Episode #352: Remixed Album

[bcimmet]

There's a new contest puzzle from Fill Me In. I'll rate this one 1.2 bananas on a scale of 5 bananas. (Bananas has nothing to do with the puzzle, it's just a 1-to-5 scale we made up.) As always, I have a poor sense of difficulty, but tester feedback ranged from easy to semi-easy.

The puzzle is called "Remixed Album" and was constructed by me (Brian Cimmet). The solution to the puzzle is the name of a pop music duo.

The crossword can be downloaded from here. You're welcome to solve and talk about the puzzle -- but if you want to be eligible for a prize, you have to listen to the podcast for this week's password. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, our own website, or wherever you collect your podcasts.

Once you've solved the puzzle, submit your answer and this week's password by email to fmi@bemoresmarter.com. You can also contact us with any suggestions, questions, comments, or ideas. Thanks for playing along!

[Schmeel]

Banana's peeled.
With clean hands. I promise!

[MMe]

Not sure but I think I'd go with a little harder than that. Thank you Ben!

[boharr]

I've peeled the banana.

[Cindy]

Solved.

[oldjudge]

Solved--I think.

[whimsy]

Saw my way to the solve --

[dudeski]

peeled

[benchen71]

Banana's peeled. Nice one!

[bcimmet]

More than a few comments suggesting that my banana rating is too low. Let's call it a 2.1 instead of a 1.2.

I got some tester feedback about it being too easy, and even though I made some changes (to make it perhaps a little less easy), I didn't reconsider my banana rating. Better luck (to me) next time!

[SJMcK]

Solved the meta. Haven’t listened to the podcast yet.

[BarbaraK]

Banana split. (Only half through the podcast and haven’t got to the password yet though.)

I think the difficulty of this one will depend on how familiar you are with … something. Right in my wheelhouse, so easy for me. Can imagine others totally lost.

[Abide]

I was having a tough-ish time even though I had a good idea of what I was supposed to do. But there's an app for that.

@bcimmet Your link for "our own website" doesn't link to the podcast, and needs to be updated to bemoresmarter.libsyn.com/

You can also add the link to podcast into your opening message like this:

[bcimmet]

@bcimmet Your link for "our own website" doesn't link to the podcast, and needs to be updated to bemoresmarter.libsyn.com/

That link used to work ... but a week or so ago, we revamped some of our site in anticipation of Lollapuzzoola (that's our crossword tournament in August), and it seems the FMI page vanished.

I've made a new page on our site now, and fixed the link in this post ... though I'm not going to go back and fix the links in all my previous posts.

Thanks for letting me know!

[ChrisKochmanski]

Peeled!

[bcimmet]

Hello solvers,

The solution to this contest was SIMON AND GARFUNKEL.

There were four long entries in the grid, each of which had a "mixed" word hidden inside it.

• 17A Pancake topping: MAPLESYRUP = PARSLEY
• 33A Neighborhood site for bargain shopping: GARAGESALE = SAGE
• 41A Della Street's boss (didn't we do a bit on the podcast about this?): PERRYMASON = ROSEMARY
• 60A Host of "Late Night": SETHMEYERS = THYME

The four herbs make a famous musical appearance in "Scarborough Fair," and as a quartet, are also the name of a Simon and Garfunkel album. Hence, that is the winning duo.

Thanks for playing! There's another contest puzzle and another post in the forum for it. I hope you give it a try!