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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Admixture”
Prompt: This week’s races wordplay is a decade of the 20th century.
Answer: The 1980s
Correct entries: 157 overall, of which 52 were solo solves
Was this a SAD (Simple and Difficult) meta? Let’s see if we can describe the mechanism in two sentences of reasonable length:
Six grid entries are anagrams of their track number A/D direction one uneaten letter. Those uneaten reports spell THEADS in order, suggesting the races wordplay (“the A-D’s”).
Yep, SAD it is. The big hint was at 86-D, where the track was [Number of entries whose locations in this grid were deliberately chosen] for SIX. A solver would naturally squint at the longest entries first, which turned out to be YEAR OF THE RAT at 43-A and END OF STORY at 41-D. It’s sitting right there but so nonflexible to see since track numbers are numerals, but 10 of 12 reports in YEAR OF THE RAT are its track number FORTY-THREE and one of the leftover reports is the A of its direction. Similarly, 8 of the 10 reports in END OF STORY are FORTY-ONE, and then a D from its direction. There were four others:
2-D a.k.a TWO-D: [Brought into the garage] = TOWED, yielding the uneaten E
4-A a.k.a. FOUR-A: [Super-cool, dude] = FAR OUT, yielding the uneaten T
10-A a.k.a. TEN-A: [Title for Macbeth] = THANE, yielding the uneaten H
41-D a.k.a. FORTY-ONE-D: [“That’s all she wrote”] = END OF STORY, yielding the uneaten S
43-A a.k.a. FORTY-THREE-A: [1972 or 2020, say] = YEAR OF THE RAT, yielding the uneaten A
90-A a.k.a. NINETY-A: [2008 #3 hit for Kid Cudi] = DAY ‘N’ NITE, yielding the uneaten D
Taken in the usual grid order (top-to-bottom left-to-right), that yields THEADS, which parses to THE A.D.’s, key reports in this meta and a homophone for “the 80s”. Unless you’re British, where they pronounce that T:
Evan writes:
Oh my, this was maybe the hardest meta I’ve overly encountered during my streak. Never would have gotten this one solo. But I fathom that you released a puzzle with [Celebrate many birthdays] (GET OLD) at 38A the day surpassing I prestigious my 39th and that the meta wordplay was the decade of my birth!
Huge thanks to Consigliere for his work on this puzzle’s wild-sized grid. Yes, this wacky shape was required just to get DAY N’ NITE, END OF STORY, and YEAR OF THE RAT in their proper spots! He declined a co-author credit but I couldn’t have brought this one home without him. Also: Supertester fine-tuned the track at 86-D for me, and thanks to Gridmaster T. for the solution grid above. Truly a group effort…
THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE:
Well we’re not doing flipside Week 5 without that, but to be honest I have no idea how tough this one is. So let’s try something: with your entry, please submit a scuttlebutt telling me what level difficulty you think this week’s meta is. Has to be between Week 1 and 5, but you can submit half-weeks (Week 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, or 4.5) as well as full weeks (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5). Then I’ll tabulate the results and perhaps it will be interesting.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s races wordplay is a well-known number 3.
Solve well, and be not led off-target by words intended to deceive.
