IMPORTANT NOTE: As of February 2020 MGWCC is available only to subscribers at my Patreon site. A subscription costs $3/month. During January 2020 only you can download the puzzles for free on this page (see below under “This Week’s Instructions”).
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Illegal Activity”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is a seven-letter phrase.
Answer: NO CAN DO
Our “Week 3” turned out to be a Week 5 last week, so now we’re going to backpedal with a Week 2.5 this week (also we’ve got some new people and I don’t want to scare anyone off right away with two Week 5’s in a row). If you want a tougher challenge, my WSJ meta today should do the trick.
So yeah, I thought this was a Week 3! But even JanglerNPL was worried his streak might be broken (he eventually figured it out, though). Just one obvious theme entry, at 59-A: [2015 Jeff Bartsch novel about a crossword-loving couple (whose title entry is illegal in American crosswords)] = TWO ACROSS.
There’s no 2-Across in this grid, or any American grid that’s not breaking/bending the rules; but if you pretend that there is, it would spell GO in this grid (just cut the N off of NGO at 1-Across).
Now what? Treat every ?2-Across entry as if it were a similarly illegal entry in the grid (note that none of these, like the original 2-Across, actually starts an entry). They spell out, as highlighted in blue above, GO TO BOXES UNDER EACH TWO ACROSS. The boxes under each ?2-Across square spell out our contest answer, NO CAN DO, fittingly for “illegal activity.”
What made this one tougher than I’d intended? Metas where certain squares have to contain certain numbers are notoriously difficult to construct, and after almost 8 hours of trying, the closest I could get with symmetry was one single solitary maddening number off! I had planned to show you this grid, but I accidentally erased the file from my laptop — but trust me, it existed, and I stared at it in frustration (closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again the “41” would have magically changed to a “42,” etc.). Finally I just decided to ditch symmetry and plow ahead with the idea.
Unfortunately, this asymmetric placement of black squares was (very reasonably) interpreted by some solvers as the meta-related “illegal activity” mentioned in the title and at 59-A, which it wasn’t. They spent a lot of time moving black squares around to re-establish symmetry, assuming this was part of the meta. My rule is that I don’t purposely inject red herrings into metas since enough creep in on their own without my help, which is what happened here. So while it wasn’t an on-purpose, I do sympathize with those caught in that rabbit hole — it’s one of the nastier traps that’ve ever crept in here.
JanglerNPL writes:
Had me sweating, not going to lie. Broke in on finding UNDER EACH
Gwinns writes:
I had absolutely nothing for 5 hours and then BOOM.
And Squonk says:
Nice one! Inspired by Fill Me In’s recent discussions of the book?
Just a coincidence, but here is Peter Gordon’s review of Two Across. Skip to 20:00. Also Katja Brinck’s review of it from the previous week is here (skip to 15:54).
PATREON SWITCHOVER UPDATE:
Weekly Patreon tips and updates for Janaury:
1) We’re up to 637 solvers who’ve made the switch over to Patreon! Join them at the link. Thanks to everyone who’s made the jump so far; still one week left to sign up without missing a puzzle. If you have any trouble with it, please e-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging.
2) Remember that you can download today’s puzzle below (under “This Week’s Instructions”), but that after that you will need to be a Patreon backer to receive MGWCC.
3) Again, please note: if you have months left on your MGWCC Subscription, those will carry over to your Patreon account. You will be charged for one month, but I will refund that payment over the coming weeks, and after that you won’t be charged again for the duration of your remaining subscription time. Note that even if you do have time remaining on your subscription, you will still need to sign up at Patreon to receive the puzzle, starting next week.
4) I will send you a note in February verifying the number of months you have left on your subscription (if any).
That’s it for now! E-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging if you have any questions.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a familiar verb.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.