We’re all breathing a proverbial sigh of relief at the arrest of an Oregon man, Robert Cole Parmalee, 40, on charges of stalking Owl Chatter fave, UConn basketball star Paige Bueckers. We were certain it was our photographer Phil they were looking for. Even Phil was certain: He turned himself in to the Connecticut State Police to confess. (They ignored him. It wasn’t the first time.)
Parmalee said on social media that he intends to marry Bueckers. Consistent with that claim, he had an engagement ring and lingerie with him when he was arrested while walking along a highway near the airport in Hartford, CT. (We have turned the portion of the investigation related to the lingerie over to our Dirty Old Man Dept.) A warrant was also out for Parmalee accusing him of setting a home on fire in Oregon with roommates and pets inside. We’re guessing he’s hoping Paige is open-minded enough not to hold that against him.
Parmalee pled guilty to the stalking charge and faces three years of probation during which he is barred from entering Connecticut. A restrictive order protecting PB will remain in effect until 2064. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the girls did a number on Iowa State, outscoring them 101-68 while setting a school record for three-point baskets (20). They are ranked 4th nationally and face a tough USC squad Saturday.
Before the Nazis starting killing Jews, they worked on altering the image of Jews in the German society — softening up the populace for the task to come. Goebbels was in charge of that effort. And the elements of German society that fell into line have blood on their hands.
Fast-forward to the present. Capitulating to the winds of bigotry, the Disney company has removed a transgender story line from its animated series “Win or Lose,” which is set to start streaming in February. A small step. Hardly worth mentioning. As the suicide rate for trans youth remains high — maybe just a teeny splatter of blood?
Turning to the puzzle, the best clue today was at 35A: “Sticky treats, in more ways than one?” Answer: POPSICLES. Sticky — get it? They have sticks.
Here’s Michael Franks:
I know today’s your birthday, And I did not buy no rose. But I wrote this song instead and I call it, “Popsicle Toes.”
I also learned that to “post up” means to hang out for a while. It comes from basketball.
Did you know the “13th-century poet who wrote the ‘Masnavi’” was RUMI? Me neither. Lewis shared a line of Rumi’s: “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” Rumi-nate on that a while.
That expression, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned?” Well, fiddles hadn’t been invented yet. So there. He must have just “air” fiddled.
Closing the shop early tonight. See you next time!
Today is the birthday of Paul Klee (1879). It’s okay if you didn’t send a card: he’s been dead since 1940. Here’s a shot of the artist with his Bimbo.
Perhaps I should clarify: that’s Klee with his wife Lily. The name of the cat is Bimbo.
And here’s a nice sample of his work, IMO. It’s called “Castle and Sun.” Some have noted its similarity in style to the Magna-Tile works of my grandsons Leon and Raffi.
Say Hi (or Meow, if you speak Cat) to Chai. No idea if this is Hebraic (eighteen/life) or a tea lover. Adorable in either case.
Phil swears Liz Cheney, who is 58 and has four kids, has gotten much hotter-looking since she started championing democracy, and says this shot he got of her proves it. Maybe so, Philly — she does take on that sexy librarian look with her glasses on. But, still, keep your distance. Her dad shot that guy on a hunting trip, remember? If you try anything funny, he’ll carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Anyway, hot or not, LC is in the news: the GOP is going after her, via a House subcommittee, asking for FBI investigations on improprieties in connection with the Jan. 6 hearings. BS, of course, although Trump has said Jan. 6 Committee members should be behind bars. So Bernie S. says Biden should pardon Lizzie, and the Prez is considering it. Why didn’t the GOP wait until Biden’s out of office? It’s just a month.
Headline in The Onion: Doctors Warn of Damaging Effects Child Obesity Having On Mall Santas.
In yesterday’s puzzle, “Self-care company founded by Gwyneth Paltrow” was the clue for GOOP. Of course, it’s pretty pricey. Two small (1.4 oz.) bars of soap go for $20. Coconut shell polishes away dead skin and grime, shea and murumuru butters intensely moisturize, and brightening licorice supports the skin barrier. The scent—a deliriously pretty cardamom and wood blend—fills your entire shower and lingers ever so softly on your skin.
You had me at murumuru butter. Sign me up, GP!!
Arlene Croce died on Monday in Johnston RI at the age of 90. She was the dance critic of The New Yorker for 23 years until retiring in 1996. The obit by Brian Seibert in The Times says she was “the most feared dance writer in the U.S.,” which seems funny to me. What? — Did she have mob ties? Did she break legs?
In her review of one performance, she described the feet of the ballerina Carla Fracci as “flapping along the floor like a loose mudguard.”
She thought of herself as a “dance illiterate.” She never studied dance formally or took a music lesson. She said she was proof that you could come to dance knowing nothing of how it is done and still understand it.
She never married and is survived only by her sister Marcia, who didn’t find her very fearsome.
The great Ty Cobb was born on this date in Georgia in 1886. I remember being a teenager and just starting my autograph collection. I bought a Cobb autograph for $9 and another collector I knew felt sorry for me for getting ripped off so badly. Ha!
Story from The Onion: Bald Man Presses Face to Window As Thick-Haired Family Sits Down To Dinner
Andy Spragg posted the following for the Dull Men’s Club (UK):
My name is Andy and I am a bathoholic. These are my current stashes of additives: liquid and salt.
Hitherto I’ve been a one-liquid man, with or without salt. Readers of a sensitive disposition may care to look away now. Tonight I decided to be a little less dull. I am currently reposing in a bath with salt, Deep Heat foam bath AND Olbas bath. I’ll report back later on the quality of the bath experience, if interest warrants.
Melanie Hendrie commented: I hope you get well soon. Must be pretty ill to need all those weird and wonderful potions.
Andy: Is that so?
Melanie: Well it’s rather extravagant otherwise is it not?
Andy: Well … not really. I mean, for example, how many pairs of shoes have you got?
