"1 + 1 = 5" June 28, 2024

[Mister Squawk]

BANDS -> Roadie's Burden -> AMP

For some reason, couldn't see DUOS, even when trying to back solve.

Best rabbit hole? The following near anagrams (e.g. off by 1 letter):

OBIWAN -> WINONA
NEMO -> DOME
AMP -> MOP

[newbymar]

Brother Bill went down a few rabbit holes: HANDY was a young human male who lived on Cloud City; LANDO is a friend of Han Solo and administrator of Cloud City; BANDS: The Max Rebo Band appears in Return of the Jedi; WANDA was a WA-7 service unit in Dex's Diner. All this led to Jedi, or R2D2 (ROBOTO in 9Down) as a possible answer.
Then....there was PLIE and PIE (L), LIST and LIT (S) AWES and WES (A) NEMO and NEO (M) which led to SLAM.
Then...White Stripes and Black Keys-DUOS. Each large answer is a duo...so maybe DUET?
The zoom room helped immensely so I could "help" the brothers solve. It was a long weekend on FaceTime and messages with the brothers! Good times!

[batfella]

I got ashore with a very big help from Zoom room. I didn't submit as I couldn't see the lock in between BOND amd the title.

[Plymouthrock]

Look up definition of bond as it applies to mathematics.
I plan to refer to number bonds every chance I get,
I figure I can work it into golf, bridge, pickleball…
Endless.

[Plymouthrock]

Would have been extra fun if he had worked 7 pairs of “oo” into grid.

[DrTom]

Please @hcbirker tell me you did “star trek” names in the graphic just to make star wars nerds mad.

The Force is not strong with that one.....luckily she is a lovely human being.

[Doug C]

I got stuck on HANDY. 25D (ADEPTS) and 56D (ABUT) both worked. But what to do with A O N D?
I didn't like that combo. Tried to justify 54D (Delivered) just so I could use the B, but felt like too.big a stretch. Never thought of the Smurf connection. I guess I am not BRAINY enough. Submitted the anagram DONA which I connected to the title as needing to add a fifth character (tilda) to make a 4 letter word. The inclusion of Spanish language (CASA) at 17A seemed like a nudge. There is always next week...

[Deb F]

Here I sit, with Isaac, ordering a Bloody Mary. This meta was absolutely not in my realm and, even with a great nudge (more like a push) I still couldn't get it. I salute all of you solvers!

Have a great week and a fun, safe 4th!

[Ergcat]

Look up definition of bond as it applies to mathematics.
I plan to refer to number bonds every chance I get,
I figure I can work it into golf, bridge, pickleball…
Endless.

I was not seeing how BOND related to the title but @Regfish7 got it right away “as in a number BOND, Mom!”. She is a mathematician after all.

[BreeZynCO]

Well, I didn't get the answer, but I do have a new book idea for the grands!
Screenshot_20240630_192953_Amazon Shopping.jpg

I would love to see an editor's response to this title!

[hcbirker]

Please @hcbirker tell me you did “star trek” names in the graphic just to make star wars nerds mad.

I'm just the messenger, not the creator. But yes, that needs to be fixed!

[Joe Ross]

Please @hcbirker tell me you did “star trek” names in the graphic just to make star wars nerds mad.

I'm just the messenger, not the creator. But yes, that needs to be fixed!

Fixed.

[woozy]

So filling in the grid when I got to 45A "Not holding anything back as in a biography" I figured that had to be KISS AND TELL. When it turned out to be WARTS AND ALL, I figured 40 TELLS OFF had to be part of the mechanism to indicate the third letter was K. I figured HITHER AND YON could be replaced with NEAR AND FAR or HERE AND THERE but it got nowhere.

I'm all set up to make retaliation meta with HITHER AND YON and an enrty of NEAR MISS. An entry for "Completely different" being NIGHT AND DAY and an entry of ORANGE JULIUS or something much shorter. The "WARTS AND ALL" and TELLS OFF and, that'd spell the letters F-A-K and I haven't really figured out how to get the final letter E.

....

BOND is weak but so was AVOID last week. BOND things bound together. I have no idea how common "number bonds" are in elementary education these days. I have a math degree and I never heard of them.

[FuminCuban]

My answer was CAIN. There are four duos (x and y) in the puzzle and right above "duos" in the grid is ABEL. So, CAIN and ABEL is a 1 +1 that makes 5 total of these.

[DBMiller]

I got stuck on HANDY. 25D (ADEPTS) and 56D (ABUT) both worked. But what to do with A O N D?
I didn't like that combo. Tried to justify 54D (Delivered) just so I could use the B, but felt like too.big a stretch. Never thought of the Smurf connection. I guess I am not BRAINY enough. Submitted the anagram DONA which I connected to the title as needing to add a fifth character (tilda) to make a 4 letter word. The inclusion of Spanish language (CASA) at 17A seemed like a nudge. There is always next week...

I thought of W.C. Handy, and matched it with 1D being a clue mentioning a composer, and BACH gave me the same B that BRAINY would have.

So right answer, wrong reason.

[flyingMoose]

This is from a "<40%er and dropping" who only reviewed the post-midnight posts. You have been forewarned.

I did not take the answer to be related to the title at all. Rather, I understood the title to be instructions: 1+1=5 is "one letter-AND-one letter" from each of the themers to form a five-letter word. Proceed from there. Perhaps another has already suggested that route. Perhaps I am clueless. :)

You were forewarned.

EDIT: Upon reading Crossword Fiend again, I found the same idea. It was not there last night.

[DBMiller]

To me, BOND was straight forward. You are bonding together the first letter of the first and last words with the word AND.

H+AND+Y
L+AND+O
W+AND+A
B+AND+S

Much like molecular bonds. H-O-H is water (More commonly written as H2O)

DB

[Zobo3737]

Should I know "Handy Smurf"? And I'm familiar with Wanda, but the movie is what, pushing 40?

I’m pretty sure almost no one knew Handy was a Smurf. Thank you, Google.

[lxp]

Knowing nothing about smurfs, I checked out the wikipedia entry and found them quite interesting. They are Belgian in origin and are referred to as Les Schtroumpfs (Smurfen in Flemish). They wear Phrygian caps and love to eat sasparilla. I look forward to meeting other smurfs in crossword puzzles, such as Greedy, Lazy, Clumsy and Hefty. Now that my horizons have been broadened, I will undertake a complete review of Star Wars characters.

[woozy]

Seems pretty heavy in the pop culture doesn't it? ALL of the mechanisms (well, maybe one isn't) are a pop culture reference.

I got LANDO and WANDA and figure if HANDY fit anything it might be a smurf.