XWord Muggles Forum

FWIW, I backed into the solution.

The Theme Entries were obvious, to me, at Across 18, 20, 30, 39, 41, 48, 59, & 64. It seemed likely that 74A would play into the solution, somehow.

The TE's initials were gibberish.

Looking for lyrics, I started interwebbing all words from the Theme Entries, in varying combinations, which returned a lot of songs, none of them enlightening. I tried the first words, only, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was 4th or 5th in the list. This clicked with 74A, A-HA!

My first attempt at reconciling the lyrics was ugly & pathetic: JOWWHFID? Seriously? What resulted after an attempt to sing both was worse. Finally, I interwebbed the sheet music for both & compared them side-by-side, note-for-note.

So, sticking to some basic solving mechanisms combined with brute-force interwebbing allowed me to find what other muggles must have seen at a glance. Was I lucky? I feel lucky.

My reaction is pretty much the same as BrianMac's (#273) -- I didn't come close, not even step #1, and am in awe of those who solved it.

Am I the only one to be annoyed as to Matt’s hints and themes. Seems to me Lately they are unhelpful at best and misleading in some cases. If I had to come up with a list of 1,000 words to “describe some song lyrics”, I don’t think puzzling would have made the list. Especially annoying this time as I was so close but off a couple of notes, so missing two of the eight letters. Had zzling ending but would not have come up with puzzling. Oh well, there is always next week......

A couple of questions
1) Why Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and not Baa Baa Black Sheep?
2) So the only way to do this was to pronounce W with three syllables?

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:24 am A couple of questions
1) Why Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and not Baa Baa Black Sheep?
2) So the only way to do this was to pronounce W with three syllables?

Twinkle twinkle because lyric words are the first words of the theme answers

I put the twinkle lyrics in an excel and then superimposed the abc’s over them until I got it right. Some letters were obvious, others took some intuition. It was not as clear cut as we are accustomed to in my opinion.

Also what is up with all the metas recently that just ask for a????? Letter word. Not a state, not an object, not a president. Not anything. Just a word!

pookie wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:17 am Now I can say it.
How is it that SKY and SKY are allowed in this puzzle?
I didn't get the answer, but when I see this convoluted snake pit of an answer I've lost all interest in trying another Crossword Contest

SKY is at the same not in Twinkle Twinkle as Z is in the ABC song. The two SKYs convert to the two Zs in PUZZLING.

I guess some people like Convoluted Snake Pit (theses puzzles, I mean, not the 60s rock band.)

I am just not a music person - so these puzzles that involve notes or inflections are probably always going to be KAS 5 for me.

Plus I don’t think it helped that I could not get the lyrics from “Washington on your side” from Hamilton out of my head all last week. So it was just like me going “A, B, C, it must be nice, it must be nice to have Washington on your side.”

Argh, once again I had the pieces there and just couldn't find the key insight to start fitting them together.

I even wrote out the lyrics to "Twinkle, Twinkle" and was sure that it had something to do with the ABC song because of 74A, but couldn't connect the eight theme answers with the lyrics even though I had both sets one above the other on the same piece of paper. I was particularly puzzling over the two "sky" clue answers, which is extremely unusual in a puzzle as well as "star".

I would feel better if I were completely lost, but there are several weeks now that I have been tantalizingly close to cracking the meta without realizing it and just couldn't make a key connection.

I think this meta came quickly to me because we have a 3 and a half year old toddler running around the house so children's tunes are stuck in the back of my head. I also struggled lining up the syllables but, like Eric Porter, found this helpful from Mr. G:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs_IRUrUC60

Oops. I submitted ODYSSEYS. You get those letters from making a diamond around each instance of SKY. Seemed a little strange but with all of the naval navigation verbiage, plus the appearance of HERA, I thought I had it.

Considering this another part of life's rich pageant. Have a great week everyone!

Like some others, I had trouble figuring out how to align the lyrics perfectly. I ended up searching for "twinkle little star ABC lyrics lined up" and found a YouTube video that played the songs simultaneously and showed the lyrics. (Apologies if someone linked it earlier.) I watched it slowly and managed to fix my mistakes. The "ellamenopee" and the Z had been getting me tangled up.

Edit: I see that Eric posted the video that I used

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:16 pm

LadyBird wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:07 pm Not only am I physically on the unsalted shores of Lake Michigan, I am now meta-physically on shore with a nice Riesling.

I had steps one and two but couldn't seem to do anything with them. For some reason, once someone confirmed I was indeed facing shore, things almost immediately clicked. Well, I'm 80% sure that they clicked.

