06.21.07

SOLSTICE


Summer begins at 2:06 p.m. Eastern time today, and astronomy, not meteorology, is the deciding factor. It is then that the northward trek of the sun's direct rays across the planet will cease and the summer solstice will arrive. For the next six months, the direct rays of the sun will move inexorably south, culminating in the winter solstice. Even so, the summer season is the slowest to fade. As a result of the Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere summer lasts 93 days, while the winter is only 89 days long.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Puzzle by John Sheehan, edited by Will Shortz

It's the first day of summer!

A standard crossword puzzle with six partial anagram entries. The entries, with the clue becoming the second word of the entry anagrammed and the first word of the entry a variation of how one might describe an anagram. The six entries and their clues are: KNOTTED/ROPES (20A PROSE), TANGLED/ROOTS (28A TORSO), FAUX/PAS (37A SAP), BAD/DEAL (39A LEAD), TOSSED/GREENS (45A GENRES), and ADDLED/BRAINS (55A BAIRNS)...yeah, and "loyal satirists" twists into "solstitial rays"!

Really liked this anagram-entry crossword -- it has a great PULSE (34D Something a doctor might check) -- here are the symptoms:

Irritations: THROE (3D Spasm) wants to be THROB; TRAMP (21D March) wants to be TROMP; MOOED (25D Made farm sounds), homonym for "mood" and one of two calves; QUADS (64A Targets for weightlifters), the other calf, could have been DELTS; SUABLE (49D Ripe for a trial lawyer), aches for an "e"; SEER (23A Jeremiah, e.g., in the Bible) spent a short time as IBER (a Chief of); and PSST (68A “Hey, buddy!”), just a rude expression used by a crude individual!

Subjectives: ACHE (14A Source of misery), not always; LIAR (51A Yarn producer?), not all yarns are lies; LAIR (62A Hollow, perhaps), well, “perhaps” was added, but LAIR and LIAR, asymmetrical stuffing; IQS (59A Measures of brightness), sometimes more a measurement of dullness!

Déjà vu: SUP (60D Eat well), seen this last Sunday, clued as 39D “How ya doin’?” and all those old standards, EWER, ERODE, ALOE, MAO, ASP (this Monday, but not the snake), AERO, DYE (yesterday as TIEDYE), both LIAR and LAIR, URGE, EDGE, IRIS, ARE (properly clued, even if deviously so, this time around); AUDI (one of the several very popular crossword cars), SNAGS, SHOO; and, of course, the repulsive PSST!

Good stuff: WOOD (6D Fifth-anniversary gift) and EMERALD (7D 55th-anniversary gift) side-by-side with Shortzesque cluing; SOX (11D One of two A.L. teams), finally, Chicago gets included; ARREARS (43D Payments might be in it), just a nice turn; GAS (30D Oomph), dunno, just like it a lot; GALLUP (48D New Mexico town mentioned in the hit “Route 66”), been there?!

"Saab" story: AXLE (42A Car bar) -- boy, has this been haunting the puzzle lately -- Sunday’s crossword, titled REAR AXLE in which a group of entries contained omitted L’s and E’s -- well, if you do the Sunday puzzle, I don’t need to explain. Sometimes anagrammed under the skater’s move, AXEL, AXLE this week is particularly impressive for the number of times it (AXLE) has appeared, and the fact that a section of the AXLE on my vehicle (a Ford Focus) snapped in half this last Thursday (see photo below, the arm to the axle holding the shocks).

Luckily it happened going five mph, because on the Long Island Expressway at 60 mph -- BITS (2A Smithereens)! Aha, saved by MESSENGERS (66A Angels) see Friday -- another coincidence? If you are knotted, tangled, tossed and addled by this real (not faux), good (not bad) tale of woe (and certainly not ALAS) -- AFATE (32D _____worse than death) that has been NIXED (19A Kiboshed), be of good cheer, as today we greet another summer!

Analemma over the Ukraine


To go to original post with illustrations and puzzle grid, click on title at the beginning of commentary.