Saturday, October 23, 2010 - To Boldly Go ...

Introduction

As requested by an anonymous follower of the blog, here is the first Cox and Rathvon puzzle published during my sojourn in Italy - one that I have yet to solve.

Solution to Today's Puzzle

Thank you to Matt Mitchell for providing the solution to today's puzzle. As I have yet to solve the puzzle myself, the solution is presented as provided by Matt in a comment to my blog of October 16, 2010.

To boldly go… aw, I’m sure some other constructor’s been here before

Across

9a RE(TE)ACH—Alien equals “ET”: book it. The kicker in this clue was leaving “reach” alone. How many of you were trying to find a synonym for that one?
10a PER(FOR)M—FOR (pro) contained in PERM (hairdo). Easy starter.
11a CAPTAIN KIRK*—anagram (out) of PICK AIR TANK. Off to the races, assuming you watched the old series.
12a _E|EL_—hidden (caught by) erniE ELs.
13a S(P)EED—P (chemical symbol for phosphorus) contained in (in) SEED (grain).
14a ASTEROID*—anagram (for) of A HORMONE’S
16a, 18a WILLIAM SHATNER*—anagram (case) of TALL IRISHMAN WE. Convenient that the name is 7,7 and Hex are good enough to put them not only on the same line but on the middle line. That’s attention to detail.
19a S|PACES|HIP—S (small) + PACES (steps) + HIP (in)
21a RA(P)ID—RAID (attack) containing (capturing) P (first letter [leader] of “people’s”)
24a A|SH—A (letter ‘a’) + SH (quiet)
25a THE KLINGONS*—anagram (off) of THEN GO SLINK. I’ll leave it to a Trekkie commentator to point interested solvers to a good online introduction to Klingons: did you know you can learn to speak the Klingon language
26a LA|RAM|IE—LA (Los Angeles) + RAM +IE (that is). Laramie is a city in Wyoming, and the clue reads even better if you remember that Los Angeles was the National Football League home of the Rams for many years.
27a EVENING—double definition

Down

1d ~WRECKS—sounds like (reportedly) “rex” (Latin king)
2d STA(P)LE—P (first letter [chief] of “police”) contained in (interrupts) STALE (old)
3d FAR AND WIDE*—anagram (shot) of DAWN FIRED A
4d PHANTASM*— anagram (changed) of MANS PATH
5d S|PRINT—S (first letter [bit of] of “sloppy”) + TYPE (print)
6d T|R|E|K—first letters (starts) of The Remote European Kingdom
7d COME|DI(A)N—COME (arrive at) + DIN (uproar) containing (holding) A.
8d I’M A LOSER*—anagram (bad) of IS LAME OR
15d REAR|RANGES—REAR (back) + RANGES (burners). Efficient cluing.
16d W(ASS)AILS—WAILS (loudly protests) containing (about) ASS (dope)
17d LEA(THE)RY—THE (article) contained in (penned by) LEARY (Timothy the hippie). Timothy Leary was an early proponent of LSD (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_a_Mind).
18d SUP|PLIED—SUP (have food) + PLIED (layered)
20d ~HEELED—sounds like (of hearing) HEALED (cured)
22d ~PROFIT—sounds like (in speech) PROPHET (prognosticator)
23d DO|SAGE—DO (manage) + SAGE (wise)
25d TOME—double definition

Signing off for today - Falcon