EchoBlog

The instructions to today’s metapuzzle say we are looking for a two-word phrase. The apparent theme answers should be fairly easy to identify: They’re the strange, starred two-word entries:

• 22A: [*Kayaking locales that will give you a good core workout?] is AB RIVERS.
• 24A: [*Farm enclosure for storing a pool triangle?] is RACK PEN.
• 29A: [*"Have you acquired any assets at all?"] is “EVER GAIN?”
• 32A: [*"Mein Gott! A ‘burnt’ color!"?] is “ACH! UMBER!”
• 49A: [*Fellows who enjoy composer Maurice’s music?] is RAVEL GENTS.
• 67A: [*Every person named like NFL receiver Moss, “American Idol” judge Jackson, composer Newman, etc.?] is EACH RANDY.
• 89A: [*Christmas toymaker walked onstage?] is ELF ENTERED.
• 104A: [*What you use to listen to a whirlpool?] is EDDY EARS.
• 110A: [*What Elvis might have called his swiveling body parts if he acted in the 2012 Best Picture winner?] is ARGO HIPS.
• 115A: [*Expert at setting and keeping the tempo?] is PACE ACE.

I’d guess that it may be easiest to spot the first pattern from either ELF ENTERED or ARGO HIPS, but these are phrases where the first letter has been removed from each word:

• AB RIVERS → CAB DRIVERS, with a dropped CD.
• RACK PEN → CRACK OPEN, with a dropped CO.
• “EVER GAIN?” → NEVER AGAIN, with a dropped NA.
• “ACH! UMBER!” → MACH NUMBER, with a dropped MN.
• RAVEL GENTS → TRAVEL AGENTS, with a dropped TA.
• EACH RANDY → PEACH BRANDY, with a dropped PB.
• ELF ENTERED → SELF-CENTERED, with a dropped SC.
• EDDY EARS → TEDDY BEARS, with a dropped TB.
• ARGO HIPS → CARGO SHIPS, with a dropped CS.
• PACE ACE → SPACE RACE, with a dropped SR.

Now what? At this point you might start to try to figure out what connects these deleted pairs of letters together. Abbreviations for U.S. states? That would work for CO, MN and SC, but not for the others. Maybe the deleted letters are the first two letters of three-letter entries elsewhere in the grid? No, that’s not it either.

There’s another theme answer I left out of that list, though. Sitting symmetrically to AB RIVERS at 118A: [Like a certain table] is PERIODIC. Along with the title of the puzzle, that answer and its clue should trigger an aha moment. The deleted letters are the abbreviations of elements from the periodic table. In fact, they’re all metals of some kind:

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• Cd → Cadmium
• Co → Cobalt
• Na → Sodium
• Mn → Manganese
• Ta → Tantalum
• Pb → Lead
• Sc → Scandium
• Tb → Terbium
• Cs → Cesium
• Sr → Strontium

The final step is to figure out how to apply these elements to the meta. You may have had to look up the periodic table just to figure out what these ten elements were. Does the periodic table maybe resemble a crossword in a certain way? Besides the letters in an arrangement of squares, there’s another important aspect that resembles the squares in a crossword — the atomic numbers.

• Cadmium → 48
• Cobalt → 27
• Sodium → 11
• Manganese → 25
• Tantalum → 73
• Lead → 82
• Scandium → 21
• Terbium → 65
• Cesium → 55
• Strontium → 38

Now, take the letters in this grid that appear in those numbered squares in thematic order ...

• Square 48 → S
• Square 27 → C
• Square 11 → R
• Square 25 → A
• Square 73 → P
• Square 82 → M
• Square 21 → E
• Square 65 → T
• Square 55 → A
• Square 38 → L

... and you spell out SCRAP METAL. That describes what happened in this puzzle’s theme, with metals literally being tossed out of the theme answers.

When I first thought of this idea several months ago, I’d originally planned to use the same “delete letters of elements’ abbreviations” mechanism but then spell out SCRAP METAL using the first letters of the elements’ full names (so the first one could be Sodium, the second could be Cobalt, and so on). The trouble with that was that I wanted most of the elements to have a different starting letter from their abbreviations just to hide SCRAP METAL a little better, and that wasn’t possible for the most part. Sodium starts with a different letter than its abbreviation (Na), but none of the C elements do that, nor do the R elements; Antimony is the only A element whose abbreviation (Sb) starts with a different letter, but it’s not a metal. So I went with the tried-and-true method of referring to the elements by their atomic numbers and indexing the corresponding letters in the grid. This isn’t the first periodic-table-based meta to make use of that mechanism, but it’s one that I know that works.

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I was also happy to fit in some longer bonus fill like FLY SOLO, LUNAR YEAR, INFOMERCIALS, COLLEGE RADIO, EAGLE CAM and GAY RIGHTS. I liked the clue I found for COLLEGE RADIO (56D: [Where to find singles on campus?]), but I was especially happy to use my clue for EAGLE CAM (79A: [Bird feed?]). I’ve had that one written down on one of my lists for years and just needed the right opportunity to come along. Its position in this puzzle is actually the reason the theme answers have stars. Even though it’s a real phrase, it would still be easy enough to confuse it for theme material with the other Across answers.

What did you think?

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