Welcome everybody to Owl Chatter’s post #600. Hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday we were putting #599 to bed. Wait — that was yesterday. Never mind.
It’ll be a quiet celebration — just us and the owls. George is on leave dealing with his legal problems and Phil is still out West sucking up to Chloe and Kate, and who could blame him? We’ll have a cold Fiddlehead IPA later; there are still a few in the fridge from our trip up to Vermont in June. (Hi Lizzie!)
Here — there’s one for you too, reader.
Truth be told, if Georgie were here, he’d probably make us spring for champagne. But Janelle MONAE was in the puzzle today, and, seriously, I just don’t go for that champagne sh*t.
Yeah, I like all my kisses French When I’m on my champagne shit Everybody turnin’ ’round takin’ them pics ‘Cause I’m on my champagne shit
Don’t ask me shit about work ‘Cause I’m on my champagne shit I’m talkin’ high heels and no shirts ‘Cause I’m on my champagne shit
You tell ’em, girl!
The puzzle’s theme today was milestones of life in a cutesy fun way. So for “Age 1,” e.g., the answer was AMATEUR STANDING. Get it? A one-year-old is an amateur at standing (up). And “Age 21” was BAR ADMISSION. That’s the age you can start drinking at bars. But the one at “Age 100” really set Rex off. The answer was CENTENNIAL STATE. I.e., when you are 100 you are in the state of being 100. Here’s Rex:
Of all the “___ State” nicknames, The CENTENNIAL STATE has to be the least well known / most obscure. Looking up a lot of state nicknames right now and I’ve at least heard of many of these: First State (Delaware), Palmetto State (South Carolina). Turns out lots of states are named after their state university mascots (or, more likely, vice versa): Tarheel State, Cornhusker State, etc. But CENTENNIAL STATE? That’s a state nickname only dogs and hardcore Coloradophiles can hear.
That made it appropriate for me to share this story (which some of you may know) with the Rex gang.
Many years ago, I was visiting my friends Robert and Susan in Vermont. When I arrived, they offered me a drink and asked if I was hungry. Then they offered me a Colorado orange and we all laughed. Except for me, because I had no idea what they were taking about. So they told me this story.
Several days earlier Susan was heading out to shop for groceries and she asked Robert if there was anything he wanted her to pick up. Yes, he said, get some more oranges. And make sure you get the Colorado oranges: I had one earlier and it was delicious. Susan said Okay and walked out towards the car but came back in and said: I thought oranges only come from Florida and California.
Robert said, So did I, but I checked to make sure, and it said Colorado on it.
Susan said, Let’s check again. So they rooted through the garbage and found the discarded orange peel. On it, clearly stamped in red lettering, it said COLOR ADDED.
Ever since then, when I offer Linda an orange, I call it a Colorado orange. It never gets old. Here’s one now, below!
(BTW, a nice comment from Aelurus thanked me for the laugh.)
In his writeup today, Rex mentioned that he has stayed away from all TV coverage of politics since the 2016 election. (It was in connection with his noting that he didn’t know that the “political analyst WALKER” at 72A was AMY.) And a commenter who calls him or herself ncmathsadist wrote: “Your abstention from TV coverage of politics is wise. There is much sanewashing of Trump’s incoherent and utterly irrational gibberings.”
I hadn’t heard the term “sanewashing” before. It’s brilliant, no?
And this is Amy Walker, formerly of the NYT:
If you enjoy wordplay you should know that a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same in both directions. A famous one, spoken to Eve no doubt, is “Madam, I’m Adam.” A semordnilap is a word or phrase that you can read backwards as a different word. A semordnilap is itself a semordnilap because it spells palindromes backwards.) Anyway, commenter Andrew shared this wonderful and amazing takeoff on Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues with every line (every line!) a palindrome, most of them new to me. It’s by Weird Al Yankovic, whose stock just went way up in my portfolio.
This poem, below, is by Ada Limón, an American poet, born in Sonoma, CA. She’s 48 and was the first Latina U.S. Poet Laureate. (She is of Mexican descent.) It’s called “Calling Things What They Are” and was today’s Poem of the Day of The Poetry Foundation.
I pass the feeder and yell, Grackle party! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me it was like my own ocean. Tufted titmouse! I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, Thought so. But he is humoring me; he didn’t think so at all. My father does this same thing. Shouts out at the feeder announcing the party attendees. He throws out a whole peanut or two to the Stellar’s jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring. Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird. Then, I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, That’s the problem with you, Limón, you’re all fauna and no flora. And I began to learn the names of trees. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.
There was a flood of inquiries about Chloe Grace Moretz after we posted her photo from the cover of Teen Vogue yesterday. (Well, there was none, actually, but so what?) So we checked in with our beauty consultant Ana who confirmed that, yup, she’s the real thing — a knockout among knockouts. Phil flew right out to get us some photos.
Moretz is 27 and was born in Atlanta. She has appeared in quite a few roles, including starring in Scorcese’s Hugo, working with Tim Burton in Dark Shadows, and appearing in 30 Rock.
Moretz has two gay brothers and is an active supporter of LGBTQ rights. She was active in Hilary’s campaign in 2016, and spoke at the Dem’s convention that year. She is not married but, sorry fellas, she’s in a long-term relationship with model Kate Harrison, forming sort of a Ruth/Gehrig beauty combination.
And here’s Kate Harrison. OMG, Philly — you’ve outdone yourself! Please let the girls know they are always welcome at Owl Chatter, day or night. I’m sure they’re in Jersey often. I’ll pick up some Diet Pepsi.
