"Pop Duos" July 7, 2023

[Scott M]

Did no one else get sucked into the eight double-letters in the Across answers? ALLOW, LETS SEE, PASS, EBBS, REEVE, LEER, POOP. Had me searching for sodas with those same double letters: Mello Yello, Cheerwine, Mr. Pibb, Yoo Hoo, then nothing for the SS, and couldn't find anything that made sense from the others.

[Janet]

Well, I got left behind on the ship. I did not think of looking at the down answers going up. I was too focused on what the duos could be.

[woozy]

Well, I got left behind on the ship. I did not think of looking at the down answers going up. I was too focused on what the duos could be.

I *always* look for down answers going up and it almost *never* works. This time it did. I was actually surprised.

[DBMiller]

Twice now in the past month I had to return to my hometown. Didn't have a lot of free time this weekend but did find a few minutes respite here and there.

Wasn't sure what the pop reference was at first. Music or drinks. First thing I noticed was the eight duo letters in the grid. Dead end. Look at it later.

Eight across answers of 7 or 8 letters. Nothing there. Look at it later.

Finally looked at all the clues and noticed the 7-Up clue. Okay… drinks. Also the up is interesting. I see RATS in telSTAR, with TEL left over pointing to LETSSEE. I associate RATS with RODENTS, and mislead myself again by noticing the end of endEMIC is the letters of MICE.

I see ORANGES and think of orange soda. I see YODELER and associate it with YOO-HOO as a drink. PRO SHOP leads to TEE and thereby TEA… Getting nowhere fast. Look at it later.

POOP and PROSHOP have POP in them… another rabbit hole quickly discarded.

Back to RATS and RODENTS. SKIN and ORANGES??? PETS and … RODENTS again?

Look at it later.

Wait… PUN leads to GROAN. Title! Pop DUOS. SKIN and DUN. Wasn't DUN in the clues? Idiot!

And I make the same mistake as someone else, writing down…

Skin aloe
Dun ecru
Pets vet
Bud ear
Rats rodents
Let allow
Pun groan
Eves eden

Which gives me AEVERAGE. Huh? Gotta be BEVERAGE. Where are the B answers? BALM. You eeeediot!!!!!

Done and done.

Tried to join Sunday night's Zoom from a brewery in Davenport Iowa, but couldn't stay connected. Was certain I was right, and didn't really need confirmation. But wanted to hear other rabbit stories.

[ship4u]

Did no one else get sucked into the eight double-letters in the Across answers? ALLOW, LETS SEE, PASS, EBBS, REEVE, LEER, POOP. Had me searching for sodas with those same double letters: Mello Yello, Cheerwine, Mr. Pibb, Yoo Hoo, then nothing for the SS, and couldn't find anything that made sense from the others.

Yes, we went down that rabbit hole as well. Particularly since there happened to be 8 double (duo) letters in the across answers and we were looking for an eight letter answer.

[Scott M]

Did no one else get sucked into the eight double-letters in the Across answers? ALLOW, LETS SEE, PASS, EBBS, REEVE, LEER, POOP. Had me searching for sodas with those same double letters: Mello Yello, Cheerwine, Mr. Pibb, Yoo Hoo, then nothing for the SS, and couldn't find anything that made sense from the others.

Yes, we went down that rabbit hole as well. Particularly since there happened to be 8 double (duo) letters in the across answers and we were looking for an eight letter answer.

Mike "The Herring" Shenk strikes again!

[The XWord Rabbit]

It’s been a long while since the XWord Rabbit had his pick of juicy tales of Muggles gone astray, but this was just such a week.

Last week’s meta was 7-Eleven. This time around it was 7-UP. Is the number 7 suddenly in vogue with meta constructors? It was certainly lucky for your Rabbit.

Get a comfortable chair, as Mr. Shenk’s puzzle takes some ‘splaining to do:

The entry at 44D led the way, as SEVEN UP was the critical first step. That took successful solvers to the four 7-letter down words in the puzzle: 4D. NUDNIKS, 10D. DUBSTEP, 42D. TELSTAR and 44D. SEVENUP. Those entries needed to be turned “up” (in other words, reversed). Each reversal consisted of two words, each appearing as the starting word in eight clues. The first letter of the entries to those clues (clockwise, from the upper left) spelled out the meta: BEVERAGE.

A number of Muggles struggled to find the answer after interpreting the title as a musical duo.
Honorable mentions this week from moxy, ship4u, Deb F and ZooAnimalsOnWheels.
But competition was fierce. Your Rabbit’s favorite came from Trish who gets the nomination for evoking the names
of the most obscure groups in the pack.

