crossword 3:03
meta 0:15 

good day and welcome to episode #744 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Quartet for Strings”. this week 1 puzzle was completely solvable with out the directions. what are the theme solutions?

• {Clean somebody’s enamel with a sci-fi weapon?} LASER ENAMEL.
• {Result of the brand new Disney CEO disliking the phrase “Mickey”?} MOUSE RENAMED.
• {Response to “Hey troubadour, what’re you doing beneath that balcony”?} I’M SERENADING.
• {Coffee store freebie in a French division?} ISÈRE NAPKIN.

these made-up phrases all embrace the hidden string SERENA, and certainly serena williams is the meta reply. the best participant within the historical past of girls’s tennis has introduced her retirement, and this week performed her final US open, shedding to australian ajla tomljanovic within the third spherical of singles and likewise shedding within the first spherical of girls’s doubles together with her sister venus. so farewell and comfortable trails to serena.

as for the meta itself, it couldn’t actually be simpler, however i’ve to tip my hat to the wordplay within the puzzle title, referring to not a musical string quartet however to the 4 theme solutions and the strings on serena’s racket. that’s a beautiful contact.

i’m a little bit of a zombie at the moment as a result of i stayed as much as watch carlos alcaraz vs marin cilic final night time, and the match ended at 2:24 am. (what a match, although!) so i don’t have an incredible deal so as to add to this writeup, however right here’s a few fast hits:

• {Facebook’s dad or mum firm} META. at all times a bit humorous when this fill reply reveals up in a mgwcc. final week within the WSJ (not the friday WSJ meta although), michael schlossberg and/or editor mike shenk clued this as {Like a crossword clue about crossword clues}, which … *head explodes*
• {Leave} PART WITH. okay, matt received me right here. i actually put in PART WAYS, however that is the transitive depart, that means to surrender possession of one thing.
• {Word in the end from the Sanskrit “dhyana,” that means “meditation”} ZEN. didn’t know this etymology, however now i’m glad i do. though ZEN buddhism is now strongly related to japan (as ZEN itself is a japanese phrase), all buddhism is in the end subcontinental in origin.

that’s all for me this week. how’d you want this one?