"Short Stories" - August 30, 2019

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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darthdriessen
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#141

Post by darthdriessen »

Develop a "Toolbox of Failure". Check out old contests and if you can't solve, see the answer. Add these techniques to your toolbox.
Eventually, trying all the toolbox techniques leads to no solution, put down the puzzle look at it the next day. Very frustrating when many find the puzzle easy. Also, subscribing to other puzzles by same creators often mentioned on this site seems to hone the brain.
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Patty
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#142

Post by Patty »

CPJohnson wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:21 pm I have a question for those of you who always see the meta mechanism right away. I'll use the previous puzzle as an example: Two by Two. How did you know that TBT meant "look for 2-letter combos that occur two times in a single grid answer"? Why not "all grid letters in boxes with numbers that are powers of 2"? Or "....powers of 4"? Or "all double letter occurrences"? Or "strings of the same letters that cross each other"? I spent a long time looking at 31D AHS and AHS and trying to find other groupings like that one. Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide.
Over time I've gotten better at solving the metas and enjoy reading the approach that others have taken after the answer is revealed. I believe it was Stu Katz that recommended the strategy of looking for answers in the grid that looked 'forced' or 'awkward' in some way.
Emmaa
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#143

Post by Emmaa »

NOT SO QUICK REPLY :shock:

I got a different, more direct answer. CD Bob, please tell me I wasn’t PAGEANTED by a CHAT ROOM. Your mechanism, I believe, for that solution, would require a divining rod, a device known by residents in California to dangerously cause slips and falls in the hands of people on boats in that state, so I left mine at home next to my rusty slide ruler in Georgia, before boarding this cruise, not knowing where one of these aforementioned rabbit holes, infamous for swallowing up tenders full of muggles, may lead. Additionally, need I state, when lost at sea, most of us know the salty, balmy, warm environment can wreak havoc on, if not total loss of, such important tools.

Further, Occam’s Razor would support my final answer, URBY. If for some reason URBY is not the answer, how does one rule it in to the rabbit hole pile? :P

I found the solution to be more straight forward by working with the basic UBRY. UBRY are the four letters that phonetically...
<<or editor, could I say textually? - probably not yet a word in the sense that I am using it to refer to a text written word - call me progressive or regressive - grammar feedback is invited, no, encouraged, if you can just limit it to constructive comments>>
...complete the four across multiword, longest answers in the puzzle at 17A, 29A, 45A, and 60 A, as ably stated in the above #135 statement.

At first, I thought of the unscrambled word BURY and how if one gets a traditional burial, they are a lot shorter, if measured vertically, as are the other people buried next to them, since usual burials are 6 ft under; I suppose we could, therefore, state that the deceased do get short with each other; but BURY is not a noun, or a place. Further, it seems absurd to see so much suggested about getting short with others in the emotional sense, to abandon that theme, in favor of the sarcastic cemetery comment, though I don’t doubt such a clever 180 has been completed in these “semi-“ circles. So, as you can now appreciate, I slowly buried that rabbit hole, or perhaps, just filled it in.

Next, I discovered one could unscramble the same letters to yield URBY.
One G. website says Urby is a Staten Island, NY, “North Shore waterfront total rethink for a new generation of apartment seekers.” Built in 2016, Urby “combines a boutique hotel personality with imaginative architectural design to create a fresh new standard of apartment living” and appears to meet the desires of many young adults, with small foot prints - 371 sq ft studios to 829 sq ft 2 BRs - and units priced from $1,757 - $3,986 plus $75/mo. storage fees. Additionally, these buildings were a mere 5 stories, making them “Short Story” buildings!
Each unit has “large windows to feel airy and light with built-in storage and in-home washer/dryer to make life easy.” “A team of in-house fun experts host events that inspire interaction and good times so individuality can thrive and new friendships can be made in the building.” Staten Island Urby also “has a heated outdoor pool, fully equipped gym with classes, outdoor lounge areas with fire pits and more. Parking, bike storage and just steps from the Stapleton Train Stop for an easy commute.” In NY what you call a steal, we’d call a crime here in the south, where my son, who lives in a unit just like this in Charlotte, for half the price and twice the space, which is maybe twice there what he would pay for the most similar accommodations in his hometown.

