XWord Muggles Forum

A truly EL-egant meta!

eagle1279 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:40 am I suppose the grid was difficult (for me) because puzzle artist Mike had to find down answers that would link up 10 EL-words, the last letters of which spelled out the meta answer in order. Yikes! Nice work, but I hope I never encounter TOFUTTI again (in a puzzle or in real life).

Also none of the down answers could have E before the L.

What a quandary: My doctor is offering a seminar on "six steps you can take to help improve your memory and remain sharp as you get older — and tips on how to reduce your Alzheimer's risk by 50 percent." Trouble is, it's scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday (and it doesn't look like they are recording it)! DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?? What to do?

I've never heard the term "life models" - I would have thought it would be "LIVE models", which is why I scratched my head when the answer popped out. But then I've never been accused of being an artist, so what do I know?

steveb wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:08 am I thought PASTELS was be important, but I interpreted it as meaning past the letter L, not the sequence EL. Oh, wELl.

I talked to no less than 12 people and got them from LIFE MODESLS to LIFE MODELS - so you were not alone in the “L” vs. “EL” thing.

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:09 am What a quandary: My doctor is offering a seminar on "six steps you can take to help improve your memory and remain sharp as you get older — and tips on how to reduce your Alzheimer's risk by 50 percent." Trouble is, it's scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday (and it doesn't look like they are recording it)! DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?? What to do?

I’ve save you the time - Do things to keep your mind sharp. Examples: crossword, jumble, and sudoku.

HeadinHome wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:38 am
I also would like to know how the title DRAWBACKS relates to the grid? If someone were doing the puzzle just for the grid (not meta), would that title help them solve it, or at least prompt an “Oh, I see!” after completing? I don’t get it.

I had this thought as well but then boharr pointed out that the traditional pose for a LIFE MODEL is back to the artist with their head turned profile. So the artist is primarily drawing the model’s back so Drawback. It ended up being nothing more than a possible confirmation.

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:11 am

steveb wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:08 am I thought PASTELS was be important, but I interpreted it as meaning past the letter L, not the sequence EL. Oh, wELl.

I talked to no less than 12 people and got them from LIFE MODESLS to LIFE MODELS - so you were not alone in the “L” vs. “EL” thing.

I actually got there using “L”, instead of “EL”.
I interpreted the title as “Draw Back S”, thinking that was the hint to take out the extra “S”.

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:19 am

HeadinHome wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:38 am
I also would like to know how the title DRAWBACKS relates to the grid? If someone were doing the puzzle just for the grid (not meta), would that title help them solve it, or at least prompt an “Oh, I see!” after completing? I don’t get it.

I had this thought as well but then boharr pointed out that the traditional pose for a LIFE MODEL is back to the artist with their head turned profile. So the artist is primarily drawing the model’s back so Drawback. It ended up being nothing more than a possible confirmation.

I read the title as DRAW = art theme and BACKS = last letter of the word (i.e. look PAST the "EL"). Very Shenky.

Tina wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:50 am

Hector wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:03 am You mean RAPH AEL had nothing to do with it?

I saw that and also tried to find MICHEL somewhere to pair up with tANGELO. Also found parts of BOTTICELLI in the first row. And spent way too long trying to find words hidden backwards.

Me too, but after Raphael and Michelangeo, I was hunting for Leonardo and Donatello -- more a turtle hole than a rabbit hole.

I had given up on this “easy” one. Just as I was putting the puzzle down the title of the Pandora’s Blocks meta from a couple of weeks ago, “Bottom Line”, floated across my consciousness. PASTELS! And there it was. Crazy how our brains work!

I got stuck on pairing the word “BACK” with other grid answers (e.g. LOG, STOP, FIELD, ROUTE, TAIL, and END) and then walked away for a few hours. Came back and it then just jumped out at me.

I did think the underlying grid was more difficult than usual (CARYATIDS???).

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:09 am What a quandary: My doctor is offering a seminar on "six steps you can take to help improve your memory and remain sharp as you get older — and tips on how to reduce your Alzheimer's risk by 50 percent." Trouble is, it's scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday (and it doesn't look like they are recording it)! DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?? What to do?

Call him up and give him a meta for him to solve. If he can solve it faster than you, you go to the seminar. If not, we will see you at 4:04 and he can reschedule.

