Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Part Two”—Laura’s review
Someone pointed out that last week I posted an incomplete grid. I thank the gentleman.
WSJ Contest – 11.22.19 – Solution
This week we’re looking for certain parts of the body. That seems both vague and specific.
- [17a: Drove home, say]: GAVE A RIDE
- [24a: “That was pure skill!”]: NO LUCK NEEDED
- [31a: Consideration for job switchers]: COBRA INSURANCE
- [42a: Rival of Famous Amos]: OTIS SPUNKMEYER
- [49a: Handing out]: DISTRIBUTING
- [63a: 1999 Steve Martin/Eddie Murphy comedy]: BOWFINGER
The first step I saw right away. Each of the six themers hides a body part, like thus:
GAVE A RIDE
NO LUCK NEEDED
COBRA INSURANCE
OTIS SPUNKMEYER
DISTRIBUTING
BOWFINGER
At this point I put the puzzle away and had to go to a work dinner. When I got home, I took the puzzle out again, and mentioned to a solving pal that I wasn’t seeing anything else that could lead to a solution. “There’s something else in the grid,” she said — and that was enough to get me to the next step — the Part Two suggested by the title — which was finding body-part words that corresponded to the parts in the themers encrypted in other entries:
EAR + [14a: Boston newspaper]: GLOBE
KNEE + [2d: Put your hands together]: CLAP
BRAIN + [51d: Momentum]: STEAM
EYE + [68a: Providence Ivy]: BROWN
RIB + [12d: Act the freeloader]: CADGE
FINGER + [66a: Slimy slowpoke]: SNAIL
For the final step, take the leftover letters from those entries to spell GLANDS — which are certain parts of the body and our answer. (Message from another solving pal: Do you have GLANDS? Me: I got plenty of glands, what’s it to you?) It might’ve been easier to find the second set of body parts had the extra letters all been at the beginning or end of the entries and not in the middle, but we can’t have everything.
[60d: “A-Hunting We Will Go” composer]: Thomas ARNE also composed “Rule, Britannia!” Here is Sarah Connolly singing it for the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in 2009, and she has the glands to wear a Napoleonic War-era British Navy costume, and some bloke with even more glands is waving a pirate flag in the Hyde Park outdoor audience:
Nice puzzle – I liked that the first step is fairly obvious, but “part two,” less so, so one could get a toehold on the meta without it coming too easy.
Was anyone else hoping that the final meta answer would also be in two parts? Once I had GLANDS, I went looking in the grid for other fill words that might be just one letter away from a known system of glands. So I went looking for “Adrenal” or “sweat” in the grid. After I couldn’t find them, I went back to the instructions and realized that just GLANDS would be okay too.