"That's A Plus" - November 8, 2019

[MajordomoTom]

there are four (actually, eight) places with triple letters in the grid.

BAAAT (Baa At) has three As
DressShirt has three Ss

they're actually in "pluses", where the AAA of AAA Members is in a cross/plus with the AAA of BaaAt

This gives you four letters: LSAO

it's simple to anagram to ALSO, which is aligned with the name of the puzzle.

Hence, ALSO

[Joe Ross]

17A:

[SewYoung]

I also submitted "ALSO". Can't believe that it could be anything else, but no confirmation from WSJ yet. I also learned a new word at 29a. I just love all the limericks that have been posted. I am so happy to be a part of the Muggle community.

[MajordomoTom]

I learned BELLLAP (don't have the puzzle in front of me right now, so can't give the location, I know it was a 'down' clue).

[oldjudge]

Bell lap is the last lap of a multi-lap race. A bell is rung as the leader begins the last lap.

[MajordomoTom]

Bell lap is the last lap of a multi-lap race. A bell is rung as the leader begins the last lap.

Noisy revolution, now I get it.

[Joe Ross]

Attention Muggles, both ashore and at sea: if you haven't seen the Saturday WSJ crossword puzzle, you might want to take a look. It's a meta of sorts, a joint effort of David Plotkin and Jeff Chen titled "Metamorphosis".

Agree! Fun puzzle!

FWIW, I would have dropped the circled grid letters, made this change: 107A *** Life stage prior to meta-morphosis, and used it for a Friday Crossword Contest.

[Joe Ross]

WSJ solution:

[steveb]

I eventually submitted ALSO, but not before investigating whether "OFF AL" and "NOT SO" were suggesting that ALSO wasn't really the answer.

[darthdriessen]

I got it right. I had the plus signs. I kept scouring the alos-sola etc. For far too long.

[Janet P]

I am wondering about using the clockwise mechanism. Was there something in the clues/puzzle to suggest that? It was my only snag on this meta -- why to use clockwise instead of numerical order.
I sure hope someone on this board finds that happy muggle email this morning!

[Devilbunny]

Janet P -

One could use "bell lap" as a hint at that, though races are run counterclockwise...

I was too busy to get to it this weekend, but solved it (obviously too late for the contest) this morning. Meta only took a minute or so.

I guess it was just up my alley; I'm not normally the sort to solve them that quickly.

[Deb F]

Yippee. It really was as squeezy as I thought. Lots of muggle competition this week. Good luck all.

[MajordomoTom]

I saw nothing to indicate a clockwise direction, I just annagrammed to ALSO and it fit the theme.

[ron]

I'm also interested to know if there was some indicator to say to read it clockwise. I submitted ALSO not having anything else to go with, but wasn't really happy with it. It seems like 99% of the time these read in clued order or left to right.

[williakz]

I'd forgotten I solved this one. Real snoozer, else there would've been a hue and cry about the late posting of the solution. There's gotta be something between pulling teeth and napping on feathers...

[DBMiller]

As the plus signs took 3 spaces in each direction, it was not surprising that the order was not related to clue numbers. But in these cases I have usually seen letters used to a top->down or left->right fashion. I can imaging the difficulty of construction to put the O's above the S's led to the only layout possible and a clockwise ordering worked. Like I said, out of the ordinary, but a single description of direction was available, versus just an anagram.

[Geoduck]

I saw ALSO right away, but assumed the meta couldn't possibly be that squeezy. So I tried all sorts of ways to break the "code" and figure out what the next step would be.

Naturally, I failed.

[Tom Shea]

On shore! Who eats sweetbreads?

One time in my life. Actually quite good.

Didn't know what they were at the time (violating my rule of don't eat what you can't identify).

Don't know that I'd ever order them again, now that I know what they are.

One of those food items where I wonder: Who was the first person to say, "let's eat that."

P.S., Agree with comments on the Saturday WSJ puzzle. Amazing construction.

[pddigi]

A dad texted his eldest son:
"Solved the meta, I think, dear Dom.
But this seems too squeezy,
And it's making me queasy,
Was I pageant-ed and so will I bomb?"

Dom answered his dad like so:
"Sometimes it is that squeezy, y'know.
They're not all King Arthur
And multi-step bother
Take the W, submit, and go home!"