"Global Powers" -- September 15, 2023

[DrTom]

Well then this is appropriate for many of my Meta solving sessions:

Le Guignon
Pour soulever un poids si lourd,
Sisyphe, il faudrait ton courage!
Bien qu'on ait du coeur à l'ouvrage,
L'Art est long et le Temps est court.

Loin des sépultures célèbres,
Vers un cimetière isolé,
Mon coeur, comme un tambour voilé,
Va battant des marches funèbres.

— Maint joyau dort enseveli
Dans les ténèbres et l'oubli,
Bien loin des pioches et des sondes;

Mainte fleur épanche à regret
Son parfum doux comme un secret
Dans les solitudes profondes.
— Charles Baudelaire

and my favorite translation of the above:

Ill Luck

To carry forth a load so vast
Thy courage, Sisyphus, I crave!
My heart against the task is brave,
But Art is long and Time is fast.

For from Fame's grand victory arches,
Towards a graveyard lone and dumb,
My sad heart, like a muffled drum,
Goes beating slow funereal marches.

— Full many a shrouded jewel sleeps
In dark oblivion, lost in deeps
Unknown to pick or plummet's sound:

Full many a weeping blossom flings
Her perfume, sweet as secret things,
In silent solitudes profound.

[michaelm]

Well then this is appropriate for many of my Meta solving sessions:

Le Guignon
Pour soulever un poids si lourd,
Sisyphe, il faudrait ton courage!
Bien qu'on ait du coeur à l'ouvrage,
L'Art est long et le Temps est court.

Loin des sépultures célèbres,
Vers un cimetière isolé,
Mon coeur, comme un tambour voilé,
Va battant des marches funèbres.

— Maint joyau dort enseveli
Dans les ténèbres et l'oubli,
Bien loin des pioches et des sondes;

Mainte fleur épanche à regret
Son parfum doux comme un secret
Dans les solitudes profondes.
— Charles Baudelaire

and my favorite translation of the above:

Ill Luck

To carry forth a load so vast
Thy courage, Sisyphus, I crave!
My heart against the task is brave,
But Art is long and Time is fast.

For from Fame's grand victory arches,
Towards a graveyard lone and dumb,
My sad heart, like a muffled drum,
Goes beating slow funereal marches.

— Full many a shrouded jewel sleeps
In dark oblivion, lost in deeps
Unknown to pick or plummet's sound:

Full many a weeping blossom flings
Her perfume, sweet as secret things,
In silent solitudes profound.

Thanks to DrTom, we may be unique among forums - a peony/outhouse reference immediately followed by a sweeping Baudelaire translation.
Profound indeed!

[STL-D]

I just got an email from Mike Miller... I won the mug..... I'm in shock, LOL.

[KayW]

I just got an email from Mike Miller... I won the mug..... I'm in shock, LOL.

Congratulations!

[Dennis]

I am feeling "deaf, dumb, and blind." Well, not quite deaf; I did recently get hearing aids! But....when I saw the last across clue, the answer, and the word math in the clue, I remembered that Mr. Shenk was a math major in college. It was "Aha! Math will be involved, but, duh, I never pulled the numerical dates out of the five key clues. Oh, well, it's another week. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

[RichA2]

I just got an email from Mike Miller... I won the mug..... I'm in shock, LOL.

Great coincidence that a St. Louisan wins in a week when that city is in the center of the grid. Congratulations!

[C=64]

This mathematician was really hoping to see a power greater than 2, but square roots are fun too

C=64 agrees.

[The XWord Rabbit]

The board is particularly quiet this week. Only 18 post-solution responses so far with nary a rabbit hole to be found among them.

The “root” to which Mr. Shenk referred in the final across entry of his “Global Powers” puzzle was the square root of the years mentioned in the clues. Taken in order of the corresponding numbered squares of the five answers was the meta: WORLD.

So with no nominations to speak of and having recently used both the AI Rabbit and a Carmen Miranda video, your Rabbit has no other choice than to resort to the lowest form of blog fodder … VACATION PHOTOS! Yes, the Rabbit took his five-year-old grandson to Disneyland last week so here we go…

No line at the “Little Mermaid” ride so grandpa was coaxed into riding it three times continuously.

(From left) Daughter of Rabbit, Grandson of Rabbit, Wife of Rabbit, Rabbit. It’s a small family, after all.

Given the amount of walking involved, you decide who’s the bigger trouper.

Until next week, then.

[hcbirker]

You did an amazing job Ed! Disneyland is not for the faint of heart. The five year old will never forget!