If you go, let us know what he says about Alzheimer's.

A few of the many rabbit holes I went down:

- Nine clues have to do with writers/books (part of the arts) -- can't be a coincidence
- The drawing, artsy words: GRAPH, PASTE, BLEND, LINE, DETAIL
- PASTELS, PASTORALS
- AM RADIO -- AMARILLO
-- DEAD SET + TAIL ENDS = DEAD ENDS (Ironic, isn't it?!)
-- All of the double letters (TT, LL, NN, RR)
-- Taking a word from the beginning of the 7-and-8-letter answers = (to(fu), fat, graph, am, is, maim, tang, the, man, and, past(e), dead, tail, lip... (Got stuck on Boswell and unnerve)
-- Caryatids and pastorals have the word ARTS in common..
-- Looked up all the synonyms for "draw" with its various meanings (one is "GRAPH," by the way, also "MAP"), same for "back," same for "drawbacks"..
-- compound words or expressions with "draw" or "backs" = DEAD SET --> SETBACKS; TAIL ENDS --> TAILBACKS
-- On the top row, FIT is spelled backwards; on the bottom row, its synonym APT is spelled backwards
-- I noticed 60A early on, but "drawing medium" led me back to the "medium" in 16A-- has to be some connection!
-- I noticed the "EL"s very early on, can't even remember what I tried to do with them, but discounted them because of all of the red herrings looked more convincing

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:22 am The report erroneously had me on shore, actually I was stuck on the ship all weekend. And I'd gotten some of those previous metas with similar mechanisms (e.g. NO EL)! But I didn't see it this time. Luckily (?) I've missed 3 or 4 somewhat recently so I'm not trying for a record this year Looking forward to a fresh start in 2021, in many ways!

My bad - my fingers type SH and then go on autopilot - sometimes leading to the wrong destination.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:06 am

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:22 am The report erroneously had me on shore, actually I was stuck on the ship all weekend.

My bad - my fingers type SH and then go on autopilot - sometimes leading to the wrong destination.

I took it as a compliment, like you were just too used to putting me on the shore side to do otherwise :-) And thanks so much for keeping track every week!

KayW wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:58 am
I think one way the title ties in is that when using LIFE MODELS you DRAW BACKS as well as chests, legs, heads, etc.

That was my conclusion too. DRAW as an instruction like [go] PAST.

I thought the similarity of several words was the mechanism. There were 3 word combinations that use almost the same letters except a few letters (PASTELS/PASTORALS--OR/E are different, ISRAELI/TILERS--IA/T are different, AMRADIO/AMARILLO--LL/D are different) and one other that's not quite the same pattern (ANDORRA/ADANO--just RR are different). The different letters can be an anagram for RETAILOR (plus an extra D, L and R). Given the frequency of this rabbit hole, I was convinced that (1) either there were other such pairs to spell a longer answer, or (2) perhaps only the extra letters from the longer answers would be used and the answer was something like ART RETAILERS. I spent forever chasing this completely overcomplicated mechanism ... reminded me of a particular Monty Python scene:

TIM: Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!

ARTHUR: Ohh.

TIM: That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

whimsy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:14 am

DBMiller wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 1:48 pm I spent a month in Greece with my daughter when she did a summer class there (Photography / Art History). Spending so much time at the Acropolis, I got used to hearing the word - I just couldn't remember how to spell it!

Eric Porter wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 6:03 pm I always liked the word that's 23A. I think I learned it on a trip to France, but they spell it differently.

I had an interesting and fun time with 23A also --- one of those words that you slip over quickly while reading without actually registering the pronunciation or spelling perhaps, but with a vague sense of its meaning, enough to get the gist of the sentence. Well, I began to enter it in the grid beginning with a "K" --- must have seen it somewhere in the original Greek. I did have the correct middle consonants but had interchanged the "R" and the "T." I guess it wasn't meshing with whatever down entries I already had, so I googled it to be sure I was on track. KATYARIDS got me this --
Capturekatydid.JPG
In other words, I desperately sought help from Google, and all I got was crickets!

Yeah, my brain kept mixing it up with Katydids as well. My favorite shot of the caryatids at the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens:

Turns out I sent in the correct answer, but one of the less satisfying ones.