Sunday September 25: Archimedes did the Acrostic!

It’s always worthwhile to survey the quote before diving into the clues.  Observe the word pattern and the length of words; see how many times one and three letter words appear; guess whether the quote is a statement in the first person.

Today’s acrostic with several long word appeared at first glance like it might be difficult.  Of course, getting the 14-letter words is  ‘quintessential’ to solving an acrostic by-quote rather than by-clue.

We’re clue focused – although in the best case, it’s a quick process of working back and forth from clue to quote with the occasional check of author and title of the work.  We started today with only a half answer to a clue eat [later adding dirt] .  Of course ledger and rubdown and Ishmael filled in quickly.  Having spent time at Hampshire College, I had always thought it was in fact South Hadley or Hadley - alas it is in Amherst near the town borders.

Flipping up to the quote, 'a _ _ _ r' must be 'after' which provided the reward of off the rack.  Some clues like the ballroom dance, felt like you could have two left feet and still be able to guess two step.  Again often the most obvious works, as with The Idiot.  Here's the National Lampoon version of the novel,

What was Penelope doing in Athens? Didn't make sense, although a few of the letters helped.  It was a long time to finally return to Ithaca.

Last time we had antipodes as a last column answer, it felt almost redundant to have antitheses in this puzzle. 

The phase 'Illegitimi non carborundum' is one of the more famous examples of Dog Latin. Meaning "Don't let the bastards grind you down," it was US general Joe Stillwell's motto during World War II.

I wonder what geometric figures Archimedes had his servants draw.  Eureka!

Sunday September 11: Song of the Reed

We were in a guessing mood today, ready to take the barest hint and plunge forward. Single letters were enough to prompt several clue answers. Guess, guess, guess almost always feels right for an acrostic – at least if you do it in pencil.

In our first pass through the puzzle, we appreciated the dual definition Hot Spot - later we learned there are other more obscure definitions; who knows how one without even thinking about it enters Bethesda for a defense contractor – you’d think that most would be over in Arlington; and we promptly entered “At Once” and only much later, in re-reading the clue more carefully realized on time was right; Swatch was easy.

Ah, then in filling in these four answers, much more became evident. The ‘d’ from the Lockheed-Martin locale, screamed out as the last letter of ‘and’ and its ‘a’ mved us away from thinking about those cities being opposites but more topologically antipoles – well okay, we were close – antipodes. Remarkably only 4% of land has land opposite it in that line through the center of the earth. Beijing and Buenos Aries are certainly the biggest cities that are close to being antipodes.

The phasing of the Bogart question immediately made us think he came from privilege (his father was a surgeon). We suspected a prep school, and antipodes then led us to the word human in the quote which gave us the ‘A’ of Phillips Andover. What a fabulous actor!


Buchan's line about an atheist is amusing.  He was Scottish, 1st Baron Tweeedsmuir.

One mid-puzzle guess was the Eagles as winners in 2001, but in fact they've never won.  The 'a' and 's' though proved helpful in solving the puzzle and eventually a few erasures later, Ravens fell into place.

Okay, don't want to suffer from motor mouth, enough said on this week's acrostic, except for the words of Rumi's Song of the Reed.

Rumi’s Song of the Reed:

Listen to the song of the reed,

How it wails with the pain of separation:

“Ever since I was taken from my reed bed

My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.

I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separation

For only they understand the pain of this longing.

Whoever is taken away from his homeland

Yearns for the day he will return.

In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,

I cry with the same lament.

Everyone hears according to his own understanding,

None has searched for the secrets within me.

My secret is found in my lament

But an eye or ear without light cannot know it..”

The sound of the reed comes from fire, not wind

What use is one’s life without this fire?

It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.

It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.

The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.

Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.

Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweet

As the song of the reed?

To hear the song of the reed

everything you have ever known must be left behind.

Sunday August 28: Quirky Words

What a wonderful quote for this week’s acrostic. – always like it when the puzzle itself speaks about words.  It is the quirkiness of language that often makes the acrostic itself intriguing.  Of course, it’s the regularity of word patterns that often makes it doable.

This week’s puzzle started slowly as the theme was captured in several quirky-clues, like derby and TV Show and fairways. We started with only a few quick answers: ironic getting us going, then in the mood for irony necktie was apparent. Nest egg was also straightforward. 

It was clear though that to solve this puzzler, back and forth between the quote and clues and, of course, lots of guessing would be the order of the day.  Was it De Gama who crossed this country?  Didn’t seem right, but the guess did provide a few valuable letters..  Hmm, why doesn’t O’Keefe[sic] fit? Ah, like Mitterrand of the puzzle before, double the consonant and there we go. 

Hyphenated words often are two-digit numbers and the starting ‘t’ that we had filled in made twenty-something seem like a real possibility.  With our false answer from clue K, we were left with only one possible number – and lots of new letters to fill into the clues.

Given the paucity of doubleheaders, nightcap took a moment, but the fact that the Oakland A’s and Boston Red Sox played two on Saturday (to avoid Hurricane Irene on Sunday) had put the word on the Sports pages of the Times on Sunday.

Growing up you don’t quite know whether expressions your parents use are commonplace or not.  “Ersatz for oleo” I always attributed to my mother, now I finally see its usage is more common.

Kipling was the first English and youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.  Floating up the Irrawaddy, how can you argue with the meter of -

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
    Come you back to Mandalay,
    Where the old Flotilla lay:
    Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
    On the road to Mandalay,
    Where the flyin'-fishes play,
    An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

Several weeks ago we learned of bisque as a croquet term, funny to see it appear again in yet another of one of it’s less common usages.

For a moment the quote with words like ‘QI’ looked like gibberish, yet the pieces seemed to be following in place, although first an amusing diversion into what the BBC show was all about.

Once O’Keeffe got all her letters and De Gama gave way to De Soto, we could raise our eyebrows in a smug, happy, expression.