"It's That Time Again" December 30, 2022

[JJD]

Ugh. I shoulda seen this one. Oh well. Next year!

[DianeA]

Not meaning to be a sore loser but in my opinion the AR to complete "year" comes from Ash ram, which is why I submitted the clue for 47D placid retreat as my solution.

I guess I've been pageanted. Not amused.

I'm on that same beach. I I wasn't enthralled with my submission as ASHRAM is one word (i looked everywhere), and the Clue PLACID RETREAT didn't fit the theme. That being said, i missed the flip-flop in the directions....just assumed Matt was throwing a bone to keep us from answering wrong.

But i still like ASHRAM as a serious red herring...no other answer does the trick....

[Dplass]

Ugh. I shoulda seen this one. Oh well. Next year!

You do know they publish these every week, right?

[altosax]

I heard stories on the news that this year is the 50th anniversary of the Miami Dolphins’ undefeated 1972 NFL season. I tried that route. Looking at the theme entries, I noticed at least 3 of them had first names of players on that team. Garo Yepremian in “hang around”, Nick Buoniconti in “Yannick Noah”, and Earl Morrall in “you’re early”.

[Guy]

Two of the theme answers have 9 letters, two have 10 letters and one has 11 letters. Of the many two-word clues, only #31 “Starchy side” has 11 letters, and if a theme answer then it completes the 11 letter pair. That #31 does not relate to the puzzle title did not give me pause. It should have and it’s a sign to avoid a starchy side along with my avoidance of certain beverages in this dry January. Mocktail please Isaac.

[BarbaraK]

I heard stories on the news that this year is the 50th anniversary of the Miami Dolphins’ undivided 1972 NFL season. I tried that route. Looking at the theme entries, I noticed at least 3 of them had first names of players on that team. Garo Yepremian in “hang around”, Nick Buoniconti in “Yannick Noah”, and Earl Morrall in “you’re early”.

Nice rabbit hole! I’m very lucky that wasn’t really it

[mheberlingx100]

I looked at “ashram” briefly but the dictionaries I consulted all had this as one word, so it didn’t seem right. I also considered “runs amok” , the right letters in the wrong order. Then landed on “au revoir”. Purposely didn’t say Happy New Year because I didn’t want it to be a spoiler. So I’ll say it now.

Happy New Year to all!

[DBMiller]

I mentioned earlier that my free associations can take me far astray. As promised, here's this week's stroll down rabbit path lane that Herr Hase (Is the XWord Rabbit German?) should find amusing.

My first instinct as to what the puzzle was going to be about would ultimately turn out to be right, but I got distracted when the clue for 1A was "Time out?" This must be a hint/indicator clue.

Did the grid quickly and we had 5 starred clues, so can I apply "Time" and/or "Out" to these?

Hang Around: Well, there is "hang time" and you can "hang out".

Peace Pipe: Again, there is "peace time" and you can "peace out"

YannickNoah: Hmmm... Not quite the same as the first two when it was the beginning, but there is "Nick of time", "No time", and the poker term "No outs", or in general "No way out".

EggWhites: There is an "egg timer" and you can buy "White Out" (Thank you, Michael Nesmith's mother).

YoureEarly: There is "Your/our time" and an umpire often says "You're out"

So do any of the 2-word clues take "time" and/or "out" in a similar fashion?

16a) Ancient times?
21a) Beat time, Beat out
25a) You can fall on Dark times
66a) Miller Time!!! How does Matt know my home WiFi name!?!?!?
3d) Get OUT!
8d) Goes out, Go time?
26d) Flipped out (Entire clue?)
36d) Lab time
52d) Farm out

Way too many choices, and quite a few stretches. So is there a 2-word clue that leads to a grid answer that would take time and/or out?

26d) Flipped out -> Had a cow -> If I had time? Out in the clue, time in the additive? Seems a stretch. And no relation back to the title.

8d) Goes wild -> Runs Amok -> Movies have a "run time" and you can "run out" of something. But again, no connection with the title.

