XWord Muggles Forum

steveb wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:09 am Very clever puzzle, but Kas 5 for me. I was too busy this weekend to spend much time on it, and that's probably a good thing since I don't think I would have ever gotten it.

Just so!

Well, I did get it finally. The nudge I got confirmed the mechanism I was using. And I surmised the A without understanding the Phil/Adam pairing. Which, in retrospect, was obvious. Good one!

Agree KAS 5. Clever, I guess, but pretty highly extracted.

Stay well, all!

I went down a rabbit hole whose idea was so logical and so possible that I couldn’t get out and see the correct path. So I created a puzzle based on my idea. The inspiration was a baby-name book Beyond Jennifer and Jason, which had a chapter called “There’s Only One Aretha.” These are names you must not give your kid because, as the authors say, “There’s only one, and it’s taken.”

The puzzle is at Crossshare
https://crosshare.org/crosswords/QWYMyx1nAV86k3x8nlOU

I composed the puzzle quickly and without any test-solving help, so there may be imperfections and outright errors. For instance, the clue for 52D should be "Hebrew girl's name that's not quite on the Supreme Court."

PM me if you want to confirm your answer.

So this puzzle, which I solved, has two features that I found ... interesting.

First, the FILL -> PHIL -> ADAM connection was bogus, as Phil Hartman and Adam Sandler did not overlap as SNL cast members. Like many others, I deduced "FRAYS" from "FR?YS" and that was that.

Second, there is the matter of the red herring parenthesized numerals (7-6-4-5-5). A recent previous puzzle using the same mechanism ("Where's the Rest", September 11) did not include the numerals (the first gimmick was a set of answers that should have been, but were not, plural forms). In the case of the current puzzle, the numbers were completely gratuitous. They were not required to solve the puzzle, and for some of us, an ENORMOUS time-waster.

But I'm very happy to have solved this one after blowing the last two...

burak wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:18 am One thing that helped me was the realization that there were 5 theme answers but we were looking for a 6-letter word. That strongly indicated that we'd have to add a letter to whatever we got from the midway answers, and that is usually done by a sound-related wordplay. Then I saw Faze/Stage and everything fell in its right place.

Right. I've now noted that homophones may come into play when the number of theme answers < length of contest answer.
One of my rabbit holes was taking FILLAVOID literally and trying to span from F in 18A to AGILE to get FRAGILE thinking I needed to start at the Fs and use the black squares.
I always take the hard rocky slippery path first.

I submitted PHRASE even though I never got the Phil/Adam piece, and never would have because I stopped watching SNL a long long time ago. I had noticed the many Fs while completing the grid, and the strangely spelled ALFA led me to the mechanism. But then I had FR_YS. I knew I was looking for a 4-letter word starting with a vowel and somehow relating to phil. After some fruitless internet searches, I figured the vowel had to be A (FROYS—>PHROYS? FRUYS—>PHRUYS?).

I was glad for the parenthetical numbers because they confirmed the path and possibly ruled out other tenuously connected answers. But having been rabbit-led by the numbers in the past, I sympathize with those who found them frustrating.

Mister Squawk wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 5:43 am So this puzzle, which I solved, has two features that I found ... interesting.

First, the FILL -> PHIL -> ADAM connection was bogus, as Phil Hartman and Adam Sandler did not overlap as SNL cast members. Like many others, I deduced "FRAYS" from "FR?YS" and that was that.

Second, there is the matter of the red herring parenthesized numerals (7-6-4-5-5). A recent previous puzzle using the same mechanism ("Where's the Rest", September 11) did not include the numerals (the first gimmick was a set of answers that should have been, but were not, plural forms). In the case of the current puzzle, the numbers were completely gratuitous. They were not required to solve the puzzle, and for some of us, an ENORMOUS time-waster.

But I'm very happy to have solved this one after blowing the last two...

Actually Phil and Adam did overlap. Found a picture of cast from Season 18. Since I too stopped watching SNL long ago is why I made the connection. I remember those years and my mind is not muddled with more recent dreadful seasons of the show (I see enough on YouTube replays to know that)

Phlox? Really?