There actually is a reason why I have currently got so many liquid additives – it’s far from situation normal – but I don’t really see why it’s extravagant. I have two baths a week and I add roughly the same amount of bubbly stuff every time. So I’m spending roughly the same amount whether I use one sort frequently, or several sorts occasionally.
Melanie (backing off): That’s a good explanation.
Andy: Thank you!
Lauren Spilsbury: In an area with low water situation – fast showers only. Haven’t had a bath in a decade or more. Now old enough to have a concern about whether or not I could get my warm, wet, slippery, sleepy self up out of the tub.
Andy: That concern is on my horizon too, for sure. (In respect of my self, obv … not your self.)
Susan Green: You must have skin like a rhinoceros with all those chemicals.
[OK, readers, brace yourselves. We’re going to go on for a bit.]
Robert Brueford: Bathaholic here (which is ironic as we have a wet room and no bath!) What I do have however (as a true bathaholic) is a fabric pop up bath, soon to be replaced with a foldaway plastic bath. I utilise olbas oil and deep heat bubbles, lavender and rose bubble bath (cheap in Home Bargains and is very, very relaxing) and occasionally, Radox with Pink Gin Himalayan salts. I do love a good bath and have a minimum of 2 a week.
Andy: Bathaholic, 2 a week at least, and Home Bargains aficionado? I think I’ve just stumbled upon my soul brother! I also think you need to tell me more about this “fabric pop-up bath.” Is that actually a Thing? From where does one procure it? How does one fill and empty it? So many questions.
Robert: So, if you Google pop up baths, the common ones are a waterproof fabric inner that’s supported by a pvc pipe frame. The one I have is large enough for me (6ft). I fill it using the clip-on hose pipe tap connectors, a length of hose on each from the bathroom sink which is then cable tied to the PVC pipes into the bath. Always filled about 2/3 of the way up (bath is approximately 800mm high).
To empty, I use a 150Lpm fishtank pump with a hose attached to the outlet which I then pop into the overflow of the bathroom sink. Takes approximately 15 minutes to empty which gives me time to get dressed, sort my stuff out at which point, I simply fold the legs away and put the bath behind one of our bathroom cabinets out of the way.
We have upgraded this year as the wife wants a sturdier bath (current one is sturdy if you know where to put your hands but as she has a back issue, I understand her dubiousness) so we purchased an extra large moulded plastic one (1480mm long) with a collapsible heavy duty rubber (could be silicone) inner. This one has a three-part tray on top to a) preserve heat and b) allows me to plumb in my portable sauna heater directly into the water to keep it hotter for longer.
There’s nothing like a steaming hot bath with some music and relaxing lavender and patchouli bubbles.
Andy: Now that’s what I call intel! I can see a whole new world opening up that I never knew existed. I’m so glad I made my inconsequential little post about double bubble action. Thank you so much for laying out the facts in such lavish detail.
To send us off tonight, this elegant gentleman is Barney, 17 years old, kinehora. Easy does it, old fella.
Here’s a Monday morning poem for us by Sahar Romani (After Rumi, After Terence Hayes), called “Sign.” It’s from Poem a Day (Poets.org).
What aren’t you willing to believe. A heart graffitied fuchsia on the street, a missive from another life. Remember the stem of lavender you found in a used copy of Bishop’s poems, a verse underlined: The world is a mist. And then the world is minute and vast and clear. Suddenly, across the aisle a woman with your mother’s bracelets, her left wrist all shimmer and gold, you almost winced. Coincidence is the great mystery of the human mind but so is the trans-oceanic reach of Shah Rukh Khan’s slow blink. Each of us wants a hint, a song that dares us to look inside. True, it takes whimsy and ego to believe the universe will tap your shoulder in the middle of a random afternoon. That t-shirt on a stranger’s chest, a bumper sticker on the highway upstate. Truth isn’t going anywhere. It’s your eyes passing by.
I’ll never forget a sign I received a long time ago. A “bump” was detected on Caity’s belly at a routine checkup when she was about 1 and a half. (Sam wasn’t born yet.) So we started visiting surgeons to try to find out what it was. At one extreme, the good one, it could be nothing (a cyst). At the other, it could require surgery, treatments, who knows what? We schlepped out to Long Island to see a specialist, and into Manhattan. Jersey, too, for sure. It was an every-waking-moment type of concern. Caity, at the time, was not only the apple of our eye — she was the whole eye. [Note: Still is.]
I was riding the bus from Manhattan home from work (train service from Penn Station to Chatham had not yet started), and for some reason I took a seat way up front. We were off the highway and coursing down Main Street in Chatham and the driver suddenly applied the brakes for no apparent reason. Luckily, he was able to see in time what I watched a few seconds later. A mommy duck led her six little ducklings calmly across Main Street in downtown Chatham, while rush hour traffic in both directions halted. I took it as a sign from the Universe that Caity would be okay. And she was. The bump turned out to be nothing. And the following Sunday evening, we had roast duck for dinner. (No we didn’t.)
It’s time for our annual “Justice for Jerry” appeal. As many of you know, I am Chair of the “Free Jerry Sandusky Committee.” If you haven’t gotten your “IF HE HAD GONE INTO THE CHURCH HE’D BE POPE BY NOW” T-shirt ($25), bumper sticker ($8), or button ($5), what better time than now? With a sexual abuser about to take over the White House with a cabinet full of predators, and “the church,” what? about 90%** abusers?, how can we in good conscience keep Jerry behind bars? $100 donors will receive a “Penn State: Not State Pen” baseball cap; and, for $250, a personally autographed bath towel.
[**exaggeration for dramatic effect, aka lying.]
Remember yesterday’s “Art Heist” puzzle that I (and Rex) raved about? It turned out to be one of the most divisive puzzles in recent memory. While many of us loved it, I would say the majority of Rex’s commenters not only hated it – they reviled it. Yes, they viled it and then re-viled it. Here’s a sampling of rants:
Came here to post for the first time ever and state how much I hated this puzzle. HATED IT.
Hated this puzzle. From start to finish, absolutely hated it. The hint made no sense. The resultant answers were nonsense. I hated hated hated it passionately. Oh, also, I hated it.
