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Sunday, July 15, 2012
ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Edited by Will Shortz
This Sunday’s glorious acrostic draws a somewhat humorous quotation from Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, selected and edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald.
At her death in 1964, O'Connor left behind a body of unpublished essays and lectures as well as a number of critical articles that had appeared in scattered publications during her too-short lifetime. The keen writings comprising Mystery and Manners, selected and edited by O'Connor's lifelong friends Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, are characterized by the directness and simplicity of the author's style, a fine-tuned wit, understated perspicacity, and profound faith. The book opens with "The King of the Birds," her famous account of raising peacocks at her home in Milledgeville, Georgia. ~ Amazon.com
The quotation: HIS TAIL RAISED IN A SHIMMERING ARCH… [THE PEACOCK] WILL TURN THIS WAY AND THAT,… HIS BEAK PARTED, HIS EYES GLITTERING. MEANWHILE THE HEN GOES ABOUT… SEARCHING THE GROUND AS IF ANY BUG IN THE GRASS WERE OF MORE IMPORTANCE.
The defined words:
A. Construction technique for cranes?,ORIGAMI
C. Up above; in heaven (2 wds.), ON HIGH
D. One having to be shown the ropes, NEWBIE
H. Title for a fencing expert, MAESTRO
I. Elohim, by another name, YAHWEH
J. Ray with a toothy snout, SAWFISH
K. Do as Mumble the penguin does in "Happy Feet" (hyph.), TAP-DANCE
M. Do over, as décor, REFURBISH
N. Campaign slogan of the 2000s (3 wds.), "YES WE CAN”
O. Trait for which certain show dogs are judged, AGILITY
S. Anti-possession possession?, AMULET
T. Young Truman Capote, to young Harper Lee, NEIGHBOR
U. Practice pettifoggery, NITPICK
W. Move to a fallback position, RETRENCH
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The full paragraph of the quotation: The peacock does most of his serious strutting in the spring and summer when he has a full tail to do it with. Usually he begins shortly after breakfast, struts for several hours, desists in the heat of the day, and begins again in the late afternoon. Each cock has a favorite station where he performs every day in the hope of attracting some passing hen; but if I have found anyone indifferent to the peacock’s display, besides the telephone lineman, it is the peahen. She seldom casts an eye at it. The cock, his tail raised in a shimmering arch around him, will turn this way and that, and with his clay-colored wing feathers touching the ground, will dance forward and backward, his neck curved, his beak parted, his eyes glittering. Meanwhile the hen goes about her business, diligently searching the ground as if any bug in the grass were of more importance than the unfurled map of the universe which floats nearby. Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor
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Click on image to enlarge.
Puzzle available on the internet at
Puzzle available on the internet at
All four members of Apocalypta are Finnish, but only three are cellists. The other one is a drummer.
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