WWDTM: Lyndon Barrois, Sr.
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This message comes from Peloton. Whatever road lies ahead, your training starts here. From classes on Peloton Tread or Tread Plus to outdoor runs on the Peloton app. Peloton All Access Memberships separate. Learn more at onepeloton.com slash running. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.

Ready for something spicy? I'm your red hot Billy Pepper. Bill Curtis and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Stegall. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for being with us.

We do have a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to Lyndon Barois, an artist who became famous by making tiny sculptures out of gum wrappers. His art is now in museums and private collections all over the world.

He is an inspirational tale, especially to all of us with garbage piled up on our desks. Just tell everybody it's raw material for your art. We are very eager to hear what you've been stockpiling, so give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Hi, it's Ellen Sturgis from Stowe, Massachusetts. Hey, I know Stowe, Massachusetts. What do you do there? I provide interim management for non-profit organizations. You provide interim management? Yes. Right. So I go in, I'm primarily a finance person. I go into a non-profit having some issues and help them get reorganized and then I move on to the next one. Right. You're sort of like the Lone Ranger, but with spreadsheets.

But it was only that cool. I know, and you leave and they're like, who was that masked interim director? Well, and welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian whose album, Yell a Joy, is streaming across all the platforms. It's Joelle Nicole Johnson. Thank you.

Hey, girl. Next, he is a stand-up comedian performing in San Francisco on May 8th, Seattle May 10th and 11th, and in Portland, Oregon on May 12th. It's Josh Gondelman. Hello. Thank you.

I guess I'm kind of an interim comedian. I show up, I do my job, and then I leave. Until the real comedian comes back. Yeah, that's right. And making his debut on our panel this week, he's a stand-up comedian headlining the Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles, May 7th, and the host of the New Guys podcast, it's River Butcher. Hey. Hey, Ellen. Hey, Ellen.

So, Ellen, you're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. Your job, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Do that, you will win our prize. Any voice from our show, you might choose for your very own voicemail. Are you ready to go? I am ready. Okay. Here is your first quote. The administration will move to reclassify it after a review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. Okay, that was a little dry, but what if I told you that was...

Times Magazine reporting on the White House's move to reclassify what this week? That would be marijuana. Yes, indeed. Cannabis weed. Thank you.

Grass! The devil's herb, the DEA has been told to reclassify marijuana from a schedule one drug, that is a group that includes, among other things, heroin, to a schedule three drug, that's a group that includes ketamine and whatever the cool soccer moms are taking. Now, most people think this change is about Biden trying to make a pre-election pitch to appeal to younger voters.

And that might be true, but it might also be a mistake to pin your hopes for an election on the population most likely to forget when election day is.

Have you guys been following this at all? Is this of any interest to you? Because it's of interest to a lot of people. I've always treated it like it was Schedule 3, so. Yeah, really. It is still very legal on the federal level because it has been classified as a Schedule 1 drug. And that means in the law, it's as bad as heroin and worse than cocaine, which...

Which is, when you think about a kind affair, cocaine has never caused anyone to start a jam band. Wait, look, I know that cocaine has never made anyone start a jam band, but marijuana has never made anyone start a hedge fund. All right, here's a question. You guys are very, what shall we say, accomplished political pundits. Do you think that this will help Biden with the youth vote?

I think it's good that he did this. From a medical point of view and a criminal justice point of view, I do feel like with all the reasons the youth vote is mad at him now, this does feel a little bit like maybe an open relationship will save our marriage. Like, it really seems like kind of a, like, I gotta try something. Yeah.

All right. Ellen, your next quote is from the director of the Louvre Museum in Paris talking about a newly announced plan for a renovation. Moving her to a separate room could put an end to public disappointment. So what is apparently everyone always disappointed by at the Louvre?

I would say the lines of the Mona Lisa? Yes, the Mona Lisa! Not just the lines, the painting itself. It's the most famous painting in the world. 20,000 people see it every day and 19,900 of them say the experience was a letdown. The rest were all pickpockets.

