#620 - "Two for Two"

[Laura M]

I just got totally lucky on this one.. as I was solving, I just mis-read the Godfather clue, and was filling "TRILOGY" until it didn't fit, then later realized I had mis-read it, but noticed that it still made a valid clue and thought "huh that would be an interesting meta mechanism some day". Then over the course of solving I started seeing others that were similar and it all fell together quickly. 100% dumb luck / not reading very carefully :)

I'm curious what other rabbit holes were out there though, since I was so happy to have solved quickly I just tore up the puzzle and threw it away in celebration - I never got a chance to really look at the gird with my meta-eyes

I did the exact same thing but with "Be(e) home with honey." I thought, huh, I already filled in HIVE as the answer to another clue! I was surprised at first that this meta was playing so difficult, but after responding to several nudge requests yesterday, I get it. This was a tough one, and I just happened to luck out!

[spotter]

WOW. Thank you for the nudges I received Laura and LesY, to let me know not to pursue my path further. I didn't come remotely close to finding the answer, but I also didn't spend too much time looking once I got out of my rabbit holes. Below is where I was stuck and thankfully told to abandon.

[hcbirker]

I should have gone further. I knew there were some awkwardly worded clues, just didn't pursue that line of thinking. Doubtful I would've found the path without a nudge. Kept looking at "chap" and "gent" in "agents" thinking that was something.

[Laura M]

hopelessly being towed further out to sea by the rabbit(?) on the end of my harpoon, land is a distant memory

I'm never sure if I should "like" comments that aren't exactly positive, but I got a laugh out of the harpooned rabbit. (Don't report me to PETA!)

[LesY]

I just got totally lucky on this one.. as I was solving, I just mis-read the Godfather clue, and was filling "TRILOGY" until it didn't fit, then later realized I had mis-read it, but noticed that it still made a valid clue and thought "huh that would be an interesting meta mechanism some day". Then over the course of solving I started seeing others that were similar and it all fell together quickly. 100% dumb luck / not reading very carefully

I'm curious what other rabbit holes were out there though, since I was so happy to have solved quickly I just tore up the puzzle and threw it away in celebration - I never got a chance to really look at the gird with my meta-eyes

(GR)EGG YOLK and (S)LAKE(S) ERIE kept me occupied for a couple hours. Subtract “two” letters and link up “two” words, so Two for Two.

[Joe Ross]

WOW. Thank you for the nudges I received Laura and LesY, to let me know not to pursue my path further. I didn't come remotely close to finding the answer, but I also didn't spend too much time looking once I got out of my rabbit holes. Below is where I was stuck and thankfully told to abandon.

Rabbit.png

I have grids that look nearly identical!

I've notified Matt that I was working with another muggle & we were scrambling the last 20 minutes. The other muggle said we were too late, but I threw the post-ultimate Hail Mary & it was listed at 12:02 PM, if not accepted. I solved for two of the last letters after submitting.

[rexthree]

I just got totally lucky on this one.. as I was solving, I just mis-read the Godfather clue, and was filling "TRILOGY" until it didn't fit, then later realized I had mis-read it, but noticed that it still made a valid clue and thought "huh that would be an interesting meta mechanism some day". Then over the course of solving I started seeing others that were similar and it all fell together quickly. 100% dumb luck / not reading very carefully

I'm curious what other rabbit holes were out there though, since I was so happy to have solved quickly I just tore up the puzzle and threw it away in celebration - I never got a chance to really look at the gird with my meta-eyes

(GR)EGG YOLK and (S)LAKE(S) ERIE kept me occupied for a couple hours. Subtract “two” letters and link up “two” words, so Two for Two.

cRIB, ARM, eLEGy, NOSEe started me down one rabbit hole of body parts
then hEWEd / EWE and RAMada / dRAMas for EWE and RAM got me thinking two for two especially since i already had an ARM and a LEG from before
...but alas, all dead ends

[DrTom]

hopelessly being towed further out to sea by the rabbit(?) on the end of my harpoon, land is a distant memory

[DrTom]

OMG, I was ALL over with this one. I looked for days and got nowhere until two people pretty much told me to look at the clues. Granted there were some oddly worded ones, but I did not realize that is where the trick was until I looked at what I thought was the ODDEST of all the clues: Be home with honey. It seemed so odd, like it was unfinished or referred to something else. That’s when I saw HIVE out of the corner of my eye and the chase was on. The clue In for the night also seemed odd, or at least the answer did so I asked, “what if I add a letter to it” and got he In(n) reference. It took me a little time and stretching to get the others, and here is where two errors gave me the correct answer.

The first was when I added a letter to What a pity to get What a piety and came up with ELEGY, so that gave me another E to go with the ERRANT. I HAD to have a Y because by this point the Two for Two was clear and with a THIRD as part of the answer EYE was the only possible second part. I had done the Sing __ ye seraphim incorrectly and had AS YE instead of US YE which gave me BRANCH for Go out for a morning meal, maybe. That was so odd (yes, I now know it was odd because it was wrong) that I looked to see if I could do the ‘add a letter’ and I got Go(o) out for a morning meal. I might not have closed on YOLK if I didn’t need a Y, but it allowed me to get my THIRD EYE so I took it. I’ll be interested to see if there was some better way to get the Y, maybe some play on YEAGER I did not see?

Bottom line is that a nudge and some lucky errors turned this Two for Two into Two fortuitous! Or is that Two wrongs make a right? Whatever, thank you nudger(s) and thank you Matt, you clever little dickens you. I’ve got the next clue in the series for you though, since there is a room where I often contemplate and work on these; Mat for the bathroom.

