"Backdrops" - November 1, 2019

[JJD]

After a few rabbit holes, I’m on shore.

[JJD]

I've solved the puzzle, but have no idea how "Backdrops" and the five letter noun part of the "meta" works. Any help?

Not really. Actually for doing these for four years, I've gotten worse over time. Main thing I can say: Don't expect any logical connection or even any sense to be made out of these things. I describe meta puzzles as "in-jokes" for that reason: You'll either get it or you won't and there's no rhyme or reason behind it.

Like this one, there's (hopefully) some logical extension between "Backdrops" and "Five letter noun" that is supposed to let me know what to look for in the grid, but there's no connection that prompts me anywhere in the grid. Meanwhile, there's others where I see something in the grid, but there's no logical connection from that into the answer. How to solve a meta: Step 1: Do the puzzle. Step 2: ? Step 3: Solution! Or to follow a meme: How to draw an owl. Draw a circle, then draw the rest of the owl. A few can figure out how to get to the owl, others will never be able to do so.

If you get the "joke" on these things, congratulations. If you get made to be the butt of the "joke" like I get to be week after week, well ... there's always a less than par puzzle that just got solved.

I've looked at some of his prior puzzles and the explanations of the meta, the number of steps taken to get to the correct answer ... this stuff is daunting.

I mean, I look at this one, there are five clues. Four of them are 10 letter compound words, the 5th, the middle one, is ... different. It's 7 letters, it's in the exact middle of the puzzle, it's not the same type of compound word, and it has a weird "xy" in the middle of it.

So I'm convincing myself that this word is a key, perhaps the key, but at least a key, to the puzzle.

And then I just can't get any further. I'm not a good anagrammer, and I know this builder uses those, so that's not going to be a productive path for me to attempt. I've played with words and letters. I guess I just have to wait another 24.5 hours to find out what you all have seen.

I’ll tell you that the first 5-10 puzzles seemed horrendously arbitrary time when I read the answers. Now I’m usually able to solve week 1’s, and l’m less than 50% on the rest of the weeks, though I think I’m improving.

[Bob cruise director]

This was a Kas 4 for me as I got a nudge so I will be with Isaac week. My sentiment is best captured by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[Joe Ross]

I’ll tell you that the first 5-10 puzzles seemed horrendously arbitrary time when I read the answers. Now I’m usually able to solve week 1’s, and l’m less than 50% on the rest of the weeks, though I think I’m improving.

However, you nailed your avatar from the beginning! I had a Calvin avatar locked & loaded, until I saw your excellent choice. Mine was the more mercurial side of Calvin, how I felt when a couple of my initial, "defensible" meta efforts fell well short of correct.

[Patty]

Unless post enlightenment strikes I shall be closing out the bar with Isaac. I've seen plenty of interest but nothing that leads to an answer. Good luck Muggles on winning a mug!

[Bob cruise director]

Unless post enlightenment strikes I shall be closing out the bar with Isaac. I've seen plenty of interest but nothing that leads to an answer. Good luck Muggles on winning a mug!

Patty

Fear not. I have talked to Captain Stubing and he will be taking those of us on the ship to an interesting port where the weather is warm and dry.

[Janet P]

^^Same as Patty!
So Isaac actually kicked me out of the bar and since I've exhausted the supply of daffodil and crocus bulbs for Marge's garden I guess I'll head up top and find someone interested in shuffleboard.
I can't recall the last time I was stumped three weeks in a row

[steveb]

Submitted an answer, but with less than 100% confidence.

[OGuyDave]

Took me MUCH longer than others I've solved. I'm psyched a little, because usually it's "getting it almost right away, or not getting it at all." So, hello beachcombers, nice to be with you.

How the constructors keep coming up with all these new themes is just incredible. Many thanks to all of them.

[Guy]

Ashore!

[DrTom]

Sunday past noon and I have nothing. I cannot even find the 2nd step after completing the grid, I see possible hooks but only one or two, not five. I think my streak stops here, but I guess technically it stopped last week because I submitted an educated guess based on MOST of the letters and got it, so lucky not good. I was Bushwacked last time (2 for 43), but it appears this week I have been dropped on my back and cannot get up.

RATS!

