It’s the birthday of Emily Dickinson today (1830). She shares it with our seventh grandchild Harold Barney (2024). Hi Harold! The Writer’s Almanac shared this quote of hers: “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

Wait, what? Was she kidding? You sure that wasn’t Yogi?

It is also the date on which William Faulkner was given the Nobel Prize (1950). He was an alcoholic and his family had a rough time getting him to Sweden. He stood too far from the microphone for his speech to be heard. I’m not kidding: why didn’t someone say something? Are the Swedes like that? Are they the kind of people who when you are standing too far from the mic to be heard they don’t say anything? Apparently.

But the text was printed in the papers the next day. Here is part of it, per the WA:

“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

I called Phil and George in to read it to them, my voice cracking towards the end. They both said, “What?”

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Paul Krugman pointed out a little wrinkle in how Trump is trying to lie his way around the nation’s economic problems he caused. His “go to” is to blame Biden, but he’s not willing to admit there are problems. Hmmmm.

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In the puzzle today, the clue at 42A was “Protected lands for plants and animals,” and the answer was NATURE RESERVES. But one of the Anony Mice bristled and said it should be nature “preserves.” So, I ask you, is there a difference, and, if so, what is it? Time’s up! Beezer came to the rescue:

“A nature reserve focuses primarily on strict protection and conservation of ecosystems and species, often with limited human access, while a preserve (like a National Preserve) also protects nature but might allow for specific, regulated human activities like hunting, mining, or grazing, depending on its specific designation, balancing conservation with resource use or recreation. Essentially, reserves are often more restrictive for nature’s sake, while preserves offer a managed middle ground.”

I added: “And, of course, preserves such as peach or strawberry preserves are devoted to the protection of those particular fruits.”

I was in a silly mood today. So when the answer at 1D (for the clue “Software accessed via an online browser”), turned out to be WEBAPP, I commented: “Who bapps? We bapp.”

But I held off posting on the following:

15A: “First name in daring jumps.” Answer: EVEL. If Evel Knievel had named either of his sons Evel Jr., he could have been known as the lesser of two Evels.

34D: “Several things in a pagoda.” Answer: TIERS. Thus, a pagoda whose use is limited to festive events contains tiers of joy.

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Sophie Kinsella died today, sort of. It’s really Madeleine Wickham who died; Kinsella was the pen name she used for most of the 50 million books she sold, mostly humorous fare about a young woman who was a shopaholic. She was okay about it being cubby-holed as chick lit, but was later happier when her books were referred to as “wit lit.” She was just about to turn 56, and it was brain cancer that did her in. She is survived by her husband Henry whom she met in college (at Oxford), and their five children: Freddy, Hugo, Oscar, Rex and Sybella.

Several of her books were turned into movies. Alexandra Daddario starred in one. You may remember her as the new wife of an obnoxious guy in the first season of White Lotus.

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Have you ever reached across the table and taken a french fry or two off of someone’s plate? Of course you have. Who hasn’t? Well, we’ve lived long enough for a slang term to arise for it: the Fanum tax. It started when an online comic, who went by the name Fanum, would tell a joke and then grab a bite of your sandwich as payment for it, claiming he was assessing the Fanum tax. It’s still principally used for such food-related mini-thefts, but its usage is broadening into other areas — anywhere where one person inflicts himself on another in some way. E.g., “the quarterback dropped back to make a pass, but the defense Fanum taxed him into a fumble.”

I hope to see it in a puzzle soon, now that I know about it.

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At 54D, the clue was “‘There is more to life than increasing its _____:’ Gandhi” and the answer was SPEED. But a correction was in order, according to commenter “Bart Lett” who posted:

“What Gandhi actually wrote was ‘Speed is not the end of life.’ (Nonviolence in Peace and War, 1942)

“Gandhi shares a fate with Lincoln, Einstein and a few other luminaries for having sayings widely and ‘authoritatively’ attributed to them whose only sources are the other people who widely attribute the sayings to them. You will find no verifiable primary source for the quote as presented in the puzzle – unless you consider the words embroidered on your great aunt’s pillow a verifiable primary source.

“In this regard, wiser words than these have never been spoken: ‘Half the stuff on the Internet is incorrect’—Abraham Lincoln.”

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Rex started a holiday tradition of sharing “pet pix” his readers send in. They are very cute. Two years ago, they included one of my Zoey with her cat Emily. I sent this one in today. We’ll see if it qualifies. Technically, Welly (left) and Wilma are not “pets.” And there is nothing to link it to the holiday season. But how could he resist those punim? I explained that Welly has been a family member for 62 years, and that Wilma is his beautiful bride. I’ll let you know if/when the photo gets posted.

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Let’s close tonight with this alarming story from The Onion:

Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues.

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See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping in!

I saw Yogi Berra on a late-night talk show years ago. I forget who the host was; maybe Johnny Carson. Of course, the topic soon turned to Yogi’s famous sayings. And Yogi had a confession to make right off the bat. He made it with a great Yogi-ism. “I never said a lot of the things I said.”

Trump’s a lot like Yogi in that way, don’t you think? About a week ago he clearly stated on camera that he had no problem releasing the video of the boat murders. Yesterday, when Rachel Scott of ABC News stated that as a prelude to a question, he stopped her and said: “Who said that? I never said that.” Just like Yogi! He never said what he said.

Then he ripped into Scott with a vicious personal attack. “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious– a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you.” 

It’s not clear why he didn’t call her a pig. Could it be because she’s Black? It’s reverse racism!

Here’s Rachel. I concede that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but that’s an impressive-looking cover, if you ask me.

Rachel’s 32 and has a degree in journalism from USC. In June 2021, she received media attention for asking Putin: “The list of your political opponents who are dead, imprisoned or jailed is long … what are you so afraid of?” A year later she was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Journalist, the first year the category was introduced.

On July 31, 2024, Trump appeared before an interview panel of the National Ass’n of Black Journalists (NABJ), where Scott was a panelist. She began by repeating Trump’s statements about Black and other women-of-color leaders, his support of January 6 rioters, and his criticism of DEI initiatives. Trump called it “a very rude introduction,” and claimed Scott arrived 35 minutes late to the interview. In fact, the start time was delayed because Trump was demanding that NABJ not do a live fact-check of his answers. Can’t blame him.

Rachel married Elliott Smith last year. She met him at a brewery. (Burp!) She doesn’t drink beer. Smith heard her ordering wine at the bar and gently upbraided her for doing so at a brewery. They hit it off. He’s a program administrator at Yale’s Divinity School and he thought she was divine. Ba da boom.

Hey Smith – your wife was just personally insulted on national TV by an asshole of epic proportions. And how about the rest of the WH press corps? Your colleague was just crudely dissed for doing her job brilliantly. You all just letting it go? At least issue some sort of public statement.

Mr. Trump,

By virtue of your position, you have the unique opportunity to serve as a role model for American children. And what are you doing? Issuing degrading personal insults in a public forum to professional women who are just doing their jobs. Incredibly, you called a woman a pig to her face in front of her peers and the nation. What the f*ck is wrong with you? If we had a son who behaved as boorishly as you, he’d be grounded till hell froze over.

Or something along those lines. I’m too disgusted to go on. C’mon guys, especially you, Elliot. Your new wife! Don’t just let it go.

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This poem is called “Great Depression Story.” It’s by Claudia Emerson and was in yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s making me hungry, but what doesn’t?

