04.15.07 -- HIGHWAYMEN (Sunday Acrostic)

Puzzle by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon

This Sunday, Ms. Cox & Mr. Rathvon, who conspired to present us the infamous Ides of March assassination of Julius Caesar two weeks ago in the “every-other-week“ New York Times Acrostic, on this occasion give us an acrostic on the odious Ides of April, e.g., tax-filing-deadline day.

Because the posting two weeks ago was the first in this blog on the Times acrostic puzzle, it bears repeating from that post that “acrostics are a lot of “bookkeeping” so to speak -- a good amount of time is consumed transferring letter by letter, alphabetically and numerically, from line to square or from square to line. To add to this difficulty, The New York Times allows the most meager area in which to enter answers to the defined words listed alphabetically.”

Continuing to quote from the last posting, “the acrostic is a puzzle I admire when considering the difficulty in construction that it must entail. Not only do we get a quote of some worth (in most cases), but also the author of the quote’s name and the title of the publication (via the first letter of the words defined). Guessing a word from the majority of letters achieved in the grid is not always possible and sometimes very misleading due to the fact that many of these constructions utilize odd quotations. In that acrostic we had (in part) “HAD HE SAID HW WX EUXWH INSTEAD…”

The solution to the last acrostic is included in this posting that you might see (a) how the Times prints the solution as opposed to the complexity of the appearance of the puzzle, and (b) how editing (with ellipses galore) condenses the quotation to become a fluent whole.

That said, this week’s acrostic is very straightforward -- UNDER THE NEW TAX SYSTEM YOU’LL GET UNINTELLIGIBLE FORMS FROM THE GOVERNMENT PUT OFF DOING ANYTHING UNTIL MID-APRIL MISS A LOT OF DEDUCTIONS AND WORRY ABOUT BEING AUDITED OTHER THINGS WILL REMAIN PRETTY MUCH THE SAME, a quote from DAVE BARRY’s book “GREATEST HITS” in reference to the Federal income tax.

What I find remarkable about this particular construction is that in addition to the quotation, the author’s name and the title of the book, all of the defined words are related either by clue or by answer to monetary matters, DWINDLING, AFFLUENCE, VOUCH FOR, ESTIMATE, BOTTOM LINE, ANNUITY, RIGHT WING (Staunchly pro-business political faction), REMBRANDT (“The Money Changer“), YIELD FRUIT (“Pay Dividends”), GOLDSMITH, ROYALTIES, EXEMPTION, ALIMONY, TRUST FUND, EMOLUMENT, SPLURGE (“Spare no expense”), THRONE (“Station to which tribute was sent, historically“), HIGHWAYMEN (“Takers of illegal tolls”), IN THE SOUP (“Having some explaining to do” -- I'm taking this to mean to the IRS), TOTTER (“Go unsteadily; one who finds sums?”), and SADDLEBAGS (“Where Pony Express parcels were stowed").

The solving was very akin to doing one’s taxes -- which, if one is in a last-minute rush to file taxes on this day, would be a double burden! Not having to worry in that regard, I felt very much at ease, set my mind to accountant mode and did the "bookkeeping" required to file this report.

Illustrations: Above - HIGHWAYMEN -- Below: "The Money Changer" by REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1627; Answers to previous NYT Acrostic; "tax form"; "A GOLDSMITH in His Shop, possibly Saint Eligius", Petrus Christus, 1449; "death and taxes" cartoon; DAVE BARRY's "GREATEST HITS" book cover.