Todays’ puzzle was a real bear. I passed through it several times and got nowhere. When that happens you have to shoot for what Lewis calls a “faith solve.” You get little toeholds where you can and just have to have faith that some squares will fill themselves in. Hacking away got me pretty much through it eventually, but I crashed in the southeast, where I had MEH instead of MID for “Mediocre, in modern slang,” and had no idea DONGLE is a “Computer accessory,” or that POCO means “Somewhat, musically.”
Rex rated it “easy-medium.” Damn him!
Right off the bat at 1A the clue was “Labor tactic.” I filled in STRIKE. Turned out to be LAMAZE. Yeah, that kind of labor.
I had no hope for 31A, but the crosses gave it to me. The clue was “Methods for sharing pirated material,” and the answer was BIT TORRENTS. WTF? I did better with 29A where “Deep fears?” was SEA SERPENTS, not all of which are scary, btw.
At 7A, the clue was “Ding-dong” and the answer was DOOFUS.
Are you familiar with the term “Apologue” from 20A? Me neither. I thought it might be in the prologue/epilogue family, but it means FABLE. I got it from the crosses, but it still made me feel like a doofus.
At 17D the clue was “Levels of corporate hierarchy, so to speak,” and the answer was LADDER RUNGS. Here’s a good tune by a band that was new to me called Slobberbone, courtesy of Son Volt.
Here’s a story from tomorrow’s Met Diary that reminded me of how Linda and I met, sans cigarettes — at a restaurant in the Village no longer open called Sandolino.
It’s by Robin Kornhaber.
Dear Diary:
I was having cappuccino at Cafe Borgia on Bleeker Street 40 years ago. It was summer, and I was sitting inside the cafe. The windows were open.
Outside the one near me, two men were talking and smoking cigarettes. One had red hair and was very cute. When his friend stepped away, I leaned out the window and asked if I could have a cigarette.
He offered me the pack. I took one, and he lit it for me. His friend soon returned, and they resumed their conversation.
When I was ready to leave, I stopped at their table and suggested we get a drink at Jimmy Day’s a few blocks away.
We did. His friend eventually left for the Bronx and a year later the redhead and I were married.
P.S. I had never smoked before and never did again.
Let’s close tonight with an item from the Dull Men’s Club (UK) that had me laughing out loud. The post was by James “Fozzy” Foster and it said: You know that annoying grease proof paper that comes on the spread.. well today I opened up a pot of clover (other brands are available but clover is best) and there was no paper! Had to clean the lid off before I put it back on…
Adam Chapman opined: Clover is not best, you absolute heathen!
And James Spoore explained: My apols. if I m being even more dull than usual, but a factoid: Clover have been announcing for some months that the paper liner was about to be discontinued….
But it was Kevin Austen who got me roaring. He noted: Looks like Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.”
Posting late tonight because we sat for Caity’s kids so she and Danny could attend a wedding of one of Danny’s several zillion cousins. We watched a not-too-bad kids movie about emojis — pretty clever — Steven Wright was the voice of the “meh” emoji. And then, miraculously, they all went to bed without much of a fight by nine. Dinner was pizza (voo den?).
Don’t mope. Here’s a poem about anagrams. It’s “Anagrammer,” by Peter Pereira, from The Poetry Foundation.
If you believe in the magic of language, then Elvis really Lives and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.
If you believe the letters themselves contain a power within them, then you understand what makes outside tedious, how desperation becomes a rope ends it.
The circular logic that allows senator to become treason, and treason to become atoners.
That eleven plus two is twelve plus one, and an admirer is also married.
That if you could just rearrange things the right way you’d find your true life, the right path, the answer to your questions: you’d understand how the Titanic turns into that ice tin, and debit card becomes bad credit.
How listen is the same as silent, and not one letter separates stained from sainted.
The clue at 60D today was “‘Kia ___’ (New Zealand greeting),” and the answer was ORA. Rex’s wife is from New Zealand and he said you would hear this phrase a lot if you flew Air New Zealand. It’s not just a way to say hello. It’s much deeper. It’s beautiful.
Here’s a song Son Volt shared with us called “Look at Miss Ohio.” I don’t know what in the puzzle led him to think of it, but I’m glad he did. The puzzles, and Rex’s little group, have opened me up to learn so much new stuff. If I had to devise an adult ed course, I think I’d have it be on the daily NYTXW, and maybe puzzles from some other sources. The students would be assigned to do the puzzles at their level and share something (or things) they learned from it: Maybe a celeb they hadn’t heard of, or a song, or a new word — whatever. Nothing would be planned in advance — it would be entirely based on what happens to be in the puzzles during the week.
Anyway, so where was I? Oh, yeah — This song is haunting.
“I wanna do right, but not right now.”
The puzzle was constructed by Adrian Johnson. It had a stack of three answers spanning the entire grid right in the middle. PORTRAIT ARTISTS (“Rembrandt and Sargent, notably”); IT MEANS A LOT TO ME (“‘Much appreciated’”); and THAT WASN’T MY IDEA (“Line from a blame-shifter”). One right on top of the other.
On that middle one, Okanaganer wrote: Each year my sister goes to a lot of trouble to make a custom birthday card for me. Last year the back of it had this witty note: “Thank you for teaching me the meaning of ‘plethora’. It means a lot!”
And Lewis brought us this gift — a note Adrian wrote in the “constructor’s notes” when a different puzzle of his was accepted by the Times last January.
“The day I received the review proof of this puzzle was also the day my grandfather died.
“Normally I’d have a profound puzzle insight to share, but what’s on my mind today is gratitude — for the time I spent with him, but particularly for the friendship Alvin, a dear family friend, forged with him during his final years.
