Sunday, July 20, 2008
ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon, edited by Will Shortz
. This Sunday’s acrostic features a rather innocuous quotation from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
Not having read the work, nor able to find the full quotation without purchasing the book, I’ll resort to the following quotation from Amazon:
“Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal… Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. ‘When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.’”
The quotation of the acrostic: THERE WAS A TIME WHEN PLACES LIKE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE EXISTED TO TRAIN MINISTERS AND THEIR JOB WAS TO SAY SOMETHING THOUGHT-PROVOKING SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK THEY WERE THE RETAIL OUTLETS OF THE PROFESSION OF PHILOSOPHY
The author-line of the acrostic: STEPHENSONCRYPTONOMICON
The defined words: A. One way to reach a conclusion, SYLLOGISM; B. Everything (2 wds.), THEWORKS; C. Composer of “Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear” (2 wds.), ERIKSATIE (click here for Janne Mertanen plays Erik Satie's Gnosienne n.3); D. Classic slapstick comedy scene (2 wds.), PIEFIGHT; E. Mental midget (hyph.), HALFWIT; F. One who has untied a knot (hyph.), EXHUSBAND; G. The land down under, NETHERWORD; H. What ballplayers hit after games, SHOWERS; I. Collapsible item invented by Antoine Gibus (2 wds.), OPERAHAT; J. “Dryad of the trees,” to Keats, NIGHTINGALE; K. Writers’ blocks?, CHAPTERS; L. Changer of stations, REMOTE; M. Annual, YEARBOOK; N. The opposite of verbose, PITHY, along with its’ Shortzesque mate, O. The opposite of verbose, TERSE; P. Affected by too many catches, OVERFISHED; Q. Connection, link, tie, NEXUS; R. Cushioned furniture for one’s dogs, OTTOMAN; S. River and city of Saskatchewan (2 wds.), MOOSEJAW; T. What a think tank is meant to do, IDEATE; U. Last-minute reluctance or timidity (2 wds.), COLDFEET; V. One like Micawber of Pangloss, OPTIMIST; W. 1940 novel about Bigger Thomas’s travails (2 wds.), NATIVESON.
"Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation)." --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title -- Amazon.com
I’ll take her word for it!
Click on image to enlarge.
Puzzle available on the internet at
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Crossword Puzzles and Games
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2 comments:
Thanks for fine write-up, CRYPTONOMICON sounds like a fun read.
...and a long one!
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