Initially I connected FILLA —> PHILA —> Atlantic City, familiarly —> RIO. (Yes, I know Philadelphia is not literally on the Atlantic. And I know no one refers to Philly as Phila. Work with me here.) The parenthetical numbers told me that RIO wasn’t right, so I thought “Could it be ‘PHIL’,” and eventually connected Hartman/ADAM. Aha!

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 5:38 am The inspiration was a baby-name book Beyond Jennifer and Jason

Jennifer & Jason were the names preferred by couples of my age, way back when birthing children. A very good friend was a kindergarten teacher/assistant principal at an immense pre-K through 8 school and that book, she said, was her life. There were so many of each that the school started using middle names, since a standard practice of using first name, last initial yielded too few possibilities in a lot of cases. Her party stories were fantastic fun, with lots of groans & eye-rolling, lampooning of the typical parents of the day, and perfect comedic timing.

That is, until it came time to name her 2nd & 3rd children: Jennifer & Jason.

Mom, Dad, and children (plus fresh batches beautiful, intelligent grandchildren) are of the finest kind, but it shows to go how social influences will hold their sway.

I picked a good weekend to spend outside in unfathomably nice 70 degree temps and feel various fogs be burned off and suns let through to (metaphorical) snow inside my brain. No way I was getting this one....

Not a clue on this one.

Phor me it’s unphair,
To phox us phor days sans care,
Gaphney had me there!

(Congrats to solvers... in awe!)

Yikes, I can barely understand the solution let alone have gotten this one. Congrats to all the clever Muggles who got it!

Like many others I had the F, R, and S, and just knew I’d need to convert the F back to a PH (giving the sixth letter)...and I pretty much knew the only six letter word with P,H,R, & S HAD to be PHRASE, but I could not justify the suspected A or E four and five letter words. I knew Yucca would be some relation to Phlox, and saw the Phil/Adam relation, but had synonyms stuck in my mind (even though Ramses doesn’t fit as a true synonym). I Hail Mary’ed PHRASE anyway and submitted. My first ever pretty-close guess worked. I didn’t ever think I was looking for a homophone first! One of my “when stuck” strategies is go back to the clues...I just ignored my own advice here. The reverse engineering strategy is not my typical solve but it worked well-enough here.

Kas 5. Did not even submit a guess!

Sunday after lunch I finally thought I was into something. Had sort of put the theme answers temporarily aside, except took “FILL A VOID” as a directive. Meaning to put a letter in a black square to form a new word from surrounding letters, and having the length of the parenthetical numbers. Right at the top AL (from ORAL) + F + ALFA = ALFALFA, which ties into the title FRESH start, and also the 1A clue Stalks in a field. Went on to find coRn, onIon, and appLe, all FRESH produce. Could never find a 6-letter fruit or veg, which I thought might use 2 black squares in order to get to a 6-letter answer.

So, with the letters I had found, F_ _ R I L, I got nothing, but most of the letters of FAIL!

Glad to move on, and enjoy a few more days of great weather...

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:14 am Aha - another of Matt’s stupid homophone puzzles - Puzzles like this affirm my new approach. I also have no clue of how Adam & Phil are a pair.

I made a comment about a previous MG puzzle that it was like something John Nash on acid would come up with - well this puzzle makes that puzzle seem straightforward by comparison.

Edit: Ok Phil Hartman - Add that to the plethora of reason I never would have solved this one.

Phil Hartman also was on SNL at the time.

Dplass wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:57 amPhlox? Really?

We used to have some beautiful Creeping Phlox in the front of our house. People were always asking what those flowers were. I could never remember the name until I thought of the memory trick of Sheep Flocks to remind me of Creeping Phlox.

Dplass wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:57 amPhlox? Really?

Yes, really. I love the homophone metas!
Moor of ewe guise should get into gardening...
Phlox started me down the correct path as soon as I said the F words allowed. ( see Tips for Solving Metas in Come Aboard).
This was a reel grate meta, for shore!!