IMPORTANT NOTE: As of today, MGWCC is now a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe here:
The puzzle will now be delivered by e-mail every Friday to subscribers. The previous week’s solution, e-mails, and other crossword-related links will still appear here every Friday as usual, but that week’s puzzle itself will not. The MGWCC Google Group is also now inactive. [UPDATE — actually, we hit a minor technical glitch and this week’s puzzle will go out both to subscribers and to people on the Google Group list, and be available on the site, but only subscribers will be eligible for prizes. Next week we go solidly behind the paywall, though! See below for more.]
The response so far has been healthy (thanks! — we’re already over last year’s tip jar total, with 11 months of subscriptions to go), and I’ll post subscriber numbers in a few weeks. If you have any questions about the transition, please e-mail support@mgwcc.com. You can always e-mail me personally with questions (crosswordcontest@gmail.com), but the support e-mail will get answered more quickly (and by the person in charge of the subscription process, i.e. someone who will be more likely to be able to answer your question).
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
No fun to have a problematic meta the week before going to subscriptions, but that’s what happened. Let’s look at the solution first, then go into the meta’s two problems.
We were looking for — wording very important — an appropriate eight-letter answer to the clue [Reykjavik*]. The four theme entries, as originally printed, were:
17-A [Las Vegas* (hyphen is not meta-related, just evening up the theme entries)] = ANN-MARGRET
60-A [Miami*] = TONY MONTANA
11-D [Chicago* (but Los Angeles until July 2014)] = THE LAKERS
32-D [Phoenix*] = MEL’S DINER.
The idea was to use each of these clues to arrive at a relevant word ending in “-CITY.” So Ann-Margret is Vegas-related because she was Elvis’s co-star in “VIVA Las Vegas,” so you might say Vegas is a “VIVA-CITY,” i.e. “vivacity.”
Similarly:
Miami is a SCAR-CITY (“scarcity”) because of Miamian Tony Montana’s famous scar in “Scarface.”
Chicago is a PAU-CITY (“paucity”) because Pau Gasol plays there for the Bulls (though he was at THE LAKERS for a long time before that).
Phoenix is a VERA-CITY (“veracity”) because Vera was one of the waitresses on MEL’S DINER.
So I wanted solvers to find an eight-letter term that satisfies Reykjavik, and a quick look at all the ????CITY words leads you to SAGA-CITY (“sagacity”), referencing the Icelandic sagas.
Meta problem #1: this meta was too hard as presented. When zero solvers had gotten the answer after almost a full day, I decided to send a revised version with clue hints. It would have been interested to see how many solvers would’ve gotten it without the hints (several e-mail me that they probably would have done so), but it probably still would’ve been in the single digits, which is too low.
The revised version had a synonym for each of the -city words in brackets at the end of the clue: [energy] for vivacity, [dearth] for scarcity, [lack] for paucity, and [truth] for veracity. That opened the floodgates, and 148 solvers got SAGACITY from there.
Meta problem #2: the wording of the instructions did not make it clear that I was just looking for SAGACITY; some solvers understandably interpreted it as looking for a clue to “saga city/reykjavik,” the way MEL’S DINER is the clue for “veracity.” I shouldn’t have used the word “clue” in there, since it’s pointlessly confusing.
I mentioned this on Crossword Fiend the other day, but if you didn’t see it: a number of solvers saw the SAGACITY link but submitted another 8-letter phrase/word because of this ambiguity. If you’re one of these people, please e-mail me (crosswordcontest@gmail.com) and I’ll mark your entry as correct.
We’ll have December’s monthly prizes next week instead of this week, since I don’t want to exclude anyone from eligibility who deserves credit for last week’s meta (although I did go ahead and pick a weekly winner).
I’ll also announce the annual prize winners next week, once these final entries are included.
Vraal writes:
A real Gasolcity of answers there wasn’t it?
David Stein says:
I can’t believe ANTONYM in the middle of TONYMONTANA is coincidence
Unintended, as was this find by DJB:
Pau Gasol – surname anagrams to Lagos which is a prominent town. Got sidetracked on this before the hint.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 148 correct entries received, is David Cole of Hinsdale, Ill. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, David will also receive a one-year subscription to MGWCC. Next week we return to normal book prizes.
THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE:
OK, we lied: due to an eleventh-hour technical issue on my end, I’m posting the puzzle as usual today at noon (and e-mailing it out via the Google Group), but subscribers will also receive the puzzle later this afternoon via e-mail. That e-mail alone will be the sole distribution method starting next week. So if you skipped out on subscribing, you wind up getting one extra free puzzle (though you can’t win any prizes as a non-subscriber). Ah, growing pains.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a well-known magazine. Submit your entries in the left sidebar as usual, by noon ET on Tuesday. Again, only subscribers can win this week, and from here on out.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.