LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
We were looking for a historical American political figure last week, and our theme entries were:
17-A [They’ve seen “Casablanca” and “Pulp Fiction” a dozen times, maybe] = FILM LOVER. I was using “they” as a gender-neutral first-person pronoun here, but it (understandably) caused some confusion so I’ll stick with the dull-but-clear “person who” construction from now on.
26-A [Dismissive phrase] = THAT’S NONSENSE
42-A [Spur to action] = KICK IN THE REAR
57-A [“Hollywood Reporter” subject] = OSCAR TALK
What’s the common thread? The last word in these phrases can be replaced with a BU-double letter word without changing its meaning: Film BUFF, That’s BULL, Kick in the BUTT, Oscar BUZZ. This suggests meta answer AARON BURR, found by 153 solvers.
Maggie W. writes:
I guess there are more historical US political figures than famous Melville characters, eh?
And Mike W says:
Burr – a fitting answer for the first week of winter.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 153 correct entries received, is Jim Sempsrott of Raleigh, N. Car. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Jim will also receive a one-year subscription to MGWCC. Next week’s winner will receive the same.
SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE:
Reminder that MGWCC goes subscription-only starting next week! It’s $26 per year, and gift subscriptions are available as well. Hope you’ll join me in 2015 — subscribe here.
TRIVIA ANSWER:
The answer to Mike Wilhelm’s trivia question from last week is Montana, formed from the first letters of Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Arizona. Good one, Mike!
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is an appropriate eight-letter answer to the clue [Reykjavik*]. 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.
UPDATE, 12/27, 10:35 AM: Note that this puzzle (MGWCC343b) is a revised version of MGWCC #343, which turned out to be much tougher than I’d anticipated (exactly zero solvers had gotten it correct after 22 hours). In this revised version, one word in brackets has been added to each of the four theme entries.
To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite, download the .puz file (you may have to right-click the link and save to your Downloads folder).
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.