Gotcha! & Yale's moons; New York Times & plagiarism

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    That last posting should read "Massillon" (Ohio), not "Masillion."

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GOTCHA!

     William Safire of the New York Times has what he likes to call his
"Gotcha!" gang.
     This was in ESQUIRE, Letters, May 1966, pg. 175, col. 3:

     George Frazier's swinging January Esquire article (_The Next Dance Will
Be "What Is Meyer Davis Doing While Oedipus and the Mothers Drop Trousers?"_)
revealed--for the first time in print that I have seen--the bit about
"throwing a gotcha!"  Marvelous.  (...)  Thomas P, McDonnell, Boston, Mass.

    The story is in ESQUIRE, January 1966, pg. 60, col. 1:

    If only on some mad midnight in some stately room, with the saxophones
throbbing the unrequited passion of _But Not for Me_ or the gladsome
greetings of _Hello, Dolly!_ or, better still, the enduring frustration of
_Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate_, with the champagne flowing and all
amenities observed--if only, at such a moment, proper old Meyer Davis,
elder-statesmanlike old Meyer Davis, would suddenly "throw a gotcha," as it
was known at New Haven in the beginning, dropping his satin-striped trousers,
his Sulka shorts, and then, quick as a flash, bending over, "throwing a
moon," and crying out "Gotcha!" with all the wild abandon of those Perez
Prado _muchachos_ who seem forever to be shouting some damn thing or other.

    At last!  The secret of William Safire's GOTCHA! gang revealed!
    The RHHDAS has this as a "moon" article, but cites a different line that
leaves out "gotcha!" and Yale.
    I heard rumors that Andrea Vine, Laurence Horn, and Fred Shapiro started
the tradition after one too many Yale cocktails.

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NEW YORK TIMES & PLAGIARISM (continued)

     I came back from Portugal on March 12th, and on March 13th I visited the
Central Park Arsenal Gallery exhibit of my stolen work (featured in the New
York Daily News last Friday).
    I sat down three people responsible for the exhibit and calmly screamed
at them.
    "But it was reviewed favorably in the New York Times," I was told.  This
Parks employee admitted that he had known about my work in their own Parks
files, but he thought that the New York Times (which never published a
correction) had made the book legitimate.
    "It's the paper of record," I was told.
    I demanded a response from Parks Commissioner Henry Stern.  An apology,
not an apology--a _response_ from Parks Commissioner Henry Stern.  I was told
that the great man couldn't be disturbed.  I again demanded a response from
Parks Commissioner Henry Stern.  On March 1st, he had held a party for
thieves.  Honest people deserve no less.
   I've waited three weeks.  No letter.  No apology.  No thank you.  Nothing.
   Today, I sent a letter to the New York Times Book Review about it, with a
copy to Parks.  If the Book Review doesn't print it, I hope someone else
will.  Perhaps, then, this city will finally make the changes necessary to
treat me with some level of human decency.