Sometimes the season changed in the telling,
sometimes the state, but it was always during

the Depression, and he was alone in the boxcar,
the train stalled beneath a sky wider

than any he’d seen so far, the fields of grass
wider than the sky. He’d been curious

to see if things were as bad somewhere else
as they were at home. They were—and worse,

he said, places with no trees, no water.
He hadn’t eaten all day, all week, his hunger

hard-fixed, doubled, gleaming as the rails. A lone
house broke the sharp horizon, the train dreaming

beneath him, so he climbed down, walked out,
the grass parting at his knees. The windows

were open, curtainless, and the screendoor,
unlatched, moved to open, too, when he knocked.

He could see in all the way through to the kitchen—
and he smelled before he saw the lidded

pot on the stove, the steam escaping. Her clothes
moved on the line for all reply, the sheets,

a slip, one dress, washed thin, worn to translucence;
through it he could see what he mistook for fields

of roses until a crow flew in with the wind—
sudden, fleeting seam. By the time he got back to the train,

he’d guessed already what he’d taken—pot
and all—a hen, an old one that had quit

laying, he was sure or she wouldn’t have killed it.
The train began to move then, her house falling

away from him. The story ended with the meat
not quite done, but, believe him, he ate it

all, white and dark, back, breast, legs, and thighs,
strewing the still-warm bones behind him for miles.

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Get it? Took me a minute. It’s John Paul McKnight of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), who posted: After explaining what my new t-shirt means to my non-engineering family members, they now think I may be even duller than I previously was.

Roy Whittaker: Are you Wire Wound or Metal Film….? Feel free to resist answering.

John Scotland: If you didn’t have a separate organiser box for your resistors, they’d have no ohms to go to…

Shaun Gisby: Watt?

Paul Huang: Took me half a mho!

[OC note: The mho is an historical unit used in electrical engineering to quantify a material’s ability to allow the flow of electric current. You knew that, right?]

Matt McLaughlin: But surely not if bypassed as the image depicts?

Derek Rose: The resistor is for all intents shorted and of no use in this circuit. However….the wire can (and will have some) resistance however minimal and the result of 2 resistors in parallel is always less than the individual value of each resistor.

Avi Liveson: Fell off the truck there.

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Separately, on another dull topic (meat pies), Andy Spragg shared what he billed as “the world’s best anchovy joke.” Brace yourselves.

Three lads go for a meal at a new pizza restaurant, whose pitch is that you can totally personalise your pizza: you just have to choose any three ingredients from a huge list, and voila: made to measure pizza.

So the first guy who is a total carnivore opts for a venison, kangaroo, and biltong pizza. The second guy who is an out-and-out veggie opts for an artichoke heart, salsify, and banana blossom pizza. The third guy, who just loves anchovies, doesn’t want anything outlandish to distract from the anchovial loveliness, so he opts for anchovy, onion, and tomato.

Appetites duly whetted, they sit back to await events. After a bit, three pizzas get delivered, and the first two guys are raving about theirs and how generous all the portions are of their chosen toppings. Meanwhile, the third guy is looking at his pizza and wondering what went wrong. He calls the waiter back. “My two mates are raving about their pizzas, no complaints there. And mine … well, no complaints about tomato and onion, but they were just supposed to be a foil for the anchovies. Where are they all? There seem to be only three of them!”

And the waiter, looking a bit dumbfounded, replies …

…

(spoiler alert)

…

…

“But sir, most people don’t like anchovies.”

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I sent that joke to Brookline Carl who sent this one back to me:

A guy goes for his annual physical.  Everything is going well and the doctor says “We have one last thing: Your prostate. Go over to the exam table, lean on it, drop your shorts, and spread your legs wide.  And don’t get an erection, Steve.”

The guy says, “Doc!  My name is Daniel, not Steve!”  The Doc says, “I know. My name is Steve.”

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In the puzzle today, at 47D the answer was THEA. And it’s a Tuesday but the constructor, Kaye Hawkins, did not take the easy way out by cluing it with “The A Train.” Instead, to her credit, the clue was “‘Edie & ___: A Very Long Engagement’ (2009 documentary).” It’s about a lesbian couple from NY. How one cared for the other when she was stricken with MS and their marriage in Canada when gay marriage was still barred in the U.S.

One of the central “tools” of estate tax planning is the marital deduction which excludes from taxation property of the decedent’s that goes to the surviving spouse. This was not available to Edie and Thea at Thea’s passing because their marriage was not recognized in the U.S. So Edie was hit with an estate tax bill over $350,000. Do you like happy endings? Edie’s case went up to the pre-Trumpian Supreme Court and it held that DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) was unconstitutional.

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Can you think of a better way to close than with pretty girls singing a bluegrass song? We can’t either. (Actually picked this up from Paul Krugman!) See you tomorrow!

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In, literally, a bombshell report exclusive to Owl Chatter, sources reveal that the boat blown up by the military on Sept. 2 did not contain cocaine at all, but was instead carrying boxes full of Epstein files. Details to follow as they emerge (and dry out). This photo of the ship before it was hit was provided by the Defense Department.

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It was anybody’s game, the Big Ten title game, when I crashed at halftime Saturday night. Ohio State was up 10-6, but hardly dominant. And Indiana’s best receiver was on the fritz; we could do without that. But I woke up to the happy news that the hated Buckeyes lost 13-10. The juggernaut was de-jugged. Bravo Hoosiers!

After several weeks of pretending to be a football team, the Jets reverted to being a mop and the Dolphs wiped the floor with us, 34-10, ouch. But the score doesn’t really convey what a drubbing it was: the only Jets TD was on a punt return. It was 21-0 and essentially over after just 12 minutes. An unusual statistic: The Jets do not have a single interception all season. Remarkable. The lowest amount for real teams is five.

Rounding out the OC sports report, our Sirens fell badly (4-0) out west to the same Vancouver team (the Goldeneyes) we watched them beat last week in Newark. We are 2-3 now and off until the 17th, when we face the Boston Fleet, with Linda and me in attendance, kinehora. It’s Enema night!

Here’s Paetyn Levis of the Sirens, frequent winner of the league’s Most-Difficult-First-Name-To-Spell Trophy. She’s from Minny and played college hockey at Ohio State. Men’s heads have been known to explode when she and teammate Sarah Fillier have been in the same room with them.

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Here’s a snippet of conversation from yesterday.

Me: I didn’t sleep well last night.

Linda: That’s too bad.

Me: I was up from around 1 to 3.

Linda: Were you anxious about something?

Me: I wouldn’t say anxious.

Linda: What would you say?

Me: I would say unctuous.

We then had to look up what unctuous means. It means smarmy.

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Here’s Frank Bruni on that recent Cabinet meeting that Trump slept through: “Just how run-down must a raging narcissist be to snooze through tributes to his own greatness?”

Having slept through 38 years of department meetings at Hunter, I sympathize with the poor guy. One nice memory I have of my colleague John Kim, who passed away way way way too young, was from a department meeting. He was sitting next to me and, as things droned on, he jotted something down on his note pad and showed it to me. It said “Going to men’s room.” I nodded, and he got up and left. He came back after a while and sat back down in his seat. He jotted another note on his pad and showed it to me. “Feel better now,” it said.

Except for one deranged a**hole (and I chose those words carefully), every single one of my mates in the accounting program over the years was wonderful. I had the reputation of getting along with everybody. But, really, it was easy.

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Humorist James Thurber was born on this day in Columbus OH in 1894. Flipping through a sampling of his cartoons reminds me of how funny cartoons used to be. It may have been he who introduced the absurd into New Yorker humor. I’m not enough of an expert on the topic to know. Here are just two.

