meta 3 days
Screenshot
- {Rabbit variety} COTTONTAIL.
- {Gravity, for one} LAW OF NATURE.
- {Skating fun} ICE CAPADES.
- {Champagne flows on it} NEW YEAR’S EVE.
based on the title, i would like for the meta mechanism to involve homophones, but i’m not seeing anything homophone-related here in either the answers or the clues. i do think that the clue for NEW YEAR’S EVE is worded oddly.
actually, i’ve just noticed that there are a whole bunch of odd clues that start with ch-. i don’t exactly know why i’m looking at this, but it’s just what jumped out at me (and if this is right, presumably the meta answer is david bowie, because changes). let’s have a look:
- {Channel with financial advice} CNBC.
- {Chaotic situation} HAVOC.
- {Chamonix’s range} ALPS.
- {Chamomile and coffee may be sold there} CAFES.
- {Chef’s offering} ENTREE.
- {Cheap place to stay for backpackers} HOSTEL.
- {Chemical element with the atomic number 17} CHLORINE.
- {“Child’s Play” genre} HORROR.
- {Champagne flows on it} NEW YEAR’S EVE.
- {Character who says: “I must be cruel only to be kind”} HAMLET.
- {Chevron sold it} GASOLINE.
- {Chilean and Californian flora} CACTI.
- {Chameleons can do it easily} HIDE.
- {Charlie Brown frame, say} CEL.
- {“Chandelier” singer} SIA.
so that’s 15 clues starting with ch- (in three different pronunciations: /k/ like chaotic, /ch/ like channel, and /sh/ like chamonix). all 15 answers start with one of the letters in CHANGES, which is also telling. let’s see if we can figure out any kind of logical ordering, because right now (acrosses followed by downs) they spell out CHACEHCHNHGCHCS, which is gibberish. putting them in strict numerical order instead gives CHCAHNHGCECHHCS, still gibberish.
there’s only one instance each of ANGES, with lots of C’s and H’s, so i’m guessing we need to spell out CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES the way bowie sings it in the song. those clues are:
- 10a {Chamonix’s range} ALPS.
- 25d {Champagne flows on it} NEW YEAR’S EVE.
- 37d {Chevron sold it} GASOLINE.
- 44a {Chef’s offering} ENTREE.
- 59d {“Chandelier” singer} SIA.
okay, this is something—those answers in numerical order do spell out ANGES, and all five clues start with the /sh/ sound. if we separate the rest of the ch bigrams phonetically into /k/ or /ch/ sounds, we get this for /ch/:
- 1a {Channel with financial advice} CNBC.
- 23d {“Child’s Play” genre} HORROR.
- 47d {Chilean and Californian flora} CACTI.
- 48a {Cheap place to stay for backpackers} HOSTEL.
- 53d {Charlie Brown frame, say} CEL.
and this for /k/:
- 5a {Chaotic situation} HAVOC.
- 9d {Chemical element with the atomic number 17} CHLORINE.
- 32d {Character who says: “I must be cruel only to be kind”} HAMLET.
- 40a {Chamomile and coffee may be sold there} CAFES.
- 48d {Chameleons can do it easily} HIDE.
so that’s it. sorting them out by /ch/, then /k/, then /sh/ does spell out [CH-CH-C][H-CH-CH][ANGES]. and the answer is, of course, david bowie.
phew, what a curious meta—i don’t think the instructions or the title helped at all until after i was already pretty sure of what was happening. the only indicator of how to get started was to just notice a whole bunch of clues starting with ch. it’s perfectly understandable how matt arrived here, i think—he began with the idea of turning “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes” into a meta, and settled upon rather a nice mechanism. it’s quite elegant how there are three common ways to pronounce that bigram (i know, there are others, like in challah and other hebrew-derived words) and matt used each of them five times to form the 15-letter phrase.
so, nice meta, but that first step was a doozy. i can only imagine how difficult it would have been to solvers unfamiliar with the song.
that’s all i’ve got this week. how’d you like this one?
I got as far as seeing how the pronunciation of CH “changes” … and that was enough for me.
Took awhile to get to that first step, but then the pieces fell quickly. Very clever concept and construction.
Got mired in a huge rabbit hole, given the title and the large number of entries that could serve as homonyms for other words. 22 by my count, perhaps more. But just couldn’t see what to do with them… ORE becoming OAR, and SALE becoming SAIL – one of those could satisfy 41A “Move a boat maybe”, or BELLA from BELA satisfying 63A “Stone on sets”, but geez, quite a tough rabbit hole to back out of.
My co-solver and I were in the same boat, we never moved on from the homonyms in the grid. She finally had the great idea that it was Prince (prints) but no. My printer is currently broken so I was solving on my laptop, that’s my excuse for not seeing the CHs in the clues (lol, weakest excuse of the year.)
I went down the same rabbit hole…and never emerged from it.
I think I was lucky to notice all the CH clues, but once I did, I noticed that the vast majority of them had answers starting with C or H. Thankfully, the ANGES were also in order in the grid, so it got me the rest of the way.
Needed a hint but loved it!
I noticed the “check” from the title hints at the order – ch, then ck.
Still a bit fiddly…
The first three across clues have the three sounds in the correct order of the groups (for the record, someone pointed this out to me).
Alas! I had taken a screenshot of my grid and clues so I could take a last look while waiting at the doctor’s office, but I’d scrolled down in the across clues so the first three were cut off 😭
I think this was the intended clue. I didn’t notice it until after I had sorted the answers.
Saw the “ch”s and found the anges to make changes, BUT didn’t make the final connection! So I submitted Chubby Checker as a Hail Mary. Oh well.
I thought Chubby was the answer while piecing meta together, but the Ch – Ch – anged my tune!
Nothing for two days, then I noticed the first three Across clues started with “Ch”, each pronounced differently. I found the other triplets from there, noting the corresponding entries. But it still looked like a letter salad. At that point I thought there might be a three-named R&R HOFer named “Cheryl Channing Chrisman” or the like, but no joy — although Charlie Christian is enshrined. Then I went back to the grid and figured out ANGES with all the CHs. Fun meta.
This was a painful one for me. I found the chchc/hchch/anges setup but didn’t have any association of “Changes” with a singer, so eventually I just submitted Cher because 1) she is well-known for her changes over time, 2) it was specifically the “sh” part that had the -anges, and 3) “chair”, “care”, and “cher” are all English words. But I now realize that the Bowie song is decently well-known (unlike that Elvis Costello song of many weeks ago) and that Cher is not quite in the HOF yet.
Thanks, joon — 259 right answers this week, of which 181 were solo solves.
Beyond brilliant. I miss my group solves, which is how i solved for the first 13 or so years of MGWCC. Solo, the latter week solves just seem to be few and far between. I too was looking for homophones and never really got any further. Its amazing how well hidden those “ch” clues are within the cluing layout, but Matt did start with three to leave a crumb for the observant!