LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Several steps required for May’s Week 5 puzzle. First one was to notice the commonality among the six theme entries:

17-A [Easy A, sometimes (64-Across)] = INTRO COURSE
21-A [Radii and such (57-Down)] = HUMAN BONES
32-A [“Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car” author (11-Down)] = IAN FLEMING
46-A [Five-time Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy nominee of the 1980s (23-Across)] = MARLA GIBBS
60-A [Reverse direction (8-Down)] = TURN AROUND
65-A [Alley achievement (4-Down)] = PERFECT GAME

What’s the common thread? Each of these entries suggests a three-digit number: An INTRO COURSE is traditionally referred to as “[subject] 101”; There are 206 HUMAN BONES; IAN FLEMING created James Bond, a.k.a. Agent 007; MARLA GIBBS starred on the hit show “227”; If you TURN AROUND you “do a 180”; and a PERFECT GAME in bowling is a 300.

We have that, plus the mysterious clue numbers in the six theme clues. Nudged by the title and
the fact that all six three-digit numbers are on the low end (300 is the highest), 64 solvers realized that the three-digit numbers referred to previous MGWCC puzzles.

And when you looked up (via Google search or the Search box on this site) the relevant clues in those previous MGWCC puzzles, a curious pattern appeared:

64-Across in MGWCC #101 is ALA
57-Across in MGWCC #206 is EKE
11-Down in MGWCC #007 is MAAM
23-Across in MGWCC #227 is TET
8-Down in MGWCC #180 is MMMM
4-Down in MGWCC #300 is ENE

As you can see, those are all palindromes. Contest instructions asked for one of this puzzle’s 78 entries, and a scan of MGWCC 313’s grid finds but one palindrome: contest answer OHO! Not quite an “AHA moment,” since that would’ve been too obvious to guessers. But I think the OHO moment works nicely.

Gwinns says:

Can’t believe you planted all those palindromes over the past 6 years just for this meta.

And Tahnan writes:

Spent a little time staring at puzzle 216 before deciding to check my vague memory of human anatomy…

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 64 correct entries received, is Lance Enfinger of Bradenton, Fla. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Lance will also receive a one-year subscription to Peter Gordon’s new Kickstarter campaign, Fireball Fortnightly News Crosswords.

MONTHLY WINNERS:

36 solvers submitted the correct contest answer to all five of May’s challenges (OCTOPUS, LIFE, ROME, HARVARD, OHO). The following fifteen lucky and skillful winners, chosen randomly from that group, will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set:

Jeremy Conner — Los Angeles, Calif.

Jason Taniguchi — Toronto, Ont.

Congratulations to our winners, and to everyone who went 5-for-5 in May.

TALK OF THE NATION:

The Nation‘s Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto wrote an incisive article about MGWCC yesterday. Check it out here:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180145/meta-physician

META WORLD PIECES:

More metas for your amusement:

Muller (deadline: Sunday, June 8th at 11 PM ET)

Birnholz (deadline: Friday, June 13th at 6 PM ET)

Gaffney (New York magazine; deadline: Wednesday, June 11th at midnight ET)

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is one of the stars of “Melrose Place.” Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday. NOTE: Try clearing your browser if the submissions form is not open on your screen.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,259 members now!) here. Or you can download the .puz file (you may have to right-click the link and save to your Downloads folder).

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