" Surround Sound " July 21, 2023

[TeamDoubleTow]

Because of last call... We are on shore! Thanks so much. Won't be submitting but grateful to have a few hours back at the end of the weekend to not think about it.

[pilsbandy]

Made it late to this one. Got the grid solved but haven't found a single lead on the meta. Anybody willing to give a nudge? I won't submit after getting a nudge, but I still like to solve it before the answer gets released.

EDIT: And I am ashore! Thank you for those who reached out to nudge me toward dry land. A virgin cuba libre for this fella, please.

[Ann]

On the shore, thanks to brilliant child.

[KscX]

Ashore with help from three peoples.

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 33 on the ship and 109 on the shore.

Good luck winning the mug

[Googly]

[burak]

Started this one really late. It looks like I picked the wrong week to start a puzzle really late.

[mlvilv]

Still with Isaac. Working on it down to the last minute.

[hcbirker]

[meowmiao71]

Yeah, I had no chance of getting this one, especially since I spent so much time with Isaac I fell off my bar stool. Congratulations to everyone who did!

[woozy]

So... um, in hindsight, um... why was this so hard?

I actually .... don't know. I should have gotten it. And it should have been actually easy. But I found it hard. I can self-analyze that I was just too focused on the wrong direction and even that I have thinking style that I focus in certain directions...

... but other people found it harder than usual. Why do you think that was?

======
So creative rabbit hole: 4D: The first syllable of SEISMIC is "SIZE" and the clue included the word "enormous" which is a size. I tried finding another. I thought the clue for KIBITZING was oddly arbitrary bringing in bridge players (why bridge players; to my mind kibitzing just means giving needling little advice). Could a bridge involve ... bits? Kib? Tzing? but I looked up the dictionary and .... "especially in a card game".

Uncreative rabbit hole: I the "oor" in door the same sound as the "ure" in sure? Kind of, but not really. That's the action of a desperate man who has nowhere to go.

[sharkicicles]

For a Chicagoan “sure” and “door” are completely different sounds, but I’m not going to be the person who defends the terrible things we do to language here.

[benchen71]

The puzzle title really didn't help me: so many possible applications! Neither did the repetition of the word "sound" in 15A.

[mikeB]

This meta for me was a wonderful exercise of the partnership between me and my brain, and also a valuable lesson. My brain and I have worked out some division of responsibilities, and solving metas highlights the boundaries we have set. For example, I set policy – something we settled many years ago, and actually at my brain’s own suggestion. I will never forget it. It was late at night – I believe we were in Casablanca – when my brain said to me “You have to think for both of us.” Come to think of it, I’ve never been to Casablanca, so it was probably in a dream. (I believe our brains talk to us all the time in our dreams.) Anyway, I get to decide when to obtain the week’s new puzzle; I work the keyboard, download the .pdf, scan the puzzle’s artifacts – all those mechanical things. It may seem as though there is very little space for my brain to work and contribute. Au contraire. Although I think “I” am working on the meta, my brain is thinking, too. Waking up this morning, after having all but given up, I was trying to remember those theme entries and what doors they might open. I recalled KIBITZING and MAKESURE – the others were lost in the morning fog. I pictured those two entries and tried to do something with KING and MARE. I had already resigned myself to giving up, but my brain was continuing to crunch away silently. Soon it delivered a nudge out of the blue: “I can’t be sure, but I think I might have seen a clue beginning with Cagey. You know, K-G?” Next thing I know I am at the computer and Whoosh!

A valuable lesson for me is that the ability to set policy comes with certain responsibilities to the team when it comes to solving metas. Yes, I can control keystrokes, etc., and decide when it’s time to take a break. But my brain is always working, doesn’t listen to me when I call it quits, and rarely gives me insight into progress. To maximize our solving ability as a team, I need to set policies that support my brain’s secretive but very important work, and two specifics come to mind. First, I should set a very high bar for giving up. I never know how close I am to the Aha! moment until it happens, and in 45 seconds my brain may offer the breakthrough nudge. Second, I need to feed my brain with information. Re-reading clues, for example, may seem like a waste of time, but doing so implants valuable information in my brain’s apparatus for it to process, even if silently. If I had glossed over the clues, K-G would never have become Cagey in that morning-fog moment, I am sure of that.

[dk letter]

Mr. Shenk gave us a pretty remarkable red herring this week. The grid has a rather unusual structure with its nine 3-letter across answers all clustered in the center of the grid. The first letters of eight of those nine spell MALAPROP, a sound related word: "the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one". I did not find a valid mechanism that excluded the ninth word, ADS.

[RDaleHall]

Great puzzle this week - got a late start and was still on the boat watching the big beach party. Had the KG and CD identified from the clues, but couldn't make the last transition to how that played into the broader solution. And dang it, really wanted to get the J. Geils Band into my solution!

Other rabbits included noting the "sound" of "SLY HEED" (SLIDE?) and KEEP ADS (KEYPADS?) and thought we were heading towards some sort of instrument as a solution. Also noted that AARON was part of the 5A clue ("heir, in") and MOP ALI was conspicuously close to 50D's "Monopoly". But maybe those can lead to other future creative constructions.

Terrific work by the solvers this week!

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

Never saw it. I think in hindsight 15a was the key...it had the word sound (recognized) and was also part of the solution with EMPTY. Well done Mr. Shenk!

[HunterX]

This meta for me was a wonderful exercise of the partnership between me and my brain, and also a valuable lesson. My brain and I have worked out some division of responsibilities, and solving metas highlights the boundaries we have set….

As someone who studied Philosophy and Psychology in college, and has read extensively on consciousness and Buddhist thought, I found this dialogue of yours fascinating.

Then my brain told me that “I” was the illusion.

Note to Buddha: Thanks for nothing.

[Geezer Weezer]

Nope. Never.

[woozy]

For a Chicagoan “sure” and “door” are completely different sounds, but I’m not going to be the person who defends the terrible things we do to language here.

Yeah... the don't really sound alike to a Californian either. I was desperate. I figure something had to ECHO something else and... they didn't.

By the way. I got a nudge to think of what "surround" could mean and that other words for surround were confine, edge, and border. I completely failed to understand what the nudge meant and got hung up on BOARDing pass and Idaho BORDER and also CAGEy. With CAGEY prominent in my mind I sort of kinda didn't really see K-G= Cagey but with M-T and I got empty and then CAGEY whacked me in the head.