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Can you dig it? If you can, you probably did well on today’s puzzle where the revealer was “Finger or toe … or, when read as two words, what you can do to the ends of the theme answers.” DIGIT or DIG IT. Then the theme answers all ended with things you dig: Jackson HOLE, last DITCH, cherry PIT, and work out WELL.

Everyone’s favorite commenter, Lewis, often takes little outings the puzzle leads him on. Today he shared the following with us:

“Maybe digging is in our genes, like it’s in dogs’ genes. I remember that when I was a kid, the first thing I’d do after getting to the beach is dig the deepest hole I could.

“I did some more digging post-puzzle to determine the origin of ‘Hole’ in ‘Jackson Hole.” Turns out the area is named after fur trapper David Jackson, who worked the area in the 1820s, and ‘Hole’ was a trapper’s term for a large mountain valley. Huh!

“I did notice that the theme nouns – HOLE, DITCH, PIT, and WELL – can also be verbs. Then I saw words that can be both nouns and verbs all over the grid. A partial list: STREAK, SCAT, SCAN, RAIL, SLAM, TANK, GROWL, YOYO.

“A little more digging revealed that 30-50% of high-frequency vocabulary in English can be both noun and verb, but only about 10% of all the words in the dictionary can. You’re welcome.”

[OC note: At first, I didn’t see how “well” could be a verb. But then I remembered tears can well up in your eyes. And “hole” is certainly a verb in golf, e.g., he holed the ball with his third putt.]

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The puzzle was fine, if a bit (44A) HO HUM. At 30A, “‘Enola Holmes’ actress [MILLIE] Bobby Brown” livened things up a bit. Hi Mill! Grab a Diet Coke and shoot the breeze with us a bit. What was it like growing up in Spain and England? Are the in-laws cool (see below)?

Some of you may know her as Eleven from “Stranger Things.”

Phil!! Quit freaking her out!! It’s not funny!! What the hell is wrong with you??

Millie is married to Jake Bongiovi, an actor and model, whose dad is Jersey’s own Jon Bon Jovi! They adopted a baby girl last August.

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Does this license plate raise your hackles? Do you even have hackles? FYI, in mammals, the hackles are the hairs of the neck and back which become erect when the animal is fearful, as part of the fight-or-flight response, or to show dominance over subordinate animals. In birds, the hackle is the group of feathers found along the back and side of the neck. Anyway, never mind that, here’s the plate:

It’s a vanity plate issued by Tennessee to Leah Gilliam but then revoked eleven years later when it generated complaints. Gilliam said pwndu means “owned you” in gamer language. [In fact, PWN does mean OWN: it comes up a lot in crosswords.] She first said the 69 was part of her phone number but later said it was a reference to the year of the moon landing. The complaints claimed the plate was a reference to sexual domination.

Having nothing better to do (which we can certainly relate to), Gilliam appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, back in 2015 the Supremes heard a case from Texas which did not allow confederate flags on a vanity plate. Amazingly, Clarence Thomas joined the then-four liberals on the Court to find in favor of Texas (and against the Confederacy). The plates were held to be governmental speech which the State can control, and not personal speech, which it can’t.

Fast forward to 2025. On Gilliam, the Court said, “Don’t bother us with nonsense that’s more appropriate for blogs like Owl Chatter.” It refused to take up the case, so Gilliam was out of luck, or, legally, pwned.

Here’s Leah, in one of the few shots of her we could find in which she’s not wearing leather and holding a whip.

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I was in the offices over at CNN recently, digging up some dirt for an important feature we’re working on at Owl Chatter on plastic turtles. And I accidentally opened a door to a private meeting room where I found CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reaching for a nearby box of tissues and weeping her searing brown eyes out. “Kaity, Babe,” I said, “What’s wrong, girl?”

“I am not stupid. And I am not nasty,” she wailed.

“Of course you’re not,” I reassured her. “Who said these things?”

“The President,” she bawled. “He wrote that I was stupid and nasty because I asked why the ballroom is costing so much. He even used a capital S on stupid and a capital N on nasty.”

“Well, those words should not be capitalized,” I said. “And he’s just being a big meanie,” I told her. “If anybody is stupid and nasty, it’s him. Or he.”

“Really? You really think so?,” she asked, calming down a little.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Absolutely, Sweetheart.”

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Gotta go — the salad’s ready! See you tomorrow.

Headline in the NYT today: Video Complicates U.S. Boat Strike Explanation.

Ya think? “Complicates?”

You mean the video that shows two shipwrecked men waving for help before being blown to bits? That one?

Owl Chatter was able to get its hands on this top-secret photo of the vessel moments before the attack.

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At 12D in the puzzle today, the clue was “First name in Norse exploration,” and it was LEIF. Erikson, of course. Did you know that when Mrs. Erikson filed for divorce, she explained to the judge that she was turning over a new Leif? It’s true.

At 5D, “Big Apple cathedral,” was ST PATS. And at 52A, “That’s crazy!” was HOLY SMOKES!

Here’s egs:

“Did you hear about the new Vatican-endorsed cigarette? HOLY SMOKES. Their slogan: Every puff gets you closer to heaven. Available now at ST PATS and other authorized distributors.”

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This was new to me, surprisingly. At 58A, “Side effect after a BBQ meal, informally.” Answer MEAT SWEATS. Our favorite BBQ joint is about a half hour east of Ann Arbor in a tiny town called Willis MI. Boneheads. OMG. Sam and I were at a UMich night baseball game once and planned to dine at Boneheads following the game. As the innings sailed by, I realized we didn’t know how late they were open. So I called and the news was not good. We fled the stadium as fast as we could, ran the three long blocks to our parking spot, and drove like hell. They agreed to serve us if we didn’t mind them starting to clean up. Whew.

Urban Dictionary defines meat sweats as follows: “To consume an obscene amount of meat resulting in perfuse sweating.”

A commenter on reddit who calls him- or herself Dr. Meat Sweat says: The threshold for meat consumption to trigger the so called “meat sweats” can vary from person to person. In many cases, the threshold for “throwing up from eating too much” occurs before the “meat sweats” thus resulting in a lack of widespread experiencing of “meat sweats.”

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This poem is called “My Father’s Diary” and is by Sharon Olds. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac, which has been on a bit of a roll it seems to me.

When I sit on the bed, and spring the brass
scarab legs of its locks, inside
is the stacked, shy wealth of his print.
He could not write in script, so the pages
are sturdy with the beamwork of printedness,
WENT TO LOOK AT A CAR, DAD IN A
GOOD MOOD AT DINNER, LUNCH WITH MOM,
TRIED OUT SOME RACQUETS—a life of ease,
except when he spun his father’s DeSoto on the
ice, and a young tree whirled up
to the hood, throwing up her arms—until
LOIS. PLAYED TENNIS WITH LOIS, LUNCH
WITH MOM AND LOIS, DRIVING WITH LOIS,
LONG DRIVE WITH LOIS. And then,
LOIS! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! SHE IS SO
GOOD, SO SWEET, SO GENEROUS, I HAVE
NEVER, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE
TO DESERVE SUCH A GIRL? Between the tines
of his W’s, and liquid on the serifs, moonlight,
the self of the grown boy pouring
out, kneeling in pine-needle weave,
worshiping her. It was my father
good, it was my father grateful,
it was my father dead, who had left me
these small structures of his young brain—
he wanted me to know him, he wanted
someone to know him.

