"Sound Logic" November 17, 2023

[Mirage]

Was there a method of solving that did not depend on particular movie knowledge? I never made progress at all on this meta, so I'm wondering if I'm just blind to the obvious or, alternatively, this one was just out of reach.

We saw the eleven amps and like Joe Ross commented above, we googled “eleven amps 1980s movie”. Before the age of google, we never would have gotten the answer. We knew nothing about this movie.

[Colin]

Saw the movie a long time ago and (now) remember the line but didn’t recall it at the critical moment! Instead, chose to look for adjoining letters to all the AMPs, then look at first two letters (because OH GEE points like a red herring’s finger to OGLE) but that soon petered out. The title misled me into searching for some kind of homophonic solution but after grid and clue searches, I gave up and posted that I was on board with Isaac. I even ended my post with “Hey Isaac… turn the amp up please, I can’t hear the movie” thinking it was a harmless quip since everyone must have seen all the AMPs in the grid. Apologies for that unintentional ‘spoiler’ but at least an eagle-eyed moderator quickly edited my “amp” to “sound”… but even that didn’t connect the dots in my “sound logic” memory!

[Flying_Burrito]

Rob Reiner's masterpiece. Cute but simple meta; MG also dropped another clue with 49 D (lighting bolt band) since the S in Spinal Tab is indeed a bolt. The meta reminded me of the 7 Eleven solution from several months ago.

[FatJack]

Well, if you are a not familiar with the movie, you had no chance!

But I've seen it at least 10 times, so no excuse : (

[TMart]

This one was either you know it well or you don't know it at all. I saw the first two amps and thought "I bet there's going to be 11 of them!"

[flyingMoose]

... you don't know it at all.

and have to Google what you know as someone suggested.

[michaelm]

Half way through this puzzle, I was reminded of the Hey Jude puzzle from a while back, with all the Na Na’s in it.

Still my sentimental favorite of all time!

[DBMiller]

Never saw the movie (Until Friday - Found it on Pluto TV), but was well aware of the reference and have seen the scene several times as well.

Thought there has to be more to it than that, so didn't submit right away. AMP is also short for AMPERSAND, and the middle down answer of AND made me think there might have been a connection. SHampOO led me to the clue "Shoot!", and things got very convoluted after that trying to make something work.

[MMe]

This was... fine, and easily gettable for those who know the (hilarious) scene, but 11 AMPs is different enough from an amp whose knobs "go to 11" for it to seem kinda clunky. Why not just have one AMP in each entry that ends at the 11th letter?

And, why not just make 10 louder?

[Sleepy]

Rob Reiner's masterpiece. Cute but simple meta; MG also dropped another clue with 49 D (lighting bolt band) since the S in Spinal Tab is indeed a bolt. The meta reminded me of the 7 Eleven solution from several moths ago.

The 5K puzzle also comes to mind!

[Nlobb]

I am not a fan of metas where you have to google to get the answer and then have no clue if what you googled is right as you never heard of the movie, singer etc. But then I am terrible at remembering movie, actor or singer names. Seemed like this meta brought back a lot of good memories for a lot of muggles so that is great!
Happy thanksgiving to all.

[femullen]

Well, I've gotten some friendly feedback (what other kind is possible from Muggles?) on the solution method, and it seems that movie knowledge was extremely useful but not exclusively necessary, as @Mirage points out, above. Successful googling would do as well.

It's funny, I saw the eleven AMPs in the grid, and it reminded me of another puzzle I failed to solve, one mentioned by other Muggles here, the one titled "This Goes to Eleven" and which had something to do with eleven occurrences of the syllable NA in a Beatles song. It never once occurred to me, though, to just google "this goes to eleven." Well, why would I? The only association I had to the phrase was that Beatles song, never a movie.

I gather, though, that there was no internal confirmation of the solution in the grid, is that right? You had to just recognise (or googlise) that 11 AMPS necessarily implied Spinal Tap, something that everyone, save one, naturally knows.

[Bob cruise director]

Some of the constructors of metas are expanding to "inferential" metas where the answer is not embedded in the grid and/or clues in one of the myriad of ways that constructors have come up with. This one is such an inferential meta where you bring in external knowledge based on the grid, hint and title. If you know the subject it comes much easier. If you have no idea what "amp goes to 11" means you are into the world of google and that is if you know to even look. We have seen similar ones before like with November 2017 Inexact Science where the answer was the game Settlers of Catan. If you had never played the game it was much harder than if you were familiar with the game.

