"Use Your Head" January 12, 2024

[Archfrog]

I accidentally dozed off next to my 6 year old while she was falling asleep and missed the chance for my usual last minute ponder. After seeing the answer, though, it’s probably just as well . I’ll try to start a new streak next week!

[Bonnibel]

Loved this puzzle!

I was resigned to not ever being able to solve it ... untiI I recalled other metanisms where the first step was contained in a grid entry positioned right next to each themed entry.

At first I was stuck on "KINDA" relating to the suffix "ISH" but couldn't find other similar relationships.

Then I took a look at the clues and a few had similar suffixes such as 32A FoolISH and 47A SpiteFUL - but couldn't find one for each themer.

Back to the drawing board.

Back to my initial thought which was of the 5 senses (use your head), which circled me back to EAGLE eyed which then led me to THIN[E] skinned....

Initially I thought ABSENT was the answer then I thankfully remembered other metas where an additional word or phrasing was added to the grid answer to echo & reinforce the puzzle theme. The AHA moment was sweet indeed!

This was, once again, genius construction and I am just grateful that this time my brain was wired to just the right place. Either you see it or you don't. In a strange way it's even more satisfying to have struggled with it for a while before finding my way.

A very satisfying solve for me. On my own, no one to collab with, which is actually how I like it. A small personal victory.

Honestly this contest is a bright spot in my week, and I am thankful for it.

Cheers everyone!

[steveb]

BEAGLE / EAGLE-EYED was my entry point to the meta. Once I noticed that, I went looking for letters to subtract from the other words on the same lines as the themers. I had ABSE_T and had to backsolve to take the N out of MEANLY. Having gotten that far, "Use Your Head" seemed like a clear indication to tack on -MINDED

[Tom Shea]

nice construction. very solvable if you are not as absent-minded as I am.

[ImOnToo]

Glad I didn’t invest much time in this one.

[Mister Squawk]

For me this was a quick solve, although I did waste some time looking for the letters M-I-N-D-E-D in the grid or the clues.

Mrs. Squawk kindly pointed out it fit the pattern for MINDED not to appear, since the other words that completed the compounds (BRAINED, EYED, HEARTED, MOUTHED, and HANDED) likewise had to be inferred, not found.

[SHIWUTONG]

I went with the title and came up with WHeres THE FUture? It even made more sense after I saw the solution...

[PHOFER]

I didn’t look for “MINDED”, but I spent a long time looking in grid and clues for the one word “adjective” that corresponded to the “body-part hyphenated adjective” (ABSENT-MiNDED) yielded by the extra letters in KINDA etc., since all of those hyphenated words corresponded to another one word adjective in the grid. I went with ABSENT-MINDED although the pattern could justify something like CARELESS. We will see what the official solution is. Still, a great puzzle.

[Grimace]

13A incorporates variations on both the author's and editor's names.

[Joepickett]

My rabbit hole.

Instead of HARE, I used RASH which gave me E. So I had A, B, E, E, N and T. I anagrammed to get BEATEN. Seemed reasonably to me. Muggles are rarely beaten.

[BarbaraK]

With 'adjective' as the prompt and theme entries, "Snoopy" jumped off the page at me, sitting right there next to "Highly observant" WATCHFUL.

So I looked for other adjectives in the clues that could describe people, figuring I would then be able to map them to the theme entries. And I got

Snoopy (BEAGLE)
Hard (ALAN)
Spiteful (MEANLY)
Dark (NIGHT)
Bad (TSK)
Moody (EMO)

Snoopy could actually go with "Always thinking of other people" as well as "Highly observant"
Moody could be "Unlikely to take criticism well" or maybe "Not wanting to say what you really think".
Hard could be "Not playing favorites"?
Bad could be "Foolish"?

OK, it's a bit fuzzy. Let me just put those grid entries in an anagram solver and see what pops up and if I can use that to sort out the matching and ordering.

.... BATMEN ...

Ordering aside, I just couldn't convince myself that most contest crossword solvers are batmen

[Colin]

I submitted ABSENT but it brought out the terrier in me. I kept using my head and thought it would more likely be ABSENT-MINDED. But like the metas that then go on to a third step to get the ‘alternative theme answer’, I thought perhaps that might be leading back to FORGETFUL as the additional theme answer. I rejected that thought, however, because while I do not have data on the demographics of us muggles, I’m guessing there are a few of us for whom FORGETFUL does not fit the description of “an adjective that does not describe most contest solvers”

[Katiedid]

Darn! I'm so sorry I didn't solve it. Really cool meta.

