Grid: 10 minutes; meta: right away
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Signs of the times” — Conrad’s writeup.
Hey everyone, this will be an abbreviated writeup because I just landed in California, got to my hotel in Berkeley, and realize I am 3 hours behind the east coast. The center entry (CHINA, clued as “Nation with a 12-animal zodiac”) was the key: there were twelve Chinese zodiac animal-themed clues:
WSJ Contest – 01.20.22 – solution
- LATE – Like Carroll’s White Rabbit
- UNAGI – Dragon roll ingredient
- NEWT – Relative of a congo snake
- APPLALOOSA – Popular saddle horse
- RILE – Get one’s goat
- NOEVIL – Something for a monkey to see, hear or speak
- EYEPATCH – Rooster Cogburn wore one
- WIENER – Dog
- YORKSHIRE – Pig breed also called Large White
- EMILE – Rat in “Ratatouille”
- ASAN – Strong ___ ox
- RAGS – Tiger in 1950s TV cartoons
The animal-themed entries spell LUNAR NEW YEAR, our contest solution. I was impressed that Mike put the zodiac animals in order. And happy lunar new year!
You hit the nail on the head Conrad. This was an ingenious puzzle from Mike!
My initial hunch was to submit Chinese New Year, but once I moved the grid to Excel I saw that the first letters to the theme answers were spelling the correct solution. Patience and sticking to routine paid off.
We had the same initial thought, but realized it wouldn’t be “Chinese” New Year since China was central in the grid.
Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and South Korea celebrate the lunar new year in addition to the solar new year, so it’s not just the Chinese new year.
I submitted like this:
Tet (Lunar New Year)
I was thinking he was looking for a name. No idea what the Chinese call it, but the Vietnamese call it Tết Nguyên Đán, or Tết, for short. My thought was that I showed I got the answer, in case he wasn’t looking for Tet.
I agree — it was an excellent crossword and meta, with the animals in order and the answer in grid order. Well done.
What an impressive Animal House. Great fun!
A beautiful puzzle to start the new year. Very impressive construction. Nice video pic too!
Nice coincidence that LUNAR NEW YEAR has 12 letters, the same as the number of animals in the Chinese zodiac.