"Backdrops" February 2,2023

[LizD]

MME -> EMMA (A) ! You sneaky little sominabeech

This made me LOL! That's exactly where I got tripped up! Tricksy little...

[hoover]

With DASH and OVERANDOUT, I was sure that Morse code was going to figure into it somehow. Somehow I convinced myself that FLIP meant to rotate the grid 90 degrees one way or the other, and then I could use O = dot and I = dash.

Tilting my head to the right (and the grid to the left) gave me nonsense and 3 too many letters (but maybe the makings of STAGE with a little anagramming):

Code: Select all

S ooo
T -
D -oo

G --o

T -
A o-
A o-
D -oo
E o
E o
R o-o
E o

And tilting my head to the left also gave me nonsense:

Code: Select all

E o
R o-o
E o
E o
U oo-
N -o
N -o
T -

W o--

U oo-
T -
S ooo

I spent the weekend doing lots of work around the house and never came back to it.

[DrTom]

With DASH and OVERANDOUT, I was sure that Morse code was going to figure into it somehow. Somehow I convinced myself that FLIP meant to rotate the grid 90 degrees one way or the other, and then I could use O = dot and I = dash.

Tilting my head to the right (and the grid to the left) gave me nonsense and 3 too many letters (but maybe the makings of STAGE with a little anagramming):

Code: Select all

S ooo
T -
D -oo

G --o

T -
A o-
A o-
D -oo
E o
E o
R o-o
E o

And tilting my head to the left also gave me nonsense:

Code: Select all

E o
R o-o
E o
E o
U oo-
N -o
N -o
T -

W o--

U oo-
T -
S ooo

I spent the weekend doing lots of work around the house and never came back to it.

Oh Oh, did you notice a DeLorean anywhere near the house? I ask because your computer went back in time and solved "Turn on the Radio"! That darn Doc Brown, he will show up and try to solve the meta. Well at least you didn't see any Supreme Court justices in your puzzle,

[hoover]

With DASH and OVERANDOUT, I was sure that Morse code was going to figure into it somehow. Somehow I convinced myself that FLIP meant to rotate the grid 90 degrees one way or the other, and then I could use O = dot and I = dash.

(snippety snip)

I spent the weekend doing lots of work around the house and never came back to it.

Oh Oh, did you notice a DeLorean anywhere near the house? I ask because your computer went back in time and solved "Turn on the Radio"! That darn Doc Brown, he will show up and try to solve the meta. Well at least you didn't see any Supreme Court justices in your puzzle,

Hmm... Someone in my neighborhood drives a DeLorean. I'll let you know if I see a crazy wild-haired guy in a lab coat.

[JAQT]

With inspiration from others here who have shared their rabbit holes, here's mine:

Interesting, 52A's hint of Transmission Ending. Maybe this is a double-meaning from Mike: He lets us think it's a radio transmission, but maybe he actually means the transmission for a car. What's that sequence again? Oh yeah, PRNDL

Now we come to the 60A hint of Reverse. Well that clinches it! Of course he's referring to the gears in a transmission! And between 52A and 60A, he's also telling us to look at it in reverse: LDNRP

The "L" stands for "Low" and by golly, there are four answers in the grid with "LO" right in them. In rough left-to-right reading order they are RELO, SLO, LOTTO and MELON

Let's line them up and see if that helps:
XXRELO
XXXSLO
XXXXLOTTO
XXMELON

The title of the grid, which is "Backdrop", tells me I should drop something, right? And hey! If I drop the "LO" from "MELON" I get the word MEN! That's got to mean something.

What if I drop the "LO" from all four? (Are you still with me?) Result: RE S TTO MEN -->> REST TO MEN !! Surely that's some theatrical saying that refers to "Death of a Salesman" or Willy Loman or some other thing I never heard of!

But of course, diligent inquiries into Google turned up nothing. So sad.

Congrats to all who solved!

Best,
JAQT

[JAQT]

Incidentally, when was the Wordle thread deleted? And I'm guessing it was deleted because of space/storage issues?

I can't search the forum for any information on Wordle because the search function on the board treats the word as too common for use in a search.

[boharr]

Incidentally, when was the Wordle thread deleted? And I'm guessing it was deleted because of space/storage issues?

I can't search the forum for any information on Wordle because the search function on the board treats the word as too common for use in a search.

viewtopic.php?p=119855#p119855

[JAQT]

Incidentally, when was the Wordle thread deleted? And I'm guessing it was deleted because of space/storage issues?
<snip>

viewtopic.php?p=119855#p119855

Ah, thank you! My mistake, I thought it (both Wordle and Wordle2) had been deleted.

