Title: “Which Side Are You On?”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a five-letter verb.
Answer: DRIFT
Correct entries: 172 overall, of which 58 were solo solves
You won’t believe this, but I was worried that this would be too easy for a Week 3. I even considered pushing it to February so it could’ve run as a Week 2! No lie.
Not even close, since this turned out to be a solid Week 5. Let’s take a look at the videotape: just two long entries, CLOSED CAPTION and THROW AIRBALLS, the second of which turned to be theme. Two other longish 9’s on the downs, DOING WELL and LIVESTOCK, both of which turned out to be theme, thought that was far from obvious.
The big nudges were in the clues this time. 11-A in particular stood out, where ABDUL was clued as:
[Paula who sings “Lost in a dream / I don’t know which way to go / You aren’t all that you seem / And baby I’m movin’ way too slow / I’ve been a fool before / Wouldn’t like to get my love caught In the slammin’ door / How about some information please” and “I take two steps forward / I’ll take two steps back / We come together ‘cuz opposites attract / And you know It ain’t fiction, just a natural fact” and “Baby just remember I gave you my heart / Ain’t no one gonna tear us apart / He could promise the moon and the stars above / Even if he promised me the world / Just remember I’m forever your girl” and “He’s a cold-hearted snake / Look into his eyes, uh-oh / He’s been tellin’ lies / He’s a lover boy at play / He don’t play by the rules, uh-oh / Girl don’t play the fool, no”]
Obviously that means something, but what? Solvers checked out the full lyrics of the four songs quoted, also looking at whether they were A- or B-sides when released as singles (see puzzle title). But in fact this turned out to be what I call a “Red-Headed League” meta, where seemingly ridiculous lengths are necessary to achieve a rather simple aim. In this case there were further hints that 11-A might not be the only clue to look at: 56-D was not quite as verbose as 11-A, but strongly suggested that it might be meta-related, too: [Tan, Klobuchar, Sedaris, Poehler, Carter, Schneider, Grant, or Winehouse, for example] is a comically long way to go for AMY (whoops, how did I forget “Reynaldo” there?). A few other clues are a little too wordy as well.
So what was their purpose? Well, the thing I thought would stick out a mile was the word “Guinea” on top of “Pigs” at the top of the fifth column. If you notice that one thing you’re off to the races, but it turned out to be more hidden than I’d figured.
The key to the meta is this: the last clue in each of the first five columns runs over to the top of the next column. This occasionally happens in puzzles but editors try to avoid it, since a) it just looks weird and b) the solver could miss that stray second part of the clue altogether and be left unfairly perplexed. That this would happen in all of the columns (except the first, of course) in the grid was something else I thought would stand out quickly to solvers, but I clearly overestimated the noticeability of that aspect as well (though I did hear from a number of forehead-slappers wondering why they hadn’t noticed it right away, which is some consolation).
So you can take the original clue on its own terms, and you can take the first full clue of the following column on its own terms. But then a funny thing happens: if you take that top fragment of the previous row’s clue and read it along with the first full clue in the next column, it becomes another clue that works for another entry in the grid (if you’re wondering, this meta took me longer to write than any I can remember — about 20 hours. Lots of moving parts). Like so:
[UK voter who’s on the right] = TORY and [Track] = WAY, but [On the right track] = DOING WELL (13-D)
[Riri, Adele, Babs, Madonna, the Divine Miss M., et al.] = DIVAS and [Hoops] = RINGS, but [Miss M., et al. Hoops] = THROW AIRBALLS. That’s “Miss metal hoops.” Anyone could do what Steph Curry does, he just gets lucky over and over and over and over, that’s all.
[Common recipe measurement, for short] = TBSP and [Distances] are AMBITS, but [Short distances] = FEET (53-A). This was supposed to be [Measurement for short distances] but as Webmaster (who put a lot of work into this meta, so hat tip to him) and I were adjusting the clues in the PDF this one somehow got changed to just [Short distances], which also works and therefore went unnoticed by me until it was too late to change. Sausage, legislation, and metas — you don’t wanna know!
[French-speaking country on the Gulf of Guinea] is BENIN and [Pigs and such] = LIVESTOCK, but [Guinea pigs and such] are RODENTS (33-D).
[Actress Vardalos of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”] is NIA and [Expression] is PHRASE, but [Wedding expression] is I DO (51-A).
In grid order from top-to-bottom those spell contest answer DRIFT, a verb which describes the motion of those clue fragments. The title asked those fragments which clue column they were in; not real helpful, but again, I thought this was a solid Week 3 so wasn’t looking to give anything else away on that front.
So that was the simple purpose of ABDUL’s clue and a few others: to make the columns align properly for the theme trick to work.
I grew more confident this was a Week 3 when the mysterious Supersolver e.a. submitted his correct answer at 12:10 PM (!!). “Whew, it’s a Week 3 after all,” I sighed to myself in relief. And then only four more right answers arrived over the next three hours…anyway, quite a workout for all of us, me writing it (and Webmaster and Consigliere and Supertester in pitching in) and you all solving it. Good thing it’s not Week 4 this Week! Oh, wait…
2021 PRIZE WINNERS:
Congratulations to our 68 2021 MGWCC Prize winners! These super-solvers are divided into six groups based on how many of last year’s 52 metas they solved correctly and on how much help they had. Starting with the Solo winners:
SOLO GOLD:
The following two solvers got all 52 metas correct last year without any help from any other solver. Not easy to do, so huge congrats to this august pair:
Paul Melamud — Milford, N.J.
