Across & Down
Drawing Hands --
M.C. Escher-----------------
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Puzzle by John Farmer, edited by Will Shortz
This is one of those crosswords that requires far more words to explain than are involved. In this case, we are dealing with a mere five squares.
Five squares in this very clever crossword contain ACROSS/DOWN. I'll just use a blank square () to indicate both words in this commentary. However, when looking at the across clues, read the square as ACROSS and for the down clues, read it as DOWN. The five pairs of words are as follows:
ONE(1A. First clue) and BEAT (4D. Jazz/blues monthly);
GOHILL (13D. Hit the skids) and STRETCHES (18A. Spans, as a river);
GETPAT (26D. Master) and MOVETOWN (35A. Relocate from one side to the other);
LOOKON (39D. Scorn) and THESTREET (58A. Facing one’s house from a short distance away, say);
UPSIDE (45D. Inverted) and CUT (68A. Transect).
The rest of the puzzle is fairly straight-forward, with two eleven-letter across entries, ARSENIOHALL (29A. “Coming to America” co-star), I entered Eddie Murphy first, and ONEMANBANDS (46A. Versatile performers), a good example is Professor Gizmo one-man-band Tiger Rag.
Entries of interest with links -- NARTHEX (2D. Church vestibule), INVITRO (40D. Like some fertility lab techniques), LEATHER (41D. Hide in a closet?), CARIBOU (43D. Game in the Arctic), BRETON (8D. Celt of NW France), AGORA, PIANO, ARNO, LILO, NEWT, MAI and TAI.
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For today's cartoon, go to The Crossword Puzzle Illustrated.
