"Long Road Ahead" May 19, 2023

[Richard]

I submitted Sesame Street, more a guess than anything else. Will count it as a solve.

[Bob cruise director]

I submitted just SESAME. I pondered whether to add in ST or STREET. However since the embedded letters only included SESAME, I concluded that the in the highly unlikely event that my name was pulled, they would accept anything that had Sesame in it.

And I never saw the show. I was working when my kids would have been watching the show.

[WabiSabi]

Not Sesame St?
The clue is TV (abbreviated) show
Wondering…

I did look around the grid for an answer that included REET, as a cherry on top. TREE, ETRE, PETER, GREET, etc. Would have been nice.

[Dickie_Dunn]

Unbelievable. The first thing I wrote down were the missing letters from the shortened roads. I was sure that was the path, but a mental block obviously had fallen on my head. I saw some other things and tried to make them work.......

For instance
BLED is BOULEVARD without the OUVAR
ICE is CIRCLE without the CRL
NAL is LANE backwards without the E
EVIE is DRIVE backwards if you replace the E with DR
MENU is AVENUE without the last E and replacing the M with AV
Alas, I couldn't make this fit with HWY anywhere.

But wait, CAREFREE HWY is a song as the clue alerts us - GORDON LIGHTFOOT
Wouldn't you know it, PENNY LN - THE BEATLES just happens to be a song also. Can't afford to believe in coincidences in this game.
Are there any other songs that go with the themes? Why yes there are.
SUNSET BLVD - SCOTT GRIMES
RODEO DR - SNIFF 'N' THE TEARS
MADISON AVE - BTO
COLUMBUS CIR - BRIAN TYLER (evidently from a movie of the same title)

Alas, I couldn't make heads nor tails of why these songs could form an answer. Perhaps because driving down a highway, windows down, feeling carefree, with the radio set to your favorite station is a great joy.

In the end, I submitted SESAME STREET, so lucky me.
On the off chance I am the selected winner, I will feel shame and send to a worthy solver.

[mikeB]

Yes, Sesame Street is the name of the TV show. However, Penny Lane and Carefree Highway are the names of songs. The abbreviation is a feature of the mechanism that doesn't align with the common usage in each case. Having to choose common usage or mimicking the mechanism, I went with the mechanism and submitted Sesame St. It was a low-stakes choice, however, surmising that the two versions are deemed interchangeable mugwise -- either one confirming a successful solve. On another topic, this is a dandy meta -- a very impressive construction.

[kfahey714]

Rats. I thought of this answer and was working with the missing letters from the abbreviation but I just didn't make the jump to the additional letters.

[woozy]

While doing the grid when I go the second themer, Penny Ln, I figured it had be a television show whose name was a street name and my first thought was .... Peyton Place.

I was a bit worried that this was a "find the remaining example" meta rather than "crack the hidden message" meta (I rather dislike "find the remaining example" metas and find them usually disappointing) but figured it couldn't possibly be that "Peyton Place" was the only show with a street name. After all David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" was originally pitched as a TV as was, I think "Lost Highway" and there was "21 Jump Street" (an address, not a street name) so I figured there had to be a key.

And I solved it pretty easily. The abbreviations stuck out as unnatural and although maybe necessary for long entries but just wrong for short ones and in any event would be unsatisfying for a professional published puzzle if there weren't another reason. And abbreviations were so contrary to the title of "long road" that I figured I had to look and so I tried the mechanism.

But I have to say, I found this mechanism to be very ugly, clunky, and unsatisfying. It seems so arbitrary and aesthetically unmotivated. Taking the letters not in the abbreviation is arbitrary but straightforward but why should I add a letter, and why should I anagram? I guess puzzles for puzzles sake are usually motivation enough but this seemed.... well, I don't know why, but it seemed so pointless to me. Like doing a jigsaw of a picture of a pavement.

[Plymouthrock]

Interesting above. I marveled at the cleverness,if not brilliance, of this construction. Loved it.

[Barney]

“Taking the letters not in the abbreviation is arbitrary but straightforward but why should I add a letter, and why should I anagram?”

Aren’t they in order, top to bottom?

[jrdad]

You needed to anagram the missing letters to find the grid answer. I thought it was brilliant construction.

[Joe Ross]

“Taking the letters not in the abbreviation is arbitrary but straightforward but why should I add a letter, and why should I anagram?”

