"Backdrops" - November 1, 2019

[DrTom]

thx, I struggled in the surf, but managed to get onto dry land (with a helpful hint)

and ... just because someone gave me a hint, doesn't mean (a) it was a good one or (b) that I understood it correctly. So ... I still had to do a fair amount of work on this one.

(takes a bow and exits)

Gosh, if you had given me that hint I still would not have know what to do. Pardon my seasick induced (rough weather out here on the boat) dullness but how does "takes a bow and exits" nudge one towards the finish line?

[MajordomoTom]

probably too far down the chain - it was a reference to what one does on a stage.

The helpful hint told me to look at the second half of each of the five answers, look at the grid, and think.

and I was able to make the jump from there. Once I saw "FLASH/HALF" I was on it.

[Joe Ross]

Solved well after 11:30 PM. Was working on posting my spreadsheet & nearly forgot to email the answer. Saved by the 11:55 PM Sunday alarm.

[DrTom]

probably too far down the chain - it was a reference to what one does on a stage.

The helpful hint told me to look at the second half of each of the five answers, look at the grid, and think.

and I was able to make the jump from there. Once I saw "FLASH/HALF" I was on it.

OK, that nudge might have been enough - but maybe not. I do see the STAGE reference now, I was being obtuse I suppose (cause I never have the right angle!)

TB

[Joe Ross]

As an aside, is there a place where I can find out who won each week?

If you mean a single list with all the winners, not officially, as far as I know. You can look at each Friday's PDF for the previous week's winner:
https://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/category/c ... d-contest/

And someone here tracks data about the winners and has posted the number from each state. I don't remember who or know how much detail he/she has or would be willing to share.

Crossword Contest Official Rules

10. WINNERS LIST: A winners list for each weekly contest is available by sending a self-addressed envelope by 30 days after the end of the entry period for such weekly contest to

The Wall Street Journal Crossword Contest
ATTN: Mike Miller,
P.O. Box 300
Princeton, NJ 08543-0300

with a note specifying which week’s contest to which your request relates.

[Patty]

Not this week for me, not even close. Fingers crossed for 'one of us' to win the mug.

Looking at the answer it all ties together so nicely, terrific construction, Mike!

[Devilbunny]

Guessed it but had no clue as to mechanism. I was completely hung up on the fact that GREENBACK and FLASHBACK are things...

[Jim and Anita]

Add us to the not close column. Though we tried dropping letters from the back half of the second words we missed seeing the reverse mechanism. But we're happy that some rabbits helped expand our vocabulary. Glad to learn that "gele" in "los angeles" is a beautiful Nigerian head wrap and "mele" in "hamomelets" is chants in Hawaiian. Seeing "oahu" beneath started us dreaming of warmer days. Congrats to all who solved.

[howardl]

I sometimes get these contest answers right, but I often don't, which kind of makes me an expert on how solvers can fail. With that expertise, I have three observations on comments related to "backdrops".

1. My experience is that when I am right I am 100% certain; and when I am less than 100% certain, my answer is wrong. So in this puzzle, once I saw the "Omelets - StElmo" reversal, the name "back drops" made sense, and I was able to find the other words in the grid. (EAR took me forever to find however). But the trick worked for all five long answers, and the dropped letters (in order!! -- I've sometimes tried to use an anagram solver, but never once found it helpful) spelled a five letter word that was related to the puzzle name.
2. In my opinion, a post that says "this is easy" is making an impossible judgment. I have solved puzzles that had relatively few solvers (the puzzles were objectively hard, but easy for me), and I have failed to solve puzzles that had lots of solvers (the puzzles were objectively easy but hard for me). For me, sometimes the "trick" just pops out, and sometimes the trick is hopelessly opaque until I read the answer on Monday.
3. I did see comments thanking other commenters for a "helpful hint". I can't find any posts that look like helpful hints, but I am on the side of those who believe that we should not post any comments that ruin the Aha moment for others. So clearly it would be a violation of the commenting "rules" to say, "Look at the second word in each starred clue; write that word backwards while dropping one of the letters." In my opinion it would also be a violation to say, "focus on the second word in each long answer" or "once I read backwards and dropped a letter an answer emerged."

[pddigi]

The “black hole” rabbit hole for me was tessera and teaser rate. Ironically, although that kept leading me astray on my initial attempts to solve, it hinted at the mechanism: drop an s from tessera and you have the letters needed (if not the correct quantity) to spell teaser rate.

