"Hiding Places" April 7, 2023

[Deb F]

Yep--went down the same paths as others, though I didn't look into who was hiding out where! My first inclination had been Mediterranean Sea but then got thrown by Tyrrhenean and Ionian Seas. So I was thinking it had to be generic--just Sea. Then I looked at one listing for Capri which had it in the Bay of Naples. Then I thought, aha, it's a Bay hidden among the Seas--so it must be Bay. I went back to Mediterranean Sea as my final but didn't really feel all that confident.

Good luck, Muggles.

[mydogsam]

I went way too fast on this one because of an appointment I had and it cost me. I quickly read the clue to the answer and completed the crossword puzzle. I was running out of time and was getting ready to give up but then quickly saw ITHACA, ELBA, CRETE CAPRI and MALTA hidden in the answers. So started doing a Google search and for ITHACA my search said IONIAN SEA, so I knew the first letter was an I. Then I searched ELBA and my search said TYRRHENIAN SEA so i knew the second letter was a T. Then I searched CRETE and my search said AEGEAN SEA so I knew the third letter was an A. I had run out of time and knew I was looking for a word revealed from bodies of water so I quickly realized with only two more words to look up there were only two letters left and so the answer must be a five letter word starting with ITA and so I guessed ITALY. Well, I guess that is a lessons learned on running out of time and making quick assumptions, but fortunately I did reach my appointment on time!!

[Douglas]

Am I the only one who submitted Aral, hidden in 24A? I did see the hidden islands, but they were in different seas. Only hidden body of water I could see was Aral.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Well, The XWord Rabbit had a restless night last night. The major rabbit hole he’d been seeking, lo these many weeks, overtook all of Muggledom.

First, the methodology: Five islands hidden in the long across entries: ITHACA, ELBA, CRETE, ATTICA and MALTA. From there it was a matter of finding the common body of water to all of them: THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.

A straightforward meta, yes? Well, not exactly.

It was the title of the puzzle, “Hiding Places”, that had many of us running off like, well… rabbits. One of the things your Rabbit particularly looks for in finding worthy nominees is uniqueness of method. Because of its singular and mostly obvious starting point there was a virtual stampede to the misguidedness of step two and beyond.

As Miki pointed out, the Mediterranean is comprised of seven seas or areas, as it were. Thanks to Wikipedia we searched the Ionian Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, etc. – all in vain. (A special shout out to Joe Ross who went into geographic details of the Mediterranean most of us would only expect from a tenured college professor.) Unsurprisingly, the first letters of any or all of those seas produced gibberish.

And then there were those of us who found residents hidden or exiled on the islands in question: Odysseus on Ithica, Napoleon on Elba, Zeus on Crete, Neruda on Capri and Carlo on Malta. That was another trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. More gibberish, of course.

Your Rabbit was ready to throw in the towel, calling this his first genuine “bye” week, but then, from deep in the mist, ship4u’s entry appeared. Elegant in its relative simplicity and faulty reasoning.

When I saw CAVE in 17A, I thought that is a perfect "Hiding Place." Next was ATTIC in 48A and TENT in 37A, also great "Hiding Places." I was convinced that I was on to the correct mechanism. Hmmm, now what? Well, Napoleon was exiled on ELBA, hence, his "Hiding Place." MALTA took some googling.

It turns out that between March, 1919, and October, 1920, high ranking leaders and militia of the Ottoman Empire were exiled to Malta after being accused of crimes, effectively "Hidden" away. Of course, as typical, Mr. Gaffney has given us one very tough one to complete the mechanism! Next, I saw that C E T A M anagrams to C-META! Could it be that SEA is the META?

This week would have been perfect, if only Carmen Miranda had been born in Malta. Instead, let’s end with a tribute to Joseph Calleia, a Maltese-born American actor who appeared in a zillion well-known movies of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s including “My Little Chickadee” and “Touch of Evil.”

Just looking at his picture brings to mind one of your Rabbit’s favorite Jimmy Buffet tunes, the lyrics of which he has committed to memory. Enjoy, Muggles!