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Sharon is 83 now. She teaches creative writing at NYU. Here she is, catching up on some recent Owl Chatter posts.

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At 45A the clue was “Penn athletes” and the answer was QUAKERS. I posted the following for the commentariat: “Maybe UPenn’s football team would do better if the team name wasn’t based on Pacifism. What was the second choice: The Penn Marshmallows?”

The puzzle was guilty of sending mixed messages: At 18A, PLEASE RISE. At 35A (the clue), Sit.

Years ago I was on a committee at our Temple that was charged with conducting a Friday night service. During my small part I got to say “Please rise” and watch everyone in the room stand up. I couldn’t resist ad-libbing and said “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Here’s a rabbi joke: Three mothers are talking. The first says, “I am so proud of my Sammy. He’s a doctor, a big surgeon.” The second says: “My Isaac is a lawyer. Very successful, handles all the big cases.” They ask the third about her son and she says he’s a rabbi. “A rabbi?” they ask. “What kind of job is that for a Jewish boy?”

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From tomorrow’s Met Diary. This entry by Aryeh Friedman is called “13 Records.”

Dear Diary:

It was the mid-1990s and we were living in Washington Heights with our 4-year-old daughter.

An older woman, a widow, who lived on our floor adored our daughter and showered her with compliments every time we bumped into her.

After a time, we learned that she and her husband survived the Holocaust. They had never had children.

One day, when our door was ajar, our neighbor peeked in and noticed some vinyl records that we liked to listen to with our daughter.

Later, the woman invited me over to show me a box filled with classical records. They were in horrible condition: broken, scratched and caked with who-knows-what.

I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I thanked her and said we couldn’t wait to listen to them. I figured we’d get rid of them some time when she wouldn’t notice.

As I was leaving, she said that her husband loved classical music. They had always had Friday night dinner together when they were dating. And each time, instead of bringing her flowers, he had brought her a record.

They had 13 dinners before getting married. There were 13 records in the box, and she said she wanted my daughter to enjoy them all.

I still have those records.

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OK Chatterheads. See you tomorrow.

Owl Chatter sources tell us that Hegseth’s testimony in Congress yesterday really blew the Senators out of the water.

Phil got these shots of him testifying.

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My favorite clue/answer in today’s puzzle spanned the grid (15 letters). The clue: “Words of caution.” The answer: DON’T POKE THE BEAR. Commenter Pablo said it’s a familiar line to Boston Bruin fans. It’s uttered when someone takes a cheap shot at a Bruin.

It made me wonder, how many bears does it take to change a light bulb? Here are my thoughts. Bear with me now.

If it’s unbearable then no amount of bears would be enough.

But it may be a bear bulb.

In that case, three bears would be ideal: one bear to bear the ladder, one bear to bear the bulb, and one bear to bear witness.

And I would urge us all to bear that in mind.

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The exquisite Rooney MARA dropped in yesterday, boringly clued with “Actress Rooney.” What the hell is she wearing? The life vest from under her airplane seat?

Hard to imagine linking the striking actress with the brutes who play pro football, but some of you probably know that her name comes from the two football families she was born into: Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Mara of the NY Giants. She gets down on her knees every morning and thanks God she is not connected to the Jets.

Roo has two children with Joaquin Phoenix, whom I hope friends call Joe. They have been together since late 2016 and JP refers to her as his wife in interviews, though it is unclear if they ever took the trouble to get married, to the chagrin of the catering industry. They did announce they were engaged in 2019. Their first child is a boy named River to honor the memory of Jo’s older brother who passed away in 1993. Their second is a daughter whose name has not been revealed, as far as we can tell. They guard their privacy.

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One of the songs in yesterday’s puzzle has much more of a story to it than we were aware of. “2008 hit by Katy Perry,” was I KISSED A GIRL. But the late Jill Sobule released a song with the same title back in 1995. Per Anony Mouse: Katy Perry’s hit was an inferior rip off of Jill Soble’s original “I Kissed a Girl,” the first openly gay song to land in the Billboard Top 20. That was 1995 -13 years before Perry’s song.

Sobule’s song title is ho-hum until you realize it’s being sung by a girl. She tells a bit of the story before singing it below.

When Katy Perry released her song with the same title, Sobule calmly stated: “Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe ‘not good for the gays,’ title-thieving, haven’t heard much else, so not quite sure if you’re talented, fucking little slut.” Sobule later claimed that her comments were meant to be facetious and that she bore KP no ill will.

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At 10D today “Iterate” was REPEAT. It led two commenters to wonder: If iterate is repeat, is reiterate redundant? I explained that “Reiterate is redundant, and iterate is dundant.”

For our Dirty Old Man Dept, several commenters thought the answer at 2D (“It might be on a rack”) was BRA. I went with tie first, but the answer was HAT. (Boo.)

At 45A, “Where much of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was filmed,” was ALBERTA. Here’s Rex on it: “My favorite mistake was probably the one where I learned (‘learned’) that Ang Lee filmed Brokeback Mountain in ALBANIA. ‘Must’ve been more affordable,’ I thought.”

Here’s an “Alberta” song in very good hands that never fails to clutch at my heart. If it’s new to you, brace yourself.

Still I wish you’d change your mind
If I asked you one more time
But we’ve been through that a hundred times or more.

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Headline from The Onion:

Authorities: Missing Plates And Glasses Found Filthy But Safe In Roommate’s Room

CARSON CITY, MI—Nearly a week after the dishes vanished from the kitchen cabinets, authorities reported Wednesday that a collection of missing plates and glasses were found filthy but safe in roommate Brian Massoud’s room. “We are pleased to announce that the three missing plates and five glasses were located on the floor next to Brian’s bed, absolutely disgusting but now, thankfully, out of harm’s way,” said Sgt. Michael Sanders, who led the exhaustive search of the three-bedroom apartment that seemed hopeless until a tip from Massoud’s girlfriend directed authorities to a dinner plate crusted with melted cheese. At press time, the dishes had been placed in the kitchen sink, where they were reportedly soaking.

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This poem is called “The Fall” and it’s by George Bilgere. It’s from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac.

Although there were no witnesses
In the hallway outside the women’s room
Of the Hotel Coronado,
When my aunt stumbled
And fell to her knees on the ancient marble

It must have been like the swordsman
Falling in The Seven Samurai,
A whole dynasty collapsing,
Falling out of its bones

Into the mud. I was reading
The sports section in the lobby
When a boy, probably sixteen or so,
Ran in and called my name.
An old woman has fallen, he said,
Frightened that something
So enormous could happen, that fate
Should cast him as an emissary
Announcing dynastic collapse
Instead of just a high school kid,

And I stood up and ran to her
Although I’m fifty-six now, and breaking
Into a spontaneous run feels like
Trying out a language you’d lost
As a kid who’d swapped countries.

And there she sat, lean and elegant,
Like an athlete who’d collapsed
From sheer exhaustion, her legs
Drawn up to her chin as she fought
To lift the whole city again,

The crumbling Coronado,
Where Miles Davis used to jam,
And the Continental, where the Gershwins
Hung out at the Tack Room,
And the abandoned Fox Theater
Where she saw Olivier’s Hamlet

And even the boarded up
Forest Park Boat house, where her father
Used to take her for ice cream
In the sweltering St. Louis summers.

An old woman has fallen.