When I saw the constructor’s name I was really hoping to love this puzzle, having attended a wonderful stage performance last summer in which David Kwong delightfully combined magic and crosswords. Instead I found myself almost screaming in agony by the time I gave up and opted for “reveal puzzle” in the app.
I’ve been doing the NYT crossword for three decades and this was the worst, least joyful puzzle I’ve seen them publish. Chose not to finish – a first for me.
In a class by itself. WOAT. Absolutely WOAT. Gimmick piled on gimmick piled on gimmick piled on errors. I. Do. Not. Understand. Why. NYT. Published. This. Mess.
I do the Sunday puzzle to be entertained – hard, easy, whatever. Not to be tortured. I almost threw it against the wall. It was overly ambitious, convoluted & impossible (for me) to even want to “try” to solve. It put me in a bad mood & I wish I had gone back to sleep. Worst puzzle of the year.
I find it interesting that this puzzle was so polarizing, with some people loving the creativity and some people hating it. Count me in the latter camp, as I found this to be perhaps the least enjoyable puzzle I’ve ever completed.
It’s a rare day that I’m willing break my streak because a puzzle is so unpleasant that I can’t bear to finish it. This is one of those days. As so many others here have noted, it was ugly, fussy, and filled with gibberish. Awful, awful, awful!
I love art and artists and couldn’t believe how much I hated this puzzle. It’s Sunday. I want a cup of coffee and sit down and just finish a well-done puzzle. This isn’t it. This was miserable and zero fun at all.
Maybe my least favorite puzzle I’ve ever done.
I hated, hated, hated this puzzle. Just an unpleasant slog, constantly having to backtrack to figure what on earth was missing from which answer.
I knew all the artists but HATED this tedious, pedantic, boring slog of a puzzle.
Perhaps the least enjoyable puzzle I’ve done in 5+ years of NYT crosswords.
An interesting clue/answer from yesterday’s XW was “Opened or closed like an eye, in film lingo.” The answer was IRISED. You know about this? I didn’t. It’s when a scene in a film is started or ended with a circle opening or closing. An “Iris In” or an “Iris Out.” This short clip is interesting (or boring).
The following paragraph opens a story on the front page of the NYT today as if it’s business as usual and the country has not spun its way into utter insanity:
“The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.”
You know you’re in la-la-land when you look to Mitch McConnell for support. Happens that McConnell was a polio survivor as a child. So he’s sorta in favor of the vaccine, along with any human being who has a brain. Here’s how the Times put it:
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a survivor of childhood polio, said in a statement: “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.”
“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” he said.
Owl Chatter has gained exclusive rights to a conversation between the Senator and RFK, Jr. on this very topic.
In the interest of full disclosure, there is a family member close to us who is opposed to vaccines. Our grandson Leon, who is six, is seeking to end all childhood vaccination programs on the grounds that “they hurt.”
Here’s a very pretty tune by Kate Wolf shared with us by Son Volt, linked to the answer ACROSS from today’s grid. It’s called “Across the Great Divide.” Hi Kate!
We’ll finish today with a Holiday pet pic shared by Rex. It’s Donut!
Let’s open with this item by Monique Morgan from today’s Met Diary in the Times.
Dear Diary:
I live near Union Square, and I walk my dog around the Con Edison loading dock in the mornings before work.
At some point, I became friendly with the manager at the plant. If I saw him, I would greet him with a hug, and we would talk for a minute or two.
When I saw him one Friday, we were both so happy that it was Friday that we just started to dance.
It became a habit. Every Friday, around 7:30 a.m., we would dance. Sometimes, he would “do” the music and sometimes I would. Sometimes it would be a short ditty, and sometimes we would get an audience. (He was a much better dancer than me.)
A few years ago, I was walking down the street, and a woman pointed at me.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s you!”
I didn’t know her from Adam, and I’m pretty good with faces. Nonetheless, I said hello.
It turned out that she lived across Third Avenue and had happened to see the Friday dance one morning.
After that, she said, every Friday around 7:30 a.m., she would wait with her cat at her window for the Friday Dance to begin.
I don’t usually make it all the way through the Modern Love column in the Sunday Times Styles section. But today it held me. It’s by Rebecca Collins Jordan. College sweethearts stayed together through grad school and into a happy marriage. They were heteros, although both were bi. [I’m hanging on to the jargon for dear life.] But then the male of the duo gender fluidified into womanhood. The writer of the story started getting buttonholed into “talks” about her situation, with the assumption that it was a disaster. But it wasn’t. Quite the converse. Here’s how it ends (she had been traveling solo):
Questions from strangers, family and friends echoed in my mind on my sleepless overnight flights. I watched a Jane Austen adaptation on the seat-back screen and wept again for the end of simplicity in my love life.
Then I walked through the door to my house and saw Kaci again. All the questions and grief of others fell off me as we embraced. She had cleaned the house and made me tea. We traded smiles and giggles and watched the weekend fade into dusk. This was love — the kind you know in your gut.
I have learned more in these last few years about the joy of love’s unpredictability than about self-shrinking or the bitterness of commitment. I have learned of love’s boundlessness and creativity. I have felt the glee of meeting an even more authentic version of the person I fell in love with. I have learned how not to aspire to be the girl next door and simply to live into myself, how to walk away from places where I am unvalued, how to be blunt, how to welcome my own joy.
This is the kind of love most of us dream of. I would like to keep it, if you don’t mind — and even if you do.
Today’s NYT XW by David Kwong, a professional magician among other pursuits, was absolutely brilliant. Even Rex Parker the curmudgeon gushed (by his standards) and called it “maybe” his favorite Sunday of the year. It’s called “Art Heist.” I’ll try to do it justice.
