2022 MMMM Mega-Meta

[Joe Ross]

2022 MMMM Mega-Meta

Hi MMMM subscriber-

The links to the 2022 MMMM mega-meta reveal, the final puzzle in this year's contest, can be found here for PDF and here for PUZ.

Note: If you’re one of the 57 people that have solved the mega-meta already (congrats!), you should not resubmit your answer. But even if you’ve already solved the mega-meta, you might enjoy solving this puzzle anyway.

Send in your answer to the meta before 11pm ET Sunday at pmxwords.com. For those of you who like to solve online, you can access the puzzle here.



A big THANKS to those who have already donated to the Tip Jar! We’re getting closer to our initial target of $2500!

I contribute 100% of what I get to charity. This year I am again donating the proceeds to the Live Music Society.


Thanks and enjoy,

Pete

[BarbaraK]

When I found the mega meta in November, I wondered how Pete could possibly manage to put that much theme material in one puzzle. Should have known, the answer is beautifully.

[HunterX]

Submitted my answer to the mega meta. Didn't see it before the puzzle came out. Only now noticed the exactly how the earlier hint played into it. (Bit of a head slap there. Shoulda... coulda... woulda...)

I'm always amazed at how @Petemuller must spend all year working on next year's puzzles, creating 12 separate meta puzzles that each stand on their own, but also play a part in the mega meta (and the red herring), which then has to be built into the 13th puzzle somehow as well. Quite impressive!

[BarbaraK]

In case anyone missed the email, Pete extended the deadline until tomorrow. (Which, of course, means let's not spoil it here until then:)

MMMM Deadline Extended One Day

For those of you who need one more day to solve the last MMMM of the year, you got it! The submission deadline for this week’s puzzle will be Monday night, December 26, 11 pm ET.

Happy Holidays and thanks for playing!

Pete

[MattGaffney]

Due to family commitments, I won't be able to to solve and then blog this year's Muller Mega-Meta at Crossword Fiend as I normally do.

Would anyone here be able to guest-blog it there sometime over the next 24 hours? It's OK if you've never blogged at Fiend before -- I can ask someone there to help with formatting the post if someone volunteers to write it.

Thanks! Please respond to this thread or e-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com

[Qmark]

Was happy to see that Pete gave an extra day to solve the mega meta. That gave me time to get to it today and managed to solve it. A favorite song from my past.

Was able to solve the Jan-Oct metas each month...only got stumped in Nov and Dec.

Another amazing year of music meta constructions from Mr. Muller.

[m5rammy]

So, with (4D + 30A), I went back through the 12 puzzles, found the 2 or 4 numbers in the clues that were up to the size of the grid, to extract one or two letters from each month's grid.

I wasn't sure if the final meta hint meant "like a crossword, start counting from the top corner", or if it meant "like a trig graph, count from the Origin, in the lower left", and also if the number from an Across clue meant "count rows", and the number from the Down clue meant "count columns", or vice versa. And also when there were 4 numbers, how to pair them off.

To solve this I made a spreadsheet, with 1 row for each 2-numbers-found month and 4 rows for each 4-numbers-found month, and 4 columns of letters-from-the-grid, for various answers to those questions. And one column did give me the answer.

(Hopefully this comes out formatted well on your device)

|_____________________from Upper Left|from Lower Left |
|___________________________R,C| C,R| R,C| C,R|
|number|in Row clue|in Col Clue|
|Jan| _________ 4 | 12 ______ | B | S | H | R |
|Feb| ________ 10 | 10 ______ | T | T | I | I |
|Mar| ________ 12 | 13 ______ | I | E | A | E |

etc

So I found the group, and figured out the song, but I never found something specifically saying what song. I would think there is an easier route that I missed. How did you all solve it?

[MMe]

There's a write-up at crosswordfiend.com and Pete promises his own in about 90min

[m5rammy]

There's a write-up at crosswordfiend.com and Pete promises his own in about 90min

Well aware of those. I was also asking the folks here for their input.

[HunterX]

From the MMMM site:
"This month’s randomly chosen winner of an MMMM is Beth Tyrpin of Quincy, IL."

Congrats @Beth Tyrpin for winning the mug!

[BarbaraK]

So, with (4D + 30A), I went back through the 12 puzzles, found the 2 or 4 numbers in the clues that were up to the size of the grid, to extract one or two letters from each month's grid.

I wasn't sure if the final meta hint meant "like a crossword, start counting from the top corner", or if it meant "like a trig graph, count from the Origin, in the lower left", and also if the number from an Across clue meant "count rows", and the number from the Down clue meant "count columns", or vice versa. And also when there were 4 numbers, how to pair them off.

To solve this I made a spreadsheet, with 1 row for each 2-numbers-found month and 4 rows for each 4-numbers-found month, and 4 columns of letters-from-the-grid, for various answers to those questions. And one column did give me the answer.

(Hopefully this comes out formatted well on your device)

|_____________________from Upper Left|from Lower Left |
|___________________________R,C| C,R| R,C| C,R|
|number|in Row clue|in Col Clue|
|Jan| _________ 4 | 12 ______ | B | S | H | R |
|Feb| ________ 10 | 10 ______ | T | T | I | I |
|Mar| ________ 12 | 13 ______ | I | E | A | E |

etc

So I found the group, and figured out the song, but I never found something specifically saying what song. I would think there is an easier route that I missed. How did you all solve it?

I did basically the same thing. With that giant nudge in November, I went back and looked for numbers in the clues. (And they were underlined, by the way, because I'd thought about numbers, but never got anywhere with that because without realizing I needed to limit it to those smaller than the grid dimensions, there were too many.)

So found the pairs, decided it would be easier to check the four obvious ways to interpret them all together, started a chart like yours, and pretty quickly saw which column was the useful one.

Hit a bit of a glitch with June because it hadn't occurred to me that there would be two sets, so when I found the first two numbers I quit looking and used those and suddenly my nicely building phrase turned to gibberish. So I slowed down and looked again and found all the numbers and it all worked out. Think I filled in the T in December before starting the rest of the puzzle.

Congrats @Beth Tyrpin!!