XWord Muggles Forum

Waving the white flag on this one. Can't wait to see the mechanism.

I’m curious as well. Countless rabbit holes, 0 workable solutions on my part

The 3 keys were EAST (you rotate the grid 90 degrees clockwise), DOT (treat Os as dots), and the mention of Inspector Morse in the Omega-Across.

11 of the 15 sideways-columns have at least one O or I (hope you had a sans serif font to tell those are dashes). Turn all of the dots and dashes on each of those lines into a morse code letter. You get MIXED SIGNAL.

MikeM000 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2023 12:48 pm The 3 keys were EAST (you rotate the grid 90 degrees clockwise), DOT (treat Os as dots), and the mention of Inspector Morse in the Omega-Across.

11 of the 15 sideways-columns have at least one O or I (hope you had a sans serif font to tell those are dashes). Turn all of the dots and dashes on each of those lines into a morse code letter. You get MIXED SIGNAL.

Sans Serif on those I's would have helped. My Morse code with only Dots was a bust

Okay, I noticed and wrote down "turn." Check. Noted and wrote down Morse (code). Check. Noticed and wrote down "O's become dots." Check. Should be an easy solve right (even if not as fast as that "Jangler 2000" supercomputer)? Flipped the grid and got out my Boy Scout handbook to transcribe the code (I had only memorized A and SOS in those days). But my problem was that I didn't know what to do -- with what -- to get dashes. I accept now that sideways "I"s are kinda genius, but I would have never thought of it, nor did I go to a Zoom session to get that hint. So, yeah, pressure's off for a perfect year, but at least my streak of only doing solo solves is intact. Funny, though, looking back, most of my misses have come on puzzles from guest constructors. Apparently we -- at least I -- really do need to rely on knowing a constructor's style...

A very clever metanism, but I needed help from the Zoom Room to get it. I got the idea of rotating the grid early. At first I thought it had something to do with broadcasting pioneer T(ENNES)SEE or the radio drama UNDER MILKWOOD. I'm not sure I'd have gotten the MORSE code part on my own because in my pea brain Morse code was tied to landline telegraphy. And lamps. I blipped right over the MORSE clue because it just didn't register with me as something associated with RADIO.

I was surprised when Morse code produced an intelligible answer, because I also didn't consider it at first when thinking about radio. With all the song titles in the grid, the use of ON in many of the clues and ON SPEC, I had lots of other rabbits to chase. There even seemed to be many LAs in the grid, which went with the music idea. (And also ALs, which could have also been LAs if you rotated the grid!) Although the 'fill in the O's' was peculiar, I still thought I was grasping at straws.

I did like that the sad emoticon at 61A also required you to rotate the grid 90 degrees clockwise, and it reinforced the dots idea. If they had used : | to go with an answer of MAD, say, would that have been giving too much away? (I have to separate those two symbols, otherwise the BBCode turns it into a mad face )

Wow. I was sooo close but did not get it. I did the rotation at one point; and tried Morse code as if the I's were dashes and the O's were dots. But I failed to rotate first and THEN read the Morse code.

Distractions:
Capitalized letters in TENNESSEE and the Hot Lava clue.
5 songs in quotes with a “Turn a song into a hit, maybe” clue.
The fact that the opening to La Isla Bonita contains the word “verdad” which is also in the very next clue.
And most distracting of all: (Under) Milkwood vs Milk Wood.

Llareggub is what I got from all of that!

Berto wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2023 9:00 pm

And most distracting of all: (Under) Milkwood vs Milk Wood.

I was hung up on this as well but when it wasn't corrected or mentioned I deduced that it must not factor in to the solve.
I didn't see any mention online of Milkwood being one word. Strange

I got hung up for the longest time on volcanoes. The strange clue full of CAPS clueing HOT LAVA, and the mention of Pompeii in the clue for NAPLES started me off. One thing I did which did not help me, was to turn the grid 90 degrees clockwise (that clue seemed an obvious prompt toward solving). Then, with a new grid, I refilled the letters into the new orientation. This made several things that were happenstance more 'obvious', such as: ANTE became ETNA, a volcano, in the now lower left. And on the lower right, was MAGMA in an L shape, with the A dropping down a row. And quite near 'the floor' of the grid. A bit above ETNA, also in an L shape was S_LAG, across a black square. And five places in the grid there was AA strewn about in short diagonals. And to top it off, in this orientation, HOT LAVA was in the center column at the top, as one would expect in a volcano. I don't think I would have found all this in the puzzle if he hadn't clued NAPLES the way he did, or HOT LAVA with a more standard clue. Funny what one can find in a puzzle that is unintended by the constructor! Was finally able to solve with a helpful nudge or two.

Okay, some of you had to know I was going to do this. Samuel F.B. Morse's second wife was from Utica. And (to me) more impressive than his skill as an inventor was his talent as a painter (for example). On the downside, he was an anti-immigrant nativist and actively pro-slavery, so there's that.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:59 pm Okay, some of you had to know I was going to do this. Samuel F.B. Morse's second wife was from Utica. And (to me) more impressive than his skill as an inventor was his talent as a painter (for example). On the downside, he was an anti-immigrant nativist and actively pro-slavery, so there's that.

Well I'll be darned. Though I expected him to be of the pointillism school. wonder how long it took for him to dash off a portrait?

I never even attempted to solve this one due to the late start, but go figure… I’m FCC certified (amateur radio) to receive Morse at 20 words a minute.