crossword 7:12

puzzle 3 days



hello friends, and welcome to week 169 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Moving Day”. this week we’re challenged to identify a common form of transportation. there are no overt hints in the grid or clues at all, and nothing that jumped out at me as being thematic on the first pass. or the second. or the third. it took many, many revisits to this meta over the course of the entire weekend for me to finally see it—and it turned out that one of my earliest instincts was right.

do you all remember MGWCC #6, “Can You Dig It?”? sure you do. that’s the one with the panama canal theme, where you needed to insert an A into a black square in the very center of the grid in order to reveal the panamAcanal theme? well, at the time, matt called that one “the cruciverbal equivalent of a Magic Eye picture: the contest answer either jumped out at you pretty quick, or you stared at the puzzle for hours and nothing happened”. weirdly, i remember thinking of that exact meta, and that very analogy, as i struggled with this puzzle this weekend: “it’s like a friggin’ magic eye, and i just can’t see it.” well, i (luckily) finally saw the invisible meta, and actually it’s a very similar kind of trick, although not quite the same and on a much larger scale.

as you’ve perhaps already noticed from my beautifully-powerpointed screenshot, that entire main diagonal of black squares can get a letter in each square so that the across clues on both sides of the diagonal are still satisfied. impressed? take a look:

{One of the Beatles, e.g.} STAR and {A figure 8 may be made in it} INK can get an R in the middle to make STARR (one of the beatles) and RINK (the building in which a figure skater might make her 8).

{Blue material} PORN and {It’s great in Greece} MEGA can take an O to make PORNO (same thing as PORN) and OMEGA. did you ever notice that the greek alphabet has both omega (“big O”) and omicron (“little o”)? hey greek speakers, what’s the difference? i’ve never known. is it a short/long vowel sound thing?

{Cut finely} FILE and {“___ your problem…”} HERE’S can take a T for FILET and THERE’S. very nice, going with two very different cutting scenarios.

{Section of a tax form} LINE and {Like some of Schoenberg’s music} TONAL can take an A to make LINE A and ATONAL. this is what tipped me off, because although it is certainly true that some of schoenberg’s music is tonal, he’s much better known as an atonal composer. so i was looking for a way to squeeze that extra A in there, and noticed that i could stick it in the block before.

{Part of a wooden door} PANE and {Character in an Ogden Nash poem} LAMA can take an L to make PANEL and LLAMA. both the one-L LAMA and two-L LLAMA are in the same ogden nash poem, but i would bet a silk pajama there isn’t any three-L LLLAMA.

{Woman’s name from the Hebrew for “God is gracious”} JOANN and {Came up} ROSE can take an A for JOANNA and AROSE. clever cluing here—instead of going for a specific joann, he uses the etymology clue, which of course works for both names. also, i like the different senses of “came up” for ROSE/AROSE. (although i guess AROSE can also mean came up in the literal, motion-related sense.)

{Ending for mono or ego} MANIA and {Standard iPhone feature} LOCK can take C for MANIAC/CLOCK. i was struggling with the L of that clue while solving the crossword. not being an iphone user, i figured DOCK was a possibility. the bar with app icons at the bottom of a mac OS X screen is called the dock, and i thought the list of iphone app icons might have the same name. the crossing clue {Mauna ___ (tropical drink brand)} was tough and i didn’t know it, but L is a hawaiian consonant and D isn’t. still, i was sweating bullets when i realized that it wasn’t going to be either LOA or KEA.

{What’s heard in church on Sunday} AMEN and {Pulverize} MASH can take an S to make AMENS/SMASH. this one is a bit dicey, as i’m not 100% convinced that the clue wording allows either AMEN or AMENS to be a legit answer (i wanted AMENS in the first place). MASH and SMASH being synonyms is a nice find, though.

{Part of a matador’s getup} CAP and {Common medium of communication} MAIL can take an E for CAPE/EMAIL. very good.

so, the meta answer is right there in plain sight once those letters are put into that diagonal: an ESCALATOR ascends gracefully up that long diagonal. as somebody who has spent a lot of time lugging a wheeled suitcase through various airports and subway stations recently, i’m very grateful for escalators.

somehow i don’t think i’ve mentioned this yet, so let me just say it now: this meta is absolutely ingenious. this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen the old “the same clue can have multiple correct answers” trick, or even the old “put a letter into a black square” trick, but the way it’s all put together is tremendously elegant. not only that, but it can’t have been easy to stack nine of these pairs on top of each other, and in the correct order, to make the meta answer ESCALATOR. this is a five-star puzzle if i’ve ever seen one.

fill roundup:

{The wealthiest city in the world, according to Fortune magazine in 2007} is ABU DHABI. sure, i buy that. i like seeing the full name in the grid instead of just a FITB clue for ABU. likewise, YMA SUMAC gets full-name treatment; i thought we might be dealing with a word reversal theme because of the AMY/CAMUS possibilities.

{Make your dough grow} just means LEAVEN, nothing to do with finance. and {Money and such} are EDDIES, nothing to do with finance.

{Suffix with four, seven or ten} is the plural ordinal suffix -THS. now, plural suffixes are pretty low on my list of “fill to use only in the direst of emergencies”, but i enjoyed the struggle/aha moment that i went through to get this clue. and most of the other small integers (with the notable exception of 6) do not take this particular suffix, at least without another change taking place.

52-across was clued as {-___ (you are here)}, which totally mystified me at first glance. of course, in the clue list, it looks like “52. -___ (you are here)”, and the answer is just ACROSS. indeed, i was there. at least at the time. now i’m over here. hi! *waves*

{Me and others} are MATTS. three plural names in this grid (EDDIES and EDWINS crossing each other is worse), but this one’s personal. what do you guys think about the clue {People like me}? it evokes a little al franken, which is always a good thing.

{Shooting org.} is NBA. a classic gaffney trap—who among us didn’t have NRA there? unless you’d already solved the ABU DHABI clue, if your hand isn’t up, you’re lying.

{Las Vegas Strip hotel} is the RIVIERA. ah, the heady days of two weeks ago, when the metas were easy.

{He hit .316 in 1914} is casey STENGEL. who knew anything about his playing career? geez.

{She greets you with “Hyvää päivää!”} is a FINN, apparently female—perhaps huckleberry’s sister? also in the “surprise, it’s a woman! serves you right for your smug male-normative expectations!” category is MADWOMAN, clued neutrally as {Nut}.

{Name that reverses embarrassingly} is LANA. *snicker*

{Palindromic device named for a tennis player} is the MAC CAM, named for john mcenroe. do they even have this any more, or has hawkeye conquered all other tennis replay technologies?

{First language of 75 million people} is TELUGU, one of the major languages of india, and one that i’ve never heard of. wow.

okay, that’s all for me. stand up and take a bow, matt! see you next week.