"Piece Process" May 10, 2024

[femullen]

Late start, but asho... float. I'm afloat. Been digging an elephant hole out of the one (certainly wrong) idea I'm fixated on, and The Smarter Half is enjoying an unplugged weekend in the Laurentians. Sans clue. Aucune idée.

Isaac, my beer glass, please refresh it. Everclear, à plein.

[Notbitter]

On shore.

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 8 on the ship and 187 on the shore.

Good luck winning the mug and have a safe week

[otlaolap]

Can someone explain to me why the word easyis often redacted recently in this forum? Just curious. [The redacted marking in this post is part of the post not (at least yet) a redaction by a moderator.]

[Joe Ross]

Can someone explain to me why 🥴is redacted?

Explained.

[otlaolap]

Explained.

Thank you.

[WSJosh]

Ashore, after getting back to town and finally having a minute to finish the grid and look at the meta.

[Momo]

So lost I give up. Can’t even find a rabbit hole. Between the metas and golf I think work was easier. So much for fun in retirement!

[DaveG]

Sadly stuck with Isaac. Wasn’t able to get to either zoom this weekend. I’ve got a Hail Mary prepped but any nudges would be appreciated. I fear I’m too focused on the rabbit holes I’ve found (3 of them). Otherwise if anyone has a rabbit stew recipe that may take my mind off it!!

[hcbirker]

[hcbirker]

[lacangah]

Perhaps I was biased by the fact that today was Mother’s Day, but in 11D, 56A, 62A, and 33A, I saw MOM, PAW, KIDS, and KIN. Fairly balanced across the grid save for the upper left corner with the Pittsburgh-related clue. But then, any long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fan would think back to the anthem of the last WS-winning team - ‘We Are FAMILY,’ which was our submission.

Congrats to everyone who solved it (and a belated Happy Mother’s Day to the Muggledom family)!

[benchen71]

Another one for the @The XWord Rabbit, this time based on the fact that two clues contained a key word from the puzzle title:

[Georgeall]

The correct answer is obviously "TAGGED." Two clues contain the theme word PIECE: 38A (Support PIECE), and 50D (Paste-up PIECE). So, 38A is BRA, which supports a breast. 27A is "Brest (breast) bestie," (AMI), and is under (or "supporting") the last two letters of 23A (SEEIT), yielding "IT" as part of the answer. 50D is REPRO, and looking up (as in "Paste-up") yields DUC, however, this word must be read upwards, yielding CUD. "CUD" is partly digested food chewed by cows, referring to 63D ("Cattle call"): MOO. Looking up from MOO (following the directions of "Pasting up") shows the second answer word "IAM." Finally, putting the two answers together yields "I AM IT," which is what is said in the game of tag when one is TAGGED.

It all comes together in a Piece Process, and makes just as much sense to me as SYSTEM. Where's my mug?

[femullen]

Oh, that kind of set. With "piece" in the title and "set" in the all-important lower right, I took it that we were looking for famous set pieces, which is cinema, which means I'm deep underwater already, but let's give it a whirl.

Of the six Across apparent theme answers, five were two-word answers with DUQUESNE the odd man out. But the long Down answers, 11D and 34D, were also of two words, so we'll substitute those for 17A and 62A. This gives us the following set:

HOBBY SHOPS
ATKINS DIET
STICK TIGHT
SPA WEEKEND
SUMO MATCH
TAKE NAMES

Now for the "piece process": mix and match these pieces to make something that might be familiar to movie-goers. STICK MATCH: didn't we see something like that in Robin Hood when Robin meets Little John? And SUMO DIET certainly has potential, wouldn't you say, Mr. G? Google for movies maybe featuring Sumo wrestlers eating their way toward the climatic meeting of the bulldozers. And so on through less and less likely pairs.

Interesting but fruitless. This rabbit hit granite just two inches down.

[ELSavage]

I was first distracted by the fact that in/near each of the theme clues was a cross of repeated three-letter sequences:
duQUEsne/piQUE
hobbySHOps/oneSHOt
atkINSdiet/INSta
stICKtight/besICK
lamENT/sorENTo (the top E is in spawEekend)
PROmkids/rePRO
The fact that they didn't line up in the same relative position (especially the fifth one), made me suspicious, but how much of a coincidence is that?
I didn't find a way to make a word from one of each set, though RECKON came close. If I hadn't seen the correct path on a second look, I was prepared to 'piece' some of the letters together and submit QUICHE (which comes in pieces, but has no system that I'm aware of).

[whimsy]

All was well until Boris surprised his opponent with the Fluffer-binkyov attack -

[Mister Squawk]

Is there any connection between the puzzle title and the answer?

[muggleunity]

I couldn't get past all the "K"s. The first four long answers I filled out were the last ones, and they all had a "K."

I saw the word queen, but saw it as a mixed up "Queens" (quenes), and the substitution approach never made it through my meandering synapses.

[ship4u]

Another one for the @The XWord Rabbit, this time based on the fact that two clues contained a key word from the puzzle title:


Piece Process rabbit hole.jpg

Good one! Give Piece a Chance!