LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “You Built This City”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a six-letter U.S. city.
Answer: EL PASO, found by 372 solvers, of which 312 were solo solves.

Tough for a Week 1! First step: notice that all six of these cities are two-word, probably not unimportant:

17-A: [City known for its River Walk] = SAN ANTONIO
25-A: [City known for jazz and Cajun cuisine] = NEW ORLEANS
32-A: [City known as the hometown of Elijah Wood, Ashton Kutcher, and Ron Livingston] = CEDAR RAPIDS
43-A: [City known as the home of the Manhattan Project] = LOS ALAMOS
49-A: [City known for being where Larry Bird played college basketball] = TERRE HAUTE
59-A: [City known for containing the largest oil refinery in the U.S.] = PORT ARTHUR

What now? Well, suspiciously missing from each of these clues is the state in which they are located. So let’s write out the cities + states and see what happens:

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO
TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS

So city + state initials yielded are:

SAT
NOL
CRI
LAN
THI
PAT

Those look like they could start words! And we find these six in the grid:

SATE (68-A)
NOLL (15-A)
CRIP (57-D)
LANA (5-D)
THIS (10-A)
PATO (66-A)

Those spell out contest answer EL PASO, found by 372 solvers.

Mikey G says:

I’m still not messing with Texas!

Jonesy writes:

This was like a week 3! I’ve got over 150 in a row and struggled!!

Hearkening back to last week’s post, Evan writes:

I had no idea Bob Klahn passed away until you mentioned it in your email. That’s very sad. He would occasionally write to tell me he enjoyed my Post puzzles and sometimes took the time to find whole lists of alternate theme answers for whatever puzzle I made (which he could get in minutes since he was good at coding where I have no skill there at all). There’s an obituary for Bob here, along with information about a memorial service:

https://www.delawareonline.com/obituaries/pdov0616731

Thanks for sending, Evan.

MUGGLES META Q&A WITH ME:

Much fun was had by all at our second Muggles Meta Q&A with me, your humble meta-creator. We discussed all things meta for a couple of hours, interspersed with me going over a couple of memorable puzzles from the past three years. The event was ably hosted by Muggles Chief Bob Stevens, and featured appearances by meta-constructors extraordinaire Mike Shenk, Mikey G, and Ben Chenoweth. Check it out here:

https://xword-muggles.com/content/GaffneyQA10282023.mp4

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a two-word brand of cookie.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.