So in this new plan that they just announced, the painting will be moved to a dedicated room in the basement, giving it the exotic, refined aura of a Peloton bike you no longer use. LAUGHTER

Have you guys been to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre? Yeah, I've been to see it. And it's crazy because there's a whole lot of large paintings that you're walking through and you go through and see the tiny Mona Lisa. And I've had this same experience on a date before. It was less disappointing on the date. All right. The painting, did you know this? The painting ended up in the Louvre after spending time, and this is true, hanging in Napoleon Bonaparte's bedroom.

Man, if you had to watch that, you wouldn't smile again. Napoleon, someone else I assume people thought would be bigger. Exactly. Maybe that's why he has the Mona Lisa. Exactly. Because it's to scale. No, he would stand next to my anonymous painting so that he would seem larger. He's Le Muro. Exactly.

All right, here is your last quote. It is from a New York Times story about a particular problem in relationships. Her fiance had no interest in sharing the bed with it. That was from an article this week about how to approach an issue that some couples are facing early on in their relationships, how to introduce their new partner to whom? Oh, can I have a hint? Yeah, it's like, well, you know, I can't sleep without my Paddington, so you're just going to have to live with it.

Oh my god, you're stuffed animals? Yes, you're stuffed animals! So this is a problem, apparently young people have. Adults who are holding onto their stuffed animals from childhood are trying to figure out when is the best time to introduce them to new romantic partners. And you might be surprised to learn the answer is not never. I feel like you, you know, you just have a nice, you set up a little tea party, you do the introductions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So here's what happens. You also have to introduce them to the family as well, because my cousin married a woman who was into dolls and like the life, the big ones. And how big? Like these big ones. But when we walked into her house for her first like party, she had a life-size doll with her wedding dress on in the living room. Yeah. And my family's messy. So anytime somebody came in, they were like, did you see it?

We were like, see what? They're like, go in the living room right now. If you say see what, you didn't see it. You didn't see it. Now, according again to a clinical psychologist, it is totally fine to have a stuffed animal as an adult. In fact, they can help regulate your nervous system and improve sleep. Okay, that's cool, but it is a red flag when you start to date somebody and they say, my teddy bear and I have been talking and we're ready for a third. Laughter

We're happy to say that people are dealing with it. This is from the Times article, and I quote, Ms. Roth said her husband is very supportive of Scooter. He loves him like his own now, she added. Nevertheless, her husband declined to comment for this article. I like that that guy has big, like, he's got real stepdad of a stuffed animal energy. He's like, yep, I love it. I love it like my own. Do I want to talk about it? No.

Hi, this is the New York Times. I'd like to talk to you about your wife's stuffed animal. No comment. Hired a publicist. Bill, how did Ellen do in our quiz? Perfect. Well done, Ellen. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Reverend, after a group of zebras escaped from a transport trailer in Washington State, they were successfully recaptured thanks to whom? Can I have a hint? Yeah, it's funny he did this because normally people just call him a real bozo.

A circus clown? Close. A rodeo clown. A rodeo clown. A rodeo clown. He just happened to be walking by when these animals escaped.

And he was like, my people. Exactly. Zebras, the clowns of horses. The zebras were heading from Washington State to Montana, presumably to do some skiing at Big Sky, when they escaped their trailer and started running down the interstate. Fortunately, a rodeo clown happened to be in the area and was able to assist in corralling the animals. It was the best day of his life.

often does a rodeo clown save the day? Nobody ever gets on a plane PA and says, is there a rodeo clown on board? We need whimsical distraction. It's also great because it was his second rodeo. That's true. Was he in...

full clown regalia or was he like an undercover clown? Like off-duty. I mean, I like to think he was like off-duty. So as soon as the zebras came charging down the interstate, he said, hang on a second, everybody. I got to put on my face. Or even just like holds out his red nose like a badge, like I got this from here. Yeah.

Coming up, our panelists make a name for themselves. It's our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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Simply safe. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Josh Gondelman, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and River Butcher. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sago. Yeah!

Thank you so much. So right now it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air, or you can check out the pinned post on our Instagram page at WaitWaitNPR. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Jody from Graniteville, Vermont. I have never heard of Graniteville. Where is that exactly?