LadyBird - In lieu of solving the meta, I thought of GREat things to do to ENergize myself, HERe ON the Maine Coast. Thought you would appreciate it.

I do appreciate it! With Maine things to do, have you been to Audubons Hog Island camp?

I saw a Green Heron yesterday perched high in a tree--certainly not as interesting a look as yours.

I got this one pretty fast. I don’t know why. Maybe musical training. Or the Twinkle variations my daughter played during her Suzuki piano lessons. My first reaction when I saw the mechanism was to laugh. Literally out loud. It seemed......so.......diabolical. Using children's songs as a cipher. I absolutely loved the process of singing those songs over and over on the sofa. I think it made me feel like a kid.

Cue The Church Lady.... "Isn't that special!?"

Got the TTLS connection, researched the entire lyrics, considered BBBS, lost more than a little sleep over two SKYs appearing in the grid, and even found/imagined(?) HERA - JUNO - ANJOU along a 'name'-related rabbit hole tour!

Also, on a personal note, mildly concerned about the 2D/71A combo!

I doff my cap to Matt. KAS 4.88, for me.

Cheers!

PS ... since I love a good spy novel, I wonder if will all need a second edition, original French version of Voltaire's Candide to solve a future meta.

This meta reminds me of one from awhile back where the theme answers hinted to the Do-Re-Mi musical scale, which then had to convert to the corresponding A-G musical note scale. That answer was BADGE.

It took me a little time to get the exact correspondence for this meta, but when I got the two Zs to make PUZZ I knew I had it.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:20 am My reaction is pretty much the same as BrianMac's (#273) -- I didn't come close, not even step #1, and am in awe of those who solved it.

Well, it may not be all that much to be held in awe of, but I'll take it. Thank you!

Dom beat me to shore. I spent the bulk of the weekend traveling to and visiting with a sick relative, so I wasn’t really into it. Dom texted me while at the airport awaiting my return flight. Had it not been delayed, he might not have had enough time to guide me toward the answer, which I ultimately got (and boy was it hard on an iPhone in an airport).

My “post-game” text to him:
That was a 24-hour bowel prep followed by a colonoscopy with inadequate sedation.

Jeff S wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:14 am It's amazing how differently each of us reacts to particular metas.

I found this one quite easy - eight minutes for the grid, a swim in the pool, and then eight more minutes for the meta - and have also had no problems with some other recent ones that seemed to flummox most muggles. But there have been several more that were declared incredibly easy by the crowd (and the WSJ numbers backed them up), but which left me totally stymied...

My thoughts exactly. I realized what the mechanism had to be as soon as I saw 74A and SKY/SKY/STAR in the grid. But other weeks, I can stare blankly for hours while the shore teems with happy solvers.

The split-screen video Eric posted was much more helpful (and less annoying) than the one I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ86QV7o7UQ

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:27 am

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:16 pm

LadyBird wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:07 pm Not only am I physically on the unsalted shores of Lake Michigan, I am now meta-physically on shore with a nice Riesling.

I had steps one and two but couldn't seem to do anything with them. For some reason, once someone confirmed I was indeed facing shore, things almost immediately clicked. Well, I'm 80% sure that they clicked.

LadyBird - In lieu of solving the meta, I thought of GREat things to do to ENergize myself, HERe ON the Maine Coast. Thought you would appreciate it.

I do appreciate it! With Maine things to do, have you been to Audubons Hog Island camp?

I saw a Green Heron yesterday perched high in a tree--certainly not as interesting a look as yours.

We went to Hog Island about 25 years ago. Good experience

Like some others here, I have a quibble with the alignment of syllables of the two songs. Also explored "Bah Bah Black Sheep" for a short time, but there weren't even any rabbit holes to follow.

I got distracted by some clever (or maybe accidentally clever) false trails. For example, 64A, "Starsearch." There are two anagrams of "star" adjacent to or crossing the "star" in that answer: 56A, "ASTRo" and 58D, "TARS." But subsequent star-search revealed no more STARs in the grid. Also looked for a famous diamond in the SKY answers: did the other letters there give KOH-I-NOOR, or something? Nope. Was the other song possibly a song by Neil Diamond? Thank goodness, no, because if it was anything other than Sweet Caroline, I'd be sunk.

In the end, I settled on trying to link Twinkle Twinkle to the grid. But I was always looking for the wrong thing, so this wasn't one of those head-banging "shoulda-had-em" puzzles, rather another that I probably never would have gotten. All Hail the solvers, then.