IMPORTANT NOTE: As of February 2020 MGWCC is available only to subscribers at my Patreon page. A subscription costs $3/month.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Add to the Mix”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is one of 50.
Answer: GEORGIA
Number of correct entries: 506
Tough for a Week 1! I aim for the low-to-mid 600s on Week 1s, but this puzzle only came in at 506. Let’s take a look at the videotape:
We had eight clues with parenthetical numbers 1-8 appended, plus one more hinty entry:
13-D: [Herb used in pizza sauce (1)] = OREGANO
66-A: [Bob or beehive, e.g. (2)] = HAIRDO
28-A: [Americans abroad (3)] = EXPATS
35-A: [“This isn’t a joke!” (4)] = I’M SERIOUS
52-D: [Zero (5)] = AUGHT
1-A: [Mysterious puzzle (6)] = ENIGMA
11-D: [Big road, in Spanish (7)] = AVENIDA
17-A: [What like minds may reach independently (8)] = SAME NOTION. “Slightly dubious” as an entry, as we sometimes say about a chess move.
And then the hinty clue:
59-A: [Like the eight theme entries, you might say] = OVERSTATED
Aha! said many solvers upon reading that. Turns out that each of the entries with a parenthetical is a U.S. state + another letter, then anagrammed:
OREGANO minus A = Oregon
HAIRDO minus R = Idaho
EXPATS minus P = Texas
I’M SERIOUS minus E = Missouri
AUGHT minus G = Utah
ENIGMA minus G = Maine
AVENIDA minus I = Nevada
SAME NOTION minus O = Minnesota
Those subtracted letters spell ARPEGGIO. Play the theme trick one more time:
ARPEGGIO minus P = contest answer GEORGIA.
Docison makes use of our leftover P:
A peach of a puzzle!
Bird Lives deadpans:
Disappointed not to find my home state — Pennsylvania.
That would be quite the anagram…
Jeremy Smith says:
As a musician, I came very close to submitting ARPEGGIO—then I realized there are more than 50 ways to arpeggiate!
28 solvers did submit ARPEGGIO, overlooking the final step. I sent this to the panel, since it was a bit sneaky for a Week 1 and there are a couple of YouTube videos out there labeling arpeggio as one of 50 ways to do this or that musically. But they rejected accepting ARPEGGIO as an alternate answer by a 4-1 vote.
Rand is 1-for-1 here at the site:
My first MG XC!
And finally, Magoo quips:
Ironically quite an understated meta this week.
Puzzle people Alex Boisvert and Jeremy Horwitz sent along a little gem they wrote for a Los Angeles puzzle event in 2014. It’s strikingly similar to MGWCC #614, and in fact they share one common answer, which made me laugh out loud when I got to it.
Took me 39 minutes and 27 seconds to solve — beat that! And I definitely used the crossword grid included; seems like it would be insanely difficult without it. Solve it here:
PATREON SWITCHOVER UPDATE:
1) We’re up to 856 solvers who’ve made the switch over to Patreon! Join them at the link. Thanks to everyone who’s made the jump so far; If you have any trouble with it, please e-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging.
2) About half of January and February’s refunds are done for those who have months left on their pre-Patreon subscriptions. As I mentioned, it’s a laborious process and is taking some time, so please bear with me! Aiming to have them all done by next week’s post.
3) If you would like to keep solving but truly do not want to have a Patreon account, please e-mail me (crosswordcontest@gmail.com) and we can work out alternate payment. I have a list of about 25 solvers who can’t or don’t want to go the Patreon route, and I have a separate mailing list to get the puzzle to them each week. I’m trying to keep this list very small for logistical reasons, though, so please do sign up at Patreon unless you really have strong feelings against it.
That’s it for now. E-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging if you have any questions.
GUEST CONSTRUCTOR PUZZLE:
This week’s puzzle is by the great Peter Gordon. Among many other puzzling achievements, Peter is the founder and editor of the venerable indie venue Fireball Crosswords, whose slogan is: “These puzzles are hard. How hard? If you have to ask, too hard for you.”
10 of the 45 puzzles included in a Fireball subscription are metas, BTW, and they’re very good.
Peter also writes the 20-times-per-year current events puzzle Fireball Newsflash crosswords, which has an avid following as well.
In the photo above, Peter is pictured with Maki Kaji, president of Japanese publishing company Nikoli, which popularized sudoku in Japan and later worldwide. And yes, that’s Peter’s actual license plate!
And here is his puzzle for this week…
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
What is the answer to the question in this puzzle? (Hint: Z = 26)
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.