Aren’t they in order, top to bottom?

Follow the mechanism in order to solve.

The extra letters aren't anagrammed, per se. They are only found with one extra letter in unique words in the grid. Those extra letters are SESAME.

SESAME is not anagrammed, but is in top/down order in the grid.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is SESAME STREET. Take the missing letters from each type of road’s abbreviation and add another letter to form a grid answer: IGHA + A = HAGIA; OUEAR + S = AROUSE; AE + S = AES; IVE + E = EVIE; NUE + M = MENU; and CLE + E = ELEC. Those added letters, in grid order, spell SESAME, suggesting the contest answer.

We thought this was an unusually tough one, but solvers flooded us with correct answers. We had 1865 entries, with 85% correct (above our usual level of about 75%). A big showing for ROUTE 66 (62), plus 21 JUMP ST. (12). MELROSE PLACE (10), CORONATION ST. (7), and SUNSET STRIP (3), among other thoroughfares.

Congrats to this week's winner: Paul Sand of Rollinsford, NH!

[MajordomoTom]

I submitted the actual correct answer, SESAME ST

the REET isn't indicated as needed.



EDIT: no, they're not anagrams, they're just a bag of letters which is missing one letter to be an entry in the grid. Pretty standard MG technique.

[Plymouthrock]

Just curious. Would Sesame St have been accepted?

[Relic]

I have a hare-raising rabbit hole to share. I guess I should be too embarrassed to share - I am but here goes anyway.
1. After being unable to do anything with the 6 theme entries -never tought of expanding the roadway abbreviations - I began looking for a hint in the clues.
2. 63A, Distances are measured from it, seemed promising. Off I went.
3. I abandoned the 6 theme answers and opted to go with 6 clues that listed city names: Phoenix, York, L.A., Beverly Hills, Istanbul,Baltimore.
4. I googled Distance from NYC to each of these cities.
5. I summed up the digits in the resulting miles, thinking 11D to be another crumb on the path.
6. I mapped the sum of these digits to that numbered box in the grid, and came up with the letters N S C O I N
7. NSCOIN, anagrams to NCIS NO, which is what I submitted despite knowing it would be wrong because I failed to find a logical path to rearrange the letters into the correct order.

At this point, I figured I might at least get a high five from the xword rabbit, which would make the effort worthwhile!

[kurtalert]

Man... close. I was working on the missing letters, and noticed the connection between Madison Ave and MENU right next to it... but I didn't find a direct enough connection on the other clues, and abandoned that train of thought, figuring that it was a rabbit hole. Damn... gotta be a little more determined next time!

[Colin]

In no particular order, these are what kept me from doing anything productive in my spare time (which was otherwise limited) over the weekend:
1. Initial letters of the theme answers (first, last, etc)
2. Word before each of the long road abbreviations
3. State abbreviations in which each theme answer is located (with UK for PENNY LANE)
4. Towns in which each theme answer is located
5. initial letters of those towns
6. Searched for grid answers that were one letter off from the abbreviations (eg BLVD / BLED), but only found that one
7. The last letter before the abbreviations (as suggested by “Long Road Ahead”)
8. Some fun taking away letters to create something meaningful or nonsensical (eg, CAR-FREE HWY)
9. 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc letters of the long-form street types
and finally…
10. The missing letters of the abbreviations! Unfortunately, I didn’t even think about balding a letter to get another grid answer, so no submission this week but had some ‘fun’
Nice meta though!

[woozy]

EDIT: no, they're not anagrams, they're just a bag of letters which is missing one letter to be an entry in the grid.

Umm...they need to be rearranged. That's an anagram.

I never said it wasn't a standard technique or hard to do. (I found it very easy). I said I found it ugly, clunky, and pointless.

I had really mixed feelings about this one. I loved the themes and the entries and the answer but I hated the mechanism.

[DannyWalter]

I submitted THE WALTONS. Don't ask.

[DrTom]

I was sure when I started that it was going to end up being ROUTE 66 or LONGSTREET, both are defendable from an intent standpoint, but the answer was much more fulfilling. I had initially tried filling in the rest of HIGHWAY but the left over letters IGHA, I mean what could they possibly Spell? However, after finishing the grid and remarking to myself that I had never heard of HAGIA that little light bulb turned on.