A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
I was fortunate to key in on the asymmetry early, although I was distracted by GAP in YOGAPOSE and 48D being clued as "Coffee choice", for which 'black' would have been a great alternate.
Having three extra black squares made it possible to plug in F in the first, R in the second, and I in the third one. I was excited to see FARIES until I realized that FAIRIES required another 'I' and that FARIES was probably not the verb form of what a farrier does.
But plugging an R into the second square gave you RABLE, just one letter short of RABBLE, which definitely goes with Black Friday. It was considering ISKY or IGATE that made me certain that the one letter in each box approach wasn't correct. But then FRIENDLESS was the way in to the correct path.
The asymmetry bothered me. Looking at the title, I picked up on the BLACK part of it, but thought I should only add one letter, because one square. A couple of the words worked that way, but nothing else. And what about where there was an Across and a Down clue that would use the same BLACK square. GATE/SKY - I wanted to make AGATE. I Googled ASKY (for the down) thinking it might be a slang version of ASK, but only came up with an airline. I had someone here when the Friday Zoom call was on and only heard a bit about using the black square and possibly six words OK, so I was on the right track. Or was I? I confirmed with Wendy that I had three of the correct words, but totally disregarded FRIDAY, since obviously BLACK was key. With six words from the grid and nothing that made any sense, I finally started sending a plea for a nudge to @Wendy Walker
As I explained what I had found and what I had tried. I used ENDLESS as an example. There didn't seem to be any words that worked by adding a single letter. The closest I could come was FRIENDLESS and that would mean adding three letters FRI. That certainly would have been a better answer than DESTITUTE, wouldn't it? Looking at the words on the list, I said adding FRI would also work to add it to ABLE to make FRIABLE for...
Oh! Talk about a head slap moment. It wasn't add 1 letter, it was add FRI to each word. Once again, writing out what I had, rather than just thinking about it, pulled me out of the rabbit hole and into the "Aha!" moment.
I failed to notice the asymmetry; I didn't realize this was a thing. I do now.
The answers to 45A and 56A bothered me.
After watching my fave NHL team get schooled Friday night I decided to drown my sorrows with more puzzling. I had already decided this was an alternative answer puzzle.
I quickly spotted endless as a better answer to 56A by adding "fri" and I knew I was on the right path. I next added it to 5A.Some googling helped me apply this to 31D as a better answer to 45A. Then 28A to replace 48A. So I had the Friday angle but not the black Friday connection, and certainly no idea how this path would work out. I went to bed Friday night certain I had step 1, but unsure where to go next. Early Saturday morning the notion of adding fri to the black box preceding these answers might be key, especially if they created legit words both across and down. Once my wife helped me up and stretched me out, I told her about the puzzle and possible path. At the breakfast table I immediately confirmed this to be the path, quickly found the final two alternate answers and came ashore minutes later.
What a wonderful, creative puzzle from Mr.Shenk! A much appreciated Thanksgiving treat!
Good luck to all for a successful solve. If you see that I'm ashore - rare occasion of late - message me if you'd like a nudge. Be sure to include your progress so I can know better how to assist.
I took a different path for my answer. I used the BLACK in the title to indicate the black squares had letters hidden within them. And I took the FRI in the title and 30 Across (Name in the Chips asile) with the answer of LAYS to reference FRI-to-LAYS. Of course it’s the holiday season and everyone likes to watch football and eat so I went with that. So from 3 Across DAxxTOS became DOritTOS. So the changed letter became A. My second observation was in 59 Across CHxENOS which became CHeETOS. So then the changed letter became the letter N. Then I saw 44 across with LxxxCRISPx which became RiceCRISPy so the changed letter became the letter L. Then 36 down was KYx which became KIx so the changed letter became Y. Then I saw 59 across with CHxE which became CHeX so the changed letter became E. So when I ran the six letters thru an Anagram solver I came up with SANELY. Which of course is an unlikey description of Black Friday shopping.
I actually have Matt to thank for solving this one. In the most recent Muggles zoom he gave some advice about looking at the overall makeup of the grid before starting to solve. (it was in reference to his 14 x 14 puzzle). So I have started doing that, and that led me to notice the assymetry and focus on the extra black squares! It still took some time and trial and error, but definitely was the focus before I could slip in to another rabbit hole.
Uh...nope. Quintessential "Kas 5" on the scale for me...thankful that I only beat my head against this one for a *few* hours, rather than the whole long weekend....lol.
Hi @FatJack ! You are right that destitute and friendless are not synonyms; however, what's important here is that they both fit the 56A clue, "Having no companions."
I saw the asymmetry in at least one of the pairs but didn't know what to do with it. Inserting FRI would never have occurred to me. Why would I think of FRI instead of F or all of FRIDAY?
There is an alternate solution to the puzzle that is simpler and meets the prompt nicely (says I). There are six asymmetrical squares (three pairs) in the puzzle, three black at the top and three with letters at the bottom. The squares at the top have nothing in them; the squares at the bottom have "see" in them. There is a nice elegant transition from "nothing" to "see", and "nothing to see" certainly is an unlikely description of Black Friday shopping. Not only that, but this alternate solution nicely accounts for all six of the unsymmetric squares, while the published answer accounts for only three. Furthermore, as the puzzles have recently been looking more for answers outside the grid (amp amp amp e.g.), I thought it at least possible that Mike Shenk would be going for one of them as well. So I submitted "nothing to see", knowing I would see nothing else and that it did not have the usual interior references that Mr Shenk employs. Submitted knowing that it was not backed up by anything other than simplicity, responsiveness, and lack of insight.
