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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Punc(tuation) Rock”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is a well-known song of 1977.
Answer: “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” by Elvis Costello
I thought that last week’s puzzle would be a) a bit too easy for a Week 4, and b) beloved by solvers. Well, I went 0-for-2 on those predictions…
Despite being a two-stepper, the puzzle played like a Week 5 since that first step turned out to be far more difficult than I’d envisioned — and many solvers didn’t find the solution satisfying after the fact, whether they got it or not.
As with last month’s omega puzzle, there’s a fine line between stupid and clever and I guess this fell on the wrong side of it. Or, to use a more charitable analogy, there’s a millimeter’s difference between a 500-foot home run and a routine pop fly to center. You know when a batter barely misses that towering shot and slams his bat into the dirt while trotting down the first base line in disgust? Well that’s me after seeing this meta’s reception. I think a nice little nudge somewhere would’ve improved this one greatly.
This fell squarely in the SAD (simple and difficult) style of meta, as shown by how easy it is to explain the whole thing:
The grid’s 10 P’s are paired up on rows; they represent parentheses, as hinted at by the puzzle’s title. The words in between these five pairs of parentheses spell the parenthetical part of the 1977 Elvis Costello song “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.”
See here for more discussion on it. Long story short: the P=parenthesis connection was much more difficult to make than I’d thought, so the puzzle took on an unfortunate needle-in-a-haystack search for many solvers.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 75 correct entries received, is Jay Giess of Rochester, N.Y. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, Jay will also receive a signed copy of my book Pint-Size Crosswords.
JULY WINNERS:
Congratulations to the following 10 winners, whose names were chosen at random from the 67 solvers who sent in the correct contest answer to all four of July’s challenges (MILAN, BE FRIENDS, LINCOLN CENTER, (THE ANGELS WANNA WEAR) MY RED SHOES). Each will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set:
Megan Amram — Los Angeles, Calif.
Alan Arbizu — Foster City, Calif.
Deepak Bal — Montclair, N.J.
Hesky Fisher — New York City, N.Y.
Brent Holman — San Francisco, Calif.
Ben Kramer — Huntersville, N.C.
Jonathan McCue — Seattle, Wash.
Eric Prestemon — Woodside, Calif.
Al Sanders — Loveland, Colo.
Cindy Weatherman — Matthews, N.C.
Congratulations to our twelve winners, and to everyone who went 4-for-4 in July.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a U.S state.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.