crossword 5:57
meta DNF 

hiya and welcome to episode #747 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Admixture”. for this week 4 puzzle, matt challenges us to call a decade of the twentieth century. what are the theme solutions? properly, i don’t know. it’s a very weird grid, 33 broad by 13 excessive for some purpose, with no symmetry and huge swaths of the decrease areas dedicated to black squares. the one lengthy reply is 43a YEAR OF THE RAT, clued as {1972 or 2020, say}. that might actually be a theme reply, because it’s not less than considerably associated to the directions, however it’s removed from apparent what to do with it. (i do assume it means that the Nineteen Seventies are in all probability not the reply, as a result of in any other case it will be a bizarre inelegance {that a} yr from the reply decade is talked about explicitly within the clue for the longest reply within the grid. nevertheless, i might in any other case have an interest within the ’70s, since tom wolfe nicknamed it the “me decade” and that may be a compelling jumping-off level for a meta.)

the one identified theme reply is 86d: {Number of entries whose areas on this grid had been intentionally chosen} SIX. in order that’s attention-grabbing. my first thought was that all of them had clue numbers in the identical decade, and are all associated to a twentieth century decade (type of just like the roaring twenties puzzle from ten years in the past that i didn’t work out). and for all of the weirdness of the grid, the clue numbers do go as much as 101, so there’s equal alternative to place six theme solutions into any given decade. nevertheless, trying on the clues by decade didn’t actually produce something that jumped out at me.

what else is there? properly, the title: to me, it actually needs to be reparsed as “ad mixture”, and even maybe “A-D mixture”. so we may have a look at solutions which have A and D in them; sadly, there aren’t six of them. there are 4 with AD collectively (BAD, DEAD, ADDS, and ADZE), 4 extra with A and D in that order however separated (FALL DUE, AVID, AID, and ABODE), and two extra with D then A (SODA and DRAT). “ad” additionally seems explicitly within the clue for 59a BIZ {Word with present or advert}. i suppose this may very well be a touch that we’re supposed to consider the advert BIZ, like clio award winners or one thing? however historic clio award winners aren’t well-known sufficient (or simply look-up-able sufficient) to be the idea of a meta.

i’ll say that even occupied with the letters A and D makes me wish to guess the ’80s, since that’s a homophone of A.D.’s, plus there are issues like ADDS/ADZE which might be making me take into consideration homophones.

the title, nevertheless, doesn’t recommend homophones—it suggests anagramming. possibly we’re supposed so as to add the letters AD and anagram. however to what finish? and what do the grid areas of the entries must do with it? i suppose it doesn’t completely must be about clue numbers—it may very well be location within the grid in some geographical sense. i’d really feel higher about that if i may establish the bizarre grid form with the size of one thing acquainted like a map of the u.s. or some such.

i famous the little part the place YOYO sits on XBOX, crossed by the hanging and strange APTERYX. do i do know what to do with that? no. do i feel it is perhaps meta-related? possibly. neither of these X’s is the one necessitated by the theme entry SIX at 86d.

time is now ticking down and that i haven’t received any good concepts—simply the same old greedy at straws like homophones of letters (17d PEA, 60d ZEES, 84a TEES, 51d ELS, 67d YOU) or numbers (WON), or NATO alphabet (95d ECHO), or roman numerals (5d AVID is VI inside A-D). i’m simply going to guess the Nineteen Eighties and see what occurs. you’ll must let me know within the feedback what i missed.