Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Singing Out” — Conrad’s writeup.
This we’re looking a singer of a sort. There were five thematic singers in the grid in firstname/lastname format. I stared at those for a while and found no signal. I checked the final horizontal entry (where Mike often stashes a clue): no signal. Then I spotted the symmetric SIDE/FOUR (16 and 66 across, collectively clued as: Setting of “Ball and Chain” on Janis Joplin’s album “In Concert.” Another musical clue, and symmetric. Knowing Mike’s style: that had to be relevant.
WSJ Contest – 11.24.2024
I pondered side four for a bit, and decided to look at the “out”-er 4 letters of the themers (two on either side). I had the rabbit: the outer two letters each formed a four-letter words that mapped to another grid entry. Here they are in theme entry order:
- (TI)NATURN(ER): TIER -> STANDS (Stadium part)
- (PA)TTILABEL(LE): PALE -> ILL (Looking sick)
- (BA)RBRASTREISA(ND): BAND -> RING (Wedding symbol)
- (RO)BERTAFLA(CK): ROCK -> EMO (Music genre)
- (FA)ITHEVA(NS): FANS -> NUTS (Enthusiastic devotees)
The first letters of the mapped entries spell our contest solution SIREN. And while writing this up I noticed that all of the matching entries had two word clues. Nice touch! Solvers: please share your thoughts.