Re: #684 - "Seeing Double"
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:06 am
Brain was disengaged on the meta & needed a mechanic to put it into gear. Despite my poor efforts, I look forward to more from Malaika! Entertaining grid!
XWord Muggles Forum
A place to discuss the WSJ Weekly Crossword Contest and other "meta"-style crosswords
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#684 - "Seeing Double"
Page 5 of 5
Re: #684 - "Seeing Double"
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:06 pm
Re: #684 - "Seeing Double"
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:21 pm
The lanterne rouge on the leaderboard.
And "Buzzer Beater" achieved.
And "Buzzer Beater" achieved.
Re: #684 - "Seeing Double"
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:29 pm
Doh, totally forgot about this one after a hectic weekend until seeing joon’s post. Ah, well, my streak was only 1 anyways.
Re: #684 - "Seeing Double"
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:28 pm
Tried looking for double letters even though I suspected (correctly) that it would be fruitless.
Got temporarily hung up on a couple of rabbit holes:
(1) The clue for 13D ANTFARM ('Home where everything is on display') seemed like a second viable clue for 16A OPENCONCEPT -- which it crossed. But that eventually got filed in the 'this can't be a coincidence but actually it is' bin.
(2) The clue for 65A SHESALLTHAT ('Nineties romantic comedy that adapted "Pygmalion"') would also seem to apply to PRETTYWOMAN which came out in 1990, is *the same number of letters* and is explicitly called out as bearing a 'resemblance to Pygmalion myths' on its Wikipedia page. That one was harder to get away from, but eventually the fact that it was a week 2 puzzle convinced me that things would not be that complicated.
Floundered about for 24 hours looking at various repeated letter combinations. Eventually started looking at anagrams and noticed that the ONCE in 16A was almost an anagram of the OPENC that starts the entry, except for that pesky P which...<cue light bulb>...is repeated right after the ONCE.
Took about 30 seconds after that.
Got temporarily hung up on a couple of rabbit holes:
(1) The clue for 13D ANTFARM ('Home where everything is on display') seemed like a second viable clue for 16A OPENCONCEPT -- which it crossed. But that eventually got filed in the 'this can't be a coincidence but actually it is' bin.
(2) The clue for 65A SHESALLTHAT ('Nineties romantic comedy that adapted "Pygmalion"') would also seem to apply to PRETTYWOMAN which came out in 1990, is *the same number of letters* and is explicitly called out as bearing a 'resemblance to Pygmalion myths' on its Wikipedia page. That one was harder to get away from, but eventually the fact that it was a week 2 puzzle convinced me that things would not be that complicated.
Floundered about for 24 hours looking at various repeated letter combinations. Eventually started looking at anagrams and noticed that the ONCE in 16A was almost an anagram of the OPENC that starts the entry, except for that pesky P which...<cue light bulb>...is repeated right after the ONCE.
Took about 30 seconds after that.