Are you north of anything? LAUGHTER

North of Boston. All right. That's something. That's something. How many hours? I don't believe it. Jody, welcome to the show. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Jody's topic? They call this move the Bill Curtis. There's no better way to be memorialized for all time than to have something named after you. For example, pizza bagels named after the Earl of Pizza Bagel.

True. This week we heard about something new that has been named after the person who inspired it. Our panelists are going to tell you about that person and that thing. Pick the real one, you'll win the weight-waiter of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play? Yes. All right. First, let's hear from Joyelle Nicole Johnson. Intensity in sports is omnipresent, and the World Series of Poker is no different. The calculation and focus are painstakingly measured, but what's sometimes miscalculated? Bathroom breaks.

Danny Chu of Silver Spring, Maryland is an adept poker player. He's famous for his intense focus, which he gets from his secret weapon, holding it for as long as possible. But recently he pushed it too far. As he turned over his straight flush, which he hit on the river, taking the biggest pot of the tournament, he felt both triumph and a warm, wet sensation in his pants. Laughter

The dealer forced a break at this point for him to change and go to the bathroom, and now the tournament has nicknamed it the Chew Cut-Off. When asked if he's embarrassed or regrets not asking for a break, Chew answered with a resounding, no. I'll look into adult diapers before I let my concentration wane. His wife, however, cannot be reached for comment. All right.

The Chew Cut-Off, a mandatory bathroom break in poker tournaments named for a player who did not take one. Your next namesake saga comes from River Butcher.

Not everyone can sleep on airplanes, but Susie Castlewick can. This week, when Susie was flying from Chicago to Newark to visit her cousins, she intended to take a quick nap during the short flight. But thanks to her incredible ability to doze off above the clouds and recent staffing cuts for airline attendants, Susie flew completely uninterrupted and unconscious from Chicago to Sydney, Australia.

When asked about how they let this happen, the flight attendants commented on how Susie kept talking about how this was the trip of a lifetime and that she can't wait to see the sights. We never thought she'd be talking about Newark. LAUGHTER

Benefiting from the dreaded middle seat, Susie dozed off on the shoulders of the window and aisle passengers next to her, making it seem to attendants that they were traveling companions. Not only did she gain quadruple frequent flyer miles, as well as nearly 24 hours of sleep, she also had a new airline rule named after her, the snoozing Susie rule, which states, no matter how cozy or angelic or identical to the sleepy time T-Bear a passenger looks...

Flight attendants are now required to wake up passengers at regular intervals to avoid free trips down under. The snoozing Susie rule, a new rule on airlines to make sure that somebody doesn't sleep all the way to the antipodes. Your last name in the game comes from Josh Gondelman. Emily King, a teacher in San Jose, got more than she bargained for while inviting friends and family to her daughter's first birthday party, an event that the child will not remember an instant of.

King intended to set up a small gathering at a local park, but instead she accidentally invited all 487 of the contacts in her phone. What's worse, the invitations were sent based on how each name was stored in King's phone. Meaning she sent out messages addressed to, for two examples, Derek Iroll and Jess Hit-Her-Car-In-Parking-Lot.

On the plus side, Evite has added a new function to their app called the Emily Hotfix that stops future users from making the same mistake. It's the next best thing to having a disease named after you. Plus, King will have way fewer people to invite to her child's next birthday party thanks to all the new enemies she's made. All right. So there is something in the world named for the person who inspired it. Is it...

From Joelle Nicole Johnson, the chew cutoff, a mandatory bathroom break in poker tournaments named for a player, chew. From River Butcher, the snoozing Susie rule named for a passenger Susie who slept all the way to Australia. Or the Emily Huff Fix, a patch on the Evite software that will prevent anybody else doing what Emily did and accidentally inviting customers.

every one of their contacts to a party. Which of these is the real eponym in the week's news? I'm going to go with River's story and the snoozing Susie rule. You're going to go for River's story of the woman who got in a plane in Chicago just to go to Newark and ended up in Australia and slept the whole way. Are you encouraging me to change my answer? I am remaining studiously neutral. Okay.