Briefly and incompletely, I report from another G. website, in part, there is (or was?) a suit that accuses the Urby organization of racial discrimination and says it is (or was?) the subject of a federal complaint.
Per the complaint, “shortly after the development opened, some of the tenants living in the market-rate units began making complaints on social media forums about the behavior of low-income tenants, using racially charged language such as ‘ghetto’ and ‘crackheads,’ prompting Urby to initiate a ‘campaign of harassment’ that involved housing court litigation and aggressive buy-out offers to low-income black tenants with rental subsidies.”
I cannot and do not vouch for the accuracies of these reports, but in short, we can agree renters and tenants at these apartments apparently got short with each other, a story in which their neighbors at WSJ were likely aware.
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PeterLeea1a
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#144

Post by PeterLeea1a »

“As hinted by the top right grid entry SAYS, which, using the theme answer mechanism, translates to ESSAYS, or Short Stories, there are six grid entries beginning with the letters SA (or “Essay”). Taking the remaining letters of those six entries in fact yields nothing, thus entering a very deep rabbit hole before finally divining CHAT ROOM.”
Tony S
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#145

Post by Tony S »

Patty wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:51 am
CPJohnson wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:21 pm I have a question for those of you who always see the meta mechanism right away. I'll use the previous puzzle as an example: Two by Two. How did you know that TBT meant "look for 2-letter combos that occur two times in a single grid answer"? Why not "all grid letters in boxes with numbers that are powers of 2"? Or "....powers of 4"? Or "all double letter occurrences"? Or "strings of the same letters that cross each other"? I spent a long time looking at 31D AHS and AHS and trying to find other groupings like that one. Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide.
Over time I've gotten better at solving the metas and enjoy reading the approach that others have taken after the answer is revealed. I believe it was Stu Katz that recommended the strategy of looking for answers in the grid that looked 'forced' or 'awkward' in some way.
Yes, that's exactly what I did -- Yoch was an odd answer so I figured that it could provide a path to the solution.
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BarbaraK
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#146

Post by BarbaraK »

So seeing the U, B, R, and Y, and knowing that "short" was somehow involved, my eye jumped to the Y shared by SPAY and WISHY - you could shorten both of them and get perfectly good words by dropping the Y!

A moment later, I saw UPLATE and USOFA crossing at the U and I was hooked.

For the B, I got LOBS and BASKS, and for the R, LEAR and TERRA.

And then... well nothing. Couldn't do anything with that. But I still spent two days trying before I finally backed up and took a look at the letters that had been taken out instead of the ones left behind.

A good clue that I was on the wrong path should have been finding two other Rs that could be dropped though not quite as cleanly. PARTS and ARISTOCRATS (2nd R) - but The Aristocats is pretty old. Or CRAPS and RIGA - but IGA is an initialism, not a word. So I kind of talked myself into ignoring those but also kind of knew that if that were really what Matt was doing, he wouldn't have left those in.
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Wendy Walker
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#147

Post by Wendy Walker »

My funniest wrong answer while brainstorming: RUBY Tuesday, where people eat SHORT ribs. I actually looked up Ruby Tuesday to see if they serve ribs!
Like another Muggle, I spent a lot of time doing exactly the wrong thing: trying to add letters rather than subtract them. Once I tried the George Costanza approach (do the opposite), there it was. And like many others, I knew from the start that the answer YOCH had to be relevant.
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
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Commodore
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#148

Post by Commodore »

Followed fleet to URBY. Dragged keel across RUBY & BURY. Then tacked way out... Lost in fog. Had Ensign Isaac fire a flare at day's end.

