Sunday, July 28, 2013
ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Edited by Will Shortz
This Sunday’s amusing acrostic draws a fragmented quotation from O’Donnell’s Laws of Cartoon Motion by Mark O’Donnell, first published in Esquire magazine June of 1980 on the subject of cartoon physics.
The quotation: CARTOON CATS … POSSESS … MORE THAN … NINE LIVES … THEY CAN BE … SPLAYED ACCORDION-PLEATED, SPINDLED, OR DISASSEMBLED, BUT THEY CANNOT BE DESTROYED. AFTER A FEW MOMENTS OF… SELF-PITY THEY REINFLATE, ELONGATE SNAP BACK, OR SOLIDIFY.
The author’s name and the title of the work: MARK O’DONNELL (O’Donnell’s Laws of) CARTOON MOTION
The defined words:
A. Tea party figure of note (2 wds.), MAD HATTER
B. Point of view, exposure, ASPECT
C. Nonmigratory, as a bird, RESIDENT
D. Appealing to lowbrow tastes, KITSCHY
E. What any good robot should be, OBEDIENT
F. Like a golf ball, DIMPLED
G. Balance displacement, OFFSET
H. Field color for Kansas state flag (2 wds.), NAVY BLUE
I. Snack food sold at ballparks, NACHOS
J. Feat for Houdini, ESCAPE
K. Harvard magazine once headed by John Updike, “LAMPOON”
L. John Cleese role in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, LANCELOT
M. Put up for auction, say, CONSIGN
N. L.B.J. Supreme Court appointee (2 wds.), ABE FORTAS
O. Volcanic form of granite, RHYOLITE
P. Fruit-and-custard concoctions, TRIFLES
Q. So-called “Lucky Rabbit” of early Disney productions, OSWALD
R. Alert, watchful (hyph.), OPEN-EYED
S. Like some Olympic skiing, NORDIC
T. Game that gave us the expression “knuckle down”, MARBLES
U. Mars orbiter launched in 2001, “ODYSSEY”
V. Fabric often used n wedding gowns, TAFFETA
W. Seeing red? (2 wds.), IN DEBT
X. Raptor with a white head and a dark mask, OSPREY
Y. Attribute prized by many a teacher, NEATNESS
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The full paragraph of the quotation:VII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. ~ Esquire, June, 1980
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1 comment:
Most people (I think) use the terms volcanic and igneous interchangeably, but techinically they are different. Any sort of volcanic rock is by definition igneous. Igneous rock, however, is not necessarily volcanic. There actually is no "volcanic form of granite". Granite is plutonic and intrusive. Rhyolite, while chemically similar, is volcanic and extrusive, as is basalt, pumice and obsidian. Adding further difficulty to solving O. after accepting the self contradictory clue is that two forms of Rhyolite as well as other extrusive rocks are Porphyry and Aphanite, having the same number of letters as Rhyolite. Dang it.
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