"Backdrops" February 2,2023

[lacangah]

With 36A ("Bones"), I went with "BREAK A LEG" as a Hail Mary .

Congratulations to everyone who solved it!

Have a great week,

[Franklin.Bluth]

I got a major nudge from Mike Shenk's November 1, 2019 puzzle, which was entitled — hey wait a second — BACKDROPS, and used a similar (though not identical) solving mechanism.

[DrTom]

Ready to get your mind blown? Get a drink ready, you're going to need one after hearing this trail to the wrong answer.

Title is "Backdrops". Engage free assocation mode... BACK, so backwords or back ends of words maybe. DROPS, so dropping a letter? That's kind of standard metanism, either drop or add. Grid is done, so let's begin...

First thing I see is that the BACK end of easycrEDIT is nearly the reverse of aTIDE. Might have an A or an R here.

Ooh - skybORNE and RENO. BACK end again, but not BACKWORDS. What letter would that give me? B?

I continue my search and find...

crEDIT -> aTIDE -> R or A?
bORNE -> RENO -> B
MELOn -> ELMO -> N
haciENDA -> DANtE -> I or T?
rePAST -> SPlAT -> E or L?
gRAB -> BRA -> G
mADD -> ADDs -> M or S?
baTAAN -> mANTA -> A or M?
aLSO -> SLO -> A

I know my order is way off, these were as I found them. I've done this before; Anagrammed the answer and figured out the right ordering later.

For whatever reason, I wasn't consistant, but wrote down ABNTEGSMA. (Should have been ABNTLGSMA, I accidentally FLIPped the E/L choice

Holy cow! I'm just two letters off from BACKSTAGE! That would be a very fitting META: A theater term, and including BACK in the answer! Did I do something wrong? Is there confirmation in the puzzle anywhere? Perhaps something like GATES or GASKET or EGOTS in the grid? No... Well maybe if I find the right missing letters, I can still back solve.

I need a C and an K. Oooh! Theres CAPO -> ATOP. I try desparately to get any of the K words in the grid to fit the bill, but I just can't make it work. And it doesn't make sense. MELON/ELMO would *HAVE* to be an N, and there isn't one in BACKSTAGE. Maybe I'm missing something in the clues that might indicate which words I should be using to get my nine letters. There's no *'s. No numbers. Let's look around some more.

I highlight MILKS in the grid, the clue pops up and I see SKIM. Exactly BACKwards with one letter that could be skipped OVER AND tossed OUT. But it's also the K I need for BACKSTAGE. This must be it! (I know... Wait for it)

I click on GRAB, since I was sure BRA -> GRAB was right, and notice BAG in the clue... Wait a minite...

I click on MADD in my grid, and instead of bringing up the down clue, it brings up the clue for MEAD. Ohhh... DAM -> MEAD. Again, exactly BACKWARDS, with one letter to skip over and toss out. All three so far use the last word of the clue. Interesting.

A new search begins, and I find...

BAG -> GRAB (R)
ROMA -> AMORE (E) ! Hmm... not a skipped one, just the next letter
CRIB -> BIRCH (H) ! I think I see where this is going
DAM -> MEAD (E)
?ONE -> RENO (R) ! Hmm... FIRST word of the clue, not the BACK and no skip
ARAB -> BASRA (S)
SKIM -> MILKS (L)

Oh... SKIM/MILKS never gave me my K for BACKSTAGE (Told you to wait for it). Dumb bunny! [No offense, Rabbit]

I didn't really look at the FIRST words of the clues, just happened to notice ONE/RENO and didn't give it a whole lot of thought. Let's go back and pay attention this time.

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

META confirmed as REHEARSAL and not BACKSTAGE. Glad I stayed with it.

Heck I needed a drink just to get through that - makes my rabbit hole seem almost not worth mentioning. What is most interesting about yours is that it actually mirrored the real mechanism! Fun wander through Wonderland.

[DrTom]

I got a major nudge from Mike Shenk's November 1, 2019 puzzle, which was entitled — hey wait a second — BACKDROPS, and used a similar (though not identical) solving mechanism.

Wow, VERY similar. I saw that someone had posted about a past BACKDROP puzzle but did not have the sense to go look for it.

