IntroductionIn
today's puzzle, Cox and Rathvon present four of the most eminent choreographers in the history of American dance. They are joined by a trio of famous sports stars - two from the baseball diamond and one from the horse racing track. Fittingly, if our crossword puzzle grid were overlaid on a baseball diamond, we would have all bases covered, with George Balanchine behind the plate, Paul Taylor at first base, Merce Cunningham at second, and Twyla Tharp at third. It seems that only Martha Graham is missing - perhaps she is performing on the mound today.
Today's GlossarySome possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzlecastle -
[Collins English Dictionary] verb Chess to move the king two squares laterally on the first rank and place the nearest rook on the square passed over by the king, either towards the king's side (
castling short) or the queen's side (
castling long)
Today's PersonalitiesAppearing in today's puzzle are a quartet of iconic choreographers, a brace of renowned baseball stars, and a legendary jockey.
Felipe Alou - a former outfielder and first baseman with several Major League Baseball teams and former manager of the San Francisco Giants and Montreal Expos; his brothers, Matty and Jésus, and his son, Moises, also played in the major leagues
George Balanchine - Russian-born American choreographer, co-founder of the New York City Ballet
Yogi Berra - a former Major League Baseball player and manager who played almost his entire career with the New York Yankees; a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, he is regarded as one of the greatest catchers of all time
Merce Cunningham - American dancer and choreographer, who was at the forefront of American
avant garde for more than fifty years
Paul Taylor - one of the foremost American choreographers of the 20th century, he performed in the companies of Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine before founding the Paul Taylor Dance Company
In addition to being an iconic figure in American dance, Paul Taylor was also seemingly laconic (see 18a). According to Wikipedia, he "[c]laimed notoriety when he performed "Duet," where he and his pianist walk on stage, stand there for four minutes, then walk off. The newspaper review for this piece (written by Louis Horst) was four inches of blank space with just 'L.H.' at the bottom."
Twyla Tharp - American dancer and choreographer, who studied dance under Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham and danced in the Paul Taylor Dance Company before forming her own dance company; her work
Come Fly Away, set to the vocals of Frank Sinatra, is currently playing on Broadway
Ron Turcotte - Canadian Hall of Fame thoroughbred race horse jockey best known as the rider of U.S. Triple Crown Champion Secretariat
Commentary on Today's Puzzle17a Teach punk about male cat (7)Although I was able to find many meanings for the word "punk", I failed to find a really compelling one to qualify it as an anagram indicator. Punk can mean a youth movement of the late 1970s, characterized by anti-Establishment slogans and outrageous clothes and hairstyles; a young person, especially an adherent of this rebellious counterculture movement; an inexperienced young man; in music, short for punk rock or a punk rocker; a petty criminal or hoodlum; a young man who is the sexual partner of an older man; a prostitute; an inferior, rotten, or worthless person or thing; worthless articles collectively; dry decayed wood, used as tinder; any of various substances that smolder when ignited, used to light fireworks; Chinese incense; of poor quality; inferior, rotten, or worthless; weak in spirits or health. Perhaps the best choice of the lot may be "decayed" indicating that the structure of the word TEACH breaks down, allowing the letters to form another pattern?
16d Idiot's humour about northern antelope (4,3)It would seem that
wing nut (or
wingnut) was originally a term meaning an eccentric person or someone holding extreme political views. However, the word appears to have taken on a variety of slang meanings such as an uneducated person or a mentally ill person. At least one contributor to the
Online Slang Dictionary could be an unintentional poster boy for wingnuts, who (in attempting to differentiate wingnuts from the mentally ill) states "Mentally handicapped person has no control over their circumstances, where as the "Wingnut" is completely responsible for their lack of intelligents".
Solution to Today's Puzzle Legend: | "CD" Cryptic Definition; "DD" Double Definition |
| "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed |
| "( )" letters inserted; "_" letters deleted |
Across1a
BALANC(H|IN)E - BALANCE (poise) containing (disrupted by) {H (husband) + IN (at home)}; choreographer George Balanchine
6a
EMIT< - reversal (in reversal) of TIME (prison sentence) 9a
WAGE (W|A)R - {W (with) + A (one)} contained in (involved in) WAGER (bet)
10a
MA(JEST)Y - JEST (kid) contained in (surrounded by) MAY (might)
12a
CAST|LED - CAST (acting group) + LED (went ahead)
13a
B(ER)RA - ER (um) contained in (wearing) BRA (lingerie item)
15a
ALLOWED~ - sounds like (said) ALOUD (audibly)
17a
C(HE)ETAH* - anagram (punk) of TEACH containing (about) HE (male)
18a
LA(CON)IC - CON (against) contained in (entering) LAIC (non-clerical)
21a
VI|SIT|OR - VI (six; i.e., Roman numeral for six) + SIT (pose for an artist) + OR
23a
A(PRO)N - AN (article) containing (wrapping) PRO (expert)
24a
ARTISAN* - anagram (developed) of A STRAIN
27a
LU(NET)TE - NET (web) contained in (seen in) LUTE (instrument)
28a
COLLIE|R - R (right) following (behind) COLLIE (dog);
collier: a coal miner (worker with a pickaxe)
29a
ROCK - double definition; "pitch" (shake) and "stone"
30a
CUNNING|HAM - CUNNING (clever) + HAM (mug); choreographer Merce Cunningham
Down1d
BOWL - double definition; "try to get strikes" and "stadium"
2d
LO(GI)CAL - LOCAL (neighbourhood) containing (embracing) GI (soldier)
3d
NEW(T)S - NEWS (broadcast information) containing (about) T (true)
4d
HURT|L|ED - HURT (wound) + L (left) + ED (Edward)
5d
_NOMADIC_ - hidden in (through) soNOMA DICtate
7d
MUSKRAT* - anagram (of a sort) of US KMART;
Kmart: U.S. department store chain
8d
{TWYLA THARP}* - anagram (disturbed) of WHAT PARTLY; choreographer Twyla Tharp
11d
JO|BLESS - BLESS (favour) following (going after) JO (one of the March girls); Jo March: one of four sisters who are the principal characters in
Little Women, a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott
14d
{PAUL TAYLOR}* - anagram (upset) of ALOU PARTLY; choreographer Paul Taylor
16d
WI(N|G NU)T - WIT (humour) containing (about) {N (northern) + GNU (antelope)}
19d
CH(RON)IC - RON (jockey Ron Turcotte) contained in (in) CHIC (elegance);
Note: the setter employs an inverted sentence structure20d
C(HATE|A)U - {HATE (despise) + A} contained in (clad) CU (chemical symbol for copper)
21d
VAT(I)CAN* - anagram (strangely) of VACANT containing I (one)
22d
TENNIS|H - H (hot) following (after) TENNIS (game on a court)
25d
SO|LON_ - SO LONG (farewell) without the G (nearly finished);
Solon: Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet
26d
CRAM< - reversal (brought back) of MARC (Roman politician and general
Marc Antony)
Signing off for today - Falcon