In ten answers the name of an artist is “stolen,” i.e., removed from the answer. And all that’s left is the letter used for the crossing answer. I know — what? Stick with me, here’s an example. At 71A, the clue was “Common scale range,” so the answer would be FROM ONE TO TEN. But “Monet” is in there – see it? FROM ONE TO TEN. So you remove (steal) Monet, and in its place leave only the letter R from the crossing word (ASHORE). That happens ten times: ten artists are “stolen.” Degas is taken out of BODEGAS. Miro is taken out of STEAM IRON. The two most brilliant are O’keeffe taken out of SMOKE EFFECTS, and Sargent out of BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.
But that’s just the beginning. The ten artists who have been “stolen” appear as solo answers elsewhere in the grid. And (icing on the cake): the ten letters left behind from the crosses spell out (in order) “I WAS FRAMED.”
Seriously. OMG.
That, dear readers, is some goddamn serious-ass wordplay. Bravo David Kwong.
You’ll never guess who popped by for a visit today. At 50A “Role for Jay Silverheels” was, of course, TONTO. George!! — Get our guest some “firewater” — maybe a cold Fiddlehead Ale? Take a load off, Buddy — looks like you’ve been riding a long time: NJ Transit?
“Tonto” means fool in Italian and Spanish. So when the Lone Ranger was translated into Spanish they changed Tonto to Toro. The Italians just said F*ckit and let it ride.
Sh*t!! — Thanks Kwong — I’m going to be singing Silverheels to myself all day now to the tune of Silver Bells. Arrrrrrrgh! Make it stop!!
Sheesh. You’d think if anyone should be sensitive to stuff like this it would be the Director of a University’s multicultural activities. We’re talking about Rachel Dawson at, what?, UMich??!! Aw, man, say it ain’t so, Raich. So the story is Dawson was approached at a conference by two profs from other schools who had heard a Jewish student had issues at Umich. They asked her if the student should go to the DEI office for assistance. And, as comic Mike Birbiglia would put it — what Dawson should have said was . . . . nothing. Instead she said, No, Jewish students are all rich and don’t need help from the administration. Ouch. After an independent investigation was conducted, Dawson was fired. She’s suing on First Amendment grounds. UMich’s defense is, essentially, she was fired for being an idiot.
Owl Chatter is not taking sides in the matter. We’re just going to wait and see how the idiot’s case turns out.
Back to the puzzle, for the artist DALI, Kwong used MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. See him in there? MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. If you find the children’s version a bit tedious, as I do, this one by Stevie Ray Vaughn may be more to your liking.
Turn it up.
I’m trying out a new approach for Wordle. [BTW, my brilliant daughter scored a rare 2 yesterday: ADIEU DROOL. (Took me 5.)] Anyway, my old approach was to start almost always with OCEAN, OPERA or IDEAL, trying to ferret out the vowels. And I tried to score a 3 or at worst a 4, and was miffed with a 5 or, gasp, 6. New approach – I’m just going to use random/fun five-letter words and keep track of either getting it (in 6 or less), or not getting it. Let’s see how that goes.
Remember reading Salinger’s stories several hundred years ago? Crossworld is keeping ESME alive. She popped in again today. Here’s actress Esme Cullen. Lookin’ good, Doll. Fresca? George — a cold one for Esme, please, and see if there are any chips in that cabinet above the stove.
We went to an excellent performance of Handel’s Messiah today, resurrecting (pun intended) a tradition we had let slide in recent years. On the way out, I said to Linda — “So does he die, or what?”
The bass voice stole the show, IMO. He was Edwin Jahmal Davis, from Utica MS, a graduate of Jackson State U and the Manhattan School of Music. Bravo!
My favorite clue/answer in the puzzle today was at 38D. The clue was “Leave la-la land,” and the answer was SNAP TO.
At 1D, “A little bit of everything,” was an odd clue for SESAME. But it won me over when I realized it was referring to an everything bagel. There it is! You can see the sesame on it, right?
Georgie! Here’s a ten — run out and get some cream cheese. Hurry.
Remember Linda ELLERBEE? She was “Award-winning journalist Linda” at 10D. She retired in 2015 and is 80 now, kinahora. Originally from Texas, she went to Vandy, but dropped out to start living her life as a journalist. Ever step in it, but it works out? She was writing for the Associated Press in Dallas and was fired after writing a catty personal letter on the AP’s word processor and accidentally sending it out on the wire. But it caught the attention of some folks at CBS and within months she was in NY working for them. Go figure.
She has two kids, Vanessa and Josh. Vanessa is a writer and Josh a film producer. They both look scary smart.
One of the little thrills in my life (not to imply there are big ones: I’ll be 75 next month), is posting something funny on Rex Parker’s blog and getting a nice response, like an LOL. Imagine my horror, therefore, when a small joke I shared got me dubbed “The Butcher of Maple Street.” Here’s the story.
A while ago, MOTH appeared as an answer in the puzzle and it reminded me of a joke. This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, you have to help me. I have an obsessive fear that I’m turning into a moth.” The doctor says, “A moth?” and the guy says “Yeah, a moth.” And the doctor says, “Well, first of all, why did you come to see me, out of all the doctors in town?” And the guy says “Your light was on.”
So I post the joke and within an hour get the following response: “Oh, man, you butchered that joke. Do yourself a favor and watch Norm Macdonald tell it.” So I did.
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Stephen Dunn. It’s called “Seriousness.” (This is how it appears, in block form.)
Driving the Garden State Parkway to New York, I pointed out two crows to a woman who believed crows always travel in threes. And later just one crow eating the carcass of a squirrel. “The others are nearby,” she said, “hidden in trees.” She was sure. Now and then she’d say “See!” and a clear dark trinity of crows would be standing on the grass. I told her she was wrong to under- or overestimate crows, and wondered out loud if three crows together made any evolutionary sense. I was almost get- ting serious now. Near Forked River, we saw five. “There’s three,” she said, “and two others with a friend in a tree.” I looked to see if she was smiling. She wasn’t. Or she was. “Men like you,” she said, “need it writ- ten down, notarized, and signed.”
There does seem to be a connection between crows and three. A Scottish children’s song includes the lyric “Three cross three crows and they’re sitting on a wall.” A brewery in Sacramento produces a black lager called Three Crows, and there’s a science fiction magazine called Three Crows.
