#695 - "Spider Dream"

[Bob cruise director]

OK - thanks to our cruise director and a passed along hint I believe I have it. Awaiting leader board update for confirmation. Hitting myself in the head for not having thought of the "thing to do".

It is really bad when I get credit for helping MamaE and I have not the slightest idea what the answer is. I did pass along a tidbit but it did not mean anything to me.

[ajk]

Zero ideas about even where to start. Doesn't look like this one's happening.

[DrTom]

It is possible that I am missing something very important in the path to solution. I admit I got help because the way would never have occurred to me. Further, when I arrived it was as if I had walked into this very elite Boulangerie to buy what I would have expected was a fabulous Croissant au Beurre only to find out I had gotten a Pillsbury Crescent. Unless I am missing something, it doesn't seem to be the usual Gaffney flair, and experience has taught me that if I don't get the cleverness of a Gaffney it is, as the saying goes, "me not him".

I'll be interested in the Fiend discussion and the comments

[three]

Relatively new to the world of crosswords and looking for a nudge.

[lbray53]

WOW! On the board with some help and a big guess. If I would have been required to show my work I would have failed. I cannot wait to see how I should have solved it.

[Bird Lives]

I can understand why solvers are dissatisfied with this one, especially as a Week #4. Thinking about it, I keep hearing the Lieber and Stoller song "Is That All There Is?" in my mind's ear. I have an alternative prompt and answer, though it has one teeny flaw.
Prompt: The answer is a an Oscar-winning actress.
]Answer: [Come back tomorrow.]

[NoFeetMcGee]

Anyone available to shoot down my crackpot theories and maybe offer a nudge in a better direction?

[jhseeman]

Beamed up, with a nudge. Again as usual I"m staring at the answer in front of my face and completely ignoring it. DOH.

Have some thoughts but will wait for tomorrow.

[MikeyG]

Held my breath all day, and I'm beamed up! I'm now wondering if I would've been able to get to the final answer without a nudge. Tough to say. More tomorrow!

[breadbasket]

Some ideas, but none panning out so far. Anyone have a nudge to spare?

Edit: nudged... think I'm on the right track now.

[Thurman8er]

I was beamed up while taking a shower before bed. Cutting it very close.

[RPardoe]

I was beamed up while taking a shower before bed. Cutting it very close.

Wait to submit to get the "Buzzer Beater" achievement. (Submit 5 minutes before the deadline.)

[TMart]

Got it, but I still don't get it. And missed last entry by one.

[BarbaraK]

My sympathies to any arachnophobes out there. If you googled half as much about spiders as I did before seeing the Spanish connection, you must have had nightmares. Reading Charlotte’s Web as a child made me a lifelong spider fan, and that was a good thing this week.

[MikeyG]

Yeah, I was thinking stuff maybe with the number 8; OPAL is October's birth stone, and there's also "octopi" (yes, October is the 10th month - but, of course, it was named as formerly being the 8th!).

My main nit with this one, and I'm one of the silliest guys ever, is that the answer (much like the title) isn't really a thing (like there was a cool Week 1 meta a while back where the answer was simply OX, and Matt came up with some of the silliest nonsensical phrases whose initials were OX). Like, if the answer could've been an actual, legitimate phrase in which the property in question was satisfied (I love how I'm still being somewhat cryptic since I don't want to be the first to spill the beans, haha), then I felt there would've been a slightly more satisfying click.

It's weird since the mechanism, perhaps, is more like a Week 2 or 3, but the esoteric nature of it plays more like a Week 3 or 4. I get to start my new streak (1-week!), so I'm happy regardless, haha.

[Leslie]

Got it, but I still don't get it. And missed last entry by one.

Last entry! I had given up on this and put it aside. I picked it up one last time at 11:50 and suddenly focused on how odd the clue for “Spanish boy” was. Looked up 27th letter of Spanish alphabet and there it was, with 3 minutes left!

[sharkicicles]

It sounds like some of you were aññoyed with this one.

[mntlblok]

[Bird Lives]

Title: Spider Dreams
The four long entries translated to Spanish:

• señor mañana
  piña año
  pequeño baño
  español niño

The original prompt: This week’s contest answer is a modified version of this puzzle’s title.
The answer: araña sueño

My prompt: The answer is an Oscar-winning actress

My answer: Tilda Swinton

Oh I know, haters gonna hate, nitpickers gonna pick. But when it comes to that squiggle above the n, but I spell it like we say it. And by the way nitpickers, if you submitted “arana sueno” amd not "araña sueño" because you couldn’t be bothered to insert the tilda (i.e., the so-called tilde,) do you really have standing to pick the nit in my answer?

Now if I could just come up with a fitting title.

[Laura M]

I don't think I've ever submitted an answer I was less sure of, and that includes some (wrong) guesses. I wanted to submit something so that I could be done looking on it, and I kind of wanted to show that I figured out step 1, at least. But I was sure that the real answer had to be something much more elegant! It's just that we've come to expect so much from Gaffney puzzles :-)