Saturday, May 15, 2010 - Dancing with the Stars

Introduction

In 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 Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

castle - [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 Personalities

Appearing 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 Puzzle

17a 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

Across

1a 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

Down

1d 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 structure

20d 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