MGWCC #299 — Friday, February 21st, 2014 — “Side Effects”

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

mgwcc298

577 solvers found Sochi’s STRAY DOGS as last week’s meta answer. Seven famous dogs had strayed outside of the grid, as you can see in the graphic at right (which I’ve stolen from Joon Pahk).

For the sake of form, let’s list those puppies:

17-A [Sandwiches made with chickpeas] = (FALA)FEL BURGERS. Fala, Franklin Roosevelt’s Scottish Terrier.

26-A [Classic Judy Garland film] = (A STA)R IS BORN. Asta, “Nick and Nora’s dog” from crosswords (and literature).

39-A [Not the star of the show] = PLAYING SECOND BA(NANA). Nana, the Newfoundland in “Peter Pan.”

48-A [One of many in a lot] = PARKING (SPOT). Spot, the yellow puppy from children’s books. There was a much, much, much, much better entry I should’ve used here, which we’ll get to in a minute.

64-A [Tasteless bumper sticker seen after John Hinckley, Jr.’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan]. = I DID IT FOR J(ODIE). You know who Odie is, and Jodie is Jodie Foster.

Humorous anecdote: I had family friends from Germany visit me in DC in 1999, and was eager to show off the city I had just moved to. When we passed the Washington Hilton I pointed out the exact spot where Hinckley had shot Reagan, and they were fascinated enough to take multiple pictures with everyone taking turns standing right where Reagan was at the fateful moment.

About a year later I discovered I’d been misinformed, and the actual spot was about 20 yards west of where I’d told them. Up to this day I’ve still never had the heart to ruin that macabre photo session for them.

13-D [Coney Island pizzeria since 1924, famous for using a coal-fired oven] = (TOTO)NNO’S. Toto, from some obscure movie I can’t be bothered to look up.

55-D [Stringed instrument mentioned in “Back in the U.S.S.R.”] = BALA(LAIKA). Laika, the dog the Soviets sent into space.

So STRAY DOGS it had to be. Vega writes:

Oh man, first Philip Seymour Hoffman, now stray dogs. February: the Dark Month.

I think it’s because I’m working on “Murder by Meta.”

drdans says:

definitely a cur-rent event


Norm Hurlbu
t writes:

To paraphrase Hawkeye Pierce, this meta was Haile Se—— of you.

Terrible! HAILE SE(LASSIE) is the theme entry that should have replaced PARKING (SPOT). While theming the puzzle I combed multiple lists of famous dogs, and of course Lassie is famous enough to be on all of them. But I spent perhaps less than a minute (over multiple scans) convincing myself that there was nothing useful that begins or ends with her, and it didn’t rise to the level of me Onelook.com-ing it. If I had I would’ve found Haile Selassie.

A painful and aggravating miss, especially since it would have fit so well in place of PARKING (SPOT). And it would’ve fixed the weak fill in that area (REDDI/UDON) since I’d have ESE to work with down there instead of ING.

Somewhat similarly, James Williams e-mailed me to say that GNARLS could’ve been clued to the music duo, since this dog exists.

And finally, OSXpert says:

This lousy winter weather makes me wish I was down in Cuba hanging out with Fidel C

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 577 correct entries received, is Anthony Lanese of Rochester, N.Y. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Anthony will also receive a 1-year subscription to the American Values Club Crossword, edited by Ben Tausig.

IN A NEW YORK META:

Exciting news: starting with the next issue (that comes out early next week), New York magazine will be carrying a meta-crossword by me in each issue. They’re generally going to be themed around popular culture and come in at around a Week 1 or 2 on difficulty level (only in print for now, but hopefully will go online in the future as well).

Very cool! Metas go mainstream.

META ROUNDUP:

And there are lots of fun metas around the Crucisphere lately:

Brendan Quigley (deadline already passed — sorry, meant to link last week!)

Andy Kravis (deadline is 5 PM this afternoon — sorry, meant to link last week!)

Evan Birnholz (deadline unknown since the puzzle’s not up yet, but will be up later today; and warning, slightly NSFW puzzles!)

Neville Fogarty (deadline is 6 AM on Thursday)

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This puzzle looks like it only has five theme entries, but there’s a sixth one lurking somewhere that completes a pattern. Which one is it? Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,222 members now!) here. Or you can download the .puz file (you may have to right-click the link and save to your Downloads folder).

mgwcc299

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.

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