XWord Muggles Forum

KAS 5.

It's amazing how differently each of us reacts to particular metas.

I found this one quite easy - eight minutes for the grid, a swim in the pool, and then eight more minutes for the meta - and have also had no problems with some other recent ones that seemed to flummox most muggles. But there have been several more that were declared incredibly easy by the crowd (and the WSJ numbers backed them up), but which left me totally stymied...

michaelm wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:23 am If the board were ever to do a poll of member, maybe include right/left handedness?

KayW wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:56 pm I had noticed that Zoom showed me a mirror-image of myself, even in the gallery view as the image you posted above. I kind of assumed that was some function of either my web-cam or the Zoom software, and it does make a lot of sense - we are used to seeing ourselves in a mirror.

I'm a righty but hold my toothbrush in my left hand; I assume it's because the kid in the mirror was holding it right-handed?

Matt provided a link to Joe Ross' post#260 in his reveal in Fiend.

It's puzzling how often I see step 1 but can't drive it home.

By the way, anyone else make a visit down the "Bah-Bah Black Sheep" rabbit hole? Not much of a hole, really, nor even a depression in the ground. I was sure the other tune was Twinkle Twinkle, but I was getting desperate by then.

Well I have to say that was a tough one for me. I saw the fact that all of the theme answers had one word from the Twinkle Twinkle tune so I knew that had to be it BUT.....

I guess I am not musically inclined because even when I broke the song into syllables and even more so when I tried to compare the sheet music side by side I did not get PUZZLING. Initially I got something like NTZZLIMG - WHAT???? So I looked at it forever and did some basic deductive work. The Z's pretty much had to be right, and IMG probably was supposed to be ING. SO what if I was off by one on the match, it would be OTZZLING, nope that ain't it, but what...yep as soon as I put the P there and thought "hey this is a puzzle, the Twinke Twinkle song poses a puzzle (how I wonder what you are), and this is Matt Gaffney the master of the tricky tie together" and I knew PUZZLING had to be the answer. So I did not get there the way they said but I got there all the same (and someone who did it the right way confirmed it for me so I had no doubt at the end).

Whew! Now I am struggling with the MGWCC and so far I can't even tell you what the theme entries are with any great conviction. Gonna be a long day tomorrow.

Ahem!
There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the notes of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and "The Alphabet Song" aka ABCS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle,_ ... ittle_Star for
and see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_song for
.
Syllables, Matt!
Count the syllables!
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

FKelly wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:01 am Ahem!
There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the notes of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and "The Alphabet Song" aka ABCS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle,_ ... ittle_Star for
and see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_song for
.
Syllables, Matt!
Count the syllables!
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

And jazz!

There was an excellent MMM by BrianMac some weeks ago that I remembered when coming up with ideas to to try to solve this one. (Not the same mechanism, but similar in a way.) I thought this was one in a series of stabs in the dark, and I was stunned when it actually worked! Thanks, Brian!

In response to DrTom & FKelly, I had the same complaint about this puzzle, and I saw someone else hinting at it early in the thread. I didn't submit until Saturday after checking it out a little more and realized that PUZZLING was the only possible answer.
I compared the notes from the wikipedia pages too and got a different answer than if you go by this split screen video.

Now I can say it.
How is it that SKY and SKY are allowed in this puzzle?
I didn't get the answer, but when I see this convoluted snake pit of an answer I've lost all interest in trying another Crossword Contest

KAS 4.9 for me. I thought it had to have something to do with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but I couldn't get any farther than that. I did find Sirius and Polaris scrambled in the grid, though. Congrats to all who got it. I didn't have much of a streak going, thanks to ADOBE, but I'm still a respectable 27/29 for the year.

Laura M wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:08 am There was an excellent MMM by BrianMac some weeks ago that I remembered when coming up with ideas to to try to solve this one. (Not the same mechanism, but similar in a way.) I thought this was one in a series of stabs in the dark, and I was stunned when it actually worked! Thanks, Brian!

Wish it would have helped me! I can't believe I didn't get this one. At one point, I was going through them both on piano, focusing on the notes, but not thinking to match up the lyrics of the melodies.

To be honest, I never even got that the first words of the themers were words from the lyrics (of which I read all five stanzas). Should have gotten there with the two SKYs, which are a nice little pointer. Also nice that STAR ended up ias the last long theme entry. I was going to say fortuitous as well, but then realized Matt may have started with STAR = G and built the cipher from there, so he could end with STAR -- STAR SEARCH no less!

Really amazing puzzle. This is one they'll talk about for a long time and I'll still be mad at myself for not getting!

Saw the Twinkle Twinkle words but never would have linked them up to the corresponding letter of the ABC song in a million years.

Just got it at 11:30 PST and thought I was just under the wire. ARGHHH!!!

Joe Ross wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:00 am 20200717 WSJCC Rename That Tune.gif

Loved this puzzle.

I loved this!!! I figured 74A was the hinge because of the puzzle's title, and then all eight opening words of the theme answers appeared in Twinkle Twinkle. It had to work. I matched the alphabet to the song by matching letters to words and came up with nonsense. I matched the letters to syllables and still came up with nonsense. Probably because I'm such a bad singer. But I knew it had to work. So I kept singing and switching back and forth between twinkle words and alphabet letters and finally PUZZLING came into focus, eliciting a "YES!" and the fist pump that accompanies a 100% answer.

Earlier in my Puzzle Contest journey, I never would've got this. Thank you, Matt Gaffney, Mike Shenk and all the constructors for this challenge and opportunity to grow.

This will be a fun discussion. Hope you'll join us!
Tuesday at 4:30pmPT/7:30pmET
YourPalSal's Muggle Meetup
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89184367093

Saw the Twinkle Twinkle words but never would have linked them up to the corresponding letter of the ABC song in a million years.

Al Sisti wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:22 am Matt provided a link to Joe Ross' post#260 in his reveal in Fiend.

Thank you, Al.

Matt referenced a temporary post holding the spot for the official WSJ solution. I replied on crosswordfiend with the permanent location of that original, temporary post:

forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=135&start=140#p26694

It is also here:

Amazing. I feel like I should have seen that but oh well. Very clever Matt.