MGWCC #769 — “Easy-Peasy”

[TeamDoubleTow]

Darn... We struggled with this even with a ton of nudges. Happy to submit an answer though after coming so close last week.

[Bird Lives]

Some people characterized this meta as “easy.” Not to get all Señor Wences about it, but easy for you may be difficult for me. The easiness or difficulty of a puzzle does not reside purely in the puzzle. It’s product of the interaction between solver and puzzle.

There are lots of things to notice in a puzzle like this. If you notice the right one first, the puzzle is easy. If you notice other things first, you can spend a lot of time in a rabbit hole. For example:

1. The structure of the grid is unusual. It can be divided into four quadrants with similarities such that the right and left halves of the grid are mirror images. You also get mirror images if you divide the grid on the diagonals.

2. In each quadrant there is one six-letter across entry that has the EEZ sound. These are also symmetrical. (Admittedly, SUISSE is a slight strech since it’s a hard S and not a Z sound, but that's probably the way it's pronounced in Geneva's Italian neighborhoods, and that's good enough for me.)
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3. The title Easy-Peasy with its repeated EEZ sound suggests that these EEZ sounds, one in each of the quadrants, are not a haphazard coincidence. It will probably lead to two letters per quadrant. That times four quadrants equals the eight letters specified in the prompt.

4. So all you have to do to get the answer is figure out which letters each of the EEZ words leads to.

[Joe Ross]

(8) 4-lettered words began or ended with P or Z and could have their P & Z substituted with the other to make other words.

Find matching clues to the other words & take those entries' initials to speel ZERO HELP.

2D JEEP - JEEZ
ZOWIE: 53 "Holy Toledo!"

5D QUIZ - QUIP
EPIGRAM: 22D Witty remark

16A DROP - DR.OZ
RUBIO: 17A Noted Senate candidate in 2022

19A ZUMA - PUMA
OCELOT: 29A Wild cat of the Western Hemisphere

51A WHIZ - WHIP
HOLSTER: 21D Part of an Indiana Jones costume

52D ZETA - PETA
EASTER: 35A It's represented by a bunny

54A PIMA - ZIMA
LIMEADE: 13A Citrusy drink

54D PEST - ZEST
PEEL: 27A Outer part of an orange

[MikeM000]

While I got nudged into the next county to get the answer, I did notice on my own the Z->P thing but not the P->Z thing, and given how DR OZ was the keystone (no pun intended, I think?) to the solve for me, I needed those nudges....

3 from the bottom at 277....

[Joe Ross]

24 Hour Rabbit Hole:

R P M - 23A Record player meas.

With a grid STUFFED with 3-letter entries, this MUST play, right?

I [mis]counted nine grid entries (including 23A) that were 3-letter initialisms. Discount 23A as an Indicator Clue/Entry & the other eight must lead to the 8-lettered answer, right?

Frustration abounded, until I realized that there are ten 3-letter initialisms in the grid.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I gave myself a shortcut on this one while filling the grid. I had "_EST" for 54D and wrote in ZEST because I had the clue for 60A SEASON fresh in my head. I corrected it later, but having already inadvertently made the substitution made the meta breadcrumbs easy to follow.

[Bird Lives]

I used Google and discovered that there is a pro wrestler named Droz, and for a while I wondered if he was another wrestler-turned-politician like Jesse Ventura and Linda MacMahon.

[mkmf]

I thought that SEASON (make more flavorful) was the alternate clue for ZEST as a verb. Spent time looking unsuccessfuly for some third step to turn HEEOSLZR into another string of letters.

Then I thought that if I could just change that Z->P it could spell:
"O HELPERS". Seemed cute, but inelegant at best.

It took my husband to point out the obvious PEEL and S->P substitution to get, finally, to the proper answer.

I gave myself a shortcut on this one while filling the grid. I had "_EST" for 54D and wrote in ZEST because I had the clue for 60A SEASON fresh in my head. I corrected it later, but having already inadvertently made the substitution made the meta breadcrumbs easy to follow.

[HunterX]

While I started looking for Z's and P's right off the bat, I did not quickly pick up on the fact that you only need to focus on the 2 symmetrical P's and 2 symmetrical Z's as being part of the metanism, ignoring the other 4 P's and the second Z. I assume that those who found the puzzle "EZ" realized that element quickly. For a completist such as myself, I was noting all of them, listing words starting with them, etc.

Once I knew to ignore the extra ones, it was much easier. I had to laugh at myself though. When filling out the grid, I got to 17A and thought, "Dr. Oz." As so often happens, after realizing it didn't fit, I forgot about my initial instinct. Then, when finding the 8 matching clues to the altered P/Z words, I got them all quickly except Dr. Oz. I kept asking myself, "Droz? What's a droz?"

Forehead slap.

[ajk]

I started out down a path of clues that could have two answers: Outer part of an orange (PEEL) could be RIND, Wild cat of the Western Hemisphere (OCELOT) could be JAGUAR or COUGAR, Beloved mushrooms (MORELS) could be ENOKIS, Southwest people (PIMA) could be HOPI. Was very sure that couldn't all be coincidence. But then it stalled, and right before my flight took off I noticed the ZIMA/PUMA swap.

When I came back to it that evening I realized how ZIMA/PUMA tied in with the title and the rest of it fell fairly smoothly.

[BrennerTJ]

[HunterX]

Judging from the locations of RUBIO, ZOWIE, HOLSTER, and EPIGRAM, I am guessing Matt was trying to get the linked grid answers to be symmetrical as well. Maybe after fitting OCELOT and EASTER, he just couldn't quite manage to shoehorn the last two into 31A and 38A? Now THAT would have been impressive!

[Streroto]

Fun fact: DROZ was my classmate in medical school. Our class president in fact. I won’t go any further.

I had the answer through anagramming but could not see how the order could be made right. I do see it now. Still counts and solo solve so will take it, but would have liked to figure that out.

Stay well all

[DCBilly]

I too - like Joon and Stereoto - anagrammed first and fretted over why the ordering had to be right. I am still not completely confident in what "grid order" or "clue order" mean when there is a close call.