Okay. And, however, patient. What'd you say? Josh's story? The Emily hotfix? Yes. All right. Well, here is... We're so very proud to present to you the person for whom this thing has, in fact, been named. Derek Iroll. He received an invitation. Jess hit her car in parking lot. Anyways, I have to quit or get a new identity. That was Emily King herself explaining on TikTok...

about all the people she accidentally invited to her kids' first birthday party. Congratulations, you did get it right. Joss was telling the truth. You broke River's heart, but what the hell? And thanks to Emily for being the pioneer in this embarrassing error so that nobody else will ever have to go through it. Congratulations, and thanks for playing. Thank you. Thank you. Great job.

So say my name. Huh? Look, you know what it is. You know you want it, need it.

And now the game we call Not My Job. Some artists are defined by their chosen medium. Michelangelo did miracles with marble, Rembrandt with oils, Larry David with complaining. Lyndon Barois is the greatest living artist whose medium is Wrigley gum wrappers. His tiny sculptures have been collected and displayed in museums all over the world. He joins us now. Lyndon Barois, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you for having me.

A little bit of a fact check here. I refer to you pretty confidently as the greatest living artist who works with gum wrappers.

Are there any others? No, I think I'm the only one on the planet, actually. Right, yeah. I think we just need to go right back to the beginning and ask you how you got started doing this. As a kid in New Orleans, you know, I just grew up making things all the time, you know, out of, you know, discarded foam wire, aluminum foil, you know, anything I got my hands on, you know, clay. And then, you know, when I was

Of the tons of gum that my mom chewed and I discovered, you know, her discarded wrappers were paper on one side and foil on the other, I had the idea that if I sculpted it with the paper side out, I can color it. And boom, the light switch went off and, you know...

Here I am. Right. You've got me here. I know. In your magnificent mansion made entirely of gum wraps. And this is where the only, one of my few times that I'm sad on the radio because I would love for people to instantly see these, but what people need to understand is like these are not, I don't know, little stick figures. They're incredibly detailed, miniature, full-body portraits. Oh, he's holding one up now. Yeah, and...

And the two you're holding up are football players. And was that where you started? Because I know that one of your first major projects was football, right? Well, yeah, that was the first solo show I had. But I actually started just from making drivers for Hot Wheels cars. Because, you know, the cars are so cool. You know, the doors open, the hood, the trunk, everything. But there's no driver, so it made no sense to me.

And so I just started making people to put in the car and never stopped. Did your mother like up her gum chewing to provide you with more raw material? She did, but then the doctors told her she had to stop because she'd swallow it and say, this is not healthy, man. Wow. That's like the low point in your behind the music. And you're a married man, right?

Yes. So you meet your wife and she says, what do you do? And you say, I'm an artist. And she says, oh, fascinating. What kind of art do you do? And you say, I make tiny little figures out of gum wrappers and then film them in stop motion animation. And she says, what? She didn't believe me. No. No.

That's just one of those things guys say to impress women.

She said, you're so full of s**t. She'd come to my house and she'd say, you're an artist, where's your artwork? And I'd say, well, we generally don't show our own work, but they're so small, like, she wouldn't be able to see them anyway. It's like the Mona Lisa. At that point, you can just get away with saying you can do anything. Right, exactly. You have a day job.

which is you do animation and special effects for Hollywood films. Some very, very big. Yes. That has been the bulk of my professional work. I'm responsible for the creature work, the character and creature work. So like I've done everything from the matrix trilogy to happy feet, the,

CG creature effects in those films, the ones that are brought to life, the actual characters themselves. I can't let you go without asking about what must be your masterpiece as a film artist, which I refer of course to Karate Dog. As if I need to explain to our sophisticated audience, Karate Dog is a movie about a dog, wait for it,

Who can do karate? But not to top the Kung Fu Cow in Kung Pao. All right, wait a minute. What seems to be the case is you're the go-to guy in Hollywood when we need an animal...

doing martial arts. I guess. Were you aware, because we looked into this, that Karate Dog, of course a classic, but there are some people who are unhappy with Karate Dog because despite the title, the dog only does karate twice. Wow. I can't imagine. I never heard that criticism. What?

