From Finger Man (dir. Harold D. Schuster, 1955). T-man Burns (Hugh Sanders) speaks about a criminal boss:
“Look — you know the mobs, how they operate. One strong, ruthless man can tie a syndicate together. He pushes the buttons and pulls the strings, and all over the nation his vicious rackets are set in motion. He’s a dictator. We’re after one of those dictators. We want him bad.”
I was disheartened this morning to hear the announcer at a nearby NPR affiliate say that Vladimir Putin “has begun peacekeeping operations in Ukraine.” So I called the station and left a message, suggesting that the phrasing be changed to “what he calls peacekeeping operations.” An hour later the announcer said that Putin “has sent troops to Ukraine.” The change might be coincidental.
As many people have already pointed out, every journalist who refers to “peacekeeping operations in Ukraine,” without attributing that language to the Russian state, is doing Vladimir Putin’s work. Totalitarian euphemism should never get a pass.
*
Wow: two return calls, and an assurance that they’re going to be more careful about the phrasing.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (2021) ends with words from the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano on a black background, translated in the subtitles below:
No hay historia muda. Por mucho que la quemen, por mucho que la rompan, por mucho que la mientan, la historia humana se niega a callarse la boca.Elaine and I saw Parallel Mothers not long ago, and I finally tracked down the source of these sentences: Galeano’s Patas arriba: Escuela del mundo al revés (1998), translated by Mark Fried as Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World (2000).
No history is mute. No matter how much they burn it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth.
I was walking with my mom in upper Manhattan. We had to get back to the Port Authority, and then to New Jersey, but first we had to do some shopping. So we split up.
I found my mom in a drugstore. She had a headache and wanted to buy Tylenol. I started looking.
The drugstore was a maze of small rooms, some with short aisles of consumer goods, others with wall shelves holding what appeared to be prescription drugs. Still other rooms had hospital beds, with patients in them. I couldn’t understand why I was allowed to walk through these rooms.
I found someone to ask about Tylenol. She was young, smartly dressed, carrying a clipboard, looking like someone from cable news. I followed her as she walked through several rooms. “I found a bed where my mom can rest,” I said. “But I need to buy some Tylenol.”
She walked to another room, sat down on a sofa, and looked at her clipboard. “I thought you were showing me where the Tylenol is!” I said. She looked at me angrily. A timer in my pocket beeped.
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No wonder I couldn’t figure out last week’s Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle: the solution, revealed this morning, required that you hear the names Aaron and Erin as soundalikes. For some people they are, just as marry, Mary, and merry are soundalikes. But not for everyone.
Will Shortz apologized this morning (with a slight laugh) to anyone for whom the names are not soundalikes. Does he test the Sunday puzzles on human subjects before using? Does anyone approve the puzzles for use? O whither respect for regional differences in pronunciation? O whither the gatekeepers?
A further complication that Elaine would like me to point out: solving the puzzle also required that you accept Aaron in reverse as yielding Nora. Uh, no.
And, I’ll add, solving the puzzle also required you to think — as Shortz does — that Aaron and Nora share a short e as a vowel sound. (That’s what he said.) Again, no — Nora ends in a schwa: ə.
[Can names be considered homophones? I have dodged that question while writing this post. I‘ve e-mailed NPR about this puzzle and am wondering if I’ll hear back.]
More outtakes to come.
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Outtakes (1) : Outtakes (2) :
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Stella Zawistowski, a constructor known for difficult puzzles. (Her website: Tough As Nails.) This puzzle was easier fun, with a number of surprising answers. I missed by one letter, for what I think is a good reason. An explanation will follow in the comments.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-D, four letters, “Like in a trattoria.” I like.
12-A, ten letters, “‘Fruity’ earth tone.” One of my favorite colors.
18-A, fifteen letters, “Cold-weather wear from the Shetlands.” Cozy and unusual.
28-D, five letters, “Ones’ places.” My first thought was of columns in arithmetic.
30-D, five letters, “Pseudonym that its owner pronounced to rhyme with ‘choice.’” No idea — I got it from crosses.
31-A, eleven letters, “Modern words of anticipation.” Well, contemporary words, though I’m not sure they’re words of anticipation. Maybe the kids today can verify.
32-D, six letters, “Go at it casually.” Clever.
47-A, fifteen letters, “Source of the Suwannee.” So this fifteen-letter source is real.
55-D, three letters, “Literally, ‘stir-fried mixture.’” Yes, please.
58-A, four letters, “One attending a ball.” My favorite clue in this puzzle.
The cross that messed me up: 1-A, three letters, “Letters seen on medicine cabinet tubes” and 2-D, four letters, “East Timor's capital.” I don’t think Zawistowski assumes that capital to be common knowlege. It’s supposed to be gettable from 1-A. My problem was with the medicine cabinet. No, not medicine cabinet tubes.
No spoilers; answers and further explanation of 1-A may be found in the comments.
Melania Trump’s NFTs (non-fungible tokens) of photographs from a defeated former president’s mad reign seem to be not exactly NFTs. The lady with the hat is selling 10,000 NFTs of photographs at $50 a pop. But wait: those 10,000 photographs aren’t 10,000 unique photographs (taken by taxpayer-paid White House photographers?). They’re copies of ten photographs, 250 to 1500 copies of each.
Forbes says that NFTs are “generally one of a kind, or at least one of a very limited run.” I think I know enough to know that 1000 copies is a rather large number for an NFT. The number of suckers in the world is larger still.
And multiple purchases are possible for anyone who wants to own the set of ten. A thought: would it be beyond this grifting helpmeet’s helpers to purchase all 250 copies of the “rarest” of these faux-NFTs to resell (greyly, greyly) at higher prices? 250 × $50 = $12,500. A mere bag of shells. Think of the possible return on investment.
She’s already bought back her hat.
[Pfft : “used to signify sarcasm or disagreement.”]
Organist and choirmaster Humphrey Cobbler has figured out something about Hector Mackilwraith, teacher of mathematics.
Tempest-Tost is the first novel of Davies’s Salterton Trilogy.
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I was walking down an avenue in Manhattan, past a Woolworth’s. And old woman (kerchief, gloves) sidled up to me and said, “They rely on Brooklyn for everything, don’t they? They count on Brooklyn to buy all the candy.”
I agreed. And I added, “I love Brooklyn.”
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[Inspired, no doubt, by thinking about the candy stores of my youth. For instance.]