“Alvin, who began as his landscaper, first came by as a casual friend after grandpa’s hip replacement, continuing to come over regularly during the 11 years that grandpa outlived my grandma. Alvin’s visits often took the shape of coffee and conversation after dropping his kids off at school. They discussed things including family, life, hobbies and current events. Some days grandpa would invite Alvin for steak dinners, but other days they’d barely speak and spend the morning watching the news.
“The important thing was his presence: the conscious, routine decision to be involved and engaged, and to make the mundane life of an old man meaningful. Tonight, this morning, whenever you’re reading this, take a few minutes to say hello and check in with someone older whom you care about. Those hellos can make all the difference.”
To end with a pretty face, here’s Chloe Grace Moretz, on the cover of TEEN VOGUE. The publication was in the puzzle clued with “Youth-centric magazine spinoff.” Rex referred to it as “a force for good.” And who am I to quibble.
Zebras and donkeys are both in the horse family. They hardly ever date, let alone have kids together, but when they do, a cross between them is called a ZEDONK. That was the answer today at 12D. A zedonk can also be called a zonkey, zenkey, or, my favorite (for obvious reasons), a zebrass.
Here’s a cute baby zedonk.
I enjoyed this exchange in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) today. Bobby Tables posted a photo of a woman he called Sporty Spice and asked a question about a big mug that was behind her in the photo. He wondered whether it was a Wassailing mug, frog mug, or some other kind.
I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about and don’t care. But Andy Spragg asked why he was calling her “Sporty Spice.” So Neil Christie explained: She’s a member of a girl group called the Spice Girls, and her band name was Sporty Spice.
Spragg came back with: Well, blow me down. I’d never have recognised her in a million years . Christie noted that she’s 50 now. And Spragg said: even so… I’d have expected her to retain some vestigial recognisability!
Vestigial recognisability — wow!
In looking into the expression “curled up with a book” today, Rex ran into “curled up with an earl.” Turns out that’s the name of a steamy romance novel. (It was praised by the author of “Up All Night with a Good Duke.”)
And the upshot is we get to hear this song he shared by Justin Townes Earle called “Hudson River Blues.” Turn it up.
At 63A, “Crane lookalike” was HERON. Commenter kitshef took issue with there being a resemblance, but the consensus in the sites I visited agree with the puzzle that they look alike, although they are not related. The best way to tell them apart is by their necks — a crane’s is straight, while a heron’s is curled. Here’s a heron.
And here’s a crane.
BTW, I shared my info about the zedonk with the Dull Men’s Club, along with the cute photo, and Steven Varney noted: “There are two at Huttoft donkey sanctuary, betwixt Skegness and Mablethorpe. Very friendly, love carrots and ginger biscuits.” I replied: Who doesn’t?
Look for Taylor to be at the NFL opener tonight, with the Chiefs facing off against the Ravens in KC. She’s on a break from touring. What else has she got to do?
Zeeshan Aleem of MSNBC took public notice of Trump’s “deteriorating ability to clearly communicate.” His speeches “seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day.” [BTW, I don’t know what “discursive” means.] A reporter for The Guardian pointed out that attendees at Trump’s rallies are leaving as he rambles for nearly two hours, and complaining that he is “babbling.”
For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” “I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’”
Are these English professors, like, close friends?
For those of you who don’t have friends who are English professors, this is what they look like:
Here’s the girl kind.
The late John McCain’s son Jimmy, pictured below with his dad, switched from Republican to Democrat this week and is supporting Harris. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and is now an intelligence officer in the Arizona Army National Guard. He made the change because of Trump’s recent disrespectful conduct at Arlington National Cemetery, which McCain said was torture to watch. He later conceded that may have been a poor choice of words.
We had to send George Santos of our staff a note asking him to get his crap out of the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame. (The girl can shop — we’ll give him that.) We need to make room for its newest member, Amanda Jones, 46, a middle school librarian in Watson, LA, a small town near Baton Rouge in which she grew up and has lived her whole life.
Two years ago members of the public were invited to comment at a town meeting on banning books from the library. Jones spoke first, and argued that libraries need to reflect a broad range of ideas. “Just because you don’t want to read it or see it does not give you the right to deny others or demand its relocation,” she said. “If we remove or relocate books with L.G.B.T.Q. or sexual health content, what message is that sending to our community members?”
In response, a group called Citizens for a New Louisiana — which, according to its website, is seeking “to remove taxpayer-funded pornography, erotica, and gender dysphoria propaganda from the children’s section of library systems” — posted a photo of Jones and asked, “Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kids’ section?” Another message accused Jones of “advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds.”
A relentless flood of abuse and threats, including death threats, followed. She carries mace and a handgun now, and can no longer live a normal life in her community. She has her groceries delivered and cannot eat out in restaurants. She recognized the names of some of the people who shared negative posts about her — people she had known since kindergarten, parents of her former students, members of her church, people she thought of as friends.
None of that should surprise any readers of Owl Chatter, amirite? God bless America. What makes her story different, and why we are making space in our Hall of Fame for her, is that she is fighting back. Oh, I’m sorry — here’s what she looks like. Hi Babe.
So, where were we? Oh, yeah. Jones filed a defamation lawsuit against two individuals and Citizens for a New Louisiana. She co-founded Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, which lobbies against book-banning legislation. And she’s speaking out via her memoir, “That Librarian,” which Bloomsbury published last month.
“Before all this, I was just a school librarian, but they wanted to silence me, so I thought I would do the exact opposite and become an activist.” Well, AJ, Santos should have his crap out by the weekend — so please settle into our Hall of Fame after that. Take your time. You like Fresca?