I told him. That was not one that came up. Really? Well, Lyndon Bar-Wyatt, it is fascinating to talk to you, and we have, in fact, invited you here to play a game we're calling... That there is a really big sculpture. Yes.

Since you create very tiny sculptures, we thought we'd ask you about big ones. Answer two to three questions correctly about very large works of art, and you will win our prize for one of our listeners. Any voice they may choose from our show. Bill, who is Lyndon Barwa playing for? Larry Sylvester of San Francisco, California. All right. You ready to do this? Yeah. Okay. I hope I don't blow this. Okay. The ancient Olympic Stadium in Greece, where they had the Olympics, had a

Had a row of giant statues outside Those statues served what purpose was it a there were each posed as if they were doing a particular athletic event showing which way you had to go to see that event and

B, the names of athletes who had cheated were inscribed on them as a badge of shame. Or C, their arms and legs were posed to spell out the letters in Olympics, like, you know, the YMCA dance.

- I'm gonna say A. - You're gonna go say A, like if you wanted to go see the javelin, you went over to the statue that was holding the javelin and you went that way. No, it was actually B. If you cheated at the Olympics, they inscribed your name and what you had done onto the statues.

So that people would know and you wouldn't compete again. It was the ancient Olympic version of a photo by the cash register. Don't let that person in here. That's okay. You still got two chances. So once one of these big monumental statues goes up, it's rarely changed. One exception is the very big statue of the Duke of Wellington in Glasgow, Scotland.

What change was recently made to that statute? Was it A, because historians finally proved his horse had been a mare, not a stallion, certain items were removed? B, there is now an orange traffic cone permanently atop the Duke's head? Or C, after a sponsorship deal, his Wellington boots were replaced with Uggs? I gotta go with A on that one. They had to have made him a gelding.

The audience is yelling, what is the audience yelling? B. The audience is yelling B, the orange traffic cone. I'm just going to lay that in front of you. B. Yeah, B. They were right and now you are too. B. So what happened was...

Sometime in the early 1980s, for reasons no one exactly knows, people just started putting this traffic cone on top of the Duke's head and they'd take it off and immediately somebody would come up and put another one on it. And it was such a pain in the ass to climb up and get it that they said, you know what? From now on, that's part of the statue. Problem solved. I love this because I'm learning things. You are, you know? Yeah. I...

I know what your next sculpture will be. All right. One of the most famous large statues we have is Bob's Big Boy, whose figure looms over many of their franchises.

That big statue of Bob's big boy played an important role in someone's life once when what happened? A, author Norman Mailer said he stopped drinking finally when a Bob's big boy looked down at him and told him to straighten out. B, Patricia Arquette told Nicolas Cage she would only marry him if he could bring her a Bob's big boy statue.

B. You're going to go for B. You're right. Yes.

Patricia Arquette told the story that Nicolas Cage had wanted to marry her for a long time and she said, fine, if you want to marry me, you must complete this quest and gave him a bunch of things including J.D. Salinger's autograph and a genuine Bob's Big Boy sculpture. And steal the Declaration of Independence. Laughter

And he did it, and they got married and lived very happily for about four years. But let me ask Bill, how did Lyndon Barois do on our quiz? Lyndon got two right, and Lyndon, that is a win. And you have won...

You have won a little tiny statue. Lyndon J. Barois Sr. is a sculptor, artist, and animator. You can learn more about his remarkable work at itsarapper.com. Lyndon Barois, thank you so much for joining us. You're a genius, and we love talking to you. Take care. Thanks for having me, guys. This was too much fun. It really was. Take care. Thank you.

In just a minute, Bill shows off his squishy new couch. On our Listener Lumbering Challenge, call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us in the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Josh Gondelman, and River Butcher. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you.

And just a minute, Bill is singing the Sweet Carol Rhyme by Neil Rymond. It's our listener limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. But right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Josh, according to a new book, something that our parents and teachers and drill instructors have been harassing us about for decades is actually a lie. It is just not important to have good what?

