Grid: untimed; Meta 10 minutes
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “House Call” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re looking for a meeting place. There were two long horizontal entries, but I didn’t spot any clear themers. I bumped around the grid for a bit and checked the last horizontal entry (where Mike often stashes an extra clue). Nothing there, but he sometimes uses another entry. I found the center down entry: CSPAN, clued as House coverer. The clue echoed “House” in the title, so I knew that entry was probably thematic. I checked the grid for C’s: there were eight, each paired in a symmetric across entry:
WSJ Contest Solution – 06.09.24
- IN(C)HE(C)K – Controlled
- IN(C)AR(C)ERATION – Cell function
- BALAN(C)INGRO(C)K – Geological formation found in many Southwestern national parks
- (C)OM(C)AST – Parent of NBCUniversal
The letters “spanned” by the paired C’s spell our contest solution HEARINGROOM. Another great meta by Mike. Solvers: Please share your thoughts.
It’s a clever mechanism, but I never got at all close to solving it. I missed the CSPAN in the center.
I did see BAR at 61D, and noticed a few other BARs in 58A BARISTA, 44A ARAB (running backwards), etc.
So I submitted BAR as my meta answer, even though I had about zero confidence that I was correct.
I guess this isn’t my weekend for metas, as I didn’t solve the MMMM, either. But at least I was half-right with that one.
I missed the one clue that had the word “HOUSE” in it and concentrated instead on who makes HOUSE CALLS…doctors! There was more than enough fodder related to doctors, health, and body to keep me spinning in circles. No solve for me.
Congrats. I knew it had something to do with Congress. And was sure the clue “it takes two” would be part of it. I thought what happens in Congress is they vote so I looked for YN for Yea and Nay. I found it in Ryan, Tawny, Enya and Sony. But nothing came from all of that. I submitted assembly hall.
Couldn’t find a starting point so for fun I’ll reverse engineer the title to something that might have helped 😀… Amid the Seas…In the Key of C…Si Senōr…Seeing the Answer.
I, too, realized that Mike often leaves a “breadcrumb “ for us to follow. Saw CSPAN in the middle and voila! Not to get too pedantic, but isn’t the answer “Hearing Room”?
I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that before.