"Back to the Fold"

[Al Sisti]

Thursday's update:

65 SeamusOL
66 K7
67 Richard 
68 Eric Porter
69 Abide 
70 Carolyn 
71 Golem 
72 Jerry Miccolis 
73 Jaclyn 
74 shalmanezer 

[whimsy]

Very classy, this one!

[MaineMarge]

OTC!
Impressed that Al is really on top of things this week- per the current February National Geographic magazine

[Al Sisti]

Friday update:

75 MaineMarge
76 eagle1279
77 Tane
78 whimsy
79 JR
80 Caroline

[minimuggle]

Wow great puzzle and after many tries I finally had to google how the fold ins worked. That was really fun. Thanks so much.

[Abide]

"Back to the Fold" Solution

Our constructor is MIA, but here's the long and short of it:


Credit: KayW

[Al Sisti]

First of all, my apologies for not doing this until now. For some reason, I thought the deadline was 10 PM on Sunday, not Saturday. And by now you’ve seen the solution unfold… uh, fold in… thanks to KayW. Other than that, there’s not too much to add to the reveal.

There were a few clues that were oddly- and similarly-worded that I was hoping would give solvers the basic idea:

-- 39A, which read: “Mad Magazine features by Al Jaffee, in which 60% of his artwork regularly disappeared.” His covers involved folding the rightmost portion of the page over to meet a corresponding point on the left side, essentially “hiding” the middle and revealing something (hopefully) previously unnoticed. In our case, the rightmost 3 columns were folded over to meet the leftmost 3 columns, making 60% of the grid (the middle 9 columns) disappear. And of course, as Kay has so beautifully demonstrated, the riddle that shows up in five symmetrically placed rows said “Woolen animal you use to fall asleep,” which of course refers to counting sheep.

- Other hints were
- The title (“Back to the Fold” referred to the fact that Jaffee’s foldins were a feature of the back cover, and the fact that when sheep return from wherever sheep go, they are said to have come “back to the fold.”
- 50A Type of folding stool
- 62A, which said “The middle piece of a track event, or what you can do with the middle piece,” and
- 49D, “Unused by-product of a process, like 60% of this grid”
- Even 63A – “Poker proclamation: "I ___" could as easily have been “I fold” as “I call.”

Okay, enough talk. Although I fell short of the lofty goal of having a solver list reach three digits, I did get 83 correct solutions; which was by far the most for any of my metas. And the winner of either a Utica Club keepsake, or a Blarney Rebel Band CD, or $15 donation to any charity – randomly picked from our 83 solvers – is @ Mikey G . Congrats, Mikey, and let me know what prize you want…

[DavyGravy]

Brilliantly done Al! As good as anything the WSJ puts out

[Al Sisti]

Brilliantly done Al! As good as anything the WSJ puts out

Wow... very kind of you to say that!

[hoover]

Post Posted by ChrisKochmanski » Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:08 pm

I’m guessing Clark E. Tripe already knows this, and is in mourning, as am I.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mad-maga ... 9acb958780

Came here to post the same... on the thread for the fold-ins puzzle.

[michaelm]

Post Posted by ChrisKochmanski » Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:08 pm

I’m guessing Clark E. Tripe already knows this, and is in mourning, as am I.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mad-maga ... 9acb958780

Came here to post the same... on the thread for the fold-ins puzzle.

At 102!
Al gave him a nice send off.