"Heads and Tails " June 9, 2023

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 9 on the ship and 190 on the shore

And on Amazon Prime movies we stumbled on Crossword Mysteries. We watched the first one of five. They are OK (not great but hot horible) but the fun part is that one of the leading characters is the crossword editor for the New York Sentinel. They came out in 2019 to 2021 so that says something about my movie watching. I will probably watch one or more of them because of the crossword tie in.

Good luck winning the mug

[Hidden in 3D]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 9 on the ship and 190 on the shore

And on Amazon Prime movies we stumbled on Crossword Mysteries. We watched the first one of five. They are OK (not great but hot horible) but the fun part is that one of the leading characters is the crossword editor for the New York Sentinel. They came out in 2019 to 2021 so that says something about my movie watching. I will probably watch one or more of them because of the crossword tie in.

Good luck winning the mug

@Bob cruise director, make that 10 on the ship. It's been a very busy weekend here in Hidden Valley. I barely had time to finish the grid, never got around to the meta part at all!

[Relic]

WOWZA!Within an hour of waving the white flag, the second step hit me in the face with a "what if . . ." That led to a current taking me to shore. The answer submitted makes sense except I'm unsure of the logic behind the final step that washed me ashore. Education comes in the morning.

[hoover]

On the beach last minute!

But dang, there's no place to put my towel!

[OliviaL]

Solved in the nick of time!

[KayW]

[KayW]

(artwork by Joe Ross)

[Libbypibby]

A little late but ashore!

[Richard]

Also late but on the ship.

Got stiuck in too many rabbit holes.

Nice one.

[escapeartist]

My thought process after discovering the heads:

Mom and ... pop - easy

Cut and ... run - done

Hit and ... OMG why am I doing this

luckily found the solution

[hoover]

The penny dropped just in time!

[benchen71]

Cut and ... run

This slowed me down for a little while, too!

[otlaolap]

Diverted a little bit by "cut and run" but did get the kink out.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I liked the multiple steps in this one, and that finding alternate grid answers wasn't one of them. Still, I tried to do that initially because I wasn't satisfied with GOWN as "Pre-prom purchase", and MUM, one off from MOM, would also work. I thought HUT (HIT) was close to TIPI, and then we had CAP, but SAP was already in the grid. And I was sure that old standby ORE (ONE) would be an alternate answer for something, but by this point that all fell apart and didn't really match up with the Heads and Tails title anyway.

So a little more staring got me to the 'and' step implied in the title. And I thought using 'and' as part of the solve rather than it just being a connector in the title was rather elegant.

[LittleGood]

Ok, the last letter. Fine.

KAS 4

[ship4u]

Here's how we kept our subterranean rabbit friends entertained for what seemed like forever.

We saw the first two steps quickly:

mom & Pop
cut & Paste
hit & Run
cap & Gown
one & Only

But P-P-R-G-O? Now what?

Okay, there must be another step. Go back to the clues. That's a typical Mike Shenk mechanism.

Aha! 45D "Dear" as in "cherished", "One and Only!" BINGO!

"Cut and Paste" = "Unoriginal" 46A YES!

"Hit and Run" = "Bad Acts" 7D

"Cap and Gown" = "Award Recipient" 37D

"Mom and Pop?" Hmmmm, there's always one that's really tough. "Special Connections!" Okay, it's a stretch, but, as they say, "All's fair in love and metas."

Armed with that information, it was back to the grid.

I-O-N-H-C

Oh, brother. Wait! It anagrams to IN HOC. Could that be latin for "In Debt?"

No, but at least it brought to mind "In Hoc Signo Vinces" which means "In this sign thou shalt conquer!" So, never give up!

Onward christian soldiers!

[Bob cruise director]

From the 1940 movie Seven Sinners and used in Band of Brothers

[Deb F]

Here's how we kept our subterranean rabbit friends entertained for what seemed like forever.

We saw the first two steps quickly:

mom & Pop
cut & Paste
hit & Run
cap & Gown
one & Only

But P-P-R-G-O? Now what?

Okay, there must be another step. Go back to the clues. That's a typical Mike Shenk mechanism.

Aha! 45D "Dear" as in "cherished", "One and Only!" BINGO!

"Cut and Paste" = "Unoriginal" 46A YES!

"Hit and Run" = "Bad Acts" 7D

"Cap and Gown" = "Award Recipient" 37D

"Mom and Pop?" Hmmmm, there's always one that's really tough. "Special Connections!" Okay, it's a stretch, but, as they say, "All's fair in love and metas."

Armed with that information, it was back to the grid.

I-O-N-H-C

Oh, brother. Wait! It anagrams to IN HOC. Could that be latin for "In Debt?"

No, but at least it brought to mind "In Hoc Signo Vinces" which means "In this sign thou shalt conquer!" So, never give up!

Onward christian soldiers!

In_Hoc_Signo_Vinces.jpg

Zowie. Now that's a clever leap.

[pjc]

This one took me a while because I kept trying to do things with the 'heads' and 'tails' of the long answers. And that first long answer ending with ANS and the fact that 54-Down ANSE existed seemed like the start of something.

Anyway - after figuring out the three-letter words from the components of the long answer, the rest fell quickly. But that first step didn't happen until Friday.

[CPJohnson]

I found mom, cut, etc. pretty quickly. But the rabbit holes appeared!

(1) Looked for synonyms in the grid, or other clues that would have mom, cut, etc., as a possible answer. Then, I thought, the meta answer would be the end letters of those new grid words. Found 62A for mom. found 35A or 48D for cut. found 26A for hit. But nothing for cap or one.

(2) Looked for mom, cut, etc. at the end of the clues.

(3) Looked for mom, cut, etc. anywhere in the clues.

(4) Looked for occurrences of mom, cut, etc. in the grid.

(5) Looked for occurrences of mom, cut, etc. in the grid, plus one letter.

(6) Looked for occurrences of mom, cut, etc., in the grid, minus one letter.

(7) Looked for 3-letter grid words that are mom, cut, etc., with one letter changed. Found mod, upc, sap, and ion. But nothing for hit.

(8) Looked at the end letters of each long answer word...nes, epo, gne, paa, fot. Couldn't do anything with that.

(9) Tried combining the first letters and last letters to see if that spelled anything.. nope.

Finally remembered POP, thought "mom and pop", hmmmmm. Congrats to all who saw the path quickly!