MGWCC #466

Posted on May 9, 2017 by joon

crossword 2:19 
meta -1:30 

 


hello and welcome to episode #466 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Shell Game”. i tackled this week 1 meta with no instructions, so let’s just have a look at the four long across answers, shall we?

  • {Familiar name for a 15th-century statue currently housed in Florence’s Museo Nazionale del Bargello} BRONZE DAVID. this is the one with the hat and sword, by donatello. michelangelo’s sculpture of david, a few decades later, is probably a little more famous, but that one’s marble.
  • {Sistine Chapel fresco, with “The”} LAST JUDGMENT. michelangelo, of course.
  • {1490s drawing a variation of which is used as the logo of the TV show “Westworld”} VITRUVIAN MAN. leonardo da vinci. even if you don’t recognize this title, you will recognize the drawing.
  • {Oil painting of ca. 1503 currently housed in the Musee Conde in Chantilly} THREE GRACES. i wasn’t familiar with this one, but it simply has to be by raphael. the school of athens or madonna of the goldfinch would have been easier, but wouldn’t fit into a crossword.

these four italian renaissance artists are the namesakes of the teenage mutant ninja turtles. checking the instructions, it looks like we want a famous foursome, so sure, we’re done here. i was amused to find the letters TMNT, in order but not all together, in LAST JUDGMENT.

so a very easy meta, but a fun one for fans of art and/or surprisingly enduring children’s pop culture characters. and if by some chance the rock you have been living under has not had any news of the ninja turtles, this is certainly a meta that google can solve for you. (that’s fine for a week 1, of course.)

bits & pieces:

  • {First-born} ELDEST. this is aptly situated up between the donatello theme answer and the others; donatello was a generation older than michelangelo, leonardo, and raphael.
  • {Language you speak, in Spanish} INGLES. also a very tall shooting guard for the utah jazz. other non-basketball basketball answers in this puzzle include RIM and MING.
  • {“___ Griffin’s Crosswords” (2007-2008 show)} MERV. just before noon on friday when this puzzle went out, matt tweeted the delightful fact that this show ran for exactly 225 episodes.

that’s all for me this week. i will leave you with this earworm.

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3 Responses to MGWCC #466

  1. Matt Gaffney says:
    May 9, 2017 at 11:09 am

    Thanks, Joon — 526 right answers this week.

  2. Steve Blais says:
    May 9, 2017 at 5:36 pm

    It took an embarrassingly long time for me to solve this one. About five or six minutes but still…

    I spent too much time trying to find some link between the words in the themers themselves (words that can go after/before the first/last word, etc.), rather than who created each work of art. When I realized Michelangelo was one of the artists in question, it finally dawned on me what the answer had to be.

    So, lesson learned. It pays to think outside the box, but sometimes you have to remember to go back inside.

  3. Rebecca Webber says:
    May 10, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    Not being familiar with the turtles, I did not get it and I hate when I can’t solve week one!

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