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We’ll give our art department the last word today. At 21A, the clue was: “Subject of the Bouguereau painting ‘The Abduction of Psyche.’” Anybody? EROS. Here’s Rex on it: “I like how this clue assumes I know who Bouguereau is. ‘Oh, the Bouguereau painting, yes, of course, what a master… [sips cocktail, nibbles on canapé] …’ Literally first I’m seeing his name today.”

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

Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter is the opposite of Owl Chatter. Where we are devoted to nonsense, she is no-nonsense. So it says something when material in hers crosses over to be Chatter-worthy. This item’s hysterical, IMO.

“Today’s cabinet meeting was clearly designed to demonstrate that the president is alert, active, and on top of things. But Trump could not stay awake while his Cabinet members were praising him, and so we had the wild visual of Marco Rubio praising Trump as the only man who could end Russia’s war in Ukraine, gesturing at the president sitting next to him, who was sound asleep.”

HCR also shared a brilliant line of George Will’s on Hegseth: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.”

Of course, since they are utterly dishonest and dishonorable, after lying about the killing only to see the proof emerge, Trump’s and Hegseth’s next step was to shift the blame, in this case, to Admiral Bradley. Richardson referred to it as “underbussing.”

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Antonín Dvořák popped in on the puzzle today, as composer of his Slavonic Dances. Shockingly, Malaika, the guest blogger for Rex, confessed that she didn’t know him. What!!?? He may not be one of Classical Music’s famous three B’s — Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart — but he’s darn close, IMO. (Just kidding with Mozart — I know the third B was Schubert.) Did you know that in 1943, the U.S. Navy named a ship in Dvořák’s honor? And his wife Anna said he was a wonderful Czech mate.

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PRELL was also in the puzzle today, albeit with a pretty clunky clue: “Shampoo often in a green bottle.” It’s still on the market. I remember the ads with the pearl slowly sinking to the bottom of the bottle. You can see the pearl dropping way at the end of this incredibly creepy ad. Jeez Louise!

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We’re all familiar with the QWERTY keyboard. I’m pounding away at it right now. But another one was developed that was touted by some as more efficient: faster and more ergonomic. It came up because it’s called DVORAK and Malaika noted that it’s the only Dvorak she’s heard of. (One of its developers was August Dvorak, no relation to the composer or the month.) It hasn’t caught on but it’s included as an option on most operating systems. It was patented in 1936.

Here’s August Dvorak with some of his typing students back at UWash in Seattle in 1932. He’s having them try out his new keyboard (really), while trying not to look down this student’s blouse. Look closely to see that his keyboard is written out on the blackboard in the rear.

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The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is presenting a special showing of this film on 12/18 in NYC. We would go but it’s a tough schlep into the city from Owl Chatter headquarters.

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From The Onion:

And this:

Nature Begins Reclaiming Chuck Grassley

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Did you know that on this date in 1926 Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared? Her car was found abandoned in a chalk pit seven miles from her house. I didn’t even know chalk had pits. England was mesmerized and citizens (as well as the police) organized huge search parties. She showed up after eleven days in a luxury hotel under a different name (Rabbi Chaim Lefkowitz), and claimed she could not remember what happened. It was a stressful year for her: her mother died, and her hubby left her for his young mistress. Ouch. It was never resolved as to whether it was all a publicity stunt. If it was, it worked. The popularity of her books soared.

Here’s a South Korean Ms. Marple. It’s Yunjin Kim. You may recognize her from Lost.

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Sirens are out in Seattle tonight. Puck drops at 10pm. Let’s go girls!

See you tomorrow!

Today’s puzzle involved state capitals. I’m a little better at them because in my youth a friend I used to visit had a tiny bathroom in the basement with a map of the U.S. facing the toilet.

The theme was “raising capital” and the theme answers were all downs with state capitals “rising,” e.g., my favorite, at 15D: “Grey Goose competitor.” Answer: BELVEDERE VODKA.

“Brought up the rear” was CAME LAST.

“Criticize unfairly” was TAKE POT SHOTS AT.

And “‘”Huh, better than I expected’” was NOT SO BAD.

Not too many state capitals are amenable to this treatment. I came up with these two:

What one might say about obese meanies:

I hatE FAT NASty people.

Hegseth — are you sure?

Well, yES, I OBserved the rules.

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Aside from the theme, it was good to learn: “Breakfast brand originally known as Froffles:” EGGO.

Froffles!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess it was a portmanteau from “frozen waffles,” but I could find no reference to froffles on Wikipedia or the Eggo website. I did learn that the famous ad: “L’eggo my eggo!” brought attention to a link between Eggo and LEGO. Rather than go to war, the companies teamed up, and a LEGO-shaped Eggo was the result.

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Loyal readers of Owl Chatter (both of you!) will recall how thrilled we were when Trump rolled over the utterly unprincipled GOP Senate to get Pistol Pete Hegseth confirmed. It was clear an endless stream of hilarity would issue from the Defense Dept. And it has. Dayenu! But not in our wildest dreams could we predict the delicious turn events took this week. The war crimes we expected. But Pete’s making fun of it with turtle cartoons! Even Putin on horseback must be impressed. Bravo, PH!

Needless to say, Hegs caught sh*t for it from Franklin the Turtle, although that’s the least of his problems. I copied the following, verbatim, from The Hill:

“Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity,” Canadian publisher Kids Can Press said in a statement on X. “We strongly condiment any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values.”

Condiment!! OMG, it just keeps getting better and better. In other pubs the intended “condemn” replaces the mustard, ketchup, and relish.

Of course, the Defense Department doubled down and charged the turtle with being soft on narco-terrorists. (Not kidding.)

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Arthur Sze is the current poet laureate of the U.S. About this poem he said: “In 2023, I participated in the Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau and collaged images and events in China together. The Yi host in the poem was the festival organizer, Jidi Majia.” It’s called “Qinghai Lake” and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

Naked carp swim upstream    and spawn in fresh water,
then fry return     to this 3,260-meter-high saline lake—

we stroll past black sheep      chained by their necks; 
later, our Yi host invites us    to join him at a low table:

boiled mutton, intestines, potatoes,     and red chile 
powder are set in red-swirling,     black lacquer bowls.

Closing my eyes,     I see wind turbines along a ridge, 
transmission lines     that arc from tower to tower 

across green hills;     a herder opens a gate, and black 
yaks slip through—when I walk    to a stream 

that feeds the lake, I follow     a path lined with red
and orange marigolds in pots,     wonder

who surrenders to reach     a higher plane of existence?
At a temple built and rebuilt     since 307 CE, 

I see a persimmon tree     alongside a cypress,
where lovers,     whetted by prayer, leave plaques

with dangling red strings.     Boating on this lake,
we make an oval track     on the surface; and, gazing 

at rapeseed     flowering yellow along the shore, 
we suspend but do not dissipate     the anguish of this world.

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The NY Football Giants (2-11) are having a worse season than the Jets (3-9). And, as Bill Parcells’ famous quote goes: “You are what your record says you are.” Last night, with the Jints down 17-7 against the Pats, their kicker Younghoe Koo attempted a field goal to make it a one-score game. It didn’t go well.

But if you check the game stats, there’s no record of a missed field goal by Koo. What gives? It turns out for a missed kick to count as a missed kick, statistically, the foot must touch the ball. Since Koo did not even come close here, it’s a nonevent. Actually, it counted as a sack of the holder.

Koo explained what happened after the game. It turns out he was high from drugs and “everything was spinning.” No! I’m kidding. He said the holder bobbled the snap and the ball seemed to still be in motion as he began his approach. He felt he could not complete the kick effectively, so he aborted the effort as you saw in the video. The Giants lost 30-9 anyway, so no harm was done. And his pretty wife, Ava, a teacher, consoled him after the game.

