Solution to Evan Birnholz’s March 7 Post Magazine crossword, “Holding Pattern”
Today’s puzzle is the second of two consecutive metas. The instructions say the following: “’Film starring Richard Gere’ is the clue for a movie that has the same pattern as the starred answers. Which film is it?” We have seven starred answers, so let’s look at those:
- 23A: [*Band with the album “If You’re Feeling Sinister”] is BELLE AND SEBASTIAN.
- 47A: [*Coin depicting Simón Bolívar] is COLOMBIAN PESO.
- 70A: [*Beer brewed by Anheuser-Busch] is BUDWEISER.
- 94A: [*Tree found in countries below the equator] is SOUTHERN BEECH.
- 120A: [*Singer who won a Grammy for “Beautiful”] is CHRISTINA AGUILERA.
- 16D: [*Wine made from one of the four “noble” grapes in Alsace’s grand cru vineyards] is GEWÜRZTRAMINER.
- 53D: [*Color that Johannes Vermeer frequently used in his paintings] is CORNFLOWER BLUE.
There’s also a rather important hint in the bottom-right corner of the puzzle at 131A: [Leading … and like the words in this puzzle’s starred clues that will help you solve the meta] which is FIRST. This is one of those “either you see it or you don’t” metas where all you need is a single insight and the pattern reveals itself. If you think about those seven answers and just the first words of their clues, it might be easier to spot:
- BELLE AND SEBASTIAN = BAND
- COLOMBIAN PESO = COIN
- BUDWEISER = BEER
- SOUTHERN BEECH = TREE
- CHRISTINA AGUILERA = SINGER
- GEWÜRZTRAMINER = WINE
- CORNFLOWER BLUE = COLOR
I’m guessing that BUDWEISER will be the easiest inroad since it’s the shortest theme entry, but do you see the pattern?
The theme answers all contain the letters of those first clue words in sequential order:
- BELLE AND SEBASTIAN = BAND
- COLOMBIAN PESO = COIN
- BUDWEISER = BEER
- SOUTHERN BEECH = TREE
- CHRISTINA AGUILERA = SINGER
- GEWÜRZTRAMINER = WINE
- CORNFLOWER BLUE = COLOR
Now, per the instructions, we need to find a film starring Richard Gere that has the letters F-I-L-M contained in the title in sequential order. Either his Wikipedia page or his IMDb page will do. The only film in Richard Gere’s filmography that fits the bill is the 1982 film “AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.” That’s our meta answer.
This theme was inspired by the concept of kangaroo words, which are words that contain the letters of a synonym, such as INSTRUCTOR containing TUTOR or PRECIPITATION containing RAIN. I thought it was neat to find real-life examples of people and things that have the same pattern — CHRISTINA AGUILERA containing the letters of SINGER felt like an especially lucky find.
What ended up being a real nightmare was settling on the theme answer itself (as well as the title). My original thought was to make the answer “FIELD OF DREAMS” starring Kevin Costner, but I saw he starred in the TV miniseries “HATFIELDS & MCCOYS.” Even though one could argue that a film and a TV miniseries are different, it seemed like that could still be a plausible second answer when it shouldn’t be necessary. Then I found “THE FIFTH ELEMENT” starring Bruce Willis. A-ha! One of my favorite sci-fi films. So, I thought I was good to go … until I was informed by a test-solver that Bruce Willis was in the film “FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR.” I had missed this because Willis’s filmography page on Wikipedia doesn’t list the “Frank Miller’s” part of the of the film title. So I went looking for yet another film title, and this time being I was meticulous about it, checking each of Richard Gere’s titles on IMDb just to make sure it was the only film of his that fit the pattern.
As for the puzzle title, I originally had it as “Setting an Example,” but this didn’t feel like helpful information since the meta answer, by definition, is just another example of a phrase with the same pattern. Another title I kept considering was “Scattergories,” but I thought that would be an unhelpful red herring since you’d be tempted to consider the game itself when it has nothing to do with the meta, and not all the theme answers fit the pattern of the words you’d write in Scattergories anyway. So, “Holding Pattern” won out in the end.
Finally, a heads-up about next week’s puzzle: It doesn’t have a meta, but you should solve it in print or from the blank PDF. Trying to solve it online simply will not work as well. You have been warned.
What did you think?