[Bob cruise director]

Good Sunday afternoon muggles. Hopefully everyone remembered to set their clocks back

And welcome to our newest muggle - elan who is with the shore party

We have had a fair movement to the shore and now have 9 of us on the ship and 78 on the shore. Still far below the heady days of summer when we routinely had over 100 on the shore.

Joining us in the ship's bar are MajorDomoTom who I thought was on the shore, Ann P and Patty

Making their way to the shore since yesterday are
FirstMax
Doug M
Beth C
Orsys
elan
Barry
jag
Steveb
Guy L
OGuyDave
and JJD

Good luck to everyone winning the elusive mug

[Al Sisti]

I didn't start doing the WSJ crosswords until late June, 2016, so I missed the first 40 weeks of daily puzzles. Two months ago, in hopes of getting better at doing the metas, I printed out all 230-odd puzzles that I had missed and started doing them in chronological order. I have now finished them all, including 38 metas. (Two Fridays fell on holidays.) I have succeeded in getting all but three of the metas: I got the wrong answer for one because some facts had changed since it was published; I made a really stupid mistake on another; and I'm still working on one from March 4, 2016, titled "A. Crossword Puzzle", which, so far, has me totally stymied. A lot of the early metas were extremely easy, easing the learning curve a bit, and I think that the whole exercise has really paid off. The metas definitely require a different kind of thinking and you have to be very patient with the hard ones, walking away as often as necessary to let your subconscious mind notice what you need to notice to succeed. (Earlier today, I finally got the meta from May 13, 2016, titled "Sea Change", after a full month of being totally mystified by it.) So ... if you're retired, like me, and have nothing better to do, you might want to try some of the older metas. (I'm never going to be an Al Sisti, but I'm a lot better off than I was ... .)

Senator, I know Al Sisti. You don't want to be Al Sisti. But I agree with you, these things don't necessarily come naturally, regardless of one's intellect or even experience in the world of crosswords (you know, the only place in the world where you'll hear/use the words NENE, YMA or ENO). I was awful in the beginning, and/but the more I did (learning to set my brain on "anywhere but normal"), the more in tune I became. I also bought all of Matt's Mental Floss collections and Peter Gordon's Blazingly/Scorchingly, etc-ingly Hard books, and found that the more I did, the better I got. I still get fooled a lot and spend way too much time in rabbit holes of my own digging, but I'm so glad I found these type puzzles. It marries two of my favorite things: puzzles and setting my brain on "anywhere but normal."

[sphorning]

Got a little nudge from BarbaraK and quickly swam to shore. Chilled Sauvignon Blanc bitte!

[MajordomoTom]

On the beach, enjoying a nice warm mug of tea.

Thx to Cindy for a very nice hint. Got me going in the correct direction.

[Al Sisti]

This was a Kas 4 for me as I got a nudge so I will be with Isaac week. My sentiment is best captured by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

My band used to do what we called "juggling recitation" to kill time, and this was my poem of choice. My juggling doesn't generally last too long, so I was forced to rattle off the first verse in one breath... which, you know, kindofkillstherhythmiccadence.

[31 Down]

This was a very clever double-edged sword with forking paths leading to nirvana. I second Al's endorsement of Peter and Gordon's Fireball book series and encourage intrepid solvers to try the Newsday Saturday Stumper, my favorite daily crossword which I consider a notch more difficult than NYT Saturday.

And to those stumbling, flummoxed and frustrated newbies - Patience, Butterfly. Your agony will be eventually be rewarded when you metamorphose into a brown belt MetaMaster. And then you can moan aloud about missing out on the mug like most of us...

[Joedbee]

I was delayed but am now safely onshore.

[Jim and Anita]

This meta was more trick than treat for us. The extra hour of sleep only made our rabbits more rested so we are hanging out with Isaac for the rest of the weekend. Kudos to all who saw the way and we have every confidence we'll get the answer come 12:01 am.

[Bird Lives]

I've solved the puzzle, but have no idea how "Backdrops" and the five letter noun part of the "meta" works. Any help?

Not really. <snip> Main thing I can say: Don't expect any logical connection or even any sense to be made out of these things.

On Monday, you will see explanations that link the title to both the answer and the mechanism for solving the meta. Some people -- maybe even some who got the answer -- will find these a bit of a stretch. But they do follow a logic which, if my under-over guess is correct, at least 500 people will have understood.