I can't get time/out out of my head, and am unable to stop chasing it. I know this *has* to deal with the new year, but it just isn't coming to me. Countdown? HangAround has 10-letters, PeacePipe has 9... and another dead end.

Up until the Zoom meeting, I was only using my phone, as I often do. When the Zoom suggestion came up to write down the themers, it immediately all fell into place.

Now to find the clue. So instead of an "Aha!" moment, I had a "Honh honh honh" moment. Okay rabbit, see if you can find a video clip with Carmen Miranda and Maurice Chevalier in it.

[Bob cruise director]

Good Friday morning muggles. A lot of traffic getting muggles to shore with more to come. We have 135 on the shore and 3 on the ship.

And for @DrTom I have one question - what am I supposed to do with "well" in your comment #142 (note the modification by the good doctor)

Now a public service announcement for all my muggle friends in the south especially @DrTom and @Meg and her cabana boy where it has been abnormally cold - think of the poor wild animals outside your door looking for a place to warm up.



322485049_501295252070980_3170442815634632919_n.jpg

You bringing in the bears Bob?

Oh. and if it is this guy, let him stay out:

SWEETHEART the Gator.jpg

Furthermore, be careful around these, they are not dead, just "resting"

Frozen Gator.jpg

@DrTom Tom - I tried to bring in the bears but they are all hibernating.

[michaelm]

Originally thought it was a countdown to midnight meta. All numbers from 10 - 1 are in the clues, either in number form, hidden in other words or in homonyms. My favorite stretch was 8, which you could, if you wanted to, find in clue 59A - H, sometimes. Four of the five long answer clues had number possibilities in them, but of course way too inelegant (THIS TIME)…

[chriscross]

Not meaning to be a sore loser but in my opinion the AR to complete "year" comes from Ash ram, which is why I submitted the clue for 47D placid retreat as my solution.

Seriously?

I guess I've been pageanted. Not amused.

The answer prompt said to find the two-word "clue entry" (not a "grid entry"). "Au revoir" was the only "clue entry" that had the initial letters "AR".

That'd have been really nice... but .... 1) Ashram is a single word and 2) the prompt was pretty explicit that it is a clue and distinctly specifies "(clue, not grid entry)".

I would say you've been pageanted. But you've been something....

I eventually realized the solution was Au Revoir, and that it couldn't be anything else. But I think it's a little dismissive to act like this particular rabbit hole is irrational.

I initially interpreted the prompt the way that Relic did. I think it's rational to expect the meta to stay consistent, in the sense that if answers are spelling out HAPPY NEW YE__, you expect the missing letters to also come from a *grid answer*. The prompt says "(clue,not grid entry) that makes a fitting sixth theme entry." To me, that could have meant once you find AR, don't submit *that*, instead submit its associated clue. I thought the clue could also be considered part of the theme, so "fitting sixth theme entry" didn't necessarily have to mean a part of the grid (though I now see that the preceding phrase "grid entry" was probably meant to convey that). Coincidentally in this case the clue for Ashram had two words. Under this interpretation, the puzzle becomes "find the clue that is missing an asterisk," and that's not really an unusual format for a puzzle like this. I'm thinking of a recent meta where words spelled out SHOE but the answer was FOOT. After googling to see if ashram could ever be spelled as two words, the correct metanism dawned on me.

I've seen several times that the prompt was very explicit, but the reason they had to be so explicit about it was *because* it defied convention. So it seems unfair to act like "Placid Retreat" was a particularly stupid answer.

To be clear I liked the puzzle and think the constructors clued it the best they could. Just chiming in to say just because you interpreted the prompt correctly at first doesn't mean the other interpretation is absurd.

[DBMiller]

Could've. Should've? Didn't.

Happy New Year, muggles!

10 points to Gryffindor for proper use of could've and should've.

[chart]

My rabbit hole was:

HANG time
PEACE time
NICK (of) time?
EGG time-r
YOU time

So maybe NIGHT time - and lucky for me "25A Dark period" is a two word clue!

But wiser friends told me to start over. So then I found single-word ASHRAM (Placid Retreat) like many here, and then re-read the instructions a few more times to parse them as intended.