The Chicago White Sox are having one hell of a season. They just had a ten-game homestand in which they won, let’s see — none of the games. And that’s only the third-longest losing streak they’ve had. Over the past 45 games their record is 4-41, the worst stretch like that by any team in over 100 years. They are on pace to finish 36-126, out-losing the modern era record-holding 1962 Mets by six games.
I love this particular stat: When they lost a real nail-biter to Baltimore on Monday 13-3, it marked the 20th straight game they lost that pitcher Chris Flexen started. That set the single-pitcher loss-streak record for the modern era (post-1900).
“Every time I take the ball, I expect myself to go out and be competitive, have strong outings,” Flexen said. “I don’t think a lot of them have been all that great, a couple of quality starts in there; but overall, my performance has been very disappointing on my end.”
Ya think?
We’re trying to find out why he’s smiling (and get some).
At 15A today, “Top pilot” was AIR ACE. Commenter OldCarFudd shared the following: In World War I there were these new dashing heroes who dueled one-on-one in the sky. An ace was one who scored five enemy planes downed. The U.S. top ace was Eddie Rickenbacker, who went on to start Eastern Airlines. The absolute Ace of Aces was the German Manfried von Richtofen, known as the Red Baron for the color of the plane he flew (he had a choice). He had something like 21 kills. He was so well-respected that, when he finally was killed over territory occupied by our side, his body was flown back to a German airfield under a truce agreement with full honors. He lives on today as Snoopy’s nemesis in Peanuts.
The small northeast corner today is made up of NAP, UZI, and RUN. They can be used together in a sentence as follows: If you want me to get up from my NAP to RUN, you’re going to need an UZI.
At 26A, a “Spiral-horned antelope” was an ELAND. I was delighted to see it because Owl Chatter friend Vermont Liz has been known to use it as her Wordle starter on occasion. So that’s exactly what I did today and came in with a nice three!
From our fashion department: At 32A the clue was “Garment that might have a built-in bra, for short” and the answer was CAMI. That’s twice this week, I think. Who knows what moves the puzzle gods? We even learned today that there is something called a “cropped cami.”
Graham King has a question about some new carpeting that was just installed. He’s asking for advice from the Dull Men’s Club membership. Here’s his very British post, with a photo:
Nearly completed the redecorating, we went for grayish carpet. It’s how we roll, but it has an end of roll line in it. Didn’t order end of line, getting told just hoover it out. Now as a dull bloke with a kids mind it doesn’t bother me, it’s an outline of a train track in my mind. But my better half is fuming. Tomorrow beds are coming and being a dull bloke of an easy life persuasion I would live with it. My wife is all for stopping everything and have the carpet removed and start again. Any carpet experts amongst you with thoughts on if this will bounce out or have they been cheeky beggars?
Now, if you know anything about the Club’s membership, you know they will never turn a deaf eye or a blind ear to a member’s cry for help. Graham’s post generated 122 comments (so far).
Andrew Hall wrote: Its just a pole line. It will work its self out trust me im a carpet person. But Dan Cobb wrote: With those grammatical mistakes I wouldn’t trust you. Bruce Parker, who ran a flooring company for 30 years, said Hoovering will eventually get it out, and several folks suggested steaming it out. Several said to ice it. Mike Geraghty said to just not look at it. Peter Bell said: Paint over it with a professional carpet paint like average brown; if it doesn’t match do the rest of the carpet. Sam Mead suggested divorce.
Tim Jones said: Looks fine to me.
But Kate Viscardi was having none of any of that. “I’m with your wife, and you can’t just put a bed over it either. Cheek of the shop, charging you full whack for end of roll.”
Wendy Stone added: Trust me, as a woman I know how bad your life could become if you do nothing.
As far as I’m concerned, Geoff Jenkins had the final word: It will bother you till your dying day.
Here’s the headline: Neighbor Caught With His Pants Down In Murder At Nudist Village.
It’s a dreadful story, but here’s the naked truth. Stephanie and Dan Menard, 73 and 79, respectively, went missing from their home last week along with their dog Cuddles. Redlands (CA) Police received a tip that foul play was involved and arrested a neighbor, Michael Sparks, 62, for murder. The Menards were living in a nudist community. Sparks was found hiding underneath his home.
The Menards have not been found. Police suspect their bodies are hidden somewhere on the Sparks property. The police are unable to provide a description of clothing the Menards were wearing, for obvious reasons, but have advised residents that, for identification purposes, Mr. Menard was suffering from a large boil on his tuchas.
Here’s Cuddles. Hope he’s okay.
The puzzle’s theme today was pretty sharp. The revealer was TWO PARTY SYSTEMS. And at four places, there was an answer that was a type of party, and within it, circled letters (in correct order) gave you a second type of party. Hence, the “two parties.” So, e.g., at 17A the clue was “Brand of kitchen storage containers.” The answer was TUPPERWARE, and the squares in which the letters T, E, and A appear were circled. So you have Tupperware parties and tea parties.
At 24A, the clue was “The second ‘S’ of U.S.S.R.” So the answer was SOCIALIST and the C, A, S, and T were circled. So you get the Socialist party and a cast party.
My favorite was at 50A. The clue was “When the skeletons in one’s closet might be brought out.” The answer was HALLOWEEN, and the letters H, E, and N were circled. So you get a Halloween party and a hen party. (Egs said he always wanted to crash a hen party but was too chicken.)
At 32D the clue for GYM was “Student-run class?” (Get it? It’s a class in which students run.)
The puzzle also gave us this: the clue at 46D: “You Belong With Me” singer. (It’s the song Taylor won the award for that Kanye wrecked by trampling on the presentation.) She gets the guy in it. He plays football too — how prescient — check it out. High drama.
