quintet, 2.5 years ago. I just noticed Lianna and Leon are holding hands.

    I should never have given the Owl Chatter camera crew the night off. (I took pity on them for schlepping out to Kentucky for that moron convention yesterday.) It meant it was up to me to take a shot of Chris’s wonderful band last night down at The Rail in Whitehouse Station. They tore the roof off the place and the burgers were [insert chef’s kiss]. Wonderful event. But here’s my pathetic effort at photography. Don’t blame me for that blurry guy on the left — he’s actually blurry in real life. Chris is next to him on the gee-tar. (BTW, Chris is a big fan of Owl Chatter — thank you for the kind words, buddy!)

    And here’s that chef’s kiss I owe you:

    Get this — the band has a new drummer because the old drummer refused to get vaxxed (as was required by their rehearsal space), and got Covid and died. He was 52 and left behind a 12-year old child. They have a new vocalist too because the old one also refused to get vaxxed. She’s still living but is apparently brain dead because she noted about the drummer that “at least he was true to his beliefs.” When Chris pointed out that his beliefs killed him, she said he died because he didn’t take Ivormectin or something and she still refuses to get vaxxed. Chris has cut all social ties to her. BTW, don’t worry, all of the bandmembers photographed above, as well as the chef who is modeling the “chef’s kiss” for us, are vaxxed and boosted. Owl Chatter is a safe space.

    Some holdover issues from yesterday’s puzzle. 35D was “Princess Diana or Diana Ross,” and the answer was GAY ICON. One commenter asserted a little too snippily that Princess Di was absolutely not a gay icon. Hrrrumph. Just for fun, I checked Wikipedia for “Gay Icon,” and found a pretty big entry. It includes the following, which I posted for the snippy guy (who later deleted himself, so to speak). It’s a bit long, but lovely.

    “Highly regarded by the LGBT community due to her work with gay men suffering from AIDS, Diana, Princess of Wales, is considered to be a gay icon. The hardships she faced during her life within the British royal family and her struggles with bulimia have been cited as factors to which members of the LGBT community can mostly connect. Writing for Them, David Levesley described Diana as ‘a symbol of the familial oppression many queer people know all too well,’ and added that ‘[queer people] admire her for how long she lasted in the face of a shitty situation. Is there anything more queer than a fabulous woman trapped in a bleak household?’ James Greig from Vice also held a similar viewpoint, stating that “her status as a tragic diva aside, it’s undeniable that Diana made real, material changes to the lives of LGBT people – particularly through the work she did around AIDS.” In an article for Newsweek, Desmond O’Connor wrote that Diana’s work with dying HIV+ gay men was crucial for reminding ‘the people of Great Britain that their ‘untouchable’ sons deserved to be loved.’

    “In 2009, a panel including Sir Ian McKellen and Alan Hollinghurst chose Diana’s portrait to be shown in the Gay Icons exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In October 2017, the Attitude magazine honoured Diana with its Legacy Award for her HIV/AIDS work. Prince Harry accepted the award on behalf of his mother.”

    Here are two shots of The Lady. First, wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jacket on a magazine cover (no shit!), and then looking quite sexy.

    On that mbira — the thumb piano. I hope you took a few minutes to watch the video I posted yesterday — it’s pretty neat. Anyway, commenter CDilly52 shared this:

    “First of all, blessings upon the house of Professor Bruno Nettl, one of the founders of the discipline of ethnomusicology and one of the kindest, most creative and intelligent people I have ever met. I had a double major at Illinois in music performance (flute and voice) and music history. This meant two recitals and a senior thesis. And lots of masters level seminars because the major was newish in the days gone by.

    “Anyway, my seminar with Dr. Nettl was in African music. It was one of the best classes I ever took and it was an opportunity for me to work with my new ‘steady’ and eventual husband on my final project. As a percussionist, he was already familiar with every percussion instrument introduced in class and he and Dr. Nettl were well acquainted since the percussion department at Illinois was then and still is known for new music and percussion ensemble work that employs every sound one could imagine and incredibly creative composers-percussionists.

    “Throughout the course of the semester, I was starting work on my thesis about J.S and CPE Bach‘s flute music and performance practices/ornamentation. Since I also had to have a final project for ethno, I really threw the spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick.

    I took a movement of the CPE Bach unaccompanied partita with its persistent atomic rhythm and we added African percussion underneath. It included a passage with the mbira trading off portions of a sequence with the flute with African drums underneath syncopating the atomic rhythms of the Bach. And that’s why the TINE of the mbira was a gimme. And to this good day, I wish I had a recording of that piece, but reel to reel tape was all that would have been possible and the line was long to get the department sound guys to help set up to record. Undergrads were at the end of the end of the line.”