[VanVeen]

Did anyone else think the “loose hints” in the grid were completely unhelpful? In fact, I think they were a diversion more than anything.

I was trying all sorts of paths through the grid going over letters and out the side. Flipping words up and down and every which way. It wasn’t until I looked at the clues and thought “material for a crib” was a strange way to get to BIRCH that I got any traction.

I feel like the hints probably could have been left out.

[FrancesY]

Usually when the meta involves the clues, some of the clues will stand out for me because they’re odd choices. But Mike’s clueing all made perfect sense—Mme and Emma, dam and Mead, skim and milks—just great! The one clue that finally stood out for me was “Material for a crib.” Loved this.

[HunterX]

Nope. Didn’t get this one. Kudos to those who saw it!

My excuse? Flew to Vancouver from the east coast via Dallas. Stayed a night in Vancouver. Delicious brunch by the water. Took bus to Whistler/Blackcomb. Started ski vacation.

What? Me? Humble brag? Noooooo…..

[FrancesY]

Did anyone else think the “loose hints” in the grid were completely unhelpful? In fact, I think they were a diversion more than anything.

I was trying all sorts of paths through the grid going over letters and out the side. Flipping words up and down and every which way. It wasn’t until I looked at the clues and thought “material for a crib” was a strange way to get to BIRCH that I got any traction.

I feel like the hints probably could have been left out.

Yeah. I wondered why he kept saying “loose.” Were there anagrams? I would expect him to say “mechanism suggested by clue.” I just used the title.

[HunterX]

Did anyone else think the “loose hints” in the grid were completely unhelpful? In fact, I think they were a diversion more than anything.

I do as well. Though I’m not sure what alternative hints would have been better.

And, of course, I’m saying this having not realized what they were hinting at. Had I seen the metanism, I might feel differently.

[camandsampowercouple]

This puzzle went completely over my head. DASH and OVERANDOUT combined with Backdrops being nine letters long convinced me I had to do some morse-code trickery but I just couldn't figure it out.

I'm frustrated with myself because one of the very first things I noticed after solving the grid was that they used the abbreviation Mme. to clue EMMA and I thought that was odd to use an abbreviation in a clue when the answer was not abbreviated. I chalked it up to sloppy editing and ignored it entirely lol

[steveb]

Here's how I was convinced the loose hints must work. There are nine clues whose first word can be combined with both OVER and OUT to make common phrases: 14A (Move), 33A (Drop), 37A (One), 38A (Play), 39A (Puts), 41A (Carried), 59A (Dropped), 6D (Make), and 40D (Head). [OK, I will concede that a couple of them are kind of a stretch.] The first letters of those answers spell - well, it's not a word. OK, so the other loose hint must refer to flipping those answers and taking the last letter from each. Nope.

And that's where I was at deadline. Congrats to those who got it.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

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.

[MatthewB]

As always, it's obvious when you see the solution . I didn't spend much time on this one but I don't think I would have gotten it. Congrats to all that did.

[clonefitz]

Since the "hint" clues included "transmission" and "reverse", I spent some time looking for "park", "neutral", "drive", "low", but to no avail.

[Bird Lives]

Did anyone else think the “loose hints” in the grid were completely unhelpful? In fact, I think they were a diversion more than anything.

I thought the hints were helpful. But "loose"? How can a hint be "loose"? The word seemed so out of place that I thought it must be part of the metanism. Perhaps if did to "loose" what you had to do the themers, you'd have the answer. Of course, to do that, you'd first have to know which were the themers, and you'd have to know the metanism needed to transform them.

[mikeB]

On those rare occasions when I have reached the beach on Thursday, the published meta in Friday’s Journal has been a chance to recall over breakfast the satisfaction of having found the mechanism the previous day. But with a blank grid staring out from the morning paper, the reminiscence of Thursday is fleeting – just a glance and move on. This Friday was different. Because of the mechanism’s structure, each of the nine special clues is its own little gem of invention, containing a replica (although flipped and missing a letter) of that clue’s grid entry. Voilà – the complete solution is embodied in those clues – no grid required. Walking through them brought the entire mechanism – and the hunt for it – back to mind. I can’t think of an English term that describes this experience, but the French have a gridiomatic expression that captures the feeling: déjà clu. Hats off to Matt for making such an experience possible via this very inventive construction.

