From the Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Frank Longo, is a difficulty-fest, especially in the midwest and southwest. The puzzle’s midwest and southwest, that is. For instance:

38-Across, nine letters: “Tortilla, at times.” TACOSHELL? Nope.

59-Across, five letters: “It’s not a lock.”

47-Down, four letters: “Coup follower, perhaps.”

49-Down, four letters: “Green type.” NEON? Nope.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle, 55-Across, nine letters: “Things with numbers that spin.”

No spoilers in crossword posts; the answers are in the comments.

“The ‘Desert Island’ Explained”

[Illustration by Ben Leddy. 18 × 12 inches. Click for a much larger island.]

I found a sketchpad at the bottom of a closet and began to turn the pages. Think of this illustration as a young (ten?) artist’s explanation of a standard cartooning premise.

[Posted with the artist’s permission.]

Rhymes with Moscow

[Zippy, June 8, 2018.]

Today’s Zippy calls for knowledge of a jingle.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Be prepared (?)

““I think I’m very well prepared. I don’t think I have to prepare very much”: Dunning K. Trump, commenting on his upcoming meeting with Kim Jong-un. Yeah, you got this.

Related reading
All OCA Dunning-Kruger posts

NJ OED

“Welcome to Jersey, where the sandwiches are fat, GSP can refer to a mall or a major highway and ripper isn’t part of the moniker for a serial killer”: the Oxford English Dictionary is looking for words from New Jersey.

This post is for our friends Luanne and Jim, who introduced us to Rutt’s Hut, home of the ripper. It was great to restaurant-hop with Luanne and Jim here in Illinois this week.

[Fat sandwiches: yikes. GSP: Garden State Plaza, Garden State Parkway.]

Clarence Fountain (1929–2018)

Clarence Fountain, gospel singer and leader of the Blind Boys of Alabama, has died at the age of eighty-eight. The New York Times has an obituary.

Here is one small sample of Clarence Fountain’s voice that’s dear to me: “Stop Do Not Go On,” from The Gospel at Colonus (1985), with the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, J.J. Farley and the Original Soul Stirrers, and Sam Butler. Lyrics by Lee Breuer, music by Bob Telson. Based on Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, as translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. YouTube also has The Gospel at Colonus in its entirety. It’s one of the most remarkable and emotionally powerful reimaginings of ancient myth I know.

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Oui yogurt Now with Vietnamese coffee.

Rogers artifacts

A puppet, a letter, a memo, a photograph, a video clip: “Fred Rogers’s Life in Five Artifacts.” The documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (dir. Morgan Neville) opens on June 8.

Mister Rogers really did answer his mail. We have two letters from him in our files, one for the grown-ups, one for the non-.

Related posts
Blaming Mister Rogers : Fred Rogers and Pittsburgh : Lady Elaine’s can : Off, or back, to school

Got gum?

[Henry, June 6, 2018.]

In the dowdy world, all stamps must be licked. But not at the window.

Related reading
All OCA dowdy world and Henry posts (Pinboard)

Putting the wagon before the horse

Driving through Amish country, I saw a wagon with one horse, one driver, and a second horse tethered to the wagon and following behind. I wondered: an Amish tow truck? No, more likely a horse in training, or a horse that needed to be dropped off somewhere. Which would make the wagon something of a tow truck, wouldn’t it? Your guess may be better than mine.