YOU GUESSED IT
TRUTH BE TOLD
HOW ARE THINGS
DONT ASK ME WHY

YGIT B THAT DAM W

WHY GEE, IT BE THAT DAM W

WEB ?
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Wendy Walker
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#149

Post by Wendy Walker »

On a more general note: As eager as I am to get started on the puzzle each Thursday afternoon, when it appears online, before even downloading the PDF, I take a time-out (like a surgical team, or co-pilots) and ponder the title. It helps focus me on the sometimes amorphous solving process. For instance, whenever a number is mentioned in the title, you know it's going to be important in some way. (Yeah. I know. "In some way" is pretty vague, isn't it.) I usually come up with a couple of possibilities, and occasionally my initial guess actually turns out to be correct.
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
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Bird Lives
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#150

Post by Bird Lives »

Like a night watchman, I look for signs of forced entries. YOCH leaped off the grid because KOCH (crossed with SAKS) would be better. And WISHY isn't a word. It could, without too much trouble become WISER, and PROP become PREP. So it was clear that YO, and maybe CH were crucial to the solution. Add that to the fact that YO are the missing letters in YOU, and CHATROOM isn't far.

Or it could have been KINDERGARTEN. After all, URBY is anagram of BURY, and a burial is an UNDERTAKING, which is nearly an anagram of KINDERGARTEN, which is a place with stories and people that are short.
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Bob cruise director
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#151

Post by Bob cruise director »

When I was doing the grid, YOCH and AERO jumped out at me immediately. And WHOM was not far behind. My first two thoughts on whom were "For whom the bell tolls" and Wendy for correct grammar. I went down the URBY and UBRY rabbit holes briefly but they did not give the completeness that Matt usually has. I tried combinations of the missing letters quickly and went nowhere. Then I put together the extra letters in the odd words and got Chat Room pretty quickly and everything fit.

My wife is always thrilled when I solve the meta on Thursday as I am not carrying the puzzle around like a puppy with a toy all weekend.
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Jim and Anita
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#152

Post by Jim and Anita »

Our weird connection was that people get short with one another when they sell shares short on a stock exchange. And since the letters NYSE are neatly arranged around the P at the center of the puzzle we took the answer to be The New York Stock Exchange. But this answer obviously comes up short.
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FrankieHeck
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#153

Post by FrankieHeck »

Bob cruise director wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 9:00 am My wife is always thrilled when I solve the meta on Thursday as I am not carrying the puzzle around like a puppy with a toy all weekend.
I love this description. Exactly what I do!

I jotted down the missing letters, and the YO jumped out at me as being in the puzzle, followed quickly by the AE and the WH. The E part wasn't satisfying at first until I saw the consistent placement of the missing letters at the start of the words. (I was hoping at first they'd be symmetrical in the grid, but when I saw the letter placement I went from 95 to 99.9% sure of CHATROOM.)
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KayW
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#154

Post by KayW »

My first hunch guess was LIBRARY, which could be constructed from 14A and the first half of 58D. But I just knew that was too simplistic a solve. Then I started to think of places where people text, and my next guesses were TWITTER or CHAT ROOM. As for many others, YOCH seemed very odd - it was the one grid entry I googled to confirm. And seeing the missing YO from U guessed it, paired with CH from CHAT ROOM, was the toe-hold for me.

Oh and somewhere along the way I noticed and tried to play with a number of two-word clues starting with the same letter... wily watcher, safe space, blue blood. But that would have been more appropriate for last week's 2 by 2 meta.