    Turning to today’s puzzle. Puzzles definitely have a vibe. I learned that from Rex. Who are the people it features? — if it has a female newsperson, is it Laura Ingraham or Rachel Maddow? If there’s a “Mel” is it Brooks or Gibson or Torme or Ott? Does it have rappers or country-western folks? Gay idioms? Etc. In that light, I enjoyed Rex’s comments about his experience of today’s puzzle:

    “Despite the ‘not my vibe’ content, despite the deliberately unfun grid structure, I enjoyed the solve, largely because it felt like the puzzle was really trying to fight me but I was knocking down everything it could throw at me—all the junk I don’t really care for, all the potential traps and dead-ends, and alllll of the ‘look at my tricky clues!’ I felt immortal walking through this one. Like Keanu at the end of ‘The Matrix’—nothing could touch me. I could feel that it was probably a ‘hard’ puzzle—lots of tricky clues, lots (and lots and lots and lots) of names—but there was just no stopping me.

    “So this was a rare experience where I thought like the puzzle hated me, like it was saying ‘OH, IT’S ON!’ the way some dumb fake tough guy might, but I managed not only to defeat it, but to make friends with it as well. This puzzle definitely voted for Trump, but we’re still gonna have a beer later. It’s fine.”

    I have to say I agree. There wasn’t much that engaged me. The clue for 2D was cute: “Something that guarantees you’ll come out on top?” And the answer was ROGAINE.

    BTW, what do you get when you combine Rogaine and Viagra? — Don King!

    THORA Birch dropped in today — an unusual actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Kevin Spacey’s daughter in American Beauty (1999), which we loved and won the Oscar for Best Film. (Spacey also won for Best Actor and Sam Mendes for Best Director.) She was also in The Last Black Man in San Francisco in 2019, which I liked, but I don’t remember her in it.

    Ever been just a tiny bit embarrassed by your parents? (Me neither.) Well, Thora’s folks were both porn stars who were in Deep Throat. Although her name is an anagram of TORAH, she is only partly Jewish, and the Torah business is a coincidence. Her name derives from the Norse god of thunder and lightning: Thor, which would have been her name if she was born a boy. Her younger brother is named Bolt (not kidding). Given her parents, let’s face it, it could’ve been worse. (They could have gotten away with naming the son Dick, but I’m not going to give that topic any more thought (probably).)

    Because of their own experience in movies, Thora’s parents were reluctant to encourage her to act, but were persuaded to show her photograph to agents by a babysitter who noticed her imitating commercials. Thora got her first big break at the age of four, when the babysitter accompanied her to a successful audition for a Quaker Oats commercial.

    Sifting through photos of her, I was amazed at how changeable her looks are. I think she’d be pleased with this choice.

    And we’ll let her pretty blue eyes bid you farewell today. See you tomorrow!

  • Thumb Piano

    We might call it “Godstock:” a semi-spontaneous flocking of 50,000 young people over a two-week period to pray and sing in the chapel at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. For Owl-Chatter readers unfamiliar with Wilmore — it’s in Jessamine County. Does that help? A bit north of Burgin, and just west of Nicholasville? Can you place it now?

    According to a front page article in the NYT, posts on TikTok and Instagram, plus WOM (word of mouth) spread the word. Jenny Palmer told her boss she had to leave work, and drove eleven hours straight from Jacksonville, FL. Valor Christian College up in Ohio canceled classes. The NYT said “almost the entire student body drove down in a bus,” but Owl Chatter investigators discovered that there are close to 200 undergraduate students at Valor, so unless that’s some big-ass bus, something’s off there.

    According to The Times, “the revival at Asbury began on Feb. 8, when a few dozen students lingered after an ordinary morning chapel service to continue singing and praying together. Word about the spontaneous gathering spread on campus, and by evening, students were dragging mattresses into the chapel to spend the night. Within days, their enthusiasm had exploded into a national event.” Ka-boom!

    Around 50,000 people came before the college started to wind things down. The town’s population is just 6,000.

    The NYT continued, “By last weekend, traffic was backed up far along the road coming from Lexington. The university scrambled to set up banks of portable toilets, a large screen on the lawn to simulcast what was happening onstage in the chapel and heat lamps, when the temperature dropped and snow began to flurry. The line to get into the chapel on Saturday afternoon was a half-mile long.