And get this: Morrígan is a Celtic goddess who can transform into a crow or raven. In some traditions, she’s considered a triple goddess, representing three aspects of the same deity: Badb, Macha, and Nemain.
Creepy enough for you? Gotta love the smoky eyes.
Clive Sutton, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK), posted this note which generated, by far, the most comments I’ve seen (173). I guess it hit a nerve.
Our teenage Granddaughter emailed us (out of the blue), with an ebay link to the present she would like for Christmas. No contact for months despite our efforts to stay in touch etc.
I have been considering reciprocating – perhaps with a link to an ebay sale of a vintage Bentley, but unsure if the subtlety of the message in that response would be missed.
Interested to know what some alternative responses from this brain trust might be?
A lot of comments were at the extremes of the options — i.e., tell her to f*ck off, or just it buy it for her — she’s your g’daughter.
Mark Evans wrote this: Electronic communication can and often does get misinterpreted. I’d buy the present but get it delivered to your address. Tell her she can pick it up whenever she wants. Then over a cup of tea (other hot beverages are available) have an honest conversation about contact.
Melanie Wright wrote: Difficult one. If she has reached out to you in any way at all, then I suppose it’s progress and you don’t want to spoil that. She’s still your granddaughter at the end of the day. I’d kinda call her out on it, but make it “half joking, full earnest” and let her know you’re delighted she got in touch.
Dian Sellers: Life is really hard these days for teenage girls. Imagine being that age in a world with the internet. We had it so lucky. Be loving and kind, she won’t be a teenager forever. She’ll work through it all and come out the other side. Buy the gift (if you can afford it).
This is my Lianna (15) with her boyfriend Diegan. I’d buy her the world if I could. Make a list, Babe.
As I mentioned earlier, Rex is an animal lover and has started posting holiday pet pix that his readers send in to him, maybe 5 or so a day. I will shamelessly steal one now and then. Here’s Edward, with Rex’s funny write-up:
“This is Edward, because if ever a dog was an “Edward,” it’s this sweet proper gruff-faced baby. He’s a CAIRN Terrier mix (a proper crossword breed). I want to scritch him and give him treats. I want him for my very own. I have dognapping tendencies (i.e. I enjoy napping with dogs).”
And this exquisite cat is named Oxy.
Let’s go out tonight with this song by Mary Gauthier called “Christmas in Paradise.” If you’re tired of the same old Xmas songs — or even if you’re not — try this one on.
Let the record show — wait a minute, what record? Whatever — I taught my last class today, Friday December 13, 2024. The end of an error, for sure. I mean era. How fitting that my career would end on Taylor Swift’s birthday. That can’t be a coincidence.
So many fond memories. There was the law class with about 80 students at the end of which one of the coeds came up and told me my fly was down. I thanked her and suggested she tell me before class next time. There was the tax test that one of the students did poorly on and she came to my office to speak to me about it. She said she didn’t have time to prepare for it, so she just copied all the answers off of her neighbor so they weren’t really her wrong answers. I needed to let that sink in for a moment. Then I said: You are telling me you cheated on the exam and you want that to act in your favor?
But overall, no question, I loved the students — loved them all. I was very lucky to blunder my way into my career. I can’t imagine a better professional life, given my unique assortment of deficiencies.
I asked the tax class if they’d mind if our photographer Phil took a picture of them, you know, for the memories, and they said okay.
Hey Chatterheads, facebook tells me it’s our friend Sandee’s birthday today — same as Taylor! — You’re the cuter one, S — no question. Hope it’s joyous, and many more.
Today’s NYT XW had a jarring musical juxtaposition. Remember ALONE AGAIN? It’s clue was “1972 Gilbert O’Sullivan hit with a melancholy title.” Well, it was crossed by “Sexually charged title track of a hit 1973 album,” which was LET’S GET IT ON. Rex handled it thusly in his blog:
“Quite a 1-2 punch. If you’ve ever heard “ALONE AGAIN,” you can see how you might need to chase it with “LET’S GET IT ON,” just to get yourself up off the floor. In fact, it might be too jarring, that segue—hard to get excited about getting it on when you’re buried under an avalanche of grief. Seriously, “ALONE AGAIN” goes so hard at the end … you think, “wow, this guy has lost a lot,” and then in the last few lines he’s like “oh also this happened” and you really just wanna call him and see if he’s OK. That funky, sexy opening guitar lick on “LET’S GET IT ON” might be a little off-vibe following a song whose last verse literally ends with “I cried and cried all day.” I can imagine trying to play “LET’S GET IT ON” for the “ALONE AGAIN” guy and having him look at you like, “Really?” Would not put “ALONE AGAIN” on my sex playlist, if I had such a thing, which, officially, I absolutely do not.”
I remember ALONE AGAIN but I must not have paid attention to all the gloom. Here are some of the lyrics:
In a little while from now If I’m not feeling any less sour I promise myself to treat myself And visit a nearby tower And climbing to the top Will throw myself off.
[That’s how it opens. Ouch.]
It seems to me that There are more hearts broken in the world That can’t be mended Left unattended What do we do What do we do
[Here’s how it ends:] I remember I cried when my father died Never wishing to hide the tears And at sixty-five years old My mother, God rest her soul Couldn’t understand why the only man She had ever loved had been taken Leaving her to start With a heart so badly broken Despite encouragement from me No words were ever spoken And when she passed away I cried and cried all day
Here — take a listen, for old time’s sake. BTW, twenty minutes after this video was filmed, the guitarist had a seizure.
Let me tell you about a joke. It was behind a little door the puzzle opened up for me at 17A today . The clue was “Question after an untimely joke,” and the answer was TOO SOON?
It came up in an unusual movie I saw years ago, 2005, actually, called The Aristocrats. It was a documentary about a single joke that was making its rounds among comics. It’s not a particularly great joke, but it involves drawing out a scenario and it became a thing that the hallmark of a great comic was how well he or she could draw it out.
