"I Really Don't Need This!" - September 13, 2019

[Douglas]

On shore. Yes, hard to not give away the spoiler.

[mheberlingx100]

I spent a fair bit of time down one rabbit hole, so it took me a while to get on shore. But I'm sipping some merlot right now on the beach, enjoying the sunset.

[hcbirker]

That was fun, once I got out of a silly rabbit hole. Count me on shore! (Heidi)

[steveb]

A few famous names immediately came to mind when I saw “celebrity”.

Whenever I see "celebrity" or "famous" in a meta, I automatically think of the now most well-known comedienne among Muggles: Margaret Cho.

Wait ... are you implying that Margaret Cho isn't the answer this week? Uh-oh...

[Joe Ross]

Ashore, somewhere. Submitted. [removed possible spoiler material]

Enjoyed a 34 ounce mug of Moerlein Barbarossa Double Dark Lager with lunch, today. Delicious!

Please, may I have another?

[Joe Ross]

On shore and happy to see a muggle in the grid!

Do you mean me at 12D? Why, thank you, Barbara!

[Eric Porter]

I'm on shore quickly.

I like Matt Gafney's originality. It's different enough from other puzzles. I'll stop myself here as we appear to be especially wary of spoilers this week.

Edit: I originally said it was Mike Shenk.

[GlennG]

Absolutely no clue. Good luck, everybody!

[BrianMac]

Relaxing on the beach! 🏖 🏝

[Jazzvibist]

Ashore. Another beauty from Matt.

Stu K

[BethA]

On the beach! 🏖 With a pomegranate margarita!

Was in such a rush that I tried to over complicate it at first, but then saw that I really didn’t need to...

Chuckled that “crammed” was squeezed into the 27A clue! Squeeze Play!

[damefox]

On shore! Very clever. Took me a little while to see it.

[Bird Lives]

I'm on shore quickly.

I like Mike Shenk's originality. It's different enough from other puzzles. I'll stop myself here as we appear to be especially wary of spoilers this week.

This is a Matt Gaffney puzzle. Mike’s puzzles are more likely to be based on interesting but easily missed patterns of letters in ordinary words, like those repeated 2-letter combinations (“SUMOFMONEY”) a couple of weeks ago. As Marie, he did something similar years ago where you had to see that in the long entries there was only one letter that was not doubled (e.g., the third R in POST REPORTERS).

[LesY]

Enjoyable solve! On shore.

While I understand the “meh” perspective (file under: be careful what we wish for), I thought Matt did a great job putting this together.

I wouldn't say I feel "meh," but I feel weird about this puzzle. Like maybe I got the right answer the wrong way. I just hope I didn't get the wrong answer the wrong way. The fact that so many people are so happy with it is making me feel even more uneasy...

I understand. You said it better than I would have. I couldn’t figure out how to express “apparent lack of tightness in the mechanism” without spoiling. That said, I do feel confident about how my answer fits the prompt and the title. Maybe this is just one of Matt’s more intuitive-leap ones? Or I’m missing a final click.

[darthdriessen]

Clever puzzle. On shore for 8 in a row. Time for a 7 & 7 and some Yma Sumac on the hifi!

[Beth Tyrpin]

Very clever. I really enjoyed it.

[Trey]

Marion and I are onshore and relaxing...............and we really do need this!!

Luck to all.

[Laura M]

On shore, cute!

[joequavis]

I was worried there for a bit, but put on my flippers and swam to shore.
I liked this one. I can see the "Meh" reaction, but thought it was outweighed by the cleverness.

[JimmyJam]

On shore. Clever, without a doubt, but I’m giving it a bit of a side-eye for the time being.