Jo Powell shared a maths question from her daughter’s homework with the Dull Men’s Club (UK). (She also said it’s called “maths” where she is — not math.)
The question was “How many thirds are there in 12?” It split the club into two groups. The first one (which I joined at first, but see the point of both) said 36. If there are three thirds in one, there would be 36 in twelve. But a second reading emerged that gave the answer 3. To that group the 12 is irrelevant and the question is either a trick or poorly phrased. They maintain every number (and every thing) has three thirds, by definition. So since anything has three thirds 12 would have three thirds too.
Is your brain hurting yet? Steve Pratt added: I could make a case for infinity since each third consists of another three thirds, and so on.
This exchange was representative (there were over 350 comments in total).
David Povey said: What is a third of 12? (4) How many 4’s (a third of 12) are in 12? (3). The question is ambiguous as it does not state a third of what, just how many of them are in 12.
And Lee Bourke replied: It’s not ambiguous. A third is always referring to a third of 1 (a whole), which is 0.333…. 12 divided by a third is 36. It’s only if you don’t understand maths that you get a different answer.
So there.
I think I’ll go watch that Taylor Swift video again now.
In the puzzle today at 7D the clue was “Chess game’s ending,” and I (correctly) entered MATE. Commenter Gary wrote: My chess games usually end with me pushing all the pieces onto the floor and saying, “This is a stupid game.”
Gary has moved to Albuquerque (a RELO in puzzle-speak) and has reported to us as follows: I’ve enjoyed some northern New Mexican food (if you know, you know), and the mariachi band there had a harp! We went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center for fry-bread, along with blue corn crusted pickle slices marinated in black cherry Kool-Aid with green chile ranch (fer real).
I still need to grow a mustache, buy a cowboy hat, belt buckle, boots and a pickup. People have been friendly so far. And, In New York I’m a five, a six in Denver, but here I’m a solid eight if the lighting is right.
Under the rules for the hot-dog-eating championship held today in Las Vegas, the eating was limited to ten minutes, no dunking of dogs in water was allowed, and the dogs could not be separated from the buns. The contestants were Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, 40, and Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, 46, and the event was aired live on Netflix.
Kobayashi had been retired for five years but emerged for one day to battle Chestnut. He retired for health reasons after downing 10,000 dogs over his career. The two last competed on July 4,2009, with Chestnut winning 68-64.5. Before that bout, Chestnut beat Kobayashi three times and lost to him twice. In today’s match, Chestnut’s victory was more pronounced with Joey coming out on top 83-66. He topped his personal best of 76, and walked off with the $100,000 grand prize.
This is not a men’s-only “sport.” Miki Sudo is the current women’s champ having downed a record 51 dogs. She is a 39-year-old New Yorker and also holds the world records in the categories of kimchi, hotdish, and ice cream.
This poem by Robert Hedin is called “Raising the Titanic.” It was yesterday’s poem of the day for the Poetry Foundation.
I spent the winter my father died down in the basement, under the calm surface of the floorboards, hundreds
of little plastic parts spread out like debris on the table. And for months while the snow fell
and my father sat in the big chair by the Philco, dying, I worked my way up deck by deck, story by story,
from steerage to first class, until at last it was done, stacks, deck chairs, all the delicate rigging.
And there it loomed, a blazing city of the dead. Then painted the gaping hole at the waterline
and placed my father at the railings, my mother in a lifeboat pulling away from the wreckage.
Saturday’s puzzle included a clue/answer that blew up a segment of Crossworld, but I thought it was perfectly fine. I’ll let you decide. The clue was “Leaves just in time for dinner?” The answer was FRESH SALAD. Get it? The leaves are lettuce leaves, and they are fresh because they were picked just in time for dinner. Here’s Rex on it:
It’s the worst answer in the grid. By far. I mean, the worst. I had the SALAD part, so how hard could the answer be!? Answer: extremely. Because who would guess that the answer would be something as inane and generic and not-a-thing as FRESH SALAD. What is that? What are these unfresh salads that people (implicitly) consume? I was like “PASTA SALAD? GREEN SALAD? … CHEF’S SALAD? BERRY SALAD!?” The answer may as well have been TASTY SALAD for all that FRESH SALAD makes any standalone sense. I don’t think I’ve ever resented a crossword answer this much. [OC: Wow!] All that work, all that added difficulty, so that I could get … FRESH?! And the clue. That “Leaves” trick is old as the hills, that wasn’t a problem. The problem was “just in time for dinner” did nnootthhiinngg to indicate the idiocy that is FRESH. [OC: But it does!]
The majority of the comments on it agreed with Rex’s take. Maybe a third (myself included) agreed with Anony Mouse who said: I thought that clue was perfectly fine, and I completely disagree with Rex that ‘”just in time for dinner” did nnootthhiinngg to indicate the idiocy that is FRESH.’ There is an undeniable association between “just in time” and “fresh,” particularly in a culinary context.
So there! Can we please move on to something about Taylor Swift now?
Is there nothing the girl can’t do? According to QB Patrick Mahomes, Taylor Swift’s interest in football goes beyond sleeping with boyfriend Travis Kelce. Well, that’s not exactly how he put it. But he did say: “She’s already drawing up plays so we might have to put one in.” Yikes! He may have only been half kidding.
As written up in today’s NYT, the inaugural Lebanon Ohio Pride Festival took place this year on July 20, a sunny Saturday, at the town’s Bicentennial Park and surrounding blocks. Billed as a safe, positive, family-friendly event, it had all the hallmarks of a queer celebration: balloons, rainbow apparel, drag queens. The words “Love always wins” were displayed prominently, written in chalk on the sidewalk. With the energy high and joyful, the event lasted through the afternoon and well into the night, the celebration undeterred even by the presence of a group of protesters.