There have been so many times that Matt used body parts in the meta, so that must be what the title is hinting at.

[Hidden in 3D]

Totally lost at sea and tired of banging my head against the wall! I'm going to get some fresh air and take my 27A for his daily walk.

OMG! I am so sorry! I inadvertently posted a spoiler; I had no idea that 27A was part of the metanism. As part of my apology, I am including a photo of Griffin giving me what is known around here as a "love look".

[ron]

My rabbit hole.

Instead of HARE, I used RASH which gave me E. So I had A, B, E, E, N and T. I anagrammed to get BEATEN. Seemed reasonably to me. Muggles are rarely beaten.

Same here. I eventually realized that they wouldn't scramble just one out of 6. And that while KIND, RASH and EVEN sort of stood on their own, the others needed helper words to make sense.

My quibble with this one is that I don't agree! I'd bet there are more than a few "absent minded professors" among us. I may even know of one who meets that definition from time to time.

[Flying_Burrito]

In an Inspector Clouseau turn of events, I was off the right navigation path 5 minutes in, when I saw 51D ("One of the black keys") and I adoped it as the main clue. Coincidentally strange - I thought -, two musically themed metas in a row. Maybe Mike and Matt didn't connect over Christmas break and that's why.
Initially the grid set up looked off, leading me to think about straight black squares = flat keys on a piano (i.e. c and notes, f and g). I threw in the towel right away because music study is my kryptonite (I failed it in middle school).

I picked it up again on Sunday, rethinking the E Flat clue. Could flat be = to silent E ? Ok, then if I combine some words and remove the letter E, I get some sort of connection between the words (e.g. synonym). For instance, M(e)ANLY = VIR, H(e)ATH = THIN(e). No, that's not going anywhere, but the letter E in THINE is definitely part of the answer (after all, if you replace the E with a K you get THINK, which is the same as "Use your head").
What if I replace an E from the answer with another letter to get a clue word? EAST (52A) becomes Cast (15A "Cast Aloft"), THINE becomes Think (50A "What you really think"), END (4D) becomes And (29A "Reid and Westover"). It's 3 (with the letters C,A,T) so I think I have a pattern, right?;But is Matt really telling me that the answer should be CATTY ? (and nm, i could not find 2 other letters to fit in that pattern). But wait a minute, maybe I am on something. If I go back to my original line of thinking and I use just the initial letters, there may be a 3 letter word that uses 2 of those letters. Interesting. So Manly = VIR, uses 2 of MTV answer letters, Hath = Thine uses 2 of HOT letters. Then nothing. Then football games started...

[KayW]

With 'adjective' as the prompt and theme entries, "Snoopy" jumped off the page at me, sitting right there next to "Highly observant" WATCHFUL.

So I looked for other adjectives in the clues that could describe people, figuring I would then be able to map them to the theme entries. And I got

Snoopy (BEAGLE)
Hard (ALAN)
Spiteful (MEANLY)
Dark (NIGHT)
Bad (TSK)
Moody (EMO)

Snoopy could actually go with "Always thinking of other people" as well as "Highly observant"
Moody could be "Unlikely to take criticism well" or maybe "Not wanting to say what you really think".
Hard could be "Not playing favorites"?
Bad could be "Foolish"?

OK, it's a bit fuzzy. Let me just put those grid entries in an anagram solver and see what pops up and if I can use that to sort out the matching and ordering.

.... BATMEN ...

Ordering aside, I just couldn't convince myself that most contest crossword solvers are batmen

That was my rabbit hole as well. But mine hit a dead end instead of the Batcave.

[DBMiller]

My rabbit hole.

Instead of HARE, I used RASH which gave me E. So I had A, B, E, E, N and T. I anagrammed to get BEATEN. Seemed reasonably to me. Muggles are rarely beaten.

Same here but was going to submit "brow beaten". But didn't feel right.

[krf]

My rabbit hole: Like "Head" in the puzzle name, there were 9 word in the grid containing the pair "EA", compared with 3 or 4 in the most recent puzzles. Coincidence or not? Not.

( HEAVE, REAR, BEAGLE, EAU, BEAU, MEANLY, EAMON, HEATH, EAST)

[clonefitz]

My rabbit hole.

Instead of HARE, I used RASH which gave me E. So I had A, B, E, E, N and T. I anagrammed to get BEATEN. Seemed reasonably to me. Muggles are rarely beaten.

I also saw RASH and tried anagramming the rest, THIN(E) and KIND(A) finally clued me in to the right path.