So this movie discussed the phenomenon and, most importantly, showed how various comics handled it. George Carlin, Drew Carey, many of the great comics of our day. Here’s the joke: a family (mom, dad, kids) approaches a talent agent trying to “sell” their act. The talent agent says, well what do you do? What they do is then described as the most disgusting dirty stuff you can think of. That’s the what the comic has to portray — and each one takes his or her unique approach. And after this disgusting scene is finished, the talent agent says, what do you call yourselves? And they say “The Aristocrats.” That’s the joke. Not especially great, everyone concedes. It’s all in the telling.
So the last comic they show telling the joke was the late Gilbert Gottfried. And it was just after 9/11 and the comic world didn’t know how to inch itself back in — audiences were so down. Gottfried opened with a tasteless joke about the Empire State Building and it was not well received — someone yelled the now-famous TOO SOON: the line from the puzzle.
So Gottfried decided to just blow the place all to hell with his version of “the joke.” Even after hearing it 20 times, as I did watching the movie, his version was pure disgusting comic genius, IMO. Here it is. Warning — if you don’t like dirty jokes, do not watch this.
Whew. Hard to follow that. Need help from a big star.
In honor of Taylor’s 35th birthday today, this 31-second “tribute” was posted on TikTok by the NFL, grateful for the unlikely merging of Swiftworld with pro football that her romance with TK has brought about. (Hope you can get it to play. Try clicking on that circle thingie bottom left.)
At Owl Chatter, the feeling is anything that distracts from the plight of the Jets can’t be all bad.
Happy Birthday, babe!! We’ll see you at the next Chiefs home game.
I’m gonna end with a beautiful song posted by Rex commenter Son Volt. I can’t figure out what it relates to in the puzzle, but who cares? It’s by a group I never heard of (vu den?) called Everything But The Girl, and it’s called “We Walk The Same Line.”
What the hell was I thinking when I doubted that the alcoholic rapist Trump appointed to head the Defense Dept would sail through confirmation? Did I really think a toad like Joni Ernst would show some spine? After a few calls from Magalomaniacs, she fell right into line.
It’s the best appointment ever! The lunacy is already gushing in. This is from the NYT yesterday:
Senator Rick Scott of Florida told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he was “disgusted” that the woman who alleged that Hegseth sexually assaulted her was not “willing to go on your show or some show and have you ask them all the questions.”
Tapper pointed out that Hegseth made her sign a nondisclosure agreement.
D’oh!
Are you dreaming of a brown Christmas? If you are, and you live in Rumford, Maine, your dreams have already come true. A malfunction at a paper mill caused the release of “spent black liquor” resulting in a brown snowfall.
Town officials took to Facebook to reassure residents that the public safety concern is “minimal.” But residents were advised — don’t ingest it or let it get on your skin, and don’t let your kids play with it. And your pets — keep your pets away from it. It’s perfectly safe though, absolutely.
Andy Spragg posted the following in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) along with the photo, below, which is of the cast of a popular old sitcom in Britain.
Good moaning. The time has come to tread another fine line between whinge and dull. I wish to raise the topic of my Huawei P30 Pro mobile phone. I bought it a couple of months ago on the basis of its superlative camera; if it hadn’t been for that USP, I would have given up on trying to commission it, a process involving replacing both the phone and the memory card I wanted to use with it before I finally got a combination that played nicely with each other. But that’s not important right now.
What I have observed is an apparent inverse correlation between the quality of the camera and the quality of the keyboard. I find myself having to constantly correct adjacent-key errors, a problem that I have never had on either of my two previous mobiles (yes, I know the rest of the world replaces their mobile every 18 months on average; I laugh in the face of such short-termism).
What makes it worse is that because three of the five vowels are adjacent to one another, it’s like being in an endless episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo (see cast, below). It’s possible, of course, that my digital proprioception suffered a step change for the worse at around the same time I changed to this new mobile, but I think most would agree that this is very much the less probable scenario.
Can we seriously countenance the possibility that keyboard quality (however that is implemented) has been skimped upon in order to provide unrivalled camera quality without excessive cost?
Jeremy Ping replied:
Gut moaning. In the photo the scene behind the cast is Lynford Hall, Mundford, Norfolk. For us, in years past, it was a favourite venue for occasional afternoon teas with very best friends. So when we eventually escaped to life in France we brought the boxed set of ‘Allo Allo’, as one must. I’m typing on my laptop because when it comes to the incumbent (Somsang Goloxé) mobile phone I can’t hit the correct ‘key’ for toffee. The old Blackberry had a slide-out physical key pad that was the greatest invention ever until the screen went green so I can’t gauge whether the camera is any good or not. Hope that helps.
Andy Spragg replied: Thank you, Joramy Pung, vory halpfil.
[BTW, the initialism USP, above, stands for “unique selling point.” The show Allo Allo ran for ten years up to 1992. It sounds great: “In France during World War II, René Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another’s true identity or presence, exasperating René.”]
Amazingly, the word Spraggs used above, proprioception, I only learned for the first time ever yesterday in the note about senses I included in OC. How does stuff like that happen?
David Polshaw of the DMC (UK) shared that a crossword puzzle he solved recently had what must be the dullest clue and answer ever. Clue: Sponge. Answer: Sponge. Andy Spragg took it further in his comment: That would be a great (one-off) crossword compiler’s trick: a crossword for which every answer is the same as the clue.
Rocco “Rocky” Colavito, Bronx boy, died on Tuesday at his home in Bernville PA. He was 91. He played most of his career with Cleveland, and it is in Cleveland’s Little Italy that a statue of him stands. He was honored by the-then-Indians on his 80th birthday with induction into their Hall of Fame.
Rocky was a respected slugger in his day, hitting 374 home runs, driving in 1,159 runs, and batting .266 lifetime. He was an All-Star nine times. He hit four homers in consecutive at-bats in Baltimore on June 10, 1959. Exactly 25 years later, to the day, Linda and Avi were married in Prospect Hall, Brooklyn, NY.
