The Me Nobody Knows

[woozy]

Oh what that heck... here's another go at the woozy merry-go-round....

I'm still getting the hang of these and I write myself into corners and have to resort to woozyisms (3 and 38D are atrocious but 5D is almost natural) but I hope this meta is more visible and easier to find and do

The meta answer is a 14 letter phrase (two words).

https://crosshare.org/crosswords/wsCO2Z ... body-knows

Oh, this one does require some external knowledge but it's fairly widely known knowledge and is easily googleable (and it should be clear what to google).

[whimsy]

You managed to get a lot of interesting stuff into this one, woozy! Thanks for the ride!

[benchen71]

Solved! Tricky grid, but an excellent meta!! Keep 'em coming!!!

[woozy]

I think there is something to making grids line up that is eluding me but I'm surprised and how easy and tempting it is to create woozyisms.

How much does one rely on software word suggestions? And do people often set up the grid and black squares first? Last night I was working on a grid and I had entered 8 or so themers and a few other words but all fairly asymmetrically entered I figured if I wanted to avoid a half dozen twelve letter words a blank square needs to go here and here and ... to my surprise the grid auto-completed when I had only filled in about a quarter of the squares. That hadn't ever happened before. It could be more entries are getting more natural ... or more likely it hadn't happened because I hadn't filled in enough black squares. Oh, well.

Anyway... off the merry-go-round and on to the leaderboard we have:

Meg
spotter
Cindy Weatherman
Laura M
whimsy
benchen71

Thank you all.

[Anita]

Grid filled, and I can think of many appropriate phrases, but none are 14 letters. Obviously I'm missing a disambiguating bit of the mechanism.

[EDIT: Ok, now I'm off the merry-go-round! Fun puzzle, thanks!]

[woozy]

Well, I just tried looking at the grid with fresh eyes and ... whoa! I did make it a tough grid! Congratulations to the one solver out of 20 who solved with no peaks. I wouldn't have been able to.

I guess one get caught up in trying to get words that just fit one gets more accept of obscure ones and when filling in clues one thinks one is more clever than the are. I guess a rule for the future is to wait a few days after writing the clues and reread it with fresh eyes.

Anyway. Off the merry-go-round Gutman, and Anita and Steve.

Nudges coming to be sprinkled in the next few days.

[lbray53]

Off the Merry-Go-Round! I got dizzy filling the grid. It helped when I figured out what was going on. There were some very interesting, almost but not quite, cryptic clues.

I wasted a lot of time exploring a path that I was sure of only to discover that I was in a rabbit hole.

Different and fun. Keep them coming.

[ChrisKochmanski]

Loved it!

Grid was hard, but the payoff for me, who has an abiding love of the subject area, was completely worth it.

Thanks, woozy!

[woozy]

Several more for the leaderboard making this my most looked at puzzle yet.


lbray53
I K Snamhcok
Hector
boharr

First of the (probably too generic nudges)

If you've completed the grid 7 of the across entries should have a pretty obvious connective theme
Many of the the clues have superfluous information often very awkwardly crammed into the clue for no apparent reason. Some of these are outright bizarre, although some will be appear a little more natural.

[lbray53]

With sincerest apologies to Woozy. I guessed at the answer based on the title and what I deemed to be theme entries. I was correct but missed the brilliance of the mechanism. After going back based on a suggestion that there was more of a click I discovered how great this was.

Could be a breakout meta for Woozy. So more of that creative cluing may be in our future.

[woozy]

Can you make the superfluous information in the clues pertain to the 7 across clues in any way?
Although there are some clues with obviously superfluous information there are some clues that appear more natural and relevant. However if you know what to look for in clues there are 14 clues that pertain the the 7 across clues

[woozy]

Okay the reveal:

The answer is SECRET IDENTITY

For every one of the 7 Superheros in the Grid: THE FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, WONDER WOMAN, SPIDER-MAN, IRON MAN, BATMAN and SUPERMAN there were clues that include the first and last names of their alter egos (Most of this clues should have been conspicuously awkward... why should the game of tag refer to a "Bruce"? Why bring "Prince" into the clue? And HAL 9000??????). The alter egos are Barry Allen, Hal Jordan (yeah, I know), Diana Prince, Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, and Clark Kent. The first letter of the clues' grid entries (in order of the seven superheros) spell out SECRET IDENTITY.

"The Me Nobody Knows" is a reference to a collection of writings by inner-city children in the 70s. It was made into a musical. Did anyone read these when they were in the 5th grade?

Thanks for playing. It was a blast!

The (probably final) leader board is:

Meg
spotter
Cindy Weatherman
Laura M
whimsy
benchen71
Gutman s
Anita and Steve
lbray53
I K Snamhcok
Hector
boharr
BarbaraK
hoover
markhr
Mr Tex