Lebanon’s a town of about 21,000 nestled between Dayton and Cincinnati. It isn’t shy about its conservative politics and hasn’t always felt welcoming to its queer residents. But James Reynolds who grew up there and Brooke Handley who still lives there dreamt of building a more inclusive community in Lebanon and devised the idea of the Festival. They were delighted with how it turned out.
It felt personal. It felt like community. It inspired some to imagine alternate versions of their childhoods in which their identities were celebrated and cherished. It was a reminder that Pride offers something real to those who need it most. It is permission to explore identity, a reminder that there is community to be made and — at best — a redefinition of home.
Quinton Koger Kidd, below, said: “I consider myself a Christian, a conservative, a Republican. But the Bible says: Jesus came to save, not condemn. We’re saved by grace through faith. Love God. Love your neighbor. Share the good news.”
What a beautiful couple.
We sent Phil out to cover it. He had the best time ever.
Here’s a story of mine about acceptance. I had just met Linda, so this was about 45 years ago. She was living in a postage stamp apartment off Washington Square in the Village and I was in Park Slope. I was riding the subway home after a date. It was very late and I had the car to myself. Then a yuppie-ish white guy got on with fancy glasses and his gym bag. He sat opposite me. Then a Black guy got on, and he was a sight to behold. Chiseled and muscular, tall, dressed brilliantly, and wearing some makeup, even. Hair very sharp-edged. I said to myself, “Sh*t. If I were one percent as cool as this guy, I’d be alright.” He also sat across from me, but more to my left.
After a while, the Black guy took out a cigarette, tapped it on the seat next to him, lit up, and puffed. It was so graceful — like a ballet. Now, you weren’t supposed to smoke on the subway, but the car was mostly empty and well-ventilated, so it didn’t bother me. But the yuppie turned to the Black guy and glared. The Black guy must have sensed it, because he turned and looked back at the white guy. They locked eyes. It became one of those staring contests from third grade. I was watching it all from my seat across the aisle.
Finally, I was surprised to see the Black guy cave first. “Why the hard looks, man?” he asked. The white guy said: “Is this your first time on the subway? Don’t you know you can’t smoke in here?” A strategic blunder because it left the Black guy the opening to say, “This is my first time — is there a sign somewhere?” (As the lawyers say: What’s your authority?)
It put the white guy on the defensive. He started looking all over the car for a No Smoking sign. He pointed to something near my head, but it was the emergency cord. “That’s the emergency cord,” the Black guy said.
Now the white guy was getting a little desperate looking for a sign. As it happened, as I could plainly see from my seat, it said NO SMOKING in big red letters right above the white guy’s head. But he couldn’t see it because he didn’t turn to look directly behind himself. It was hysterical and it took some effort on my part not to burst out laughing.
Finally, the Black guy took pity on the white guy and said, “Look, I’ll just finish this one and stop,” and the white guy was mollified. Happy ending, great scene, and I got this story out of it. I thought to myself, you can spend $150 for a Broadway ticket, but you can’t match the scenes put on by regular New Yorkers every minute of the day.
Years later I was taking a walk and going over the story in my head. And it struck me that the Black guy must have trusted me not to betray him, not to say something like, “Hey the sign’s right there.” I mean, I’m a white guy too. But he must have sensed that between the two of them I’d take his side, at least enough to let it roll. He must have seen some coolness in me — maybe that one percent! I’m very proud of that.
Sticking with the theme of acceptance, this story is by Donna Ledwin and it’s from today’s Met Diary.
Dear Diary:
It was 1980, and I was a student at Fordham. Disco was king, and Studio 54 was the place to be. One Saturday night, although my girlfriends and I knew the odds of getting in were long, we decided to take a shot.
So, decked out in our hottest disco wear, we hopped on a D train in the Bronx and headed into Manhattan to take our chances at getting past the velvet rope. We knew that admission was at the whim of the doorman. How could we convince him we were worthy?
With my long hair pinned up, wearing sparkly earrings, a short black coat with a big fur collar and black, strappy, high-heel sandals, I stood slightly away from the fray and feigned indifference.
It took a while, but at some point, my eyes and the doorman’s met. He pointed my way and beckoned me to come inside.
I managed to maintain my poker face.
“I’m here with my two girlfriends,” I said, staring straight in his eyes.
He hesitated, and I started to think I had overplayed my hand.
“OK,” he said. “Them too.”
And in we went.
I don’t remember much about what happened after that, but I was on top of the world for that one night.
The puzzle yesterday picked me up and threw me against the wall. I just couldn’t nail it down. Right off the bat, at 1D, the clue was “Some start-up funding, in brief.” I figured the last five letters could be MONEY, but I had no hope of getting the first two: VC. It stands for venture capital. And that V came from 1A where the clue was “Liquid found in some pens.” A pen like a sty or a writing pen? But the answer was VAPE JUICE. Yikes! I even thought fleetingly of vaping, but juice?
Another bruiser was 19A where the clue was “10-point play.” WTF? I finally thought it could be a word in Scrabble that adds up to ten points. ADIEU seemed to fit, but it’s not worth ten points. The answer turned out to be from Scrabble after all but was Z TILE. Ouch.
44A drove me nuts: “Rapper who shares his name with the 29th U.S. president.” Why didn’t I pay attention more in Social Studies in Seventh grade!!?? Turned out to be WARREN G, as in Harding. D’oh!
Here’s today’s Owl Chatter quiz: Is this the Prez, or the rapper?
How about this one? 16A: “Fast-food order that comes in four shapes: bells, balls, boots and bow ties.” My first guess was MCNOODLES, but no such thing exists. It was just your old MCNUGGETS — Boo!