Drill and strike. Is it posture? Yes, it is, Josh. Posture. It's a lie. Ha ha. Take that, everyone. Go ahead. Slump in your seat. Round your shoulders over. Stare at your feet. Nobody cares. According to a historian of science, Beth Linker, the whole proper posture thing is a scam all across America. People are drooping with relief. Thank you. Thank you, doctor. I'm going to say I'm going to upgrade you if you're not a doctor. She's not, but go ahead. Okay, Dr. Linker.

Thank you, because I do have the posture and texture of a croissant. So, but it's helpful to me to hear. It does look better, though. You think? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't like carrying my books in my hands, either. I prefer to put them on top of each other. Exactly.

Did you guys ever get pressured to do this, like to stand up straight and have good posture? It's a sign of, I don't know, virtue, strength, courage. My mother was always, stand up straight and pull your stomach in. That's all she ever said to me. And I have PTSD from it. There you go. But you're right. I mean, you're right, Joel, because this is going to change parenting completely. No more standing up straight, right? Yes. So it's going to be like, stop standing up straight. Swallow your food whole.

Look one way before crossing the street. And go talk to that stranger. He seems bored. Who cares? Eat your lunch while you're swimming. You need to wait 20 minutes. Bring that hot dog over in the pool. If you're a tall woman, please stand up straight. I'm going to just say that. And if you're a tall guy, keep hunching over. Us medium height guys could use the edge. Joyelle...

A multiple choice question for you. You no doubt know about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Many people say that she is trying to be Trump's vice presidential candidate and perhaps to increase her chances, what did she brag about in her new memoir? And it's multiple choice. So did she brag about A, cutting taxes or B, shooting her pet dog? It's just two? Just two choices. Okay. Yeah, she shot somebody.

She did. She shot her dog in her memoir. Yeah, yeah. Governor Noem tells this story about how she killed their 18-month-old dog because it was, quote, untrainable, and she, quote, hated it. She even includes in the book her daughter asking, hey, where's Cricket? I thought white people liked dogs.

Let's go and get her votes. Well, that may have been the calculation. As people on both the right and left got very upset with her about this, she decided to blame the liberal media who, in their usual dishonest way, quoted her. I think this is one of those reboot spin-offs, right? Because Hollywood loves intellectual property. She's innovating Young Yeller. LAUGHTER

Oh, I said the thing that's over the line? I'm sorry I referenced literature. I'm never going to feel bad about my mother telling me to stand up straight ever again.

Coming up, it's lightning fill in the blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. You can catch us most weeks here at the Studebaker Theatre in downtown Chicago. Or come see us on the road. We'll be at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on June 27th. And at Wolf Trap in Northern Virginia on August 1st for tickets and information.

For all of our live shows, go to nprpresents.org. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is David Vincente from West Caldwell, New Jersey. Now, West Caldwell, New Jersey, I do know. What do you do there, David? I am an adjunct professor of business and an amateur musician. An amateur musician. That's great. What music do you play? I play the accordion. Well, thanks for being on the show, David. I'll tell you what.

Thanks for calling. Cocaine never made anyone do that. It's true. The only accordion story I know is Weird Al Yankovic's in terms of his origin. How did you pick up the accordion? Well, a music school opened near my house when I was 10 and my father convinced me I loved the instrument and I've played it ever since and I love it very much. Wow, so he was right. How did he do that? How did he convince you to love the instrument? How did he do that?

It was a long time ago, but as I remember, it was because he insisted I play that and nothing else. Ah, that'll do it, yeah. Was your dad weird, Al Yankovic? David, welcome to the show. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly, two of the limericks will be a winner. You ready to play? I'm ready. Here's your first limerick. A seat made of fabric is grunge.

Into water it cannot be plunged. When I get these bricks wet, they're a full dining set. My furniture's made out of... Sponge. Yes, sponge. Very good and very confident. So, are you one of the countless people who picked up a wet sponge out of the sink and just wished you could sit on it? Well, this week, Swiss designers released a line of furniture made from cellulose sponge that grows, it expands when it gets wet.

