XWord Muggles Forum

Nudge #2

if you were trying to clue ORA, how would you do it? Eek!

Nudge #3:

The four-word title is a famous novella. So famous it should appear among the top Google searches of “novella”. And if you read the Wikipedia blurb on this novella, you will see the connection to the title.

Now get off the 🛋!

Confirmed, we're Off The Couch!

I got it - technically before I saw the 2nd nudge but that was because I got another nudge. One thing in this one really screwed me up and the grid gave me a ton of trouble.

Wednesday night update:

31. AnswerPfinder
32. miked
33. TPS
34. Anita

Very late getting to the puzzle, but quickly off the couch when I did get to it. I did not look at the nudges until after I submitted but they confirmed my thinking. Have not gotten confirmation, yet, but I am confident in my answer.

OK, well I got the wrong answer the first time round because I went back too far. It is a clever puzzle but I think the title made me go another way. I KNOW I'm being a curmudgeon but for me I'd have rather seen the title RABBITS.

The cluing was tricky, and had a few too many contemporary (or probably author contemporary) references for me to solve without some searching) but there was also GREAT misdirection. Good job Peter.

Thursday night update:

35. Cindy N
36. SewYoung
37. DrTom
38. Bob cruise director

Friday night update:

39. Geoduck

Final leaderboard:

40. Dow Jones
41. Djquimby

Thank you all for playing. Winner, grid reveal and backstory in the morning.

The meta answer is the four-word title Of Mice And Men
Credit: The amazing Joe Ross

About half of this puzzle was my previous New York Sun, circa 2002, where OFMICEANDMEN was the revealer. When Al and Brian mentioned on a recent Zoom call they didn't have a MMM in the lineup, I put this together with a little surgery on the bottom half.

Four MEN with the first name of four cartoon MICE. These mice all have the last name "Mouse" (I'm looking at you, Timothy Q. Mouse). When I was cluing last weekend I noticed ORA was fortuitously in the center. I was glad to work that in as a nudge to the answer.

If you are lit-deficicient, you may not have gotten the title connection. Steinbeck based his title on the Burns poem 'To A Mouse' which contains the line 'the best-laid schemes o'mice an' men [go often awry]'. For many this required a Google check; sorry if you learned something!

The grid was clued harder on purpose, as well as the title connection, to make up for the easier meta mechanism. Forty-one solvers followed the cheese crumbs to success.

Random number #20 wins the prize: KayW !

Great puzzle, and what an unbelievable bit of serendipity to find ORA not only *somewhere* in the grid, but in the coveted center spot... (the "Paul Lynde" spot).

I don't get the ORA reference ...

Dplass wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 10:36 am I don't get the ORA reference ...

[Are you a] Man ORA Mouse [?]

Oh. Thanks. Sadly I needed nudges to get off the couch on this one. Also, I had never heard of "To a mouse" though I had heard of Burns...

I very nearly "ganged agley" and submitted To A Mouse but hesitated because it's not really Ode To A Mouse and therefore not a 4 word title. Then I noticed -- hey, these are all guys' names......
I first approached ORA from my demure Catholic schoolgirl past and thought it might mean that I would need praying for! ORA PRO NOBIS
Congrats, Kay!
And thank you, Puzzle Constructor --- All together now : Who's the leader etc. etc. P - E - T..... E - R - A ......

whimsy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:40 pm Who's the leader etc. etc. P - E - T..... E - R - A ......

Sorry to do this to you all again, but Annette Funicello is from Utica.

......

Sorry to do this to you all again, but Annette Funicello is from Utica.

Your meta day in the sun is over

Abide wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:34 pm ......

Sorry to do this to you all again, but Annette Funicello is from Utica.

Your meta day in the sun is over

Yep, my 15 x 15 minutes of fame.

OMG! My very first ever puzzle prize! Peter, thanks so much again for a fabulous meta - which is ample reward in and of itself. The prize is very tasty icing on the cake

I'm very impressed that you could so quickly reconfigure an older puzzle to a meta.

And kudos to Joe Ross on the most artistic solve I've seen yet!