[pjc]

Took me a while to get to the answer because I kept trying to do things with "OVER" and "OUT" (especially because one of the grid answers was ACT - and OVERACT and ACT OUT seemed too good to be true).

After a while, I started looking backwards (BACK and FLIP hints) and found too many words that formed other words when one letter was dropped.

The AHA moment came yesterday with GRAB /BAG and it was a smooth sail to shore.

[CPJohnson]

I now notice that the metanism this week is very similar to Matt Gaffney's 12-2-22 WSJ puzzle, "I almost gave away the ending." Thus proving, once again, if the same metanism as a previous puzzle is used, I won't remember it unless it was last week.

[Fogway]

The AHA moment came yesterday with GRAB /BAG and it was a smooth sail to shore.

For me it was BIRCH/CRIB.

[michaelm]

Ready to get your mind blown? Get a drink ready, you're going to need one after hearing this trail to the wrong answer.

Title is "Backdrops". Engage free assocation mode... BACK, so backwords or back ends of words maybe. DROPS, so dropping a letter? That's kind of standard metanism, either drop or add. Grid is done, so let's begin...

First thing I see is that the BACK end of easycrEDIT is nearly the reverse of aTIDE. Might have an A or an R here.

Ooh - skybORNE and RENO. BACK end again, but not BACKWORDS. What letter would that give me? B?

I continue my search and find...

crEDIT -> aTIDE -> R or A?
bORNE -> RENO -> B
MELOn -> ELMO -> N
haciENDA -> DANtE -> I or T?
rePAST -> SPlAT -> E or L?
gRAB -> BRA -> G
mADD -> ADDs -> M or S?
baTAAN -> mANTA -> A or M?
aLSO -> SLO -> A

I know my order is way off, these were as I found them. I've done this before; Anagrammed the answer and figured out the right ordering later.

For whatever reason, I wasn't consistant, but wrote down ABNTEGSMA. (Should have been ABNTLGSMA, I accidentally FLIPped the E/L choice

Holy cow! I'm just two letters off from BACKSTAGE! That would be a very fitting META: A theater term, and including BACK in the answer! Did I do something wrong? Is there confirmation in the puzzle anywhere? Perhaps something like GATES or GASKET or EGOTS in the grid? No... Well maybe if I find the right missing letters, I can still back solve.

I need a C and an K. Oooh! Theres CAPO -> ATOP. I try desparately to get any of the K words in the grid to fit the bill, but I just can't make it work. And it doesn't make sense. MELON/ELMO would *HAVE* to be an N, and there isn't one in BACKSTAGE. Maybe I'm missing something in the clues that might indicate which words I should be using to get my nine letters. There's no *'s. No numbers. Let's look around some more.

I highlight MILKS in the grid, the clue pops up and I see SKIM. Exactly BACKwards with one letter that could be skipped OVER AND tossed OUT. But it's also the K I need for BACKSTAGE. This must be it! (I know... Wait for it)

I click on GRAB, since I was sure BRA -> GRAB was right, and notice BAG in the clue... Wait a minite...

I click on MADD in my grid, and instead of bringing up the down clue, it brings up the clue for MEAD. Ohhh... DAM -> MEAD. Again, exactly BACKWARDS, with one letter to skip over and toss out. All three so far use the last word of the clue. Interesting.

A new search begins, and I find...

BAG -> GRAB (R)
ROMA -> AMORE (E) ! Hmm... not a skipped one, just the next letter
CRIB -> BIRCH (H) ! I think I see where this is going
DAM -> MEAD (E)
?ONE -> RENO (R) ! Hmm... FIRST word of the clue, not the BACK and no skip
ARAB -> BASRA (S)
SKIM -> MILKS (L)

Oh... SKIM/MILKS never gave me my K for BACKSTAGE (Told you to wait for it). Dumb bunny! [No offense, Rabbit]

I didn't really look at the FIRST words of the clues, just happened to notice ONE/RENO and didn't give it a whole lot of thought. Let's go back and pay attention this time.

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

META confirmed as REHEARSAL and not BACKSTAGE. Glad I stayed with it.

OMG! -> GO! DBMiller