[Colin]

Is there a palindromic body of water? Why, yes, the Exe River in England. That must be the answer

Absolutely delighted to read a call out for the River Exe in my old homeland of Devon in the UK. The train from Devon to London runs through Teignmouth (another river outlet and home to the band Muse) then passes by Dawlish Warren and along the Exe up to the city if Exeter before heading to Paddigton Station in London. The Devon part of the journey was (still is) a glorious and scenic seaside train ride. Thank you @BarbaraK for the memories!

[JerryF]

Calling Mike Miller! Has anyone seen Mike Miller?

[ship4u]

Calling Mike Miller! Has anyone seen Mike Miller?

Hmmm, he must be "Hiding."

[Streroto]

I think this puzzle was perfect.

1. I absolutely remember, lo, those many moons ago, getting my first Meta right, and marveling at how extraordinary the construction was, how incredibly genius…and the fact that we’ve gotten all these years of puzzleicious joy (and with very, *very* few repeats in the construction!!) is…amazing;

2. Sometimes the meta is difficult. Sometimes it’s less so. I’m not sure this is grounds for teeth-gnashing, hand-wringing, or stone-throwing. Not even finger-pointing;

3. I too felt I was missing something, and almost didn’t submit. In hindsight, I’m laughing at how hilarious that is…I’m sure there’s a psychological term for it…Stockholm Syndrome, or somesuch…; and

4. Lastly, I feel that those saintly Muggles who so fervently and passionately defend the constructors should be awarded a mug, just for being awesome.

@3 don’t like my PAGEANGST?

[Deb F]

Calling Mike Miller! Has anyone seen Mike Miller?

Hmmm, he must be "Hiding."

He's been busy trying to word his email to you!

[mheberlingx100]

Checking the spam folder just in case …

[mitchel674]

I went way too fast on this one because of an appointment I had and it cost me. I quickly read the clue to the answer and completed the crossword puzzle. I was running out of time and was getting ready to give up but then quickly saw ITHACA, ELBA, CRETE CAPRI and MALTA hidden in the answers. So started doing a Google search and for ITHACA my search said IONIAN SEA, so I knew the first letter was an I. Then I searched ELBA and my search said TYRRHENIAN SEA so i knew the second letter was a T. Then I searched CRETE and my search said AEGEAN SEA so I knew the third letter was an A. I had run out of time and knew I was looking for a word revealed from bodies of water so I quickly realized with only two more words to look up there were only two letters left and so the answer must be a five letter word starting with ITA and so I guessed ITALY. Well, I guess that is a lessons learned on running out of time and making quick assumptions, but fortunately I did reach my appointment on time!!

This would be great, except ITALY is not "a body of water".

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. Each of the five theme answers conceals a Mediterranean island: WITH A CAVEAT, PARALLEL BARS, SECRET ENTRANCES, ATTICA PRISON and FORMAL TALKS.

A lot of solvers agreed this one was a bit more straightforward than some of our recent brain-busters. We certainly had a big turnout: 2558 entries, with about 92% correct, much more than our usual 75%.

Other guesses included simply SEA (44), BLUE GROTTO (8, plus another 4 for GROTTO), IONIAN (7), ADRIATIC (4), STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR (4), SAN FRANCISCO BAY (4), among several others. Congrats to this week's winner, Coreen Steinbach of Pompey, NY! (The contest gods are smiling on Coreen, who was also a winner just this past December!)

[OGuyDave]

Done, Thursday; and done, Thursday moments later, because I'm in that batch of no-so-bright bulbs, and just thought we were let off easy. Sure glad that thought was on target. Thinking the vacation, so to speak, will be over this Thursday afternoon.

TFTXWD

[Cruciverbalisticexpi]

Can we BAN multiple mug winning? It's devastating to my ego! Lol

The contest answer is THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. Each of the five theme answers conceals a Mediterranean island: WITH A CAVEAT, PARALLEL BARS, SECRET ENTRANCES, ATTICA PRISON and FORMAL TALKS.

A lot of solvers agreed this one was a bit more straightforward than some of our recent brain-busters. We certainly had a big turnout: 2558 entries, with about 92% correct, much more than our usual 75%.

