03.23.14 — The Global Soul — the Acrostic


Sunday, March 23, 2014

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


This Sunday’s acrostic draws a quotation from The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home by Pico Iyer.

[“The Global Soul”] deciphers the cultural ramifications of globalization and the rising tide of worldwide displacement. … Pico Iyer takes us on a tour of the transnational village our world has become. From Hong Kong, where people actually live in self-contained hotels, to Atlanta's Olympic Village, which seems to inadvertently commemorate a sort of corporate universalism, to Japan, where in the midst of alien surfaces his apartment building is called "The Memphis," Iyer ponders what the word "home" can possibly mean in a world whose face is blurred by its cultural fusion and its alarmingly rapid rate of change. ~  Goodreads.com

The quotation:  I’M SITTING IN A PARISIAN CAFÉ… OUTSIDE CHINATOWN (IN SAN FRANCISCO), TALKING TO A MEXICAN-AMERICAN ABOUT BICULTURALISM WHILE A HAITIAN WOMAN STOPS… TO CONGRATULATE HIM ON A PIECE HE… DELIVERED ON TV ON SAINT PATRICK’S DAY

The author’s name and the title of the work:  PICO IYER, THE GLOBAL SOUL

The defined words:

A. Edifice enabling surveillance of any inmate at any time, PANOPTICON
B. Ecumenical, as a service involving sundry religions, INTERFAITH
C. Midwestern city that’s a setting for “Rain Man”, CINCINNATI
D. Happening at spotty intervals, OCCASIONAL
E. Hint, remote reference, INTIMATION
F. Heavily bomb-cratered basin in the Nevada Test Site (2 wds.), YUCCA FLAT
G. Get rid of totally, wipe out, EXTIRPATE
H. Desperate recourse for the drought-stricken (2 wds.), RAIN DANCE
I. Metaphor for an uncontrollable rush (2 wds.), TIDAL WAVE
J. Fail to show decisiveness (3 wds.), HEM AND HAW
K. A long way from robustly fed, EMACIATED
L. Problem-solvng with no plan or clue, GUESSWORK
M. 828,000-square mile purchase of 1803, LOUISIANA
N. Opposite of a picky eater, OMNIVORE
O.  Member of a more than one union, BIGAMIST
P. Horizontal coordinate on a geometric plane, ABSCISSA
Q. Present, but uninvolved, LURKING
R. Offerings from tellers?, STORIES
S. Musical style of Whoopee John Wilfarht’s band, OOMPAH
T. U.N. leader succeeding Dag Hammarskjold in 1961, U THANT
U. Old World finch called “Carduelis cannabina” for its liking of hemp, LINNET

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The full paragraph of the quotation:  For more and more people, then, the world is coming to resemble a diaspora, filled with new kinds of beings—Gastarbeiters and boat people and marielitos—as well as new kinds of realities:  Rwandans in Auckland and Moroccans in Iceland.  One reason why Melbourne looks ever more like Houston is that both of them are filling up with Vietnamese pho cafés; and computer technology further encourages us to believe that the remotest point is just a click away.  Everywhere is so made up of everywhere else—a polycentric anagram—that I hardly notice I’m sitting in a Parisian café just outside Chinatown (in San Francisco), talking to a Mexican-American friend about biculturalism while a Haitian woman stops off to congratulate him on a piece he’s just delivered on TV on St. Patrick’s Day.  “I know all about those Irish nuns,” she says in a thick patois, as we sip our Earl Grey tea near signs that say City of Hong Kong, Empress of China. ~ The Global Soul


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