Muller Solving time: puz: untimed
meta: DNF
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My perfect year is in serious jeopardy; with 82 minutes left before the deadline, I don’t have any solid leads on this month’s meta, so I’m going to blog it and see what happens.
With a nod to the title, I assumed 17-A: [Australian actor in Marvel movies] = HEMSWORTH would lead to LIAM. But apparently Liam has not appeared in any Marvel movies, but there is, as I have just now learned, a *third* Hemsworth brother called Luke who has made cameos in a couple of Marvel movies. Is this relevant? I have no idea.
Let’s test our theory with the next theme entry at 25-A: [Like an empire with a capital at Constantinople] = BYZANTINE. But this could also be OTTOMAN, so again we have a reasonable alt-answer. Looking promising.
So let’s keep testing this theory with the third theme entry, CONQUEROR at 50-A, clued as [Descriptor for William in 1066]. OK, so here’s where we get into 5% chance of “this turned out to be the answer” and 95% chance of “Welcome to Crazytown, please check your bags at the door, you moron.” Pelle the Conqueror? Does anyone remember that movie enough for it to be relevant?
Probably not. And then what to make of the very odd final theme entry (I think?) at 62-A: [Works by a notable impressionist] = PISSARROS. I’m guessing this one is a stand-in for an a different impressionist, but I can’t see a connection. MONETS? MANETS? RENOIRS? Je ne sais pas!
\lI have to say again how MADDENING it is to have Jangler get then answer in 8 minutes — and MikeyG in 7 minutes, this month, and I’m sitting here hours into the process and I can’t see something that must be relatively simple, since these guys saw it in a few hundred seconds. I know, it’s karma, but still…
38 minutes to deadline, so let me try a few Hail Marys. There’s no other famous “X the Conqueror” besides William per Onelook, so that’s a dead end. What about JACK/JOHN at 1-a & 1-d? That struck me as slightly odd early on but I never followed up on it. But I don’t see any stray JACK or JOHN in the grid so doesn’t look promising.
I mean, [Australian actor in Marvel movies] = HEMSWORTH can *only* be phrased that precise way to point to LIAM. Clues whose initials are L.I.A.M.? Nothing there. And [Like an empire with a capital at Constantinople] is phrased so strongly to suggest OTTOMAN as an alt-answer. William the Conqueror was also known as William the BASTARD, Wikipedia tells me. Relevant? And then [Works by a notable impressionist] could be many things, like MONETS, MANETS, CASSATTS, etc.
Well, I think I’m beat, and my perfect 2025 is no more. Someone tell me what I missed in comments! My WAG was Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” for no good reason!
Find an alternate answer to the themers by taking another grid entry and adding MAN (the “other guy”):
17A = JACK(MAN)
25A = OTTO(MAN)
36A = LE(MAN)S
38A = E(MAN)ATING
50A = NOR(MAN)
62A = (MAN)ETS
That gives us Dolly Parton’s classic song “Jolene”, with the first line of the song being extremely apt, given the meta mechanism: “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my man”.
I got the alternate answers for the four long entries by adding MAN at the end or beginning, but I missed the two middle entries with MAN in the middle.
Taking the first letters of the clues for the four alternate answers in order gave me B-A-H-A, so adding MAN/MEN results in Baha Men’s “Who Let The Dogs Out.” Oops. Not a country song.
So good! I should’ve had this.
Aaaaugh! I also didn’t finish and thought of JACKMAN very early, but I never looked back at the theme clues to see how to keep going.
Thanks Matt
225 correct this month…
I’m sure you would have gotten there with a little more time!
I think so, too. Please give me full credit!!
I thought of Hugh Jackman right away when I was filling in the grid. When I realized “Ottoman” could be an alternate, the whole thing became clear.
Knowing that even the very best solvers can sometimes get stumped by a random one of these makes me feel so much better! My success rate is not terribly high.
Matt, I also went down the Liam/Pelle road and came up short.
This one was quite tricky, because the two center theme answers, which are shorter than the others, are also coincidentally the two answers that have MAN in the middle. Very easy to miss those two (not that I was anywhere close to getting that far, anyway).
This was kind of a process of discovery as far as figuring out the meta. First was Googling Marvel actors that were Australian and Hugh Jackman pulling up first and me seeing Jack right above Hemsworth. Then it was the connection to Ottoman and Norman. I was then stuck for a bit trying to figure out Manets, and realizing that the man could be anywhere in the word. I then knew I had more theme answers to use and connected to the two middle themed answers that I had originally ignored.
Anyone else get stuck for a while on the other GUY PEARCE for the first themer?