A Young Girl Leaning On A Window Sill, 1645 Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt
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Sunday, December 19, 2010
ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, edited by Will Shortz
Wide Awake: What I Learned About Sleep from Doctors, Drug Companies, Dream Experts, and a Reindeer Herder in the Arctic Circle by Patricia Morrisroe supplies the quotation for this delightful Christmas-week acrostic.
When I told my sleep doctor that I’d decided to write a book about insomnia, he informed me that it was a "terrible, terrible idea" and begged me to reconsider. Except for downing a double espresso before bedtime, obsessing about sleep is the worst thing you can do if you’ve got insomnia. And writing a book is the ultimate obsession. The doctor had a good point, but there was one little problem: I already had a book contract. Wanting to please the sleep doctor but not wanting to alienate my editor, I began cataloguing my other health problems. Perhaps I could substitute thinning bones for insomnia? But I wasn’t particularly interested in bones. Bones aren’t mysterious. Bones don’t dream. You can see bones, even when they’re thinning, but sleep is everywhere and nowhere. It’s the great unsolved puzzle, the black hole in the scientific universe. ~ Patricia Morrisroe on Wide Awake
The quotation: CLEMENT C MOORE’S NARRATOR ACTUALLY SEES SANTA WHILE HIS SLEEPING CHILDREN ARE REWARDED WITH VISIONS OF CANDIED FRUIT THE INHERENT MESSAGE WAS THAT SLEEP DIDN’T PAY SO ON CHRISTMAS EVE I’D KEEP A VIGIL AT MY WINDOW
The author’s name and the title of the work; PATRICIA MORRISROE WIDE AWAKE
The defined words:
A. Typical giver of a gift signed “from St. Nick”, PARENT
B. Descriptive of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”, ANTIWAR
C. Said with a wink and a nod, TACIT
D. Wearing a winter coat, RIMED
E. Things you can count on?, INTEGERS
F. Yak, gab, gossip (hyph.), CHIN-WAG
G. Somebody who’s up instead of out, INSOMNIAC
H. Insect pests covered with dense, woolly wax, ADELGIDS
I. Occasion for pole dancing (2 wds.), MAY DAY
J. Like mouflons or urials, OVINE
K. Leader of a swift team …, RUDOLPH
L. … and that leader’s descriptive (hyph.), RED-NOSED
M. Line from the garment industry, INSEAM
N. Seasonal means of getting clearance, SNOWPLOW
O. Prove wrong, as an assertion, REFUTE
P. Go a bit too far on a stage, OVERACT
Q. Player of St. Nick in a 2003 Will Ferrell film (2 wds.), ED ASNER
R. Contents of a letter to Mr. Claus (2 wds.), WISH LIST
S. Affect deeply, enlist by force, IMPRESS
T. Something in the shape of a triangle, DELTA
U. Ballet jump with fluttery footwork, ENTRECHAT
V. On the go, or off the injured list, ACTIVE
W. Item hanging from the neck of a “zebra”, WHISTLE
X. Likely besmirches of Kris Kringle, ASHES
Y. Aperture with a limited range of view, KEYHOLE
Z. Like some seasonal toymakers, ELFISH
The expanded quotation: Clement C. Moore obviously didn’t have sleep psychology in mind when he wrote “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” His wide-awake narrator actually sees Santa, while his sleeping children, for all their good behavior, are rewarded with visions of candied fruit. The inherent message was that sleep didn’t pay, so on Christmas Eve I’d keep vigil at my bedroom window, Bumpa’s opera glasses in hand, searching for Santa’s sleigh. I had it in my head that once I caught a glimpse of his reindeer I’d drift happily of to sleep. In those days, a white Christmas often meant a blizzard, so I was usually too excited to waste time in bed anyway. After my father shoveled the driveway, he would build an igloo, which I’d decorate with castoffs from our basement -- a lawn chair, a frayed Oriental runner, a broken Wedgwood candlestick. I’d sit in there and read my Nancy Drew books, pretending I was an Eskimo princess keen on solving mysteries.
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Puzzle available on the internet at
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