Are teachers allowed to be that pretty? I remember a back-to-school night when Sam was little. His teachers came out and seemed nice, and then his friend Greg’s teachers came out, like from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Greg’s dad (Hi Chris!) leaned over and said to me: “Greg is a very lucky boy.”

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We are looking forward to Jeopardy! tonight. A very nice young man named Eli, who often subs for Rex, is one of the contestants. Here’s what he said about it:

“I’ve been auditioning for Jeopardy for close to 15 years now. I’ve gone through the audition process so many times I’ve lost count (it’s at least 5). So to finally get the call was a dream come true. And the experience lived up to the dream!

“The entire staff at Jeopardy was just wonderful. They run the show like a well-oiled machine and treat all of the contestants extremely well. They know how big a deal it is for everyone who gets on the show and they make sure it’s special. The stage manager (Jimmy, formerly of the Clue Crew), the contestant wranglers, the hair and makeup team, the technical crew… all absolutely fantastic. You could tell they really cared. And Ken Jennings is a delight! I knew he was a good host, but trivia people are his people, and he knows how to make them feel welcome and at home.”

Knock ’em dead, Eli!

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See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by.

Here are two lines from a poem that did not make it past the Owl Chatter guard puppies:

“Even the roadkill, coveting concrete, stands 
And walks. Where are those left behind?” 

[Where, indeed?]

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You know the expression: “He received his just deserts?” Its meaning is very different from “He just received dessert.” The D word is pronounced the same in each case — like chocolate cake. But with one “s” it means “what he deserved” and has nothing to do with food. With two, it’s that sweet food thing at the end of the meal. A lot of people put in an extra “s” incorrectly when they mean the first, above. But none of us ever will, right? Good. Now give me a cookie.

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Derek Rose, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), posts:

These are photos of my lucky pants. I first wore them when I did my O levels at age 16. Got good results. Then A levels. I am now 63 (do the maths). I have worn them for a driving test, final degree exams, first dates, motorcycle test… no way was I falling off wearing them! Hgv test, numerous interviews, when I got married (they let me down a bit on that one!). Last time I wore them was for the last job I applied for about 7 years ago. I will wear them again sometime for sure and eventually they can bury me in them.

Does anyone else have lucky pants?

Andrew Brown: Plenty of wear left in those yet, look after them.

Neil Reddy: I had a pair of pants like that in prison. Not very lucky for me unfortunately.

Dave Rowley: I used to, but someone threw them away. Sandra?

Rob Clay: My lucky pants spent most of their time on random bedroom floors…fnar, fnar.

Steve Fox: I had a lucky rabbit’s foot once but I lost it

Alan Freeman: I’ve got a pair of shoes that I bought during my 1st year at university. I repair them myself so never been to a cobbler. They are a heavy shoe and get heavily used every winter. I’m 80 now so they have had over 60 years of use and still going.

Derek: Wow…We need the photos ! That’s fantastic !

Alan:

Derek: Quality. I wish you another 100,000 miles in them.

Kinehora!

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It was on this day in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white passenger. The boycott of the city-owned bus company it inspired lasted 382 days. We were on that bus — it’s in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI.

The limo from JFK’s assassination is there too. Did you know it was cleaned and repaired and continued to be used by the government for a while before it was turned over to history?

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In the puzzle today, the theme was “Cold Front” and the theme answers were all phrases in which the first word (the “front”) had something to do with coldness. CHILL PILL, COOL CAT, FROZEN ACCOUNT, and POLAR OPPOSITE.

The adjectival use of “chill,” above, evoked for me the “chill rains” in Bart Giamatti’s great essay on baseball, “The Green Fields of the Mind.” Here’s the opening paragraph, in which those rains fall:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.

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A special Owl Chatter mazel tov to Alexis Lewis and new hubby NJ Senator Cory Booker! Woo hoo!! We love CB ever since he gave an incredible speech at our Caitlin’s graduation ceremony at Raritan Valley Community College when he was the mayor of Newark. Alexis is Jewish and 38, and CB is not and 56. Just look at these crazy lovebirds! Did you know he played football at Stanford? Big dude.

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I found this story online. It’s one that Sen. Booker told at Caity’s graduation (though he told it much better). It was on the topic of having your actions be consistent with your words, or else your words will have no force.

During the 1930s, a young boy had become obsessed with eating a lot of sugar. His mother was very upset with this. But no matter how much she scolded him and tried to break his habit, he continued to satisfy his sweet tooth. Being totally frustrated, she decided to take her son to see Mahatma Gandhi who was the boy’s idol.

She had to walk many miles across the country, for hours under scorching sun to finally reach Gandhi’s ashram. There, she recounted her difficult journey and shared with Gandhi her unpleasant situation:

“Bapu (Father), my son eats too much sugar. It is not good for his health. Would you please advise him to stop eating it? ”

Gandhi listened to the woman carefully, thought for a while and replied: “Please come back after two weeks. I will talk to your son.”

The women looked confused. Then she took the boy by the hand and went home. She made the long journey home and in two weeks time made it once again as Gandhi requested. When they arrived, Gandhi looked directly at the boy and said: “Boy, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.”

The boy nodded and promised he would not continue this habit any longer. The boy’s mother was puzzled. She turned to Gandhi and asked,

“Bapu, Why didn’t you tell him that two weeks ago when I brought him here to see you?”

Gandhi smiled and whispered in her ear. “Mother, that time I was not qualified to advise the little one because I too, was same like him, eating a lot of sugar myself two weeks ago.”

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And then there’s this line by the late Larry Josephson: “Discussing the Mahatma with a four-year-old is like taking Gandhi from a baby.”

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There’s a great very old New Yorker cartoon by George Booth of a battle scene from the Revolutionary War. The British have a line of drummers marching towards the fighting accompanying the soldiers who are going to enter the fray. And in the corner there is one drummer peeling away from the battle: marching off towards the edge of the page, but still drumming.

I conjure up the image because some drummers are starting to peel away from Trump. There’s MTG, of course. And now there’s Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas. Nehls is clearly on the lunatic fringe, which is saying a lot these days. He co-sponsored legislation to put Trump on the $100 bill and to rename DC’s airport after him. He came under fire for not coming under fire, i.e., misrepresenting his military record (“stolen valor”), and was accused on the air of rudeness by CNN’s Erin Burnett. Well, according to historian Heather Cox Richardson, he announced he won’t be running for reelection. The reason? All together now: He wants to focus on his family. Owl Chatter supports Nehl’s decision to focus on his family.

And here’s Erin.

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Baruch atah Adonai. That’s how many prayers begin, “Adonai” being a term in Hebrew for The Big Fella. It literally means “Our Lord.” Well, God was smiling down on his namesake at Met Life Stadium yesterday: Adonai Mitchell. It generally does take divine intervention for the Jets to win. Mitchell was thought to be a “throw in” when the Jets traded Sauce Gardner to the Colts for draft picks. But he was a key part of the deal for the Jets and he showed why yesterday, snaring 8 catches for 102 yards and a TD.

Mitchell is 23, from Texas, 6′ 2″, 205 lbs, and droolingly handsome, amirite girls? We’ll be keeping an eye on the young man here at Owl Chatter. Good game, AD!

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Thanks for stopping in! See you tomorrow!

