CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 Insects I feel moving around in

trees (9) 6 Mark’s married in unconscious

state (5) 9 French painter’s entrance (7) 10 Vlad’s epithet: “I’m not so dark”

(7) 11 Turning stupid, the animal

frightened easily (5) 12 Disregard nasty creatures kept

by Sparks (5,4) 13 Cold War’s beginning in essay

(6) 14 Polar worker boarding the ship with a large medicinal plant (4-4) 17 Lost in trek up U.S. highway (8) 19 Popular song by Yankee

including a break (6) 22 Roger and I swimming border

river (3,6) 24 Department head’s initial

intensity (5) 26 Japanese island unscathed

somehow, for the most part (7) 27 Salt and pepper hidden

in revolver (7) 28 Authorized walk (3,2) 29 Burrowing creature met

harrow, sadly (9) DOWN 1 Feeble diversionary

tactic in speech (5) 2 I’m involved in new

green program (7) 3 Tried flip, breaking

up school excursion (5,4) 4 Daffy, like a goose,

circling south (6) 5 Runner #5 competes

in underwear (8) 6 Cloak and Dagger’s

ultimate crime job (5) 7 One is absorbed by masculine discomfort (7) 8 Dogs shown on TV

with some brews (9) 13 For Walt, we animated

ducks and geese, etc. (9) 15 Nietzsche cooked

with a lot of fat (9) 16 Ruler caught in identical

swindle (4,4) 18 Getting set and

cheering (7) 20 Gain something from time with a piebald horse (3,4) 21 Expurgate passage from Saracen sorcerer (6) 23 Cook baloney injected

with arsenic (5) 25 Wound around Eastern

seraglio (5)