Grid: 20 minutes; meta: 20 extra
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Epiphany” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re searching for a three-word phrase you would possibly say when having an epiphany. I noticed many of the theme fairly shortly: the lengthy throughout entries contained “AHA.” I initially missed the truth that the primary and final horizontal entries additionally contained AHAs, which delayed my remedy a bit. Here are the six theme entries:
- 1a: [Gag reflexes?]: H(AHA)S
- 17a: [Warren Buffett nickname]: SAGEOFOM(AHA)
- 30a: [Famed marble mausoleum]: THETAJM(AHA)L
- 47a: [1951 Peter Ustinov/Yvonne De Carlo comedy]: HOTELS(AHA)RA
- 64a: [Nancy Reagan presented him with the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award in 2000]: BILLYGR(AHA)M
- 72a: [Rodeo champion Larry]: M(AHA)N
Step two: give attention to every AHA-containing phrase after which take away the AHA. Then map again to the grid. For instance: HAHAS minus AHA turns into HS, which maps to 63a (HIS):
- H[AHA]S-> 63a H(I)S
- OM[AHA] -> 19a OM(S)
- M[AHA]L -. 51a M(E)L
- S[AHA]RA -> 39a S(E)RA
- GR[AHA]M -> 44a GR(I)M
- M[AHA]N -> 70a M(T)N
The spare letters within the mapped entries spell I SEE IT, our contest answer. After fixing I mentioned this meta with a good friend who talked about 28d (ENERO, clued as “When Epifanía is celebrated”). Epifanía is the Spanish phrase for Epiphany, which actually appears thematic. I (fortunately) missed this once I solved the grid and located the theme, however I may see numerous solvers delving deeply in that rabbit gap. It looks as if a pink herring to me, however I actually might be lacking one thing. Readers: let me know what you suppose, and please share your fixing epiphanies.
