WSJ (Contest) Grid: untimed; Meta: an hour or so rate it
Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Director’s Cut” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re looking for a six-letter word. There were six theme entries:
- (FLE)ETSTREET – The British media, figuratively
- (YAR)DSTICK – Standard
- (REH)EARSERS – Play actors, before opening night
- (WAS)HINGTON – Olympia is there
- (GIB)RALTAR – Pillars of Hercules locale
- (ILA)NAGLAZER – “Broad City” co-creator/star
I was thrown off by cut (echoing the title) appearing in two clues (HEWS and SAWN). AXE didn’t help, either. I finally extracted myself from that doomed rabbit hole. I thought of directions, focusing on north, east, west, and south. Then up, down, left, right. No signal.
WSJ Contest – 06.28.2026
Then I thought about direction as in backwards and forwards. I spotted ELF backwards in the first three letters of FLEETSTREET and I had the rabbit. The reversed first three letters of each themer formed a movie, which matched another grid entry with on letter added. Here they are, in mapped entry order:
- 1a: (S)ELF
- 11d: (C)ALI
- 39a: B(R)IG
- 41a: RAY(E)
- 49a: HER(E)
- 70a: SAW(N)
The extra letters of the mapped letters spell our contest solution SCREEN. Solvers: please share your thoughts. I’ll end with California Stars, sung by Wilco with lyrics written by Woody Guthrie. We just left Solid Sound in North Adams, MA. Totally amazing.
Seems a bit unfair to have two clues containing the word cut, crossing each other at the bottom right where we usually find a clue to the meta, and yet they were totally unrelated.
Yeah I’m really glad I forgot about those clues. Never would have been able to escape. I agree that that’s unfair.
I never realized the reversed triples were movie titles. That makes the meta a bit more cohesive.
didn’t get there. looks quite clever though!