Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Lester Ruff,” one of the names Stan Newman uses with easier Stumpers of his making. This puzzle could be the work of P. Soffkayk — it’s that easy. Certainly the easiest Stumper I’ve seen. Look at the start: 1-A, seven letters, “Snow job.” And 1-D, seven letters, “Carrot kin.” See? There some a couple of tough spots in the lower left: 38-D, seven letters, “Calixa Lavallée’s best-known tune” and 63-A, seven letters, “They’re hysterical” had me thinking that I would have to guess. But things fell together after all.

If you noticed the sevens: like the December 5 Stumper, also by Stan Newman, this puzzle is fully symmetrical. Thirty-six of its seventy-two answers have seven letters.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, seven letters, “’60s TV superstar.” I was surprised at how obvious the answer was once I had a cross.

14-D, seven letters, “China groups.” Pairs nicely with its downstairs neighbor, 44-D, seven letters, “‘Free gift’ ads.”

19-A, five letters, “Pens that don’t write.” I’ve found the Pilot G-Tec-C3 prone to skipping.

39-D, seven letters, “Foolish folks.” A word that’s seen a revival of late.

46-A, seven letters, “Western associate.” My first thought: COUNTRY. But it’s not that kind of Stumper.

64-A, seven letters, “Lavalava wearers.” Does everyone already know this?

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

The little phrase on the move

At the Verdurins’, a pianist plays for Charles Swann and Odette de Crécy “the little phrase“ from Vinteuil’s sonata for violin and piano "that was like the anthem of their love.“

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

I like the description of music in painterly terms. Eric Karpeles pairs this passage with the painting Mother Lacing Her Bodice Against a Cradle. Here is a detail.

[Pieter de Hooch, detail from Mother Lacing Her Bodice Against a Cradle (1670). Click for a larger view.]

Not long ago Elaine and I were talking about de Hooch’s Courtyard with an Arbour. We believe we’ve seen it, but where? The Met? In The Age of Rembrandt? But that exhibition was Met holdings only, and Courtyard with an Arbour is in a private collection. Besides, we wouldn’t have been in Mew York when that exhibition ran. I suspect that we looked up the painting after reading about it — somewhere. In which case, we’ve seen not the painting but a reproduction.

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[Eric Karpeles’s Paintings in Proust (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008) is a helpful book to have on hand.]

“Encased or lost”

Odette de Crécy disappears beneath her clothes:

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

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[To make sense of the syntax: read “that led” and “that directed” as parallel.]

Nancy synchronicity

[Nancy, May 19, 1953. Click for a larger view.]

[Nancy, December 18, 2020. Click for a larger view.]

Yesterday’s Nancy is today’s Nancy.

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Idiom of the day: hurrah’s nest

From the Naked City episode “Idylls of a Running Back” (September 26, 1962). Lieutenant Mike Parker speaks:

“This is a hurrah’s nest, and the sooner it’s dumped on the district attorney’s desk, the better I like it.”

A what? Merriam-Webster says that a hurrah’s nest is “an untidy heap, mess.” Specifically, “a tangle of debris blocking a trail or stream.” Webster’s Second marks the expression as Colloq., U.S. The Oxford English Dictionary defines hurrah’s nest as “a confused or disorderly mass,” “a state of confusion or disorder.” The first citation, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1829): ”A queer-looking Dutchman, with a head like a ‘hurra’s nest.’” The OED marks the expression as U.S. None of these sources explains how this curious phrase came to be.

But I know how it came to be in Naked City: Ernest Kinoy, the episode’s writer, thought, Let me put in this odd phrase. And then someone with curiosity and dictionaries and a little time on his hands will look it up.

Done!

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[“His hands”: because I am imagining a voice from 1962.]

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Words of the year Now with unprecedented.

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

I think he’s pretty recognizable, but he’d be more so if this picture were a talking picture. Do you recognize him? Leave your guess in a comment. I’ll drop an oblique hint if necessary.

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Here’s a hint: He’d be more recognizable if you could hear him talking. But if you were sitting at the bottom of a pool in scuba gear, you wouldn’t be able to hear him talking.

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Elaine has a suggestion: You need to look elsewhere for a clue. Elsewhere.

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The answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

A flying desk

Morning approaches. “The brief uncertainty” of waking has faded; the narrator knows what room he is in and has reconstructed it in the dark. Or so he believes.

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

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I just discovered that I posted the same sentence in 2007 when I first read Proust. Well, a good sentence is a good sentence.

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This sentence too.

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Of Harrises and Kings

[Candace Hilligoss (“Mrs. Harris”) and Sanford Meisner (Kip Harris). From the Naked City episode “Hold for Gloria Christmas,” September 19, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

A bar owner points the police to a friend and patron of a dead poet: “You know, Kip Harris, the writer. He’s always on television with his young wife.”

In 1962 those lines would have unmistakably suggested Alexander King (1899–1965) and Margie King (1932–2018). Between 1959 and 1961, Alex and Margie made five joint appearances on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Alex made many more solo appearances. In 1959 Alex and Margie had a show of their own, Alex in Wonderland, on New York City’s Channel 13 (public television). And in 1959 Margie made a brief appearance in an episode of Naked City.

Elaine and I knew Margie as Margie King Barab. We visited Margie and her husband Seymour Barab in New York every summer for many years. On one visit we watched an episode of Alex in Wonderland on Margie’s MacBook: Margie raised questions and posed topics, and Alex expounded. It was Ask Me Anything, pre-Reddit. At one point Margie played a solo on a snare drum.

From a New York Times article, “Man of Many Words: Alexander King Appears to Have Rich Source of Material for TV Show” (April 12, 1959):

Mr. King talks frequently, on and off the air, about his wife, a young woman from Chadron, Neb., whom he married six years ago. Mrs. King has appeared on the musical stage in summer stock. She obtained some of her musical training as an exchange student in France. She played a snare drum in high school and occasionally does a drum solo on the TV program. “We thought it would be fun,” she says.

O mid-century world, that had such people in’t!

As for the actors in that screenshot: you may recognize Candace Hilligloss from Carnival of Souls (dir. Herk Harvey, 1962). Hilligoss studied with the actor and acting teacher Sanford Meisner.

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“Like little boats”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

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