Indian GM Frank Lane stupidly traded Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn in a trade that rocked baseball and, some maintain, set a curse on Cleveland. They have not won the World Series since 1948. When pressed, Colavito insisted that he did not put a curse on the team. “Frank Lane did,” he said.
Remember the famous pine-tar incident with George Brett and Billy Martin in 1983? Colavito was very much involved. He was a coach for KC at the time and was ejected for arguing with the umps and trying to keep the bat from them.
Colavito returned to the Bronx in 1968 to end his career with a short stint with the Yankees. His skills had largely abandoned him by then, but he did hit a home run in his first game as a Yankee. And he came in to pitch for them once, pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, and earned the win when the Yanks rallied. He was the last position player to earn a win for over 30 years, until Brent Mayne did so in 2000.
Colavito was movie-star handsome and, as you can see below, quite a hit with the ladies.
He married his wife Carmen in 1954 and they were married for 70 years (!) until his death did them part. Carmen survives him along with their three kids, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and the entire city of Cleveland, grateful for its adopted son from the Bronx.
Speaking of baseball, Dick Allen and Dave Parker were voted into the Hall of Fame this week by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. Bravo, gentlemen — well-deserved. I was shocked, shocked, to learn that my autograph collection was missing both of these sluggers. OMG. I rectified it forthwith by finding two nice samples on ebay. Can’t wait for them to arrive!
As promised a few posts ago, here are Gillian and David:
Hope you’ve had your fill of nonsense for the day. See you tomorrow!
The State of Israel does not generally impose the death penalty.
But for you . . .
Capital punishment had never been imposed by Israel until Adolf Eichmann was put to death. Shalom Nagar, the prison guard tasked with releasing the trap door underneath Eichmann, thus causing his death by hanging, died himself in Israel two weeks ago. He was in his late 80s.
Nagar was out walking with his wife and infant son on 5/31/62 when a van screeched to a stop and he was grabbed. He knew immediately what it meant, but he had to talk the driver into turning around so he could let his wife know he wasn’t being kidnapped. “If I don’t, she’ll kill me — imagine the irony,” he said. (No he didn’t.)
Speaking of irony, of the 22 prison guards assigned to protect Eichmann, only Nagar wished not to be the executioner. But he was chosen by lottery and convinced to accept the assignment by being shown atrocities for which Eichmann was responsible.
Nagar talked about how careful they were to protect Eichmann during this period. To prevent a retaliatory attack on him, all the guards were Sephardic Jews unrelated to victims or survivors of the Holocaust, and his food was delivered in locked containers. “Before I gave him his meal, I had to taste it myself,” Nagar said. “If I didn’t drop dead after two minutes, the duty officer allowed the plate into his cell.”
The job of removing the noose from the dead body and preparing it for cremation was terribly gruesome. Nagar was supposed to accompany the ashes to a port so that a Coast Guard vessel could take them to be scattered beyond Israel’s territorial waters, but he was too shaken and was sent home instead. When he arrived, covered in blood, his wife was stunned, and the hanging haunted Nagar for the rest of his life.
In discussing the execution years later, Nagar invoked Amalek, the biblical archenemy of ancient Israel, to justify his task. In spite of the trauma, he said, he appreciated the value of his experience: God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”
Shalom Nagar, alav hashalom, is survived by all the rest of us, we who are still here.
Where else but in Owl Chatter will you find a segue from that story to today’s NYTXW? At 65A the clue was “Repositions, as tires,” and the answer was ROTATES.
My mechanic Marvin suggested I rotate my tires, but I said “Don’t they rotate by themselves as I drive?”
I was horrified to learn he had become addicted to brake fluid. I said “Marvin, that’s very dangerous.” And he said, “Don’t worry, I can stop whenever I want to.” Here are the hallowed grounds.
At 15A, the actress who said “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it” was MAE WEST. I guess she was the Ana de Armas of her day.
Take a load off, girl — you ever hear of Fresca? Georgie — get our guest a cold one!!
As some of you already know, we welcomed a new owlet to our Owl Chatter family (Michigan branch): Harold Barney Crane Liveson, born 11:49 last night (12/10), at 5 lb 4 oz, Morris’s baby bro. Welcome aboard little fella. We have so much nonsense to share with you!! Scads of it!!
Kooz! — you got anything for us on this special day?
This is one of my favorites, from Winter Morning Walks.
Walking in darkness, in awe, beneath a billion indifferent stars at quarter to six in the morning, the moon already down and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning at the edge of the west, my shoes too loud in the gravel that, faintly lit, looks to be little more than a contrail of vapor, so thin, so insubstantial it could, on a whim, let me drop through it and out of the day, but I have taught myself to place one foot ahead of the other in noisy confidence as if each morning might be trusted, as if the sounds I make might buoy me up.
Today’s puzzle’s theme involved the five senses. You know, sight, smell, etc. And Commenter Anoa Bob just had to show off:
“As an aside, there are more than five senses. For example there’s proprioception, a sense of body position, the vestibular sense of gravity and acceleration/deceleration and the haptic sense, the ability to identify familiar objects by touch only.”
Okay — thanks!
The letters for SMELL were embedded, not too painfully I hope, in the actor SAM ELLIOTT. TIL he’s married to Katherine Ross — Elaine from The Graduate. They’ve been married for 40 years — which is also the age of their daughter Cleo — what are the odds? You may recall KR was very pretty and very alluring in The Graduate? Then you won’t be surprised to see what Cleo looks like. Brace yourself, fellas. Our beauty and culture consultant, Ana, notes the effective use of both smoky eyes and bed head. Thanks, Armas.
Let’s end tonight with two pet pix shared by Rex from his commenters. First is Freya. Rex’s comment: “Freya is concerned this sweater makes her butt look big. (How do you people even get your cats into these get-ups? When I imagine trying to put a sweater on either of my cats, I can already feel claws slashing my arms and (probably) face).”
And here’s Woody, “who’s just glad to be here,” says Rex. “He thinks his left side is his good side. All your sides are good, Woody!”