[DrTom]

So, the funny “other” things that happened:

An initial “rabbit hole” was that there were clues with double meanings (i.e. two fers) and indeed there were:
As relatives was AKIN, but aren’t so’s (SOS) a relative of as
Big name in TV history is certainly RCA, but it is also SNL
Judges hear PLEAS but they also hear SIDEs
ALAS is certainly What a pity, but an ELEGY is also often a pity form
SOS appealed ABBA (and here is kind of where I knew I was in trouble because I was reusing clues) but ABBA also appealed IWONDER (not many know it because it was the flip side of Name of the Game)

Put those answers in order along with the alternates and you get SASE PAIRS – not a body part thank heavens!

Then as a parting shot for paranoia, and being old enough to remember Ann Landers columns, she usually gave detailed advice on how to handle things but occasionally she would give, perhaps, OFF advice of MYOB. Well I can tell you that caused some brow wrinkling because I had THIRD EYE by then and how the heck does THIRD MEYE constitute a body part? I’m pretty familiar with body parts and there aren’t any that I’m aware of, certainly not that I’d solve a crossword with.

[DrTom]

You know, it is never fun to be stuck in the house, but if I did not have this group, and similarly the WSJCC crowd, to cajole, commiserate and cooperate with I'd probably be kicking the dog or fighting with my spouse (don't have a dog, fight with the spouse later thanks). I have seldom met such a group of accepting and brilliant strangers (i.e. people I do not formally know as opposed to actually strange; well wait a minute on second thought... )

[DrTom]

hopelessly being towed further out to sea by the rabbit(?) on the end of my harpoon, land is a distant memory

I can literally see your arm beckoning to the rest of us to follow!

[DrTom]

hopelessly being towed further out to sea by the rabbit(?) on the end of my harpoon, land is a distant memory

I can literally see your arm beckoning to the rest of us to follow!

I knew I'd find a picture of the event!

[MajordomoTom]

we're going to need a bigger boat.

[burak]

So here's my nomination pitch for the "Reddest Herring of the Year" award:

There are three three-letter words that are either in the beginning or at the end of other answers. SPA (SPAces), GER (yeaGER) and WAY (oneWAY). I thought the dupe on way was so obvious that it had to be a hint. Looking further, I saw that some answers intersect with those and lead to other answers. So basically you get two other answers from two answers (hence two for two):

GER crosses grEGG => YOLK, WAY crosses aREST => AREA, SPA crosses sLAKES => HAKE or aLAS => SOS. The last one is a little weak but anyway. So what now? Well, we need to find another pair that satisfies this condition. Here I present bEAT => BRUNCH. What does BEAT cross? CRIB. All we need is another RIB in the grid to solve the meta, which is indeed what the prompt instructs.

Human beings evolved to see and learn by patterns, yes, but how the brain can jump from one place to another never ceases to amaze me.

[Streroto]

Never would have gotten alone. My sincere thanks to BarbaraK who nudged me through yesterday after I struggled with rabbit after rabbit over the weekend. Reading all the posts here I see I was in good company. This was an amazing meta and I love a challenge even if I did not get there this time. One downside of the meta chase is that I derive less enjoyment from traditional crosswords now (eg weekend WSJ and NYT) and even sometimes find myself looking for a nonexistent meta.

Stay well all. Friday noon comes soon!

[oldjudge]

Interestingly, if you broke slightly from the pattern there might have been a third clue that could be answered by EWE:

Reversible Sheep
BA(A) Source in a Green Field

And

Judges (S)hear Them

Tense is off too, but it’s close.

[Bird Lives]

Embarrassing, but on Friday over in the WSJ forum, I posted, "The general lesson I learned here is that when a clue is convoluted, roundabout, or oblique when a simple clue would suffice, pay attention." And then, of course, on this one I didn't pay attention until two days later, after I had gone down several dead ends.

[Bird Lives]

For a long time I was stuck on RIRI and couldn't get unstuck. Two times the same two-letter sequence, which repeated in the last across entry (eRIe). There were other entries that had 2-letter repeats: go GAGA, bERsERk, plus the RAMA RAMA in the central across line. But that sort of thing is more typical of Mike's puzzles. When I finally noticed "Be home with honey," it sounded so Gaffneyesque that I knew I was on the right path.

[DrTom]

For a long time I was stuck on RIRI and couldn't get unstuck. Two times the same two-letter sequence, which repeated in the last across entry (eRIe). There were other entries that had 2-letter repeats: go GAGA, bERsERk, plus the RAMA RAMA in the central across line. But that sort of thing is more typical of Mike's puzzles. When I finally noticed "Be home with honey," it sounded so Gaffneyesque that I knew I was on the right path.

Yes that entry had me RIRI confused. Because besides the RIRI, there was RIb, eRIe, starRIer, RIad. I tried desperately to link GAGA and STAR, looking for BORN, COOPER, MEAT DRESS anything! There were RIBs, ARMs, FACEs, NOSEs, LOBEs and darned if old Chuck Yeager did not contain BOTH EYE and EAR in his little corner of the grid. There was SAG, LAG, TAG, SAP and SPA and probably many other distractors I DIDN'T see. Were it not for a nudge to "look at the clues" [something I know to do, and you know to do but neither of us did) and a "wait that sounds odd" moment I'd still be climbing out of rabbit holes.