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.
Jace54 wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 10:28 am
I also got detoured by “triad”, but I do not see that anybody else has commented on Taps at 1A. That song only uses three notes, which I learned from Google is the C Major triad (notes C, E, and G). Took me a long time to give up on that path.
That's exactly the wrong turn I took at first. I finally asked someone who had already solved to it for me so I could move on to something else.
I'm the opposite of most of the commenters in that REACHES was the first one I saw, and I doubt I would have come up with DOCENT without the help of the Zoom. I don't think I have ever used that word outside of a crossword.
Like Wendy and Marge (honored to be in their company) I looked closely at the clues and spent almost a hour thinking how could “key signature” not be significant? Those clues were so oddly worded. Thankfully DoCent and TiAra ushered me to the beach.
MaineMarge wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 9:00 am
No wonder our non-musical Muggles had hard times with this.
Actually, I think my woeful lack of music knowledge (remember my offer to NOT sing if I got a beer) helped me on this one. I was oblivious to all the rabbit holes that others found. I did know DO RE MI, but I had to look up Cantata.
Way back a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle (Steve Rubenstein) did a column about whether it was fair to sucker punch someone in Scrabble. He had played ACHE. His girlfriend had added a D to make ACHED. And he said, as he placed down his R and E tiles, "If you ache for a second time, you re-ache, and if it happened in the past you re-ached". His girlfriend protested and asked him to take them back and he asked if she challenged. So she did as she was certain re-ache can not be acceptable. Later she accused him of cheating and he wasn't sure whether he had or hadn't.
GUAVA is not an anagram of VAGUE and PEPPER is not a palindrome.
EVJ wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 11:14 am
I kept thinking “GUIDE?” Really?!? I should know by now that when something just doesn’t ring true it’s a huge clue.
Me too. As I filled in the grid I started to write "docent" only it didn't fit. So, yes, someone else to listen to when something doesn't ring true -- yourself.
EVJ wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 11:14 am
I kept thinking “GUIDE?” Really?!? I should know by now that when something just doesn’t ring true it’s a huge clue.
Me too. As I filled in the grid I started to write "docent" only it didn't fit. So, yes, someone else to listen to when something doesn't ring true -- yourself.
Right. And since when is a "bejeweled topper" in a crossword a CROWN and not a TIARA? Having said that, although I thought DOCENT and TIARA when I filled the grid, it took me a loong time to put it all together, for some reason.
MaineMarge wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 9:00 am
No wonder our non-musical Muggles had hard times with this.
Actually, I think my woeful lack of music knowledge (remember my offer to NOT sing if I got a beer) helped me on this one. I was oblivious to all the rabbit holes that others found. I did know DO RE MI, but I had to look up Cantata.
Now we know how to make Bob pay for his "free" beer... YAY!
So how many tried playing the 'notes' in the theme answers and listening for some familiar tune? It's got to be there, right? Even ends on a C. Or maybe three at a time. Or try to fit it in with Taps somehow - a music clue at 1 across has to be relevant to the theme, right? So many rabbit holes.
My first attempt with do-re-mi was adding them to the end of the theme entries because 'guide dog' seemed so perfect. It was a day later before I thought of using them to start new answers.
If you want help with a meta, feel free to PM me. The more specific you are about what you have and what you want, the more likely I can help without spoiling.
(And if I help you win a mug, I’ll be especially delighted.)
I was definitely thinking chords at first because of TRIAD, but that obviously didn’t work with all of the starred clues. Maybe it was in my brain lying dormant, but I thought both DOCENT and TIARA first for those two clues, and yesterday when I was looking at it again, CENT jumped out and I was off to the races. FA-THERED was my last find; THERED was definitely an odd fill and I should have mentally “asterisk”ed that one.
woozy wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 12:29 pm
Way back a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle (Steve Rubenstein) did a column about whether it was fair to sucker punch someone in Scrabble. He had played ACHE. His girlfriend had added a D to make ACHED. And he said, as he placed down his R and E tiles, "If you ache for a second time, you re-ache, and if it happened in the past you re-ached". His girlfriend protested and asked him to take them back and he asked if she challenged. So she did as she was certain re-ache can not be acceptable. Later she accused him of cheating and he wasn't sure whether he had or hadn't.
I used to love Steve Rubinstein's columns - back when I got a paper in the paper form...
woozy wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 12:29 pm
Way back a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle (Steve Rubenstein) did a column about whether it was fair to sucker punch someone in Scrabble. He had played ACHE. His girlfriend had added a D to make ACHED. And he said, as he placed down his R and E tiles, "If you ache for a second time, you re-ache, and if it happened in the past you re-ached". His girlfriend protested and asked him to take them back and he asked if she challenged. So she did as she was certain re-ache can not be acceptable. Later she accused him of cheating and he wasn't sure whether he had or hadn't.
I used to love Steve Rubinstein's columns - back when I got a paper in the paper form...
Whatever happened to him--- I ask rhetorically knowing full well I can wiki the information....
GUAVA is not an anagram of VAGUE and PEPPER is not a palindrome.
Many of those same rabbit holes but unfortunately I never saw the DO RE MI, even though I was rather surprised by CROWN instead of TIARA.
One of my meta how-to hints revolves around the word BACK when it appears in a title--think backwards. So I tried going backwards 8 letters (a scale) from the first letter of the *answers. Of course, that was gibberish. Tried going back from the first ABCDEFG in each *answer--again gibberish. Then I thought--try going forward 8 letters from the last letter of the *answers. I did come up with ARIA ACE, which is a brand of flamenco guitar but that just didn't seem very elegant.
LadyBird wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 2:28 pm
One of my meta how-to hints revolves around the word BACK when it appears in a title--think backwards. So I tried going backwards 8 letters (a scale) from the first letter of the *answers. Of course, that was gibberish. Tried going back from the first ABCDEFG in each *answer--again gibberish. Then I thought--try going forward 8 letters from the last letter of the *answers. I did come up with ARIA ACE, which is a brand of flamenco guitar but that just didn't seem very elegant.
My first try with the scale used OD, ER, IM, AF, etc.. and got nowhere
When I saw 'Museum Worker" I thought Docent but only 5 letters. When I saw "Bejeweled Topper" I tried to put in Tiara. After completing the gird, looked at the title and was off to find the rest. I had it as Do Ra Mi Fa So Thought it had to be Solace but could not find the LACE.
it for me so I could move on to something else.