And to answer CPJohnson's question - although I am nowhere NEAR the level of any of those geniuses that solve immediately... I only know it's the right mechanism after it gives me the answer. Usually after trying way too many wrong mechanisms :) And attempting these week after week gives me a bigger "Toolbox of Failure" to rummage through. Though it's amazing to me how the constructors keep coming up with new ways to amuse and torture us!
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Colin
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#155

Post by Colin »

Bob cruise director wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:04 am The answer I have for the contest is CHAT ROOM
The answer derived from the missing letters in the four long across answers. Look for a grid answer starting with the missing letters and use the two letters that are left.
In 17A, U should be YOU so 12D starts with YO and you have CH
29A, B should be BE so 20A starts with E and you have AT
45A, R should be ARE so 57D starts with AE and you have RO
60A, Y should be WHY so 52D starts with WH and you have OM
Put them together and what have you got (besides Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo) is CHAT ROOM where people use abbreviations so they get “short with each other”.
O boy! The lesson 4 me is 2 be more thorough investigating potential metas b4 discounting them as rabbit holes! Started down the right route, got wires crossed, ending up with some Vulcan word... moved on too fast.
One world. One planet. One future.
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BarbaraK
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#156

Post by BarbaraK »

Commodore wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 8:37 am Followed fleet to URBY. Dragged keel across RUBY & BURY. Then tacked way out... Lost in fog. Had Ensign Isaac fire a flare at day's end.

YOU GUESSED IT
TRUTH BE TOLD
HOW ARE THINGS
DONT ASK ME WHY

YGIT B THAT DAM W

WHY GEE, IT BE THAT DAM W

WEB ?
LOL! This gets my vote for most creative wrong answer!
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MarkL
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#157

Post by MarkL »

I guess (given one, whole semester of Business Law to my credit) with all the talk about tool kits, Razors, research, methods, etc., we should add a pinch of 'reasonable man theory' to the meta solving process. URBY did cause an alarm to go off and generate a visit to Mr G. The apartment/stories connection was there but it didn't seem reasonable enough that someone (read: home owner outside the few URBY markets) would know of URBY without a meta-induced search with Mr. G. It was later in the weekend, after a more than average grind, when the YO/CH appeared and led to the final answer.

Here's to a safe remainder of the week for everyone up and down the East Coast. This looks like a storm no one wants any part of. Be safe!
'tis... A lovely day for a Guinness!
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Joe Ross
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#158

Post by Joe Ross »

The most aggravating part of this puzzle was an earworm that took up residence, with little hope of moving out.

U B R Y was rabbit-holed to pieces. Saying it over & over in my head, it turned U G L Y , which had me humming, from juvenile days playing sports & paying more attention to cheerleaders than on-field responsibilities:

U G L Y
You ain't got no alibi!
You're UGLY!
Hey! Hey! You're UGLY!


Having years of experience of sitting courtside as the PA announcer of high school basketball games, there is one particularly funny, if irreverent, story regarding this cheer. Two schools with large, loud, & coordinated student cheering sections were playing. The all boys school's section was getting the better of the other. Frustrated, the other school trotted out this cheer, upon which the all boys section loudly, pointing fingers, shouted back:

P A P A
We know how we got that way!
Your PAPA!
Hey! Hey! Your PAPA!


Even the opposing cheering section laughed & applauded.
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Eric Porter
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#159

Post by Eric Porter »

My one mistake, which is kind of funny in retrospect, was writing down 46D ("Yelp users") as EATERS, not RATERS. Thus, I was looking for something starting with AR, not AE. I had 'CHAT __OM', so I knew that I needed an 'RO' and backsolved from 'AERO'. At first I'd thought that I had EATERS correct because 'E' is a letter in 'ARE'.

I found this week's much easier than last week's because I didn't have to spend any time searching for what to do next. The clues with 'getting short' in them must be a part of the answer. They're missing letters, that's interesting. We're had many puzzles where letters you get from the first step can be found in other grid entries. That was the first thing I tried after I realized that the missing letters didn't spell anything on their own. I would have had trouble with the final step if I hadn't seen it before.
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MarkL
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#160

Post by MarkL »

FWIW... DOLLHOUSE (short stories), STOCK EXCHANGE (going short rather than getting short), TWITTER and STENO POOL were all rabbit holes that got a peek, at least.
'tis... A lovely day for a Guinness!
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