LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 12:41 am
Many films feature a hero’s quest. Let me share my heroine’s saga (I know, bold of me to assert that I am a heroine)—a saga through the Slough of Despond until I FINALLY reach the shores of the Happy Isles. Joe—and others—offer up elegant color-coordinated explanations of the meta answer; I offer up my color-coded timeline of how NOT to elegantly find the solution!
Some heroines are initially reluctant to answer the call; however, I needed no cajoling from Gandalf. I jumped right in at 3pm on Thursday. Although, after viewing the title and clue, I did exclaim: “Cinema..why’d it have to be cinema!”.
By 3:30 I had completed the grid and figured out the states associated with the themers. I even laid them out in a nice vertical row and noticed…nothing. But, of course, a quest requires roadblocks and tests and other ordeals. I ran into more than one R.O.U.S.—Rabbit of Unusual Size. The first induced me to write down all the 1992 Oscar winners—and research their locations.
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I spent the rest of Thursday and Friday trying to find state connections in the grid/clues. Right away I noticed Corpus CHRISTI (Texas!) and ONEONTA (New York!). But it was hard going finding other connections. I briefly toyed with EARTH=dust bowl=Oklahoma (but I was not yet that desperate). I looked for connections between the 1992 film states and the themers. A curioser and curioser fun fact—Thelma and Louise starts in Arkansas. Lots of tilting at windmills but so little progress that I felt like it was always winter but never Christmas. Things just got more discouraging as I kept reading shore reports—I felt that my meta-solving career was a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. But then a little hope arrived in an encouraging PM from Obi-Bob Kenobi.
On Saturday morning, I thought I would explore geography.
I mapped out a route connecting all the themer states, hoping it would either surround or point to the answer. Well, my map route looked like a stiletto. I “guess” that might apply to Beauty and the Beast, but Belle never struck me as a stiletto type of gal. Then I noticed that there were a lot of 3-letter answers.
That must be it: 2-letter state abbreviations with an extra letter. That will give me the answer. The letters I came up with partially anagrammed to octopods—which reminded me of the excellent (and Oscar-winning documentary) “My Octopus Teacher”—but that was several decades too late. I would be SO done with this if I only had a brain! Why can’t Hermione lean over and whisper a hint or two? I guess that I can depend on the kindness of strangers at the zoom call.
And then, on Saturday afternoon, I re-read the hint.
Maybe it is films from 1992—that received their Oscar in 1993. Google, here I come—again. Hmmm….HOWARD’S (seven letters just like the seven themers) END (sounds like a metanism to me) but I saw nothing. Wait a minute—A River Runs Through It (and the Rio Grande runs right through the middle of the grid). The odds are finally in my favor! That MUST be it—but how? I’m gonna have to science the $#/! out of this. Maybe there are names of rivers hidden in the themers—after years of crosswords I know a lot of short and obscure river names, but I’m not seeing anything. Then I look at my vertical list of states and I see it! Is this heaven? No, it’s MONTANA! My quest is over. Now, I just need to return to my little house on the Prairie State and hope for my mug email from Mike. That, and share tales of rabbit hole adventures with we few, we happy few, we band of Muggles.
