XWord Muggles Forum

Richard B. wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 5:44 am Congratulations to this week’s winner, our own Al Sisti!!! Nicely done Al.

So I got that going for me... which is nice.

Congratulations to all solvers, and to Al Sisti for winning the contest this week.

The solution to the puzzle is the film MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, based on the August Wilson play. Wilson wrote a collection of plays which he called the Century Cycle (also called the Pittsburgh Cycle). We hoped that even if solvers hadn't heard of the movie – but had found a potential meta mechanism – they might Google the puzzle's title, which would provide a nudge. In the grid, there were four theme entries which began with the words MOTHER, STORMY, DARK, and REAR, each a synonym for the four words in the title of the movie. Also hidden in the grid were the names VIOLA (Davis, 4A) and CHAD/WICK (Boseman, 31D and 50D) who starred in the film, plus AUGUST (9D) and WILSON (27D) as additional tributes.

Thanks for solving, and please take a look at our new contest (for which there's a new post in this forum).

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:16 am

Richard B. wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 5:44 am Congratulations to this week’s winner, our own Al Sisti!!! Nicely done Al.

So I got that going for me... which is nice.

Yay! Congratulations, Al! Great to see another muggle winner!

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 4:15 pm

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:16 am

Richard B. wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 5:44 am Congratulations to this week’s winner, our own Al Sisti!!! Nicely done Al.

So I got that going for me... which is nice.

Yay! Congratulations, Al! Great to see another muggle winner!

As I said to Brian when I submitted, I did the grid and was fooling around with the theme words -- even looked up "Century Cycle" -- with nothing coming of it. Then that night -- being a huge blues fan -- I decided to check out this movie "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." Still nothing clicked. Then when it was over, I was looking up stuff about the movie because I was BLOWN AWAY by Chadwick Boseman's performance (I knew the name, but only because of his sad passing, but had never seen him in anything, and didn't even know he was in this movie until I looked up the credits). Anyway, I saw again the reference to "Century Cycle," and that's when I started saying "hey, the meta I was just doing also referenced that title. What a coincidence." Still didn't click. It was only when I was going through the (by now, quite familiar) themed entries in my head, one at a time, that the light bulb *finally* went on!

With cycle and mothership, I got ET in my head and had a very hard time letting it go. Was there dark chocolate in there as well as the Reeses pieces? There was a storm right, or was that Close Encounters.

And the first time I googled Century Cycle, I saw the plays but said, no that can't be it, we're looking for a movie, not a play, so wandered off into 100 mile bike rides. Second (or maybe tenth:) time, I finally said, hmm, I wonder if any of those plays got made into movies.

One of my favorite drinks is a Dark and Stormy, so that was a major roadblock to thinking synonyms.

I missed all the Easter eggs, thanks for pointing those out Brian.