03.28.10 — Then We Came to the End — the Acrostic

Sunday, March 28, 2010

ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, edited by Will Shortz

This Sunday’s acrostic draws its quotation from Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris.

It's 2001. The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart. — Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com Review. It was the era of take-ones and tchotchkes. The world was flush with Internet cash and we got our fair share of it… we bowed down before (a logo), much like the ancient Mayans did their pagan gods. We, too, thought it would never end. -- Interactive site at Hachette Book Group. From “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” to “Dilbert,” the default position for American stories about business — especially as easy a target as advertising — has been derision. White-collar work is meant to be soul-killing and pernicious… “Then We Came to the End” would, it turns out, make a pretty good read on the beach. Particularly if you still have a job to vacation from. — Review in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, March 18, 2007.

The quotation: OUR COPYWRITER DON HAD ANOTHER SCREENPLAY ABOUT A DISAFFECTED AND CYNICAL COPYWRITER SUFFERING ENNUI IN THE OFFICE SETTING WHILE DREAMING OF BECOMING A FAMOUS SCREENWRITER WHICH HE CLAIMED WAS NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

The author’s name and the title of the work: FERRIS THEN WE CAME TO THE END

The defined words:

A. Meal of cereal grain, FARINA

B. Looking for oneself on the Internet, EGOSURFING

C. Color in roulette, ROUGE

D. One making a personal withdrawal?, RECLUSE

E. Human period before bipedal locomotion, INFANCY

F. Opposite of ad-libbed, SCRIPTED

G. 1992 film satire of Hollywood ambition (2 wds.), THE PLAYER

H. Part of an actor’s job application, HEADSHOT

I. Promoting workplace comfort and efficiency, ERGONOMIC

J. Like the maid in a Thomas Percy ballad (hyph.), NUT-BROWN

K. Two-person cutter, swing sharply, WHIPSAW

L. Serialized, as a novel, EPISODIC

M. Slang for a partitioned workplace (2 wds.), CUBE FARM

N. Still single, but unavailable for dating, AFFIANCED

O. Cocktail poured over crushed ice (2 wds.), MAI TAI

P. Environmental science, ECOLOGY

Q. Scientist in a managerial position, TECHNOCRAT

R. Cool, distant, aloof, reserved, OFFISH

S. Having a certain job security, TENURED

T. Subject of King Kamehameha, HAWAIIAN

U. Full of juice?, ELECTRIC

V. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” poem, ENDYMION

W. Outburst from one who is harried and exasperated (2 wds.), NOW WHAT

X. Beleaguered worker in a strip, DILBERT

 

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Puzzle available on the internet at

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