Other guesses included simply SEA (44), BLUE GROTTO (8, plus another 4 for GROTTO), IONIAN (7), ADRIATIC (4), STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR (4), SAN FRANCISCO BAY (4), among several others. Congrats to this week's winner, Coreen Steinbach of Pompey, NY! (The contest gods are smiling on Coreen, who was also a winner just this past December!)

[Bird Lives]

1. I absolutely remember, lo, those many moons ago <snip>

Completely off-topic, but this is a perfect example of why I can't understand why anyone would design a sans-serif font where the "l" does not have a retroflex hook. With all the discussion of Greek isles and myth, my first thought on reading this was that it was going to be about Io, the moon goddess.

[Kas]

1. I absolutely remember, lo, those many moons ago <snip>

Completely off-topic, but this is a perfect example of why I can't understand why anyone would design a sans-serif font where the "l" does not have a retroflex hook. With all the discussion of Greek isles and myth, my first thought on reading this was that it was going to be about Io, the moon goddess.

I was totally writing that note to Io, the moon goddess. I mean, who uses "Lo" in this day and age?! Tsk.

[Kas]

I think this puzzle was perfect.

1. I absolutely remember, lo, those many moons ago, getting my first Meta right, and marveling at how extraordinary the construction was, how incredibly genius…and the fact that we’ve gotten all these years of puzzleicious joy (and with very, *very* few repeats in the construction!!) is…amazing;

2. Sometimes the meta is difficult. Sometimes it’s less so. I’m not sure this is grounds for teeth-gnashing, hand-wringing, or stone-throwing. Not even finger-pointing;

3. I too felt I was missing something, and almost didn’t submit. In hindsight, I’m laughing at how hilarious that is…I’m sure there’s a psychological term for it…Stockholm Syndrome, or somesuch…; and

4. Lastly, I feel that those saintly Muggles who so fervently and passionately defend the constructors should be awarded a mug, just for being awesome.

@3 don’t like my PAGEANGST?

Funny, I was toying with "Metangst," but yours is better/nice historical nod, lol.

[Kas]

This is kind of a retro-rabbit hole. I found the Mediterranean islands on Thursday, but last night during the zoom call, I started pondering, if there were another layer, what could it be.

So, “Hiding Places” - who’s hiding on those islands? First thought was the Minotaur on Crete. And Elba is famous as the the place where Napoleon was exiled. Someone (Heidi? Meg?) offered up that Odysseus was from Ithaca. A bit of googling turned up that Neruda for a time was in exile on Capri and Ottoman intellectuals were exiled to Malta in 1919.

So in theme entry order:
Odysseus
Napoleon
Minotaur
Neruda
Ottomans

ONMNO - not a body of water itself, but look, it’s a palindrome!

Is there a palindromic body of water? Why, yes, the Exe River in England. That must be the answer

Well, and everybody is obviously aware of the Oxoboxo Lake and Oxoboxo River in Connecticut. Obviously.

[hoover]

1. I absolutely remember, lo, those many moons ago <snip>

Completely off-topic, but this is a perfect example of why I can't understand why anyone would design a sans-serif font where the "l" does not have a retroflex hook. With all the discussion of Greek isles and myth, my first thought on reading this was that it was going to be about Io, the moon goddess.

I can't speak for other browsers, but to fix this in Firefox:

1. Hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) > Settings
2. Click General tab
3. Scroll to Language and Appearance
4. In the Fonts section, click the Advanced... button
5. Next to Sans-serif, select a different font.
6. Uncheck "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above"

Warning: This will set your font for all tabs!

There's probably a way to do this by creating and using a CSS, but I haven't investigated that option.

On Windows, I like Lucida Sans. I don't have Lucida Sans on my Mac at home, and the only candidates I've found without installing more fonts are Menlo and Monaco, which are both mostly sans-serif. Only the eye, the jay, and the numeral one have what you might call a serif; the zero has a slash where the capital oh doesn't; and the lowercase ell has a wiggle to distinguish it from capital eye and numeral one. Fair warning: they're both monospace fonts.

Samples attached.

[Joe Ross]

Another similar monospace font,