As I ate my egg and bacon breakfast sandwich at Dunkin’, omelets and St. Elmo popped out: drop the e and you can make omelets become St. Elmo. Then it was off to the races. I don’t know if I’ll get up before 5am expressly to solve the meta on Saturday mornings, but it made the early morning that much more satisfying!

[Joe Ross]

...egg and bacon breakfast sandwich at Dunkin’...

Scrapping plans for a celebratory Guinness and switching to that other Breakfast of Champions, a homemade sausage muffin with egg.

I count this as a spoiler hint, one that I'm damned glad that Dr. Paul posted. Thank you!

[MaineMarge]

Brilliant, Mike. Starting with the first theme answer, as usual, right away I saw NFL in Green flash. On no! Sports again! Might as well drop back and punt right now. Fortunately there were no rabbits wearing helmets in that hole.
Next, looking for down words intersecting the theme answers, I saw the monkey business going on with the alf/fla in flash, but didn’t tune in to the backwards spelling bit til much later in the game.
I think this particular letter meetup was Mike’s hint to us- none of the other grid words we located intersected their backwards teammates.
One of my favorite metas so far.

[PeterLeea1a]

Phew, finally made it to shore. There was a big red herring in there, or something unintentional that stymied me.

Deviously deceptive to have, as the first theme entry, two words that you can add "Back" to in order to form two new words (Greenback, Flashback). That rabbit hole went nowhere but definitely felt like it should have, because it required dropping the back.

[Bird Lives]

For anyone who might have missed the connection of the title to both the meta and the method:

The second word of each them entry goes back but drops a letter.
A backdrop is "a painted cloth hung at the back of a theater stage as part of the scenery." (Oxford)

[KayW]

As an aside, is there a place where I can find out who won each week?

If you mean a single list with all the winners, not officially, as far as I know. You can look at each Friday's PDF for the previous week's winner:
https://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/category/c ... d-contest/

And someone here tracks data about the winners and has posted the number from each state. I don't remember who or know how much detail he/she has or would be willing to share.

Crossword Contest Official Rules

10. WINNERS LIST: A winners list for each weekly contest is available by sending a self-addressed envelope by 30 days after the end of the entry period for such weekly contest to

The Wall Street Journal Crossword Contest
ATTN: Mike Miller,
P.O. Box 300
Princeton, NJ 08543-0300

with a note specifying which week’s contest to which your request relates.

Thanks, Joe. I never noticed that option before! But seriously, Mike snail-mails it to you?!?! Seems to me a soft-copy would be so much easier and eco-friendly.

But I should try that one time. At least THEN I could be sure my answer made it through and didn't end up in mail server limbo

[FrankieHeck]

I have to admit that I didn't realize the second halves of the words were spelled backward and dropped a letter in the other grid words. I thought they just dropped a letter and were anagrammed. I thought the "back" just referred to the back half of the word, so I like the puzzle even more now.

[Jazzvibist]

Ashore (enjoyable solve and, as expected, an ingenious Mike Shenk construction).

When I posted this yesterday, I neglected to mention something that I encountered when I first began solving the meta which, if it had held up, would have constituted (for me) a remarkable frosting on this already impressive cake. If I can remember, I'll post it Monday morning.

Bearing in mind that the name of this meta was BACKDROP, When I first got "GREEN FLASH" / HALF, I immediately thought "Wow - If you add "back" to both "HALF" and "FLASH," the result is a new word. Can Mike possibly have accomplished a feat like this with the remaining four pairs???"

I'm guessing that Mike could likely have done it had he wanted to make the effort.

[Commodore]

As usual, my belly bested my brain and gets the credit. "EGG" "GRUB" whoa... "HAMOMELET"
I'm even seeing Omlets sorta backwards! Wait! Huh? Hmmm.
Yum.

[MajordomoTom]

I was focusing on some of those rabbit tracks also

tax-rate
rate-drop
flash-back

the ability to play with parts of the answers with each other was maddening. But I couldn't go anywhere with Los Angeles nor Ham Omelets, so I knew this was a false trail, but was just going in circles on it for hours.

[Eric Porter]

At first I went down the rabbit hole of TESSERA / TEASERRATE. If you drop the final letters 'R' from 'TEASER' and the 'TE' from 'RATE', you only have to swap an 'A' for an 'S' to get TESSERA.

When I was starting to realize that my first idea was going nowhere, I noticed that HAMOMELETS contains 'MO' and 'EL' (going forward), which made me think of STELMO. Of course, it also contains those two parts going backwards, which I noticed works better.