No. 162: "Check It Twice"
The list includes Louis Vuitton handbags, Mont Blanc
pens, pecorino cheese, and cashmere sweaters, pullovers, sweat shirts, and
waistcoats. List of what?
by noon
ET Wednesday to e-mail your answer to [email protected] .
Monday's question (No.
161)--"Rapoportable":
Jacques Rapoport led the search for something
"that was sweet rather than violent, that lingered for two weeks, and that
suggested a feeling of cleanliness and well-being rather than of filthiness
being covered up." What was Rapoport looking
for?
"An unshowered Diane Sawyer on a lazy Sunday
morning."-- Danny Spiegel
"An
alternative to the Senate impeachment trial."-- Fred Graver ( Paul
Tullis , Adam Bonin , Greg Barbero , and Greg Diamond had
similar answers.)
"An
undiscovered type of drunken sex."-- Steve Lyle (similarly, but sober,
Katha Pollitt ; but Pine Sol clean, Paul Tullis )
"Whatever it was, if he was looking in France, he probably had to look for a
long time."-- David Ballard
"A
scent to improve the smell of the Paris Metro. He's chosen Meg Ryan."-- Beth
Sherman
Click
for more responses.
Randy's Wrap-Up
It's a tough position for New Yorkers
(as many of you are) to be put in--invited to joke about scents and
sensibilities. How can you gain the moral high ground, that lofty crag from
which to hurl down scorn, when your native city--what's the
word?--stinks.
The best tactic for a situation tainted by your own
imperfection is to define yourself as the happy medium, superior to those on
both your left and right. Thus, cleaner than we are and they're prigs (like the
Swiss); dirtier than we are and they're pigs (like the French). Or as Bob
Livingston explains it, my history of adultery is only human (more human than
that of those unsinning prigs, my critics), and I confessed to everything the
moment I was sure I'd been found out (unlike our perjuring, porcine
president).
Fouler even than the odor of contemporary Washington
or Paris or New York was that of 18 th century anywhere. Late in the
evening of Aug. 14, 1773, James Boswell welcomed to his home city his great
friend. "Mr. Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High Street to my house in
James's Court; it was a dusky night; I could not prevent his being assailed by
the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. A zealous Scotsman would have wished Mr.
Johnson to be without one of his five senses upon this occasion. As we marched
slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, 'I smell you in the dark!' "
Look for that phrase at
the impeachment trial.
Olfactory Worker
Answer
As Beth
Sherman and others knew, Rapoport was seeking a perfume to nasally improve the
Paris metro. After screening 500 scents, his team selected a fragrance they
named "Madeleine," after Paris' most noisome station. Each month, a ton and a
half of it will be added to the cleaning products used throughout the subway
system.
What's the Trouble
Extra
Fill in the blank by matching each problem with its
cause.
The Causes
A. A coyote
B. A millionaire
C. The Vienna Boys Choir
The Problems
1. Explaining what led to her resignation,
Karl-Heinz Schenk said, "The trouble with Mrs. Grossmann is, at some point, she
began to believe that she personally was _______."
2. Contemplating trouble on the range, Sam Luce
said, "They are in our chicken houses, killing our chickens, killing our barn
cats. A lot of the sportsmen consider them a target. That puts the wolf in a
bad situation, because he looks just like _______."
3. Musing on the recruiting trouble in the Army,
Sgt. Daniel DeMilio said, "You're never going to be __________."
Answers
1-C,
2-A, 3-B.
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