[Streroto]

So my meta story is I actually solved the meta while on he ground waiting to take off from…RENO!!!!!!

Stay well all

[Dplass]

Been staring until my eyes cross with nothing to show for it. Is it just me or have the last few puzzles been a bit more difficult than usual? Don't think I've had this long of a streak stuck with Isaac before...

@LizD My wife's theory is that Mike has "upped his game" so there are no gimme weeks.

Last couple of months percentages from WSJ

1/27 MG 72%
1/20 MS 87%
1/13 MG 70%
1/6 MS 72%
12/30 MG 80%
12/23 MS 70%
12/16 MG 85%

It's not just the percent correct, it's the number of submissions. I have a spreadsheet that comes up with a "normalized" percentage. When I remember I'll publish it.

Here's my admittedly sloppy spreadsheet of the last ~6 months of data:



The "normalized" column is the % correct compared to the entire "population" (about 3k people.)

[The XWord Rabbit]

Hutch here! Brother Xword liked the hospital food so much he went back for more. Apparently the wild life of a crossword bon vivant catches up to you in time. Indeed sometimes you get the carrot, but sometimes the stick! Anyway, it gives me a chance to poke my cottony tail in and look over possible nominations for the Rabbit Award.

There were some interesting “rabbitisms” this week, a couple of people went down the back trail trying to append BACK to other words and tease out a word. This was detailed most vividly by the “punisher” himself, DrTom, who tried to HOOF his way to an answer. Logical, elegant and wrong; in the end they all ended up with hoof-in-mouth disease and got backed into a corner.

Another few went with trying to use the decidedly cryptic “loose” clues. They made an effort to find words that went with both over and out like MOVE, DROP, PUTS (hmm the Rabbit maybe needs a PG rating?). Again very logical but also wrong, these people had one put over on them and struck out.

Hoover took an interesting approach, effectively firing up the “Wayback Machine” so that he and Mr. Peabody could go back in time a week or so. His approach was very technical, obviously founded in a viable mechanism, and also (like the two predecessors) incorrect.

JAQT had a tortured path, perhaps because he took the LO road? He did end up with 9 letters with his transmission, I mean transition, from LO and he was certainly using his melon, but it doesn’t quite come up to the merit bade in rabbit trailing of the next meta maniac.

The winner for a nomination HAS to be DBMiller. The explanation of his tortured trail was at least a two carrot read. I laughed, I cried, I marveled at his Goldbergian (for those who are too young https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine) pathway to the white whale he assigned early on. How I wish he had been able to find his K along his “Family Circus” (for those who are too young https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/1 ... 0-c85.webp) route. What is so remarkable is that he actually had the mechanism but used it for much different reasons and words. Had he come up with a theater related word I would have hopped on over to MG and hareassed him to accept an alternate answer.

So, in XWord’s absence this week I am going to nominate DBMiller for the Rabbit Award.

[HeadinHome]

With FLIP, OVER, and BACK being possible hints, my eye was at first drawn to HINGE, running right down the middle of the grid. I thought this was an indication that we were supposed to fold the grid back over on itself along the vertical axis to reveal something. I think that is what made me notice SKIM from MILKS, where the L was sitting right along the perceived axis. That was my AHA to the actual mechanism.

Me too!! (Except the SLIM/MILKS part)

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is REHEARSAL. Nine Across clues contain a word that’s that clue’s answer reversed minus one letter (GRAB/bag; AMORE/Roma; BIRCH/crib; MEAD/Dam; YARD/Dry; RENO/One; BASRA/Arab; EMMA/ Mme.; MILKS/skim). The dropped letters, in order, spell the contest answer.

Who knew there were so many nine-letter theater terms? We had a nice turnout this week, 1122, with 2/3 correct (below our usual level around 3/4). An unusually big showing for BREAK A LEG (111) plus BACKSTAGE (38), CYCLORAMA (18), SET DESIGN (4), MONOLOGUE (3), AUDITIONS (2) and many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Louis DeBiasio of Oxford, Ohio!

[Al Sisti]

Congrats to this week's winner: Louis DeBiasio of Oxford, Ohio!

Oh man, so close... I only missed by an entire first name, last name, city and state!

[damefox]

Congrats to this week's winner: Louis DeBiasio of Oxford, Ohio!

Oh man, so close... I only missed by an entire first name, last name, city and state!

I missed by first name, city, and state, but the last name is right, it's just in the wrong place!

[lisajoy]

I get by with a little help from my friends... thanks again zoom room! I am on shore.

[848Rob]

I will mention you honorably! Solving is your treasure......