#31 - "Double Back and Start Over"

Creative and challenging meta crosswords (currently on hiatus) from: www.pgwcc.net
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Hector
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#31 - "Double Back and Start Over"

#1

Post by Hector »

The answer to the metapuzzle is an entry in the grid.
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Hector
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#2

Post by Hector »

I have an answer, I guess, but it is well below 100% and if it's right, this would not really be an impressive construction in the pgw style, so I'm even below 50% & will return to it.
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Al Sisti
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#3

Post by Al Sisti »

I just submitted my answer, and I can defend it. And, as with all PGW's puzzles, I learned something I didn't know. Lotsa stuff.
LesY
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#4

Post by LesY »

It felt good to get this one. Happened to see one piece of the path before I knew what to do with it.

Agree with Al - lots o’stuff. I had to google-confirm 6 entries and missed about 4 squares. The pronunciation of 38A was fun to discover though!
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ChrisKochmanski
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#5

Post by ChrisKochmanski »

I seem to be with the posters so far. I have an answer, it makes pretty good sense, but it doesn’t quite feel like lock. Maybe I’m missing something. So I’ll let this one stew for a while.
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Toby
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#6

Post by Toby »

I see the obvious place or maybe places to start, but no place to go next. Private hints welcome.
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Hector
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#7

Post by Hector »

Well I've sent in my initial guess, which did not seem any more solid over time. We'll see!

And . . . it was incorrect.
Laura M
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#8

Post by Laura M »

I haven't been doing very well with PGW's puzzles lately. I'm not as completely blank as I was on the last one, but still very far from anything that looks promising.
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FrankieHeck
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#9

Post by FrankieHeck »

I haven't gotten anywhere with this one.
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Cindy
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#10

Post by Cindy »

I think I have it.
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TMart
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#11

Post by TMart »

I have some ideas but nothing solid yet. I’ll keep plugging away on this though - while I’ve had a tough time overall with PGW metas, I’ve managed to string together a modest streak of 10 that I’d like to keep alive.
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ChrisKochmanski
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#12

Post by ChrisKochmanski »

Glad I let it stew. With some group effort, I finally got it. I also needed to google a bit, but others may not.

Good one!
pgw
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#13

Post by pgw »

Hi folks -

I posted a hint. Maybe it will help?

https://pgwcc.net/archive/puzzle-31-hint/

pgw
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FrankieHeck
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#14

Post by FrankieHeck »

Well I thought I had an epiphany and was sure it would lead me to the answer, but it seems to have led me to...not an answer. Not giving up. It's going to be a two-puzzle weekend, and my husband left to run the Chicago marathon, so he's not here to encourage me with crazy suggestions.

Update: I changed one bit of my route and got it. Living in a cave makes some puzzles more challenging for me.
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TMart
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#15

Post by TMart »

I think I got it, but I don’t really get it. I’ll let this one simmer for a while.

And......correct!
Laura M
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#16

Post by Laura M »

I submitted an answer that I'd been mulling over but wasn't very happy with. I was hoping to get it out of my head but now I'm embarrassed for sending in a half-baked solution, and still trying to figure out the real one!

Edit: Just read the solution, and wow. That was amazing. I was sort of on the right track, but I stopped too soon and just flailed around (typed "failed" first, which is also appropriate). Kudos and my eternal respect to PGW and to everyone who solved it.
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Beth Tyrpin
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#17

Post by Beth Tyrpin »

Wow. That was super involved. I don’t feel too bad for not getting anywhere with this one.
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FrankieHeck
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#18

Post by FrankieHeck »

I got thrown off when I googled "CC" and ended up with CC Hunter, an author. "Hunter" was in one of the clues, and led me to, if I remember correctly, VHAJ. Eventually I started googling all the double letters over again and ended up with HAJJ. Yay! Just need to find it in the grid....oh. Dang. By the time I was done googling JJs, I had doubled back and started over so many times that I wasn't sure JAMES was going to be the end of it. So of course I wrote all that out for PGW, lol. So my streak continues....but I have a bad feeling about this week's already!
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Al Sisti
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#19

Post by Al Sisti »

I submitted "James," which Peter confirmed in an email... but I got it in a totally different way. When I saw the title and a more-than-normal frequency of Z's, I immediately started looking for zigzags through all the places I could fit a Z (which, to my way of thinking, was a 3 x 3 section). I got all the way to the end and saw S H E
E O N
S E X... or, in a Z pattern (double back and start over), it read "SHEO's EX." SHEO turns out to be the "supercouple nickname" (think Bennifer or TomKat) of Shailene Woodley & Theo James, and when they broke up (sniff sniff), it left Theo JAMES as an "EX."
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TMart
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#20

Post by TMart »

FrankieHeck wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 4:39 pm ..... I wasn't sure JAMES was going to be the end of it. So of course I wrote all that out for PGW, lol.
My experience exactly. JAMES felt like half a step too far (or too short), which I also overexplained in a way-too-long response to Peter. I liked the mechanism, I just wasn't sure when to stop applying it.
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