It's great news for the environment. It's very, you know, sustainable. Even better for bedwetters. You can go to bed in a twin, wake up in a California king. In addition to being sustainable, it's also very efficient. There's nothing better than a piece of furniture you can use to clean your other furniture.

I need this for my dog. We just wonder if it's like it comes in a little capsule and you throw it in water and you're like, is it going to be a sofa? Is it going to be a couch? Is it going to be a bed? It's a dinosaur. Yeah, pretty much. Always a dinosaur. Okay, here's your next limerick. These signed footballs are not the bomb, lady. The goat has too much aplomb, baby.

His writing's not great, so the value deflates. They're worth less because they're signed by... Tom Brady? Tom Brady! So people brought valuable sports memorabilia to an event with Tom Brady in Florida to get him to sign them, and they're now complaining that the items actually lost value because his signature was so terrible.

One collector paid tens of thousands of dollars just to attend the event and have access to Mr. Brady. He brought the pride of his own collection, an unused ticket book from the 2002 Patriots season for Brady to sign. Now he has an unused ticket book with an indecipherable scrawl on it. And he's very unhappy. He said, quote, it's the same thing as being in a graveyard or cemetery and knocking over stones or defacing them, unquote.

And whoops, there went all our sympathy for him. Yeah. Yeah, what? What? He's never had any problems. No, he never has. Your signature's too messy. It's Tom Brady's signature. That's what you wanted. You're not like, oh, the O is a perfect 360-degree circle. The signature has great posture. Here is your last limerick. This lace evolution is drastic. It holds better than Velcro. Fantastic.

Although shoes are tied, my feet slip inside. I am lacing my shoes with

Elastic? Elastic. Say hello to the latest technological revolution. Permanent shoelaces. You tie them once and from that day on, your lace-up shoes turn into slip-ons. Finally, sweatpants for your feet. The New York Times Wirecutter column extols these elastic shoelaces as the greatest invention since elastic bread.

The reviewer said she fitted her Converse high tops with these laces, quote, and it took less than 30 seconds to put on both shoes. Compare that to putting on shoes with normal laces, which can take as much as 30 seconds.

I understand this if it's like a disability access thing, but if you're just someone who's like, God, I don't have those 15 seconds it takes. It's like, change something from the rest of your life. Your shoes are fine. You know these people have nowhere to be. Yeah. Well, got to get over to the couch. I do believe you're only as old as you feel, but if you feel like you don't want to tie your shoes anymore...

You're old. Bill, how did David do in our quiz? David is so good, he should take that accordion on the road because he got all three right. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you. Thank you so much for playing. Take care. Thank you for having me.

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Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now with two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Joyelle and River each have two. Josh has four. He's rolling the dice.

All right, so Josh is in first place. Joyelle and River are tied for second. So, Joyelle, I'm going to arbitrarily pick you to go first. The clock will start when they begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, the judge in blank's New York trial held him in contempt of court. Donald Trump. Right. After 40 years, the United Methodist Church announced it was overturning its ban on clergy members who are blank. Short. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Gay. Ooh! This week, the FDA said it had not found any active strains of blank flu and dairy products that they had sampled. Swine? No, bird. Bird flu. On Thursday, the U.S. imposed new sanctions against companies in Hong Kong and blank. China. Yes, according to the Wall Street Journal, the hot new romantic place for wedding proposals is blank. Mount Everest. No, the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting for shareholders in Omaha, Nebraska. Excuse me?

That was a lot of words. I know. None of which were Mount Rushmore. On Tuesday, the CDC issued a warning about a multi-state blank outbreak connected to contaminated walnuts. Measles. No, E. coli. Following a fresh round of layoffs, the CEO of stationary bike company Blank stepped down. Peloton. Yes, this week the parents of a three-year-old who complained about a monster living in the walls assured their daughter there was nothing to worry about and then they blanked.

Pee the bed. No. And then they discovered 50,000 bees living in her bedroom wall. 50,000? 50,000 bees. They counted all the bees? They did. One by one.