    “’Sixteen-plus-hour days feel like five minutes,’ said Eli Baker, an Asbury undergraduate who was talking intensely with his friend Brenden Krebs [no relation to Maynard G.] at a packed coffee shop on Day 10 of the revival.

    “’It’s like Woodstock,’ said Nick Hall, 40, an evangelist from Minnesota who arrived last week.”

    [Note: Except for the portable toilets, it’s not like Woodstock. I saw the movie Woodstock; I spoke to people who went to Woodstock; I read articles about Woodstock. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.]

    “Many drawn to Asbury in recent weeks describe an extraordinary sense of peace in the room. Attendees of all ages recall bursting into tears upon entering the building. ‘It doesn’t feel like America in 2023 in here,’ said Margaret Feinberg, who traveled from Park City, Utah, to attend. ‘It just melts away.’”

    Feinberg? Seriously?

    Owl Chatter photographers were able to slip inside to photograph this scene, which is not exactly mayhem. Let’s call it prayhem.

    Back on Planet Earth, today’s puzzle gave me quite a workout. It was great. For one thing, the focus of the NYT away from the tuchas and onto boobs continued with 6D: “Wireless support providers, at times.” BRAS. And 38D: “Space between leaf veins.” AREOLA. Leaf veins? Whatever.

    “Kings and queens, e.g.,” was a tough clue for PIECES. My favorite was 22A: “One who collects just for kicks?” Answer: SNEAKERHEAD. Apparently this is someone who collects and trades old sneakers. There’s a big market for them on eBay. (“Kick” is a slang term for “shoe.”)

    Here’s a note by Sir Hillary on it:

    “My son is a burgeoning SNEAKERHEAD. He chooses to devote lots of space in his small Manhattan studio to boxes and boxes of old-school kicks — Air Jordans, etc. I don’t really get it, but he seems to have a decent handle on the secondary market, so OK. It’s not like my 19 framed James Bond film one-sheets are any more rational.”

    The clue for POP STAR was “Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana.” Hi Hannah! You go to that thing in Kentucky? Didn’t see you there.

    The clue for TINE was “What musicians pluck on an mbira.” Huh? That’s new to me. An mbira is an instrument sometimes known as a thumb piano. It’s pretty neat. Here’s a video:

    A few weeks ago, Owl Chatter posted a beautiful Irish song by Christy Moore, called “So Do I.” I go back to listen to it from time to time and it never fails to grab me. Here’s the first verse:

    This is the day the fisherman likes
    And so do I
    When the rain puts a shine on the chestnut spikes
    Hear the curlews cry
    The nightingale sings her best
    We’ll drink a pint in Hamilton’s Rest
    And the girl I love wore a muslin dress
    The fisherman dreams of the sun in the west
    And so do I
    And so do I

    Play Ball! Spring Training games start today with Texas facing KC, and Seattle up against the Padres. It’s looking bad for the Washington Nats whom we’ve been following since their championship run in ’19. But we’re sticking with them. Hoping for better results for Detroit too, after a very poor 2022.

    Three cheers for Anderson Comas, left-handed outfielder in the White Sox farm system. He came out as gay recently with this heartfelt note, below. He’s a good-looking young man. The White Sox responded with a nice note themselves. Anderson is just the third pro baseball player ever to come out: no major leaguers yet.

    “This may be my most personal thing I ever share and it’s that I’m proudly and happily part of the LGTBQ+ community 🏳️‍🌈 I’m also a human with a great soul, I’m respectful, I’m a lover, I love my family and friends and that’s what really matters, I enjoy my work a lot, being a professional baseball player is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people can not be someone in this life, well look at me I’m Gay and I’m a professional athlete so that didn’t stopped me to make my dreams come true, I’m doing this cause I wanna be an inspiration for those like me out there fitting for their dreams, please don’t listen to those stupid things that people say about us, fight for your dreams, believe in yourself and go for it 🤨❤️”

    White Sox assistant general manager Chris Getz praised Comas in a statement Sunday afternoon and said Comas came out to the organization last year.

    “I was very pleased that he was comfortable sharing with us in player development,” Getz said. “I also was happy at the reaction across the organization, which as you would expect was to support, help and congratulate a teammate. With his social media post today, we are all so proud of Anderson and that he is comfortable sharing such an important personal part of his life so openly.”

    That’s it for today, folks. Owl Chatter is heading out to Whitehouse Station for a fat juicy burger and to hear friend Chris’s rock band rock the house. See you tomorrow!