"In A Crunch" February 2, 2024

[hoover]

@Susan Goldberg


I’m thinking that the Taylor Swift showings will be an actual bet. People bet on everything these days!


They could make it a bet and people would bet on it, but how many times she is shown is strictly at the discretion of the TV director who could be influenced by several factors including making a bet himself.

But you can bet on all sorts of things associated with the half time show - first song, last song.

Or bet on the length of the national anthem

Or the temperature of the field when the game starts

Get your bets in early.

https://www.sportsbookreview.com/picks/ ... rops-2024/

A weekish ago, I was actually sitting in a Las Vegas area restaurant as the Chiefs defeated the Ravens and in the Las Vegas airport as the 49ers defeated the Lions, so I probably could have found a sports book to put some money down on Taylor Swift, but I didn't. Oh well.

[hoover]

I had to be dragged to shore because this one broke me. It all works neatly and is an amazing construction, but boy I went in a different direction.

There are four starred Across clues and corresponding answers: SCALE UP, SEA FLOORS, MOON SEEDS, and HOT WING. All the answers have two words, and "second counts" in the clue for 70A got me thinking about the letter counts in the first and second words. They are, respectively: (5,2), (3,6), (4,5) and (3,4). Ah, so each one is different! But how do we get to five letters from four answers?

Well, look at that! There are five Down answers that also have two words: DEFER TO, NEW POTATO, DIET PEPSI, TEA SETS, and REC ROOMS. If we count the letters in each word, we have (5,2), (3,6), (4,5), (3,4) and (3,4). Hey, they are nearly paired one-to-one with the across answers, except we have two paired with HOT WING.

So then we have SCALE UP/DEFER TO, SEA FLOORS/NEW POTATO, MOON SEEDS/DIET PEPSI, and HOT WING/TEA SETS/REC ROOM. I was sure this couldn't be a coincidence, but looking for common letters, crossing letters, second letters did nothing, and I even tried every other letter like I should have with the original four answers. I tried mixing and matching words to see if I could get alternate answers. Combos like HOT SETS and NEW FLOORS could have made sense, but MOON PEPSI or DIET SEEDS was a non-starter. But I was stuck in this rabbit hole.

The only other avenue that I thought might bear fruit was "crunching" TIME to get "second" answers to clues: LIME was a Mai Tai ingredient, and TIDE was a Sailor's worry, but other variations like TOME,TAME or TIMS had no matches. And as to how that would have mated with the starred clues, who knows?

Anyway, it broke my brain enough that I never reset to try looking at the original four starred answers.

This certainly deserves the attention of @The XWord Rabbit .

[woozy]

My only problem I had was somehow I got it into my head that 27A rather than 32A was the one with an asterisk. That threw me for a good five minutes.

[JeanneC]

Not in my wheelhouse this week. However, it was a wonderfully constructed puzzle.
The ones that get away are the reason I spend countless hours of enjoyment working on these puzzles every week.
More, I say!

[psg117]

I was so sure “sitter” had 5 letters in it, even as I was confidently typing all 6 letters in the email subject line on Thursday night.

It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon when I randomly remembered the prompt and realized my mistake. Doh! Awesome puzzle!

[mikeB]

Titles can be tricky, because they can be nudges useful from the onset of the solving, or they can sit on the sidelines until the very end, where they provide that final click; sometimes both. One insight that typically eludes us at the start of our solving is which role the Title plays, and that uncertainty can send us chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. For example, this time, the Title colludes with Clue 70A by sharing the word “Crunch”. This linkage suggests that the solving involves something in the Title or the Clue, or – since they share a word – perhaps both. Uh-oh. We might be thinking about Crunch or Time or both – rabbits galore. However, experience teaches us that there is such a thing as a Special Clue, a term I would use for a Clue that decisively nudges us in a certain direction. When present, such clues are typically easy to spot: often placed as the last Across Clue and usually including a gratuitous explanation somewhat wordier than a typical clue. What makes a Special Clue important to the solving is this gratuitously offered explanation. Yes, both the Title and Clue 70A invoke the term “Crunch”, but the golden nudge is in the gratuitous explanation: “(when every second counts)”. Not Time, not Crunches, but (as it turns out) every second letter. The lesson learned is that an explanation that is not essential to figuring out the grid entry, especially if it is part of the last Across Clue, should trigger a concerted effort to understand exactly what that explanation is trying to tell us. It may not fast-track us to the solution, but it will help to narrow the field of search in the right direction and possibly suppress the rabbit population. One last thought about this particular Special Clue: It is a dual-use Clue that comes to our rescue a second time, after we’ve discovered CLUE FOR ONE DOWN – (Huh?) – when we need to re-apply that nudge to discover HASTE within the clue’s wording. To me, it is a highlight of this meta that we are twice nudged by that same Special Clue, and it exemplifies the genius that goes into these masterpieces. Hats off to Mr. Shenk -- what fun!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is HASTE. As suggested by the clue for 70-Across, TIME (“when every second counts”), taking every second letter of the four theme answers spells CLU/E FOR/ ONE D/OWN. Repeating that technique with the clue for 1-Down (CHEAP SITTER) yields the contest answer.

You needed to follow a trail with several steps to get this one right, and many of you did. We had 1,427 entries, with 88% correct, above our usual level of 75% or so. One wrong answer drew an unusually high vote: UNCLE with 70 entries, making it all the way to 1 Down but not completing that final step. Plus another 4 for NIECE.

Congrats to this week's winner: Michael Stucke of Mason, Ohio!

[ship4u]

A fellow Buckeye won the mug! It's getting closer!

[The XWord Rabbit]

"In a Crunch" by Mr. Shenk was just enough to reel in a Muggle fish. First, the method, contained in the clue for 70A: “Crunch ____ (when every second counts)”. Every other letter in the four anchor entries spelled out “CLUE FOR ONE DOWN.” Every other letter in that clue (Cheap Sitter) spelled out the answer: HASTE.

A single obvious nominee: ZooAnimalsOnWheels (Post #252). A poor Muggle who couldn’t get beyond enumerating the letter counts in the two-word themers. In the end, desperation set in. Yummy Rabbit food, indeed.

Those of you who know the Rabbit well are aware he’s been a bit obsessed with old TV commercials lately. Well, this week’s meta brought to mind one of the strangest ads he can remember. A few years ago the Jeep Motor Co. went all in, recreating “Groundhog Day” to advertise their product. A rousing success, challenging the likes of Stan Freberg.



Borrowing from popular films is nothing new, of course, but in 1991 the Nestle’s Co. borrowed from a movie you’d never expect in a million years. We’ll end it with this -– Nestle’s CRUNCH bar meets “The Hunt for Red October.”



Stay tuned! The Rabbit announces finalists this week!

[Merry Potter]

A fellow Buckeye won the mug! It's getting closer!

Close, very close to where I call home!

[Plymouthrock]

Whoops! I submitted UNCLE. I thought it fit the title nicely; if the Aunt wasn't available ask the Uncle..... Should have kept my wits about me and followed the mechanic all the way through.

I had same thought but muddled on.