A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:33 pm
This is so frustrating. I know this will be a head slapper when I see the answer. And I’ve spent so much time staring because I know it’s right there somewhere!
As some of the comments suggest, your head might not be the only thing you'll want to slap.
OK, I have the answer thanks to an excellent nudge (shove) from Wendy. Never would have gotten it on my own, so I'm not submitting, but it was a fun rabbit to chase.
I was about to quit and call it a night, but decided to take one last look at it... and I’m on shore. Dom was visiting friends out of town and recently landed back home. I don’t think he’s going to make it. This was far from my favorite mechanism.
Well, after seven or eight nudges SIL and I finally made it to shore. It wasn’t easy, even with the nudges. SIL actually got it. I saw all the instructions but just couldn’t fathom how to execute. I’m in awe of all who solved. And thank you to all the kind nudgers
Just haven't been able to spend much time on the metas lately because of volunteer duties. Count me on the ship this week, Bob! (And last week, too, if you're still keeping stats for that one!)
burak wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 3:01 am
Just finished the grid and completely lost at sea. I have a strong suspicion that this will turn out to be an underwhelming mechanism that may involve the grid very minimally, but I hope to be proven wrong in the next 24 hours, preferably via a nice aha moment.
Well, I solved it at 11:57 pm and while I'm glad to see that my suspicion was correct, I was unfortunately very underwhelmed by this. There was another meta a couple of years ago where the grid wasn't involved at all. Which is fair, sure, but to me a meta puzzle should involve the grid at least partially if not fully.
What miraculously unlocked my brain -on top of the time pressure which often works for me- was filling in DELETED SCENES in another puzzle I was solving. Human brain is an amazing thing.