You can't ballpark bees like that. And I was like, bees, would you just stay still for a second? I'm trying to... After removing the hive, the family assured the girl that there's no such thing as monsters, and the sounds under her bed are just the 50,000 spiders that live down there. Dale, how did Joyelle do on our quiz? Three right, six more points, total of eight. All right. Beat that. Ha ha ha!

Good old three. That's right. Okay, River, you're up next. Please fill in the blank. On Sunday, the parent company of social media app Blank said they would not sell it to a U.S. company. TikTok. Right. On Thursday, the U.S. accused Russia of using chemical weapons in Blank. Ukraine. Right. This week, thousands were told to evacuate after a volcano began erupting in Blank.

No, Indonesia. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said it would hold blank rates at their current levels. Interest rates. Right, after MTA bus drivers refused to transport campus protesters to jail, an NYPD officer took the wheel of a bus and blanked. Crashed it. No, he took the wheel of the bus, realized he didn't know how to drive it, and asked the arrested students if anybody of them knew how to drive it. They said, no. On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that all new cars must have an automatic blanking system by 2029. Oh.

Parking. No, breaking. Thanks to a clerical error, a town in Serbia that tried to order 10,000 new streetlights received blank instead. Disco balls. So close. 10,000 beach balls. Wow. Officials in Zlatibor, Serbia, were confused when instead of these street lamps, 10,000 beach balls were delivered to the town. Also, while the balls will not be effective at illuminating city streets...

It is way better than the music festival where everyone got injured trying to bounce street lamps off each other. Bill, how did River do in our quiz? Well, he got three right. His total of eight ties. Joyelle. Yay. All right.

How many then does Josh Gondelman need to walk away with this thing? Two to tie, three to win. All right, fill in the blank. On Tuesday, Arizona's Senate voted to repeal that state's 160-year-old blank ban. Abortion. Right. On Wednesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene said she'd call for a vote to oust House Speaker blank. Mike Johnson. Right. This week, electric car giant blank fired at the team responsible for running their supercharger network. Tesla. Right. On Monday, G7 nations agreed to shut down all their blank power plants by 2035.

Coal? Yes. Following a public outcry, the city of Milan, Italy has reversed course on its plan to ban blank after midnight. Dancing. Selling ice cream after midnight on Monday. The Kansai International Airport in Japan celebrated 30 years without losing a single piece of blank.

Oh, her, uh...

Her passport. No, her cat. According to the woman, the cat snuck into the boxes just before they were taped up. The package was too heavy to notice. But don't worry, the cat is completely fine and is currently waiting to be picked up from an Amazon locker at the nearest Whole Foods. Bill, did Josh do well enough to win? Josh, you got 16 points. Good God! Good one! Double-double! Yay!

In just a minute, we'll ask our panelists to predict, since they're going to move the Mona Lisa, what will be the next big news about a major work of art. But first, let me tell you all, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord, Philip Koticka, Wrights, our limericks, our public address announcer is Paul Friedman, our tour manager is Shana Donald. Thanks to the staff and crew here at the Studebaker Theatre, BJ Ledeman,

composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Monica Hickey and Blythe Robertson this week. Peter Gwynn is not an ally to the haters. Emma Choi is our vibe curator. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilock. And the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Mike Danforth. Now panel, what would be the next big story?

From the art world, River Butcher. Michelangelo's David will be the Grand Marshal of this year's San Francisco Pride Parade. Joyelle and Nicole Johnson. A series, The Work of Gorton Parks as Photoshopped by Kate Middleton. And Josh Gondelman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will use AI to take that annoying blur off of Monet's water lilies. Laughter

Well, if any of that happens, we're going to ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to River Butcher, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and Josh Gellman. Thanks to our fabulous audience at the Studio Baker Theater in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Thanks to all of you for listening out there, wherever you may be. I'm Peter Sagal. We'll see you next week. This is NPR.

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The Constitution, our founding document, says a lot about how our country has evolved and who we want to be. But it's not set in stone. So for the next month, we'll be digging into the history behind some of its most pivotal amendments. Listen to We the People on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.