When I lived in Rochester NY (the dark years) I took some English courses at U of Rochester. One prof (Joseph Summers) invited our (small) class to his home for dinner one evening. I remember him asking if we knew what poets talk about when they get together. I said “money?” (not kidding) He said they talk about sounds — how words sound.

This poem from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac is by Marianne Moore and is called “Dock Rats.”

There are human beings who seem to regard the place as craftily 
   as we do—who seem to feel that it is a good place to come 
   home to. On what a river; wide—twinkling like a chopped sea under some 
         of the finest shipping in the

world: the square-rigged four-master, the liner, the battleship, like the two- 
    thirds submerged section of an iceberg; the tug—strong moving thing, 
    dipping and pushing, the bell striking as it comes; the steam yacht, lying 
          like a new made arrow on the

stream; the ferry-boat—a head assigned, one to each compartment, making 
    a row of chessmen set for play. When the wind is from the east, 
    the smell is of apples; of hay, the aroma increased and decreased 
         suddenly as the wind changes;

of rope; of mountain leaves for florists. When it is from the west, it is 
    an elixir. There is occasionally a parakeet 
    arrived from Brazil, clasping and clawing; or a monkey—tail and feet 
         in readiness for an over-

ture. All palms and tail; how delightful! There is the sea, moving the bulk- 
    head with its horse strength; and the multiplicity of rudders 
    and propellers; the signals, shrill, questioning, peremptory, diverse; 
         the wharf cats and the barge dogs—it

is easy to overestimate the value of such things. One does 
    not live in such a place from motives of expediency 
    but because to one who has been accustomed to it, shipping is the 
         most congenial thing in the world.

Marianne Moore was from Missouri and passed away in 1972 at the age of 84. Her dad suffered a psychotic episode and her parents separated before she was born. She never met her father. She attended Bryn Mawr, and, get this — majored in history, economics, and political science. Among numerous other achievements, she won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.

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From our You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Dept. You know those six folks who reminded our military not to obey “unlawful” orders? The FBI is investigating them. The claim is that since Trump has never issued an unlawful order, the six were actually telling soldiers to disobey “lawful” orders.

Okay. Let me just make sure I’m clear on this. “Don’t obey unlawful orders” really means “Don’t obey lawful orders.” And that’s treason so they should be put to death.

Got it. Thanks.

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At Owl Chatter, we support our staff. So we trudged into Newark to cheer our Sports Consultant Sarah (Fillier) on, as her NY Sirens of the Pro Women’s Hockey League took on the Vancouver Goldeneyes in the home opener in Newark yesterday. What a great game!! The Sirens won 5-1, with SF scoring a gorgeous goal. It was a great scene. We sat behind one of the goals but were able to catch all the action at the other end on the giant screen. At one point the fans in our section started shouting “Cream of Mushroom,” which morphed into “Chicken Noodle.” I was trying to make sense out of what seemed like an unusual home fan tradition when I noticed the Vancouver goalie was named Campbell. The folks right behind us proposed minestrone but it wasn’t taken up. To be honest, Campbell, who let in all five goals, was in the soup all game.

The Sirens play in the Prudential Center, a beautiful arena where the NHL’s Jersey Devils play. The ice is impeccably maintained. A pair of Zambonis groom it in between periods, and play is stopped as necessary to allow the crew to sweep up teeth and body parts that come loose during the course of play.

It was $30 a ticket for great seats and you could park on the street just a few blocks away for free. Can’t beat it for a great game. Here’s a shot of the action Phil got for us, followed by our Sarah, gorgeous as always.

And here is a goldeneye, the inspiration for the Vancouver team name. Fiercely protective, they are a familiar presence along Vancouver’s waterways and coastlines, known for their speed, strength, and synchrony.

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Here’s a clue running a little late behind Halloween yesterday. It was at 23D: “Prominent features on goblin sharks.” Answer: NOSES. They are creepy-looking as hell. I’m going to spare you a photo. It’s a rare species of deep-sea shark. Sometimes called a “living fossil,” it is the only extant representative of a lineage some 125 million years old. It’s typically as long as 13 feet when fully grown.

Also never heard of K.T. OSLIN: “1988 Best Country Song Grammy winner for ‘Hold Me.’” Sorry to learn she passed away in 2020 at the age of 78.

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There is a small class of jokes we can call “famous last words.” I like them. My two favorites are “I wonder where the mother bear is” and “Watch this!” I made up a new one today! “Laughter is the best cure.”

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I read the “Modern Love” column in the Sunday NYT Style section only sporadically. Today’s is by Brent Chaim Spodek. Here is a chunk of it.

The second time I married my wife, she was hooked up to IVs at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, her skin gray from chemotherapy. I was at our home, 75 miles away, caring for our two small children. I had tremendous help from my mother-in-law, Hazel, who was also giving us her 10-year-old Toyota Corolla.

Hazel thought her daughter’s name should also be on the title. I thought Alison, who had been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia six months earlier, did not need to be bothered with paperwork.

“It has to be in both of your names,” Hazel said. “I’m not giving the car to just you.”

“Hazel,” I said. “If I were going to leave, I’d have done it already. You think I’m sticking around for the Corolla?”

*******

Alison recovers and the story has a happy ending. Brent is a rabbi and counsels couples preparing to get married. So I guess it makes sense that Alison and Brent work hard at their marriage — they do a lot of serious talking specifically about it.

Linda and I don’t do any of that stuff. I guess we either gave up long ago, or don’t feel the need to “work” at it. I’m too fucking lazy, for one thing. But I don’t mind playing with it. Every so often I will say “We can’t go on like this,” or “This marriage is unbearable,” and it always gets a laugh. Sometimes I say, “You know, we should get married,” and Linda says “We are married.” And I say “You’re kidding!” Never gets old.

There. That’s my Modern Love story.

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Phil said he enjoyed shooting actress Zosia MAMET, who was in the puzzle today, making it harder than David would have. He said she has an interesting and honest face.

David is her dad. Her mom is actress Lindsay Crouse. She was born in Vermont, is 37, and went into acting after HS instead of going to college. She’s been married to actor Evan Jonigkeit since 2016. Here’s Ev.

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Jets 27, Falcons 24. Could you plotz? It ended on a 56-yard field goal by veteran kicker Nick Folk. But it was backup QB Tyrod Taylor, excelling repeatedly under pressure, who gets the game ball, IMO. A good win.

Soak it in, Baby. This is rare sh*t.

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The old Eco major in me was happy to see 33A yesterday: “So-called ‘father of macroeconomics.’” John Maynard KEYNES, of course! Did you know his wife’s name was Candace and their friends called her Candy Keynes. (No it wasn’t.)

But the best clue yesterday was one of the best clues ever. It came at 44A, and kudos to constructor Adrian Johnson: “Musical production that might include grunts, groans, thwops, snorts and barks.” (Thwops!) Yes! It’s my Uncle Morty trying to sing Hava Nagila at his daughter Marlene’s bat mitzvah! No, it’s WHALESONG. Got eleven seconds?

Here’s an exchange that arose:

Anony Mouse said: I think “musical” implies aesthetic intentionality. I wonder if whales are capable of this or if their “song” is us anthropomorphizing what amounts to a basic form of communication.

Dr. Random: I think since part of the purpose is attracting mates (among others), it’s fair to attribute some kind of aesthetic intentionality.

Okay. Thanks guys (or gals).

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38D yesterday was “Axolotl lookalikes,” and the answer was NEWTS. But this ruffled the scales of Anony Mouse who said they look nothing alike! Can it be? He or she noted they are both salamanders but insists they look nothing alike. I’m hardly the one to resolve this, but my exhaustive research (you know, a minute or two online) came up with this photo.