We arrived early for the Gillian Welch concert at Capital One Hall in Tyson’s Corner Sunday night, with me worried about how parking would work and the digital tickets. After only minor glitches (by my standards) we were in this gorgeous lobby with plenty of time to spare.
Our seats were pretty good — Side Orchestra, Row L. The audience was a nice mix of ages, albeit 100% white. And the concert was excellent. I’ll try to find a nice song to share with you later in the week. Gillian and her musical partner Dave Rawlings are both in their mid-50’s. I stupidly didn’t think to familiarize myself with their music, esp the new album Woodlands (or the Yiddish version, Voodlands), and only knew one of her songs Look At Miss Ohio, which I shared on Owl Chatter awhile ago. I hoped they would perform it, but their music is very accessible and we loved it all. Their two regular sets ended without a performance of Miss Ohio, but the audience got them back out for two encores and they finally sang Miss Ohio for one of them — beautifully. It was just the two of them on guitar all night with a backup bass player. Dave’s guitar was excellent and Gillian’s voice perfect. Great concert. I would have enjoyed more banter from them, but that’s a very small nit to pick.
As you may recall, our assignment for Sunday morning was to drive about 20 minutes (Alexandria is big) to the Aslin Brewery to get a four-pack or two of their highly rated ales. I sampled one, bought it, drove back to our hotel, discovered I left my credit card at the Brewery, drove back to get it and then drove back to the hotel again. Seniors at play. Arggggh.
A highlight both mornings was good strong coffee and excellent breakfasts at St. Elmo’s Cafe, where we lingered comfortably, doing puzzles and gazing at the locals.
As I mentioned yesterday, this was the Del Ray section of Alexandria. I tried to get a shot of this “Greetings From Del Ray” artwork, but some fat guy kept blocking me.
We left on the early side Monday because it was rainy, and meandered our way home the long way, through York, PA. I read about a neat lunch place we wanted to try called Gather 256, and it was great. In the middle of nowhere, a community center type of coffee place with sandwiches. We each had a cappucino, and ordered the roasted veggie panini and the Cubano, but couldn’t even start the veggie — they were so big. Very friendly folks too — will certainly try to get back there. Look how nice.
Here’s a bumper sticker I liked from New Orleans via Del Ray: No Black, No White: Just the Blues.
Okay — as I always say after a trip — Back to our miserable lives. (I said that to our very friendly limo driver on the way to the airport in Dublin for our flight home and he loved it and said he’s going to use it on customers.)
Do you have a spelling bugaboo? Many of us do — a word or words you just can’t spell no matter how many times you write it over the years. One of mine was niece — for decades I just couldn’t get the “ie” part down. Anyway, Monday’s puzzle sent Rex off on a hilarious (IMO) spelling rant. It wasn’t any word in the puzzle so much as the name of the constructor. Here’s what he wrote.
“OK, first of all, this constructor’s name is like a double-dog-dare challenge. Is it the two-L “Elliot” or the two-T “Elliott” or the combo of both or is it just one “L” one “T,” two “L”s one “T” … if I didn’t have a computer to remember it for me, I’d be misspelling it all day long, forever and ever. And then add in the last name of “Caroll,” which has Exactly The Same Spelling Issues. One or two “R”s? One or two “L”s. Both? Neither? Nightmare. Surprised the constructor can even spell their own name. Clare Carroll has been writing for me (on the last Tuesday of every month) for years now, and I’m still like “… is it Claire with an ‘I’? Without? Two “R”s? Two “L”s? Both? Neither?” Anyway, congrats on the debut, two-L’s one-T one-R two-Ls Elliot Caroll. Man, I just realized that this name also has the two first names / two last names issue. Carol Eliot. Elliot Caroll. It’s the slipperiest name imaginable. And so innocuous-looking. Also gender ambiguous! Most of the El(l)iot(t)s I know are men, but today’s constructor is a woman. I’m really in awe of this name. It would be so much easier to just call her “Al,” but where’s the challenge in that? In semi-conclusion, Elliot Caroll is a lovely name, even if I am doomed to never spell it correctly on the first try.”
Rex’s reference to “Call me Al” was apt because that was the theme of EC’s puzzle. The theme revealer was the Paul Simon tune, YOU CAN CALL ME AL, and the three theme answers had first words that you could shorten to AL: ALBERT BROOKS, ALABAMA SLAMMER, and ALUMINUM FOIL. I bet most of you old timers are familiar with this video. I still love it and am sharing it here for the benefit of you young’uns.
I think Rex only started this last year, but it was so popular, it’s becoming a regular December tradition. His readers send him holiday themed photos of their pets and he shares them. I sent in Zoey with her cat Emily last year. It was neat. Here’s one from this year: It’s Cleo, and as Rex put it — good luck finding her.
I have lambasted the New Yorker cartoons for being the opposite of funny in these pages in the past. I was about to do so again several issues ago for a collection of cartoons so lame I wondered if there was some campaign being waged to destroy humor. I didn’t do so for the reason I usually don’t do whatever I don’t do — too f*cking lazy. But then, it today’s issue, I saw this cartoon by Avi Steinberg. Hope you like it as much as we do.
We’re staying in the Del Ray area of Alexandria in a hotel with a virtual lobby. They emailed me a secret code to get in. It took me 45 minutes to figure out the TV. I had to go to websites and enter things. Still got to see the Dawgs topple Texas for the SEC title in OT. Gutsy fake punt. Wow.
It’s a wonderful part of town. There’s a public piano. Just sit down and bang away.
Very dog friendly. Look at just part of this wall. (Hi Norrie!)
We drove 1.5 mi. to an Ethiopian restaurant in the middle of nowhere for dinner. The woman who waited on us was so sweet we didn’t care that our order got screwed up. It was all yummy anyway.
And my cold Fathead Ale from Pittsburgh was perfect with it. Tomorrow we’ll visit the Aslin Brewery, Virginny’s finest. And dinner will be takeout from this BBQ shack not far away.
Whenever I’m down here I remember a Joseph Heller character who introduced herself as “Virginia: Virgin for short. But not for long!”
The Wellington Files 