Paige Smyth — New Jersey
SOLO SILVER:
The following solvers got 50 or 51 of last year’s metas correct without any help from any other solver. Extremely impressive!
Rich Bragg — Los Altos, Calif.
Ameet Brahmavar — Vancouver, Wash.
Liz Goff — Toronto, Ont.
Neville Fogarty — Newport News, Va.
Jeffrey Harris — Nashville, Tenn.
Brent Holman — San Francisco, Calif.
Jeremy Horwitz — San Francisco, Calif.
Barbara Koehler — Warrenton, Va.
Peter Washington — Chico, Calif.
SOLO BRONZE:
The following solvers got 48 or 49 of last year’s metas correct without any help from any other solver. Medal-worthy, indeed!
Peter Abide — Biloxi, Miss.
Tyler Hinman — San Francisco, Calif.
Carl Holzman — Evanston, Ill.
Richard Kalustian — Tacoma, Wash.
Jonathan McCue — Seattle, Wash.
David Squire — Flagstaff, Ariz.
Eric Prestemon — Woodside, Calif.
Jason Taniguchi — Toronto, Ont.
Congratulations to our 2021 Solo Medalists! Tough enough solving these even with a nudge, but going totally solo is almost superhuman. Well done!
2021 GROUP GOLD MEDALISTS:
No shame in a nudge if that’s how you roll! And it can be fun to meta with friends. The following MGWCC superfans solved all 52 of 2021’s puzzles with help from other solver(s) on 5 or more of them:
Megan Amram — Los Angeles, Calif.
Evan Birnholz — Drexel Hill, Penna.
Abby Braunsdorf — Lafayette, Ind.
Matt Breen — Madison, Wisc.
Ethan Budin — Deerfield, Ill.
Lisa Cope — Mason, O.
Jared Dashoff — Alexandria, Va.
Todd Dashoff — Philadelphia, Penna.
Zen Dexter — Kellyville, N.S.W., Australia
Adam Doctoroff — Brookline, Mass.
Meg Duvall — St. Petersburg, Fl.
Gideon Fostick — Givat Smhuel, Israel
Lily Geller — Brooklyn, N.Y.
Justin Graham — Oakland, Calif.
Toby Golick — New York City, N.Y.
Peter Gordon — Great Neck, N.Y.
Gutman — Baton Rouge, La.
Peter Gwinn — Chicago, Ill.
David Hill — Nyack, N.Y.
Ben Jones — Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
Bill Katz — San Rafael, Calif.
Heather Kennedy — Dripping Springs, Tex.
Eric Klis — St. Louis Park, Minn.
Jeremy Koenig — Washington, D.C.
Jesse Lansner — Rochester, N.Y.
Jay Livingston — New York City, N.Y.
KayW — Chicago, Ill.
Craig Mazin — La Canada, Calif.
Scout Mitchell — Bellingham, Wash.
Patricia Miga — Grapevine, Tex.
Jay Miller — Pasadena, Calif.
Rich Pardoe — Houston, Tex.
Rachel Parsons — Chappaqua, N.Y.
Brett Rose — Chicago, Ill.
Seth Rotkin — Los Angeles, Calif.
David Stein — Silver Spring, Md.
Tom Tabanao — Happy Valley, Ore.
Cindy Weatherman — Matthews, N. Car.
Jordan Whitson — Durham, N. Car.
Maggie Wittlin — New York City, N.Y.
Cynthia Wong
Congratulations to all of our Group Gold medalists!
2021 GROUP SILVER MEDALISTS:
The following MGWCC superfans solved 50 or 51 of 2021’s 52 puzzles with help from other solver(s) on 3 or more of them:
David Andre — San Francisco, Calif.
Bret Baack — Fort Collins, Colo.
Laura Braunstein — Lebanon, N.H.
Tamara Brenner — Elmhurst, Ill.
Sara Dacus — Searcy, Ark.
Dan Echt — Mapleville, R.I.
HeadinHome — Charlotte, N. Car.
Summer Herrick — Seattle, Wash.
Kathy Johnescu — Alameda, Calif.
Andy Keller — Apple Valley, Minn.
Nathaniel Lee — Pleasanton, Calif.
Rich Novo — Sun Lakes, Ariz.
Martin Reinfried
Marcia Rose — Delray Beach, Fla.
Joe Ross — Cincinnati, O.
Coreen Steinbach — Pompey, N.Y.
Dan Valachovic — Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Les Yonce — Richmond, Va.
2021 GROUP BRONZE MEDALISTS:
The following MGWCC superfans solved 48 or 49 of 2021’s 52 puzzles with help from other solver(s) on 1 or more of them:
Tom Burnakis — Jacksonville, Fla.
Steve Blais — Maidstone, Ont.
hashbrown — Scotland
Joe — Cleveland, O.
Katie Hamill — Arlington, Mass.
Julian Lim — Singapore, Singapore
Tina Lippman – Newburgh, Ind.
Mark Russell — Taft, Calif.
Jesse Simons — Somerville, Mass.
Alex Sisti — Whitesboro, N.Y.
Karen Spencer — Morgantown, W.Va.
Congratulations to all of our 2021 prize winners! Target date to send out your prizes is February 28th, so keep an eye out soon thereafter. I’ll announce here when they’re all out.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a famous American of the past or present.