The first thing I noticed: The title is quoted in the prompt. Perhaps they’re trying to fool us into thinking the title is just a restatement of what’s in the prompt. Uh-huh. I tucked that into the back of my mind; my brain likes to work there in silence while I’m prospecting among the entries. Meanwhile, there was nothing that looked like usable themed entries. There were a dozen or so double letters, so I fiddled with those for a while. No joy. Then came the whispers from my brain: “As to that title, I’m not sure about Friday, but I think Black is steering us to toward the grid itself – specifically the black squares.” That’s ridiculous; no precedent for that. Then that voice reminded me of my very first meta solve – SUMMER WEAR in October of 2020. When you are a solo, casual but curious non-participant in the WSJ Weekly Puzzle Contest, you really have nothing to grasp onto. The persistent questions in your mind when you read the prompt are (1) Huh? and (2) What? Week after week . . . Huh? What? On that beautiful October day, the grid caught my eye. The black squares formed three plus signs. Whoa! The metanism turned out to be based on letters arranged around those plusses. First meta solved, and I was hooked. But I digress – that was three years ago. In the present case, I focused on the black squares and quickly realized that there were some anomalies in the rotational symmetry we expect to see in a grid. I found those three lettered squares with blacked out symmetrical counterparts. Can I do something with S-E-E? Nope. Can I insert those letters into their otherwise blank counterparts, to get some alternative entries – perhaps six of them? Maybe. I chose ENDLESS for experimentation. After all, a straight road is BENDLESS, brand new socks are MENDLESS. Nice try, but no. Besides, what do you do with the front end of a word like SKY? Stuck trying to substitute letters for those blanks, I decided to try combinations of letters. Back to ENDLESS, and suddenly there was FRIENDLESS. And the crucial part: FRI was the enabler (which connects with the other half of the title). Next I saw FRIGATE, and then Whoosh!
We are reminded weekly of the ingenuity that goes into these metas, but this one is in a different neighborhood of genius. You have Black Friday, and you want to theme a puzzle based on the Black and the Friday. So you put some black squares where they aren’t expected. Oh, and for good measure you want to make sure those special squares fall at the beginnings of two intersecting words. Then you need several words that can make alternate entries by attaching FRI to the front end. And of course, you need the corresponding primary entries to spell a word related to the Black+Friday theme. And then, the icing on the cake, to help steer solvers to the rotational symmetry issue, you add some subliminal advertising of that aspect of the solve: You make sure the displayed Previous Puzzle’s Solution is itself not rotationally symmetrical – an extremely rare feature that is sure to catch the eye of at least a few solvers without their even noticing it. How a constructor can come up with such a package of intertwined features is beyond imagining. Mike and his colleagues deserve heartfelt gratitude for putting these masterpieces together – something they earn week in and week out.
FatJack wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:15 am
Hi Gang, I don't comprehend how those particular spaces are asymmetrical versus some others. Can someone help a dopey muggle out and explain?
Quoting the New York Times on symmetry:
Standard crosswords have 180 degree rotational symmetry, which means that if you turn a crossword puzzle upside down, the black and white squares will still be in the same place.
Occasionally, left-right or mirror symmetry is used instead.
Ashore! I only made it in time to clean up the beach, but that's ok. If you're missing a flip-flop, I put it in the lost-and-found in the tiki bar.
Far too late to submit but decided to have one last look this morning between meetings and had the sweetest aha moment. I'm so happy I gave it another shot. It was where I thought something must be but took a while to figure out what to do with it. Very satisfying.
Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving (or a really nice Thursday for those overseas).
61Across was what got me started down the right rabbit hole. "Having no companions" seemed like a peculiar way to clue DESTITUTE, so I figured there was an "alternate answer to clues" mechanism at play. Began looking at other potential answers, FRIENDLESS was one of the first to come to mind, and it was a short swim to shore. Didn't even notice the assymetry until I'd after I'd found the three squares where FRI made two new words.
The asymmetry was obvious but I got stuck on the 6D answer ("one A") which led me to 1A answer (Tada!") which I thought had to be a clue to embed in the 3 black boxes. From there on I aimlessly dug, and dug, and dug ...........
The three letters that correspond to the asymmetrically located black squares are, in order, S, E, and E. The obvious inference is that the puzzleer intended the solver to LOOK in order to SEE. So I did, but I didn't.
For a while I wondered if I should do something with those three black-as-in-Black-Friday squares, but substituting FRI never occurred to me. Alas, another meta for the "Weren't Gonna Happen" locker.
For nudges, feel free to PM me. I won't have a clue how to help you, but you might shove me ashore.
hoover wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:25 am
I saw the asymmetry in at least one of the pairs but didn't know what to do with it. Inserting FRI would never have occurred to me. Why would I think of FRI instead of F or all of FRIDAY?
Because (Friday)-ENDLESS immediately looks like FRI-ENDLESS which is a better answer than DESTITUTE and FRI-TOS confirms it beyond a doubt. (Although FRIABLE = crumbly was a new word for me and FRIARIES is a not a word in my baliwick but retroengineerable)
Abbreviations are actually far more natural and more likely than than first letters. Had there been six asymmetric squares I would have tried F for one and R for another. All F seemed kind of weak but I was at the early stage of poke and the ground and seeing what shape the dirt falls in.
Funny story. I was all set to enter Par for the course for the CrossHare midi contest for April but I mistakenly thought midi meant 7x 7 and not 11 x 11. Oops. Well.... Here's a complex but **small** meta on the subject of golf.