Two other WOEs for me (what on earth?) were 46D: “Dances in duple time.” Answer: GALOPS. And 30A: “Smallish smart device from Amazon.” Answer: ECHO DOT. Ridiculous.
Would you have gotten 28A? The clue was “‘Coach.’” It finally came to me, mostly via the crosses: ECONOMY. (Get it? Think airplane fares.)
At 51A, “Spurt” was JET, which led Son Volt to post this song:
Took a hike to the Soldier Huts in Jockey Hollow yesterday. Here are Linda and Caity and her five-some, posing not posing for a picture.
This wonderful poem about “the best kind” of love is by Billy Collins. It’s from today’s Writer’s Almanac and is called “Aimless Love.”
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in the tailor’s window, and later for a bowl of broth, steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought, without recompense, without gifts, or unkind words, without suspicion, or silence on the telephone.
The love of the chestnut, the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door— the love of the miniature orange tree, the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower, the highway that cuts across Florida.
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor— just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest on a low branch overhanging the water and for the dead mouse, still dressed in its light brown suit.
But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail to a pile of leaves in the woods, I found myself standing at the bathroom sink gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble, so at home in its pale green soap dish. I could feel myself falling again as I felt its turning in my wet hands and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
Posted in the Dull Men’s Club (UK):
Things can get pretty heated at the Club. Alice Ahern asked the following, not realizing it would open quite the can of worms: Why do so many police stations have these glass towers?
Chris Williams noted: Technically a criminal offence to photograph a police station. I’ve seen Youtube and twitter videos of people while walking away being called back by officers coming out of the station asking “You!! Why were you photographing our police station just then?”
A bunch of folks disagreed, and then Simon Page wrote: Thank god so many people here have answered this, with some conviction too. And you are totally, absolutely and annoyingly WRONG. So please don’t post such “technical” garbage based on YouTube without properly researching the law.
Williams replied: here in Cardiff there is a crank who deliberately goes out of his way with his YouTube and Twitter to photograph police cars, police stations and unmarked buildings etc. Every single time his videos feature cops ordering him to delete his footage/hand over his camera.
Page again: For your own safety on this thread Chris, please just delete it! You seem like a nice guy. There are videos out there of Police moaning or insisting on ID but believe us, you are legally entitled to film any emergency worker or depot, station, pig farm etc without hindrance or explanation.
Williams’ final reply: No I will not delete something factually correct despite being shot down by clueless idiots.
When I first read this poem to try to determine if I wanted to share it in Owl Chatter, I wasn’t sure. But a second reading convinced me. Let’s see what you think. It’s from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Paul Zimmer and is called “Dog Music.” Woof, woof!
Amongst dogs are listeners and singers. My big dog sang with me so purely, puckering her ruffled lips into an O, beginning with small, swallowing sounds like Coltrane musing, then rising to power and resonance, gulping air to continue— her passion and sense of flawless form— singing with me, but mostly for the art of dogs.
We joined in many fine songs—”Stardust,” “Naima,” “The Trout,” “Jeg elsker Dig,” “Perdido.” She was a great master and died young, leaving me with unrelieved grief, her talents known only to a few.
Now I have a small dog who does not sing but listens with discernment, requiring skill and spirit in my falsetto voice. When I sing her name and words of love, Andante, con brio, vivace, adagio, at times she is so moved she turns to place her paw across her snout, closing her eyes, sighing like a girl I held and danced with years ago.
But I am a pretender to dog music. Indeed, true strains rise only from the rich, red chambers of a canine heart; these melodies best when the moon is up, listeners and singers together and apart, beyond friendship and anger, far from any human imposter— songs of bones, turds, conquests, hunts and scents, ballads of long nights lifting to starlight.
Different guys respond differently to fatherhood. When my Caitlin’s Danny was about to have his first child, our Zoey, I could tell he was nervous about the whole business. I secretly hoped he would have that moment that I had when I first held Caity, early in the morning back on May 17, 1986: an explosion of love that blows all those little things you worried about right off the map. But there was certainly the chance that he wouldn’t. That it would overwhelm him in a different more troubling way. As it happened, he’s a great and loving dad and they have four incredible kids now, kinehora.
The Times ran an article this week by a man who regretted becoming a dad, who missed the life opportunities he had to give up. I’m not going to sit in judgment of him. As I said, different guys have different reactions to it. But I did like the letter that Andrew Ginsburg of Wellfleet MA wrote in response to it. Here’s what he said:
“I regret reading Miguel Macias’s essay about his own regret of being a father to an 18-month-old. As a 44-year-old father of three young kids, I have no patience for his self-pity about his loss of personal time and freedom that every parent in the history of civilization has experienced.
“His assertion about parents that ‘we are supposed to love it, to think it is the most wonderful thing we have ever experienced’ is simply untrue. While joyous, being a parent is also harrowing because kids are challenging. Each day is emotionally draining, and our time to recover at night is often interrupted.
“But our job as parents is to raise happy, kind adults — not enjoy every single moment of the relationship. Rather than moan about your own lost dreams, open up ‘Goodnight Moon’ and make your daughter’s that much sweeter.”
Here’s Zoey. I saw a sign in a store window years ago that said: “Spend time next to people who feel like sunshine.” I took a picture of it and sent it to Caity with the caption, Zoey.
The puzzle today gave me a good workout, though Rex rated it “easy.” (Arggggh.) It started right off in our Dirty Old Man Dept. The clue at 1A was “Consideration when donning an off-the-shoulder dress,” and the answer was BRA STRAPS. But it quickly got serious. At 15A “Defiant protestor” was REFUSNIK. Commenter JNKMD shared this info on it: “Refusenik is a very specific term referring to Soviet Jews who in the early 1970s were REFUSED permission to leave the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel.” [Probably shoulda known that.]
