MGWCC #422 — Friday, July 1st, 2016 — “First Things First”

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:

http://www.mgwcc.com/

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

mgwcc421

Chris King asked us to find a festive group last week, and our theme entries — known from their stars, not their lengths, which were all 7 letters — were:

1-A [*College student’s worry] = MIDTERM
8-A [*Makes happen [Note: use this clue’s answer after the other one] = INDUCES
20-A [*Chocolate company known for ovoid products] = CADBURY
53-A [*___ Mountain (Vancouver ski resort)] = CYPRESS
62-A [*”Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” poet] = T.S. ELIOT
24-D [*Field gathering] = HARVEST
26-A [*Avenue home to Don Draper’s company [Note: use this clue’s answer before the other one]

In a vacuum, you’d be hard-pressed to find a commonality amongst these seven. But look at the little hint sticking out: those seven entries are nicely symmetrical, except for 1-A, which has no counterpart. Or does it? Could HOLIDAY be important?

Considering the instructions, probably so! And then you realize that each of these seven suggests a holiday:

MIDTERM is not only a test but a kind of election, so ELECTION DAY
INDUCES is often used in reference to labor, so LABOR DAY
CADBURY is famous for their chocolate Easter eggs, so EASTER
CYPRESS is a tree, so ARBOR DAY
T.S. ELIOT has a famous poem called “Ash Wednesday,” so ASH WEDNESDAY
HARVEST is a Thanksgiving theme, so THANKSGIVING
MADISON was a president, so PRESIDENT’S DAY

Next question: why these holidays and not others? What’s their common link? A little musing might lead you to the interesting fact that these seven are not tied to a specific date on the calendar, but rather to a specific day of the week. Intriguing!

Election Day is Tuesday, Labor Day is Monday, Easter is Sunday, Arbor Day is Friday (we all had to look that one up, including the constructor I bet!), Ash Wednesday is Wednesday (if you had to look that one up then forget it), Thanksgiving is Thursday, and President’s Day is Monday. Now what? Well, these are all 7-letter entries, and the title has “calendar” in it…so let’s write the grid entries out by day of the week:

CADBURY is Sunday, but now there are two Monday holidays. Which to use first? Oh yeah, those mysterious parentheticals in the clues to 8-A and 26-D tell us! MADISON first, INDUCES second. So let’s start again:

CADBURY
MADISON
INDUCES
MIDTERM
TSELIOT
HARVEST
CYPRESS

Now what? Hey, those look sort of like a monthly calendar, don’t they? Imagine an Su-Mo-Tu-We-Th-Fr-Sa across the top, and highlight the day each holiday falls on:

CADBURY
MADISON
INDUCES
MIDTERM
TSELIOT
HARVEST
CYPRESS

And there’s meta answer CANDLES, found by 116 solvers.

What a tour de force this is. This is one of my favorite types of meta, as if the solver is orienteering the forest with just the subtlest of hints pointing the way at each juncture, always logical and solid enough to be sure that you’re going in the right direction. Awesome.

Maggie W. says:

Can I blow them out and wish for more metas? A nice finish to an excellent guest constructor month!

Jason T writes:

Brilliant and elegant. If only there were a Saturday holiday! So how much time did Chris spend trying to find one?

Probably a while. But who wants a holiday on Saturday? That’s already fun day.

Meg worked hard for this one:

Finally!!! It was the final step of which letters to choose that killed me!

Mike W. quips:

What a wick-ed puzzle!

And finally, Ale M got there eventually, but with a wacky detour:

I first found a more obscure answer using this method, but I started the week with Monday and used the letters from both grid entries AND their associated holidays. Those 14 letters anagram to LIVELIER NYMPHS, certainly a festive group as well!

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 116 correct entries received, is Summer Herrick of Seattle, Wash. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Summer will also receive a 1-year subscription to Matt Gaffney’s Daily’s Crossword.

Thanks for a lovely coda to Guest Constructor Month 2016, Chris! And big thanks also to Byron Walden, Sam Donaldson, and Jeff Chen for their contributions. A great suite of puzzles from a power group of crossword writers, and I hope everyone dug them as much as I did.

Now, let’s see if I still remember how to do these things…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a Best Picture-winning movie that would complete this puzzle’s theme.

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

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