"I See Right Through You" - October 30, 2020

[Joe Ross]

[pddigi]

Because of travel, I had to rely on my phone. Every time I’d open the page, the grid would be blank. I could screenshot the completed grid, but then it’s problematic to look at the clues. So I sat this one out. I had a great time with my son in Clemson, including attending the game yesterday, so it was a good weekend, even without really trying to solve the meta.

[WDunbar]

I just spent several minutes trying to remember if I had done this one or not, just a few days ago. Found the answer in my sent mails folder, so I guess I did. Shows where my brain is at these days...

[tigerfly222]

Because of travel, I had to rely on my phone. Every time I’d open the page, the grid would be blank. I could screenshot the completed grid, but then it’s problematic to look at the clues. So I sat this one out. I had a great time with my son in Clemson, including attending the game yesterday, so it was a good weekend, even without really trying to solve the meta.

Proud Clemson grad here! Go Tigers!

[cherikee]

My rabbit hole was all the candy references throughout the puzzle:

BOTTLE caps
POP rocks
TOOTSie rolls
milk DUDS
MARS bars

I wonder if that was coincidence or misdirection.

[Colin]

Argh! I saw LISTEN but did not spot its twin, probably because listening and hearing are two completely different things! So I stopped there and went back to my flawed theory that 17A and 57A were the key.
I also spent some time trying to make the two Xs and RAY work but couldn’t pick the bones out of that one either!

[Kas]

Kas 4. Again.
I blame Congress.

[Commodore]

Holy Allen Ginsberg, I looked many times at Listen, Tan, Tots, Ape, Bridge. But, slap to head, never connected to the other puzzle answers. Don't know if I would have connected Ape to Lummox. Great Blue Moon puzzle. Dr. Tom's friend will haunt me. Until Thursday afternoon.

[SeanS]

Whiffed on this one. My literal mind couldn't get past the appearance of R-I-G-H-T in 17-A, 28-A, 33-A.

[Bob cruise director]

Because I cut it off early, I added in the postings before midnight so we have 19 on the ship and 131 on the shore

And did either 17A or 57 across materially contribute to the solution. If so they were diaphanous to me.

[LadyBird]

My rabbit hole was all the candy references throughout the puzzle:

BOTTLE caps
POP rocks
TOOTSie rolls
milk DUDS
MARS bars

I wonder if that was coincidence or misdirection.

And don't forget candy CORN--that had to be significant because it was clued. Or not. I also think it rather mean that twice in recent puzzles, Mike has put in glorious long theme answers (IMMATERIAL, DIAPHANOUS) that had nothing to do with the answer.

Another rabbit hole that I explored had to do with the grid answer HEAR. There were lots of other answers that you would hear: OWOW, RAH, TOOTS, FORE, HUMS.

I also got fixated on the word "right" in the title and looked for letters to the right of "U's"/You. And then I's and C's. A nudge got me to focus on "through" and then it finally clicked.

Two weeks in a row requiring nudges--ouch!

[CPJohnson]

Because I cut it off early, I added in the postings before midnight so we have 19 on the ship and 131 on the shore

And did either 17A or 57 across materially contribute to the solution. If so they were diaphanous to me.

Maybe the letters in GHOST were immaterial, and therefore should be ignored? I thought DIAPHANOUS was a synonym for "see right through."

[Cap'n Rick]

As I was completing the grid on Thursday, I immediately thought of HOWLS at 19A (OWOW) because it reminded me of the beginning of a wolf or coyote howl. Unfortunately, it took me until Saturday to find the right mechanism and work my way back to HOWLS.

[BarbaraK]

Argh! I saw LISTEN but did not spot its twin, probably because listening and hearing are two completely different things! So I stopped there and went back to my flawed theory that 17A and 57A were the key.
I also spent some time trying to make the two Xs and RAY work but couldn’t pick the bones out of that one either!

The clue for HEAR seemed odd to me while solving. When I later realized it also had to work for listen, I knew why. Definitely had to look at the clues, not just the grid entries, to get the solid click.

[Bob cruise director]

Because I cut it off early, I added in the postings before midnight so we have 19 on the ship and 131 on the shore

And did either 17A or 57 across materially contribute to the solution. If so they were diaphanous to me.

Maybe the letters in GHOST were immaterial, and therefore should be ignored? I thought DIAPHANOUS was a synonym for "see right through."

or transparent as a synonym. I will leave it to the grammarians to tell me if I am using it incorrectly.

[DanA]

My rat-hole that kept me distracted for a while was noticing that 48D CAPER could be made into CASPER (the friendly GHOST) by adding S and it crossed 57A. So I started looking for other famous ghosts or transparent things that could be spelled by adding 1 letter and were crossing the long answers. Didn’t find much and eventually gave up on that strategy.

[PJM]

Argh! I saw LISTEN but did not spot its twin, probably because listening and hearing are two completely different things! So I stopped there and went back to my flawed theory that 17A and 57A were the key.
I also spent some time trying to make the two Xs and RAY work but couldn’t pick the bones out of that one either!

Speaking of bones, I guessed the mechanism but at first tried to do it to the entire puzzle -- using letters from the far left and the far right and "seeing right through" the middle. I came up with plenty of words, including Halloween-y ones like BONES, BOX, and DUST.

Having then gotten stuck, I did what I often find helpful -- re-reading all the grid clues for meta clues. A second look at 28D showed the path.

[RDaleHall]

For quite awhile I was down the rabbit hole of MARIA (another older sister of Anastasia) being a strong part, and in correct order, of the key answer IMMATERIAL. Kept looking for other relationships among the clues like this to work in DIAPHANOUS.

[hcbirker]

Because I cut it off early, I added in the postings before midnight so we have 19 on the ship and 131 on the shore

And did either 17A or 57 across materially contribute to the solution. If so they were diaphanous to me.

Maybe the letters in GHOST were immaterial, and therefore should be ignored? I thought DIAPHANOUS was a synonym for "see right through."

The letters GHOST are the ones you remove from “glisten”, “Bridget” etc. very elegant.

[michaelm]

If you add IC "I See" and read 57A from the RIGHT, you get MUSIC.
Something you would hear on Halloween.
But of course, there has to be more.
What kind of MUSIC?
Scary? (ARCS almost had me there again reading from the RIGHT)
Eerie? Wait, that was last week...
House? (close but not quite Howls)
I'll always remember this puzzle when I hear Monster Mash...