Did you know the “Tragic heroine of Irish mythology” was DEIRDRE? News to me. She’s more fully known as Deirdre of the Sorrows, and was typically the last person anyone at school wanted to invite to a party. Jeez Louise, what the hell is she doing here? Very pretty, though — that’s part of the legend.
How’s this for a turnaround? You know how a lump of coal is what you get from Santa if you’ve been bad? Well, at 37A, the clue was “Traditional Scottish New Year’s gift, representing warmth for the year to come,” and the answer was COAL. Go figure.
But everyone’s favorite clue/answer today was at 38A. The clue was “Marked Twain?” And the answer: DOGEARED. (Get it?)
And, last on the puzzle, back to our Dirty Old Man Dept, at 28D, for the clue “Film character with an iconic gold bikini,” the answer was LEIA, as in Princess Leia. The bikini itself, as part of a seven-piece set which included jewelry, sold at auction for $175,000. Carrie Fisher said she felt uncomfortable wearing it, that it was too revealing.
Did you think the campaign was going to get ugly at some point?
According to an article in the Times today, Trump reposted material that claims Harris engaged in oral sex to advance her career. Trump’s repost specifically states that “blowjobs impacted” her career. Previously, Trump shared a video that included a song parody stating Harris “spent her whole damn life down on her knees.”
The Times says Trump has acknowledged that some of his advisors have urged him to stay away from such personal attacks, since they can alienate women and moderates, but he said he won’t be listening to them.
I’ve never eaten frogs’ legs. I did taste eel once in sushi form and grilled octopus, both pretty good. It came up because of this lovely bit of writing Frank Bruni shared with us in his “For the love of sentences” feature. It’s by Helen Rosner in The New Yorker, discussing what to order at a recently spruced up French restaurant: “You can hardly go wrong, though it would be the height of tragedy if not one person at the table ordered the frogs’ legs persillade, a cancan line of amphibian gams in an audibly sizzling bath of butter and garlic that a server oomphs up, upon presentation, with a squeeze of lemon.”
The puzzle’s theme today was about following directions. Four long answers hit circled squares. Each square represented a direction. You had to fit the direction into the square (e.g., “east”) and then continue with the answer turning in that direction. So, e.g., at 53A, the clue was “Keeps the faith.” The answer starts out HOLD, and then hits a circle which you need to fill in with SOUTH, then you turn downwards and finish with OPE. So the full answer becomes HOLD[S OUT H]OPE (holds out hope).
I haven’t heard of Suzy Bogguss under my rock, but Rex shared this puzzle-appropriate song of hers: “Drive South.” She has the chutzpah to rhyme “smile on” with “nylons,” in this racy stanza:
We can go south with a smile on Ain’t going to pack my nylons Just leave these legs showin’ It gets hot down where were goin’
The Gnats shook the baseball world this week taking two from the power-laden Yanks, who drove all the way down Route 95 to get whupped in DC. On Tues, the Nats were clinging to a shaky lead like Leonardo D to his bit of flotsam in Titanic. And then, suddenly, some rinky-dink hits and an error loaded the bases for Aaron Judge. Yikes! But the big man’s hot liner reached CJ on a bounce and was good for two outs and an end to the threat. Whew.
Weds, again, the Gnats took a tenuous lead into the 8th but when they got men on first and second with nobody out, it looked like the Gnats might be able to grab an insurance run or two. New third-bagger Tena drove the ball to the deepest part of center, over Judge’s head, and it banged off the wall. But the lead runner hesitated and was tagged out after a rundown between home and third. And then, oh, no!, the batter was caught between first and second, for an improbable and devastating double play. Instead of getting two runs they ran themselves into two outs. They limped into the ninth, embarrassed by it, and when the first two Yankees reached base, a Gnats’ collapse looked all but inevitable. But Finnegan, grimacing, was having none of it. A soft fly to right, and a feeble grounder back to the mound restored order. When Torres struck out it was over. He’s a Detroit boy, Finnegan, born and raised.
Sarah Palin is back in the news, and not a moment too soon, as far as Owl Chatter is concerned. She’s been granted a retrial for her libel lawsuit against the NYT. You may recall that Ms. P’s political action committee published a map with crosshairs over several congressional districts, including that of Gabby Giffords. Shortly thereafter a shooter went on a rampage that left six dead and injured Giffords. SP said the Times defamed her by wrongly suggesting she incited the shooting. The Times did swiftly correct and apologize for the piece. The jury ruled in favor of the Times, but an appeals court just granted her a new trial. It held the trial judge erred in preventing jurors from hearing evidence that might have shown the Times knew or should have known Palin did not incite the shooting.
If you’re following the case closely, you may want to pick up one of these refrigerator magnets for $7.50 on eBay. Lookin’ good, babe!
Tomorrow is opening day for my final semester. Hope it goes well. Thanks for stopping by.
Christie noted that she’s 50 now. And Spragg said: even so… I’d have expected her to retain some vestigial recognisability!
trust me im a carpet person. But Dan Cobb wrote: With those grammatical mistakes I wouldn’t trust you. Bruce Parker, who ran a flooring company for 30 years, said Hoovering will eventually get it out, and several folks suggested steaming it out. Several said to ice it. Mike Geraghty said to just not look at it. Peter Bell said: Paint over it with a professional carpet paint like average brown; if it doesn’t match do the rest of the carpet. Sam Mead suggested divorce.
The Wellington Files 