I think what threw me was instructions to find a clue that makes a fitting "entry," and even in the instructions themselves "entry" is used earlier for grid answers. As chriscross put it above, I was interpreting it to mean "find the clue that is missing an asterisk [and be sure to submit the clue, not the grid entry.]"

[Kas]

Ugh. I shoulda seen this one. Oh well. Next year!

Classic Kas 4 on the scale. Familiar territory, heh.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is AU REVOIR (70-Across). The five starred theme entries’ initials spell out HA/PP/YN/EW/YE. Adding “Au revoir” to that provides the final AR of “Happy New Year!”

We ended 2022 and started 2023 on a very high note: 2,013 entries to this elegant puzzle (happy new year to you too Mike and Matt), with about 80% correct.  

72 of you submitted PLACID RETREAT (per some comments, this was because the answer ASHRAM sort of supplied an A-R).  Another 31 votes for TIME OUT (some saw the word TIME missing from words in the theme answers eg HANG TIME, PEACE TIME...).  Plus DARK PERIOD (30), GOES WILD (24), FLIPPED OUT (5) and a handful of others.

Congratulations to this week's winner: Kristin Hutchins of Cambridge, MA!

[Joe Ross]

I think what threw me was instructions to find a clue that makes a fitting "entry," and even in the instructions themselves "entry" is used earlier for grid answers.

Touché! "Entry" is usually meant for grid entries.

As exemplified in the across-only grid-filling of mine (and that wasn't perfect, either), it can pay to be oblivious, sometimes.

[Ergcat]

I mentioned earlier that my free associations can take me far astray. As promised, here's this week's stroll down rabbit path lane that Herr Hase (Is the XWord Rabbit German?) should find amusing.

My first instinct as to what the puzzle was going to be about would ultimately turn out to be right, but I got distracted when the clue for 1A was "Time out?" This must be a hint/indicator clue.

Did the grid quickly and we had 5 starred clues, so can I apply "Time" and/or "Out" to these?

Hang Around: Well, there is "hang time" and you can "hang out".

Peace Pipe: Again, there is "peace time" and you can "peace out"

YannickNoah: Hmmm... Not quite the same as the first two when it was the beginning, but there is "Nick of time", "No time", and the poker term "No outs", or in general "No way out".

EggWhites: There is an "egg timer" and you can buy "White Out" (Thank you, Michael Nesmith's mother).

YoureEarly: There is "Your/our time" and an umpire often says "You're out"

So do any of the 2-word clues take "time" and/or "out"

@DBMiller don’t feel too badly,
I had the exact same thought process on my second attempt ! I figured “time out?” Had to be a hint and I looked at adding time or out to the themers. Didn’t go anywhere, though.
I had tried taking the first letters of the themers first but I had misread “hang around” and I took the H and the R then the PP of “peace pipe “ and stopped there….thinking, well this can’t be the mechanism because HRPP is nothing. After chasing above rabbit, I came back to this mechanism and got the correct letters!

[Ergcat]

I liked the added touch of the answer of “Au revoir “ meaning “good-bye” ….as in “it’s that time again” to say “goodbye to the old year and usher in the New Year”!

[Barney]

Could've. Should've? Didn't.

Happy New Year, muggles!

10 points to Gryffindor for proper use of could've and should've.

Coulda shoulda dint.

How does this wonderful puzzle have only a 3-1/2 rating on Crossword Fiend‽ ‽ ‽

[HunterX]

When my kids and I finished the grid, daughter got the metanism pretty quickly. It took me about 10 seconds longer. Son wasn't getting it. And he had to sign off the zoom. So daughter and I offered hints. I tried to ask him "And what time of year is it?" I was hoping he'd say something like "New Years," to which I'd say, "And that is...?" leading him to "The FIRST of the year." The hope was he'd connect "First of the year" to "First letter of the words in the themed entries." But it didn't work.

Even though using the first letters of the themed entry words is standard, I wondered whether the connection between "First of the year" and "First letters" was intended. Given @MikeMillerwsj's explanation above, I guess not. Oh well.