Well, it looks like turning my 300th puzzle into a meta-crossword certainly paid off, as a whopping sixteen people successfully figured it out since it was posted here two weeks ago! There's a bunch of them new to this blog, too, and they all came here because one of the users at the Xword Muggles forums stumbled onto this puzzle and linked to it over there, so a big thanks to all the solvers who found it via that forum! Now then, let's look at that large list of solvers!
- Grant Fikes ****
- Cindy Heisler ****
- Giovanni Pagano ****
- Kevin Orfield ****
- Stephen Potter ****
- Yossi Fendel ****
- Lynn Sweeney *
- Chris Kochmanski ****
- Sam Levitin ****
- Richard Basuk ****
- David Plass ****
- David Cole ****
- Tyler Hinman ****
- Alex Sisti ****
- Morgan Chase ****
- Laura-Leigh Mohr ****
Now if you just happen to still be stumped on this meta-crossword, head below the break for the answers, as well as a few solvers' comments!
Keeping the title "He Wears Many Hats" in mind, there are four HATs hidden in the grid, highlighted above in light orange. Look underneath these string of letters to find that these HATs are being "worn" by chunks of letters, highlighted above in blue, that ultimately spell out DAVY CROCKETT, which is the answer to the Bonus Puzzle!
Solver Sam Levitin gave this praise: "What a satisfying AHA moment. I was really thrown for a while, confused by the dupe of LEON/LEONARDODAVINCI, especially having just done a puzzle where the disagreement between singular and plural related to the meta mechanism. [He was referring to Matt Gaffney's "Where's the Rest?", which the Wall Street Journal (AKA 50-Down) published a few days prior to mine]
Then I saw the HATTER in SHATTEREDDREAMS, thought about the Mad Hatter, and started looking for other hats. Didn't find CAP or TOQUE, then I saw the other HATs."
Solver David Plath had no problem solving this puzzle, saying "This meta had a similar mechanism as another puzzle on the [XWord] Muggles forum so I had a leg up. Also, I've been doing cryptics for a long time so "WEARS" in the title was a big hint to me."
Solver Yossi Fendel came back after a long absence to say "Very nice meta. Thank you for sharing it. I'd love to see more."
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