LAST WEEK’s PUZZLE:

Title: “Lost Art”
Prompt: Instructions: this puzzle’s contest answer is a Greek letter.
Answer: UPSILON, found by 309 solvers, 245 of whom were solo solves

Last week’s theme entries were a varied bunch:

17-A: [*Breakfast seen in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”] = MR. T CEREAL
24-A: [*2022 Kane Brown hit] = ONE MISSISSIPPI
38-A: [*Dental tartar, e.g.] = CALCIUM DEPOSITS
49-A: [*President whose initials spell a TV show] = JAMES A. GARFIELD
62-A: [*It was usually produced in Germany, despite the name] = CHINA DOLL

Now what? Each of these entries contains the 20th in a familiar ordered set:

T is the 20th letter of the alphabet
Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union
Calcium has the atomic number 20
JAG was the 20th president of the U.S. (let’s see if that “JAG” nickname can catch on)
Toughest one: CHINA is not here the country, but rather the material also known as porcelain. Importantly for our purposes here, it’s the traditional 20th anniversary gift. Which means I need to buy Kristin some porcelain in a few years…

What Greek letter does that point to? The 20th, which is contest answer UPSILON, found by 309 solvers. That’s our Y, in case you didn’t know (I had to look it up myself just now…)

…as did one of our speed GOATs at MGWCC, Jangler, so now I don’t feel so bad:

I took an extra 5 or so minutes figuring out what the heck China was the 20th of … not by area, not alphabetically … finally it hit me, anniversary gifts! 🙂

bodhipepper quips:

score settled

Just right for a week 2.

Hmmm…I’ll take it, but I don’t know how many solvers would agree…!

THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE:

Today’s puzzle is Week 3 of 5 in October.