Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a deeply satisfying puzzle, one that often had me torn between “Huh?” and “Wha?” I was happy to get everything right (though it took half an hour).
Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
5-D, three letters, “GE cofounder.” Read the clue carefully.
9-D, five letters, “Viva voces, at Oxford.” The answer seems be turning up often in recent crosswords, but I haven’t seen it with this clue.
15-A, ten letters, “Pages in a pit.” Young workers at the Chicago Board of Trade, right?
17-A, ten letters, “One for two.” This was a “Huh?”
27-D, four letters, “Nonplus.” Used correctly!
29-A, six letters, “One of ‘The Almighty’s marines.’” I’ve never heard this expression.
29-D, six letters, “Handled like some art shows.” This was a “Wha?”
30-A, eight letters, “Didn’t sound off.” Nice misdirection.
31-D, three letters, “Circled Rs.” The clue adds value to the answer.
47-A, eight letters, “Outdoes in history.” Tricky.
60-A, ten letters, “Better.” Adjective? Adverb? Noun? Verb?
My favorite clue in today's puzzle: 28-A, five letters, “College course.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Friday, February 11, 2022
WJM Mongols
It’s always a treat to see an Eberhard Faber Mongol on camera. These screenshots are from the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The first two: from “Second Story Story” (January 23, 1971). The last two: from “Smokey the Bear Wants You” (February 27, 1971). Pretty strong evidence that the WJM newsroom was a Mongol newsroom, at least for one season.
Elaine and I began to wonder whether the newsroom had more than one pencil. Was WJM an a Mongol newsroom? The next screenshot answers that question.
So they had at least two pencils.
Elaine: “They probably had a whole box.”
I’m not sure if the Mongol appears beyond the first season. Four episodes into season two, it’s nothing but Ticonderogas and no-names.
Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard) : I envy Mary Richards
Pencil books for children
The Musgrave Pencil Company recommends four children’s books about pencils (and their friends the erasers).
If it’s possible to judge a book by its cover, I lean toward Scott Magoon’s Linus: The Little Yellow Pencil. Looking at sample pages, I lean toward Max Amato’s Perfect. Must. Investigate. Further.
Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Not telling, telling
In early February 2020 Donald Trump** told Bob Woodward that the COVID-19 virus was airborne. And in mid-March Trump** told Woodward that he “wanted to always play it down.” As did Woodward, I suppose: it wasn’t until early September 2020 that he made these things known when his book Rage was published. How many lives might have been saved had Woodward revealed months earlier what he had been told?
Today Maggie Haberman tweeted the news about her forthcoming book Confidence Man : “I'm thrilled to share the cover and title of my upcoming book about former President Trump!” Oh so cheerful. Haberman teased pre-orders with the news that Trump** was flushing documents down White House toilets. When did she learn about that? And why did she sit on the news, so to speak, for so long? How many documents might have been saved from a watery end if this presidential practice had been made public? And might someone, somewhere, have lost faith in the autocrat had Haberman revealed this grotesque detail earlier on? It’s at least possible.
The best comment on the matter I’ve seen is from academic, lawyer, and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa:
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you become aware that someone may have committed a federal felony, it’s important to call the FBI and not save it for your next book.[Now we can better understand why the defeated former president was always complaining about having to flush toilets ten or fifteen times. And, of course, it was the toilet, not the document flusher, that was to blame.]
Garner on Black and white
“We applaud the new policy of the AP Stylebook and the hundreds of publications that have followed suit”: Bryan Garner explains why it makes sense to capitalize Black but not white.
How to improve writing (no. 100)
A sentence from a New York Times article:
It is unclear what the inspector general has done since then, in particular, whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department.The phrase in particular (which at first seems to follow from since then) and the repeated inspector general make for an ungainly sentence. My revision:
It is unclear whether whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department or taken any other action.Even better:
The inspector general has referred to matter to the Justice Department, which has opened an investigation.Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 100 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
With apologies to Malvina Reynolds
Little boxes from the White House,
Little boxes gone to Florida,
Little boxes from the White House,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a pink one, and a green one,
And one marked “Love from Kim Jong-un,”
And they’ve all gone down to Florida,
And they all look just the same.
SCAT happens
From today’s New Yorker crossword, by Natan Last: 44-A, four letters, “Emulate Jelly Roll Morton, in a way.” The answer: SCAT. No. This, I suspect, is what happens when someone goes to Wikipedia to create a clue.
Yes, the Wikipedia article about scat singing references Morton’s discussion of the origins of scat singing. And Morton gave a demonstration of scat singing in his 1938 Library of Congress sessions. But I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many jazz listeners who would ever think of Morton — pianist, composer, and bandleader — as a scat singer.
And no, Mel Tormé is still not a “cool jazz pioneer.”
I will now cheer myself by listening to the “Avocado Seed Soup Symphony.” Scat surrealism at its finest.
[If Last had done a little more browsing, he might have chosen a better clue, because while Wikipedia’s article about scat singing mentions Morton, Wikipedia’s article about Morton doesn’t mention scat singing.]
Rhythmical snorting
Walter Vambrace is instructing his daughter Pearl (eighteen) in walking:
Tempest-Tost is the first novel of Davies’s Salterton Trilogy.
Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)
[The wheezing background noise in this video might suggest a phantom roaster.]
Sen-Sen again
From Christmas Eve (dir. Edward L. Marin, 1947). Aunt Matlilda (Ann Harding) gives instructions:
“Remember, Robert, when William brings Mr. Jonathan to the car, you must conduct yourself as though he had never gone away.”Mr. Jonathan, you see, drinks.
“Yes, ma’am. I even have the package of Sen-Sen to give to him before he kisses you.”
No one will ever have this conversation again, for Sen-Sen is no more.
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Cachou Lajaunie : Dingburg’s Main Street : Violet candy and Mad Men