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Today’s puzzle by the brilliant Natan Last defeated me. I just couldn’t break two small areas. One clue that eluded me was 65A: “Gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, for one.” Answer: TRANS ICON. A Jersey girl, Marsha was born in Elizabeth. But she died in NYC at the age of only 46 back in 1992. Here is the first paragraph of her Wikipedia writeup.

Marsha was an American LGBTQ activist, sex worker, and performer. Sometimes known as the “Saint of Christopher Street,” she is considered an important figure in the LGBTQ and transgender rights movements due to her involvement in the Stonewall riots, her work with Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and her advocacy for people with AIDS.

She was born Malcolm and first dressed as a girl at the age of 5. She was the drum major for her school’s marching band and joined the Navy but was honorably discharged after she punched a man who tried to sexually assault her. When the Stonewall police raid started Johnson threw a shot glass at a mirror, screaming, “I got my civil rights!” Members of the Gay Activists Alliance later considered this the “shot glass heard around the world.”

Thanks for putting her in the puzzle, Natan. Rest in peace, girl.

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It didn’t help that TRANS ICON was crossed by 12D: “First Eurodance hit in the U.S. (1989).” PUMP UP THE JAM. I expect to not know songs often, but when an entire genre eludes me that’s bad. Eurodance? Anyway, I really like it.

Clever clues I also missed were “Chop house?” for DOJO (think karate chops), and “In the majority?” for ADULT. The question marks tip you off that there’s something fishy going on, but gornisht helfn.

OK, Phil. Very pretty. Now just slowly back away and get out of the dojo in one piece.

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Let’s end tonight with some art, courtesy of constructor Natan Last. At 26D the clue was “John who painted ‘Backyards, Greenwich Village.’” Answer: SLOAN. Any of you art people hear of him? Bob? It’s from 1914. He was a founder of the Ashcan School of American art. He grew up in Philly and went to Central HS where his classmate was Albert Barnes of the Barnes Foundation with its great art collection. He had a helluva run, way beyond any treatment we could give him here in OC. He met his wife Dolly in a brothel, every man’s dream. (Just kidding, probably.) They were married for over 40 years until her death. Then he married a former student, 40 years younger than him, every man’s dream. (Just kidding, maybe.)

Oy, enough nonsense!! See you tomorrow.

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The following post appeared on our neighborhood message site. It troubles me a bit because we use Summit Health and it seems to be going downhill in some ways.

It was posted by Nancy H.

“I was attempting to schedule an appointment today with a doctor at Summit Health. The ‘person’ handling my call didn’t sound like a real person, but more like a robot. Apparently, Summit Health is using AI to respond to routine calls like scheduling appointments. So I really was talking to a robot. I now think I could have asked to speak with a real person, but at the time I thought maybe I was being silly. But I wasn’t. It was an unnerving experience, because she asked how I was, and made a sympathetic comment when I said I wasn’t feeling well.”

I replied: How do we know you’re a real person?

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At 3D in the puzzle today the clue was “Setting of the 1888 painting ‘Café Terrace at Night.’” The answer was ARLES. It led Commenter James to share this haunting, beautiful song with us: “Spinning Away,” by John Cale and Brian Eno.

Up on a hill
As the day dissolves
With my pencil turning moments into line . . .

And here is the painting by VG. Don’t bother looking for his John Hancock. He didn’t sign it.

It was an artsy puzzle today, with ART TATUM in the grid too, clued with “Jazz pianist with a memorable recording of ‘Tea for Two.’” How ignorant am I? Well, I heard of him enough to solve the puzzle but had no idea what he looked like or sounded like. Happily, Commenter Lewis helped on both accounts. Got two minutes?

At 5D, ST. DENIS was the “Bishop for whom a neighborhood in Paris is named.” When things start getting rough, it’s best to keep your head about you and Denny held on to his fairly tightly.

According to Wikipedia, “Denis is the most famous cephalophore in Christian history.” If I just saw the word and had to guess what it meant, I think I’d guess whale hunter. But that’s way the hell off. In fact, a cephalophore has a pretty specific meaning: it’s a saint who is carrying his severed head. To be more precise: who is “depicted as” carrying it. It made me wonder – were there so many of them that it was worth making up a special word for them? Well, there were over 60 of them, smarty pants, including Justinian of Ramsey Island (not to be confused with Shlomo of Staten Island).

And just when you thought it was all classy and stuff with Art Tatum, Van Gogh, and St. Denis, it got down and dirty at 21A: “James in the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.” Who doesn’t love this tune? Turn it up!

If all that isn’t enough, two actresses popped by: FAYE Marsay, and NAOMI Watts. Hey girls — sorry, it’s a madhouse here today — the puzzle just had too much going on all at once. You could lose your head! Clear some crap off the couch, and grab a Diet Coke. George should be around here somewhere. Georgie!! Company!! You’ll plotz!

You may know Faye from “Game of Thrones.” Here’s a pretty intense shot of her.

And we’ve been a fan of Naomi Watts from all over the place for years. Beautiful shot, Philly.

Naomi is British. Her dad was a road manager and audio engineer for Pink Floyd, but died when she was only 8 of an apparent drug overdose. She was partnered with the late Heath Ledger and then, for 11 years, with Liev Schreiber, with whom she had two children. She’s been married to actor Billy Crudup since 2023. Here’s one of her kids, Kai Schreiber, who is transgender. Kai is a model and actress.

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The clue at 49A was “Restaurant sommelier’s offering,” and the answer was HOUSE WINE. I often jokingly refer to a carafe of wine as a giraffe of wine. Hysterical, I know. So, many years ago, Linda and I were uncharacteristically at a very fancy restaurant by our standards. Lots of extra silverware I had no idea what to do with, for example. And our intent was to order a carafe of the house wine. But when it was up to me to tell that to the waitress, I must have had a brain glitch or something because I very seriously said to her: “and we’d like a giraffe of your house wine.” She looked at me for a few seconds and said “I know what you mean.” (I told that story in class often to make a point on the importance of using correct terminology.)

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We’ll end with this very troubling item from The Onion:

42 Million Dead In Bloodiest Black Friday Weekend On Record

New York—According to emergency personnel, early estimates indicate that more than 42 million Americans were killed this past weekend in what is now believed to be the bloodiest Black Friday shopping event in history.

First responders reporting from retail stores all across the nation said the record-breaking post-Thanksgiving shopping spree carnage began as early as midnight on Friday, when 13 million shoppers were reportedly trampled, pummeled, burned, stabbed, shot, lanced, and brutally beaten to death while attempting to participate in early holiday sales events.

Law enforcement officials said the bloodbath only escalated throughout the weekend as hordes of savage holiday shoppers began murdering customers at Wal-Mart, Sears, and JCPenney locations nationwide, leaving piles of dismembered and mutilated corpses in their wake.

Survivors of the deadly holiday sales event said that while the weekend began as a chance to “get in on some unbeatable post-Thanksgiving deals,” it quickly escalated into a merciless, no-hold-barred fight to the death.

“At some point in time we all stopped caring about the deals and the holiday shopping and were pretty much just out for blood,” said Dana Marshall, 37, a Target shopper who suffered seven broken ribs and a cracked sternum while fighting two other customers for a discounted Nikon digital camera. “I remember just sitting on top of a woman and smacking her head with a DVD player until her face was completely unrecognizable. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

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See you next time!