As the world of metas expands, I am sure that the constructors look for feedback both positive and negative. They do look at the comments here and other places but if you send them an email. they would welcome it.

[Yoda66]

My favorite clip from the movie. If poetic justice truly exists the mug should be sent to a Cleveland address.

[Douglas]

You're all going to lose. I submitted the correct answer, "This is Spinal Tap," with an umlaut over the n. I can't type or paste that here, but in my email I typed n and the combining diaeresis unicode U + 0308. "It’s like a pair of eyes," fictional rocker David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) says in "Spinal Tap." "You’re looking at the umlaut, and it’s looking at you."

[The XWord Rabbit]

This week: No nominees, but a juicy bit of movie trivia for your Rabbit to feast on.

The word AMP appears 11 times in the five anchor across entries of the “Sound Logic” puzzle. Nowhere else to go but to mentally connect that with the 1984 mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap” in which the band’s lead guitarist, Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest (and clearly, one of Mr. Guffman’s idols) explains the importance of an amplifier that “goes to eleven”.

Unlike the recent “Eight is Enough” debate caused by Mr. Gaffney’s “Just Stop” puzzle, no one challenged the classic status of this movie or the particular piece of dialogue therein. In fact, in 2000 The American Film Institute ranked it as #29 on their list of 100 funniest movies – sandwiched between “Ghostbusters” and “Arsenic and Old Lace”. Pretty decent company, wouldn’t you say?

Your Rabbit was a bit disappointed in those of you who reported they were unfamiliar with this movie, but not entirely surprised. “Spinal Tap” is almost 40 years old now and an acquired taste for some.

For those of you brave enough to want to further explore the genre here’s your Rabbit’s very favorites:

Zelig (Woody Allen) 1983
Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen) 1969
Real Life (Albert Brooks) 1979
Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest) 1996
Cunk on Earth (TV Series/Amazon Prime) 2022

“Guffman” has been Your Rabbit’s alter ego since the late 1990’s, the result of a lifetime spent attending community theater performances to support a wife and daughter. In retrospect, it was often a greater challenge than a 4th week Gaffney.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everybody!

[boharr]

Half way through this puzzle, I was reminded of the Hey Jude puzzle from a while back, with all the Na Na’s in it.

That Hey Jude puzzle was the first time I solved a meta before finishing the grid.

[Katiedid]

Some of the constructors of metas are expanding to "inferential" metas where the answer is not embedded in the grid and/or clues in one of the myriad of ways that constructors have come up with. This one is such an inferential meta where you bring in external knowledge based on the grid, hint and title. If you know the subject it comes much easier. If you have no idea what "amp goes to 11" means you are into the world of google and that is if you know to even look. We have seen similar ones before like with November 2017 Inexact Science where the answer was the game Settlers of Catan. If you had never played the game it was much harder than if you were familiar with the game.

As the world of metas expands, I am sure that the constructors look for feedback both positive and negative. They do look at the comments here and other places but if you send them an email. they would welcome it.

I have been doing metas for over 10 years. I enjoy the variety of "metanisms". I don't think inferential metas are anything new, at all. I would be sad if all metas were the find letters in the grid type! There used to be a lot more metas of the type find the answer to complete the theme, or find something that is similar to the themes.
In the beginning of the WSJ metas, there was so much undeserved and harsh criticism of the constructors by people who didn't understand metas, that I quit reading the comments on the WSJ site. To me, solving a meta is like a treasure hunt. If I was given clues to find a treasure, I would use everything at my disposal to find it. Googling to solve metas is completely fair. Some themes might be something I'm familiar with, and some aren't, but almost every one has been google-able. So if some metas are harder than others, fine!

Also, often the criticism is because people think there should be rules for metas, and that they know what they are. Well, there are no rules, and that's part of the fun.

[woozy]

I have been doing metas for over 10 years. I enjoy the variety of "metanisms". I don't think inferential metas are anything new, at all.

Ditto.

I would be sad if all metas were the find letters in the grid type!

Absolute ditto!

But it bothers me that people think the only way to have a non-inferential-decrypt-the message-is-in-the-puzzle-somewhere meta is to have the answer spelled out letter by letter. There are many other ways as well.

[VanVeen]

I don't think I'm going to win the mug because right before I hit send, I spontaneously combusted.