[Joe Ross]

This mathematician was really hoping to see a power greater than 2, but square roots are fun too 😉

C=64 agrees. 8-)

So, C=2⁶. 8-)

[Joepickett]

Not a big rabbit hole but my first attempt was to split each year into two numbers (for 529 I used 5 and 29) and then convert each number to the letter from the grid. Then I thought look for a 3 letter word that starts and ends with those letters. Well of course that failed. I was showing the grid to my wife and said "Mike likes to put hints in his puzzle at the top (YEAR) or sometimes the last across...um..oh that says ROOT...oh ok I know what to do"

It's good to talk these out.

[ksbfl]

Jesse Owens - esse- to be in Latin
St. Louis- is
Benedictine -be
Diet of Worms - eto - this is in Russian
Global Powers (that be?)
There is no way Mike would expect high school Russian to solve a puzzle. Oh wait- look at all those dates.

[Inca]

I guess I don't do well under pressure. I only had time to do the grid and then search for the metanism for less than one hour for this puzzle...of course, I found nothing. I did notice the years in all the "clue" clues but had to leave it there. Before checking the solution today (yes, I am a bit busy lately), I opened the puzzle again...and of course, I realized right away what I needed to do. For the record, I liked this puzzle (Of course, I did. I solved it )

[mheberlingx100]

Not a big rabbit hole but my first attempt was to split each year into two numbers (for 529 I used 5 and 29) and then convert each number to the letter from the grid. Then I thought look for a 3 letter word that starts and ends with those letters. Well of course that failed. I was showing the grid to my wife and said "Mike likes to put hints in his puzzle at the top (YEAR) or sometimes the last across...um..oh that says ROOT...oh ok I know what to do"

It's good to talk these out.

I don’t know why, but 529 and 2025 rang a bell as a perfect square. Once I checked those with my trusty HP12C, I knew I was on the right track.

[Gman]

2025 was my clue. For some reason I once learned that all numbers ending in 5 between 5 and 95 can be quickly squared with the following formula:

Tens digit X (tens digit plus 1) in hundreds + 25

So 45^2= (4×(4+1))×100 +25 =2025
75^2 = (7×8)×100 +25 = 5625

[Inca]

2025 was my clue. For some reason I once learned that all numbers ending in 5 between 5 and 95 can be quickly squared with the following formula:

Tens digit X (tens digit plus 1) in hundreds + 25

So 45^2= (4×(4+1))×100 +25 =2025
75^2 = (7×8)×100 +25 = 5625

I never learned that trick in school but obviously it makes sense; it's good to know

[JerryF]

I just got an email from Mike Miller... I won the mug..... I'm in shock, LOL.

Congrats!

[Cindy N]

So with no nominations to speak of and having recently used both the AI Rabbit and a Carmen Miranda video, your Rabbit has no other choice than to resort to the lowest form of blog fodder … VACATION PHOTOS! Yes, the Rabbit took his five-year-old grandson to Disneyland last week so here we go…



(From left) Daughter of Rabbit, Grandson of Rabbit, Wife of Rabbit, Rabbit. It’s a small family, after all.

Bless you for not posting a video of Small World! I first experienced that with my oldest - when she was 1 1/2, and many years later with my youngest - who was 5. While the children love it, it can be traumatizing for adults. That earworm can last for days and kids love to sing it randomly when talking about their visit.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is WORLD. Each of the five theme clues contains a year. As suggested by the first and last Across answers, YEAR and ROOT, find the square root of those years. The letters in the correspondingly numbered boxes, in clue order, spell the contest answer.

Apologies for the delay this week! I love this group--you duck out for a few days and the conversation has turned to Baudelaire and Disney World.

This was one of those puzzles that you can't imagine constructing... getting the grid just right so 5 numbered squares (including some that are within the theme answers!) spell out the answer. We had a very successful turnout: 1521 entries with 95% correct, way above average.

Incorrect guesses arrived in dribs and drabs including EARTH, CLOUT, JAPAN, SUPER, NAMES, TIMES and sundry others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Dave Wilson of Chesterfield, Mo.!

[Streroto]

Here is a GLOBAL story emphasizing the POWER of this little group. When I saw that DrTom had posted in French I immediately reached out to him. Turns out that in addition to both being doctors we both lived overseas as kids and both fell in love with France and French. He responded to me with a beautiful DM in perfect French and I was so touched. We’ve both kept up the language which makes those pesky French crossword clues a breeze for us LOL. Now we just need a French based meta!

Stay well all

Scott