“Did you know that there is a band called “Seven Up”? And, there are 8 others: The Dawn, Dayo Band, Ulan Batar band, Kong Band, Mani Pedi band, III Nino, Leer Brothers. Truth, google them! And, then when we couldn’t do anything with this enlightening discovery, I saw something else in the 4 across pairs of answers with 7 letters and the same in the 4 down pairs with 7 letters. It goes as follows:

Nudnick (a song by Chris Potter)/ Dubstep(Pop band)
Telstar (song by the Tornados)/ Senen Up (band)
Oranges (pop band)/ Let’s See (song by Lucki)
Pro Shop (song by Packy)/ Endemic (band)

That’s eight right? The answer must be in there somewhere!!!”

Your Rabbit thought about linking a number of these tunes to this week’s post, but after listening to a few he thought better of it. Let’s just say there’s some weird music out there. Telstar actually made it to #1 on Billboard’s Top Ten in December 1962) a little over a year before the Beatles came along and took instrumentals off the charts. To those of you who don’t remember Telstar: It was the first communications satellite launched in space, commemorated by this number:



Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

[Bob cruise director]

Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

@The XWord Rabbit you are not old enough to remember but Telstar was not a song you danced to but a great one to have on the radio when parking

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is BEVERAGE. As suggested by the clue for SEVEN-UP, each of the four seven-letter Down answers, when read upward, can be broken into two shorter words (NUDNIKS=SKIN/DUN, DUBSTEP= PETS/BUD, TELSTAR=RATS/LET, SEVENUP=PUN/EVE’S). Those words are the first words of eight clues, and the first letters of the answers to those clues, in the order just listed, spell the contest answer.

We had one of the most successful turnouts in the history of this contest: 1525 entries, with fully 98% correct! (The usual rate is around 75%.). Which is impressive for an ingenious puzzle that struck us as tricky. WSJ contest solvers are the best. Congrats to this week's winner: Andy Hinz of Denver, Col.!

[Colin]

Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

@The XWord Rabbit you are not old enough to remember but Telstar was not a song you danced to but a great one to have on the radio when parking

Well, we didn’t have a car, but our first record player was a used wind-up affair and once we realized it was the cause of very short record life, Mum and Dad replaced it with an electric Dansette multi-disc mono player (which my brother later converted to stereo). Anyway, they bought a handful of records and Telstar (on a Tornadoes EP) was one of them. So this brought back great memories… thank you @The XWord Rabbit !

[The XWord Rabbit]

Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

@The XWord Rabbit you are not old enough to remember but Telstar was not a song you danced to but a great one to have on the radio when parking

FYI: The XWord Rabbit was a freshman in high school in 1962 and parking was yet to be on his radar.

[Miki]

Today is 7-eleven. Free slurpees for everyone...
Actually!

[DrTom]

My initial thought was to count to the 7th letter UP. But there were only 6 grid words with 7 or more letters, and NODTES didn’t even anagram to anything drinkable.
Then @Bob cruise director stepped UP with a nudge to get me heading in the right direction.
Here’s a POPular duo in my garden for you
IMG_3275.jpeg
Coral Charm peony

Well I got STONED and thought COKE and then an 8 letter duo COCACOLA - nice try, no points. I did solve the darn thing eventually but I was stuck on THC and other products that might get you stoned.

[DrTom]

Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

@The XWord Rabbit you are not old enough to remember but Telstar was not a song you danced to but a great one to have on the radio when parking

Well of course I did not go parking because I was told by my parents I should not...but instrumentals were big, Walk Don't Run, Wipeout, Tequila to name a few!!!

[mikeB]

Did no one else get sucked into the eight double-letters in the Across answers? ALLOW, LETS SEE, PASS, EBBS, REEVE, LEER, POOP. Had me searching for sodas with those same double letters: Mello Yello, Cheerwine, Mr. Pibb, Yoo Hoo, then nothing for the SS, and couldn't find anything that made sense from the others.

Super Coola was the first canned soda I ever had. It had the same bottle top as a Coke bottle -- long before pull tabs came along.

[Trish]

Wow! The Golden Rabbit Hole award is as good as a mug!! .
Gotta love it!

[Joe Ross]

Super Coola was the first canned soda I ever had. It had the same bottle top as a Coke bottle -- long before pull tabs came along.

Speaking of pull tabs & beaches, who else has been sliced by one of these & multiple times? (Besides me, that is...)

[ship4u]

Hard to imagine the Baby Boomers dancing at the hop to that one. Until next week, then …

My favorite Rock Duo growing up was Don and Phil Everly, The Everly Brothers. Back in the days when a song was just a song.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CALA ... Xe6KrWJX84

"The movie wasn't so hot.
It didn't have much of a plot.
We fell asleep, our goose is cooked.
Our reputation is shot.

Wake up Little Susie"

[M and M]

Classic and clever. All done and dusted.