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Welcome everyone to Week 47! It’s now time to finally look at the the meta from two weeks ago, so let’s do it!

Also, if you tuned in for the first 30 minutes this blog post went live, sorry for the odd incompletion. Some strange draft of the post went live instead of the full post, but thankfully WordPress had the full version on autosave.

This puzzle was looking for an appropriate six-letter word, and the puzzle didn’t really have any theme answers, except for one 15-letter entry 40A – [Intersection locations] = STREET CROSSINGS.

The other grid entries didn’t really have many interesting things to say, but hopefully this entry helped lead you where you needed to go, with the synonyms CROSSING/Intersection/”Meeting” being found in the puzzle or its title, the word “street” is where you needed to go.

While the words in the grid didn’t hide that much, there were 12 clues in the puzzle whose first word was a word that can precede “street”.

17A [Easy target for auto insurers] / 1D [Bourbon container] = (S)PORTS CAR / CA(S)K

4A [Elm City collegian] / 7D [Wall sized movie theater name] = YAL(I)E / (I)MAX

16A [“Coronation Ode” composer Edward] / 11D [Main shopping location in ancient Greece] = EL(G)AR / A(G)ORA

68A [Fleet detector] / 54D [Baker supply that comes in squeeze tubes] = SO(N)AR / ICI(N)G

72A [Sesame seed snack] / 59D [Side lot, e.g.] = H(A)LVA / ARE(A)

65A [Back of the $1 bill insignia] / 62D [“E” of BPOE] = GREAT SEA(L) / E(L)KS

These twelve streets intersect at six different letters, and reading these letters from left to right, and top then bottom, you get the word SIGNAL, which is found at street intersections.

So, 15 readers submitted “signal”. Congrats to those who got it, since this certainly was a trickier meta puzzle than usual. This week’s randomly selected winner was Erik Agard. He will join Jon Delfin, John L. Wilson, Jim Quinlan, Eric Maddy, Andy Keller, David Cole, Roger Barkan, and Patricia Miga in a future section of the site. Congrats Erik!

So, a few notes before I’m done with the post here:

-For those who didn’t get this week’s meta, don’t worry. The one that will celebrate the 50th puzzle on this blog will be coming up, and it will be easier.
-Themeless Nine will make its debut in two weeks, since I’m taking next week off. My first cousin is getting married next weekend, so I have zero idea how much time I’ll have, so I’ll be back the next week for a new puzzle. However, I will have some educational stuff next Sunday, so be sure to tune in for that.
-Unfortunately, that educational stuff will not be an “X-word file”. I like having breaks on the blog, and I love that “X-word files” are a great way to use those breaks. However, I’ve been putting out a LOT of feelers for interviews that have gone nowhere. As of this writing, I have tried to arrange interviews regarding ASTA, OMOO, EPEE, ULEE, and ERTE, and the people I’ve emailed did not reply. Don’t worry, I will continue to do this interview session, and I sincerely hope that I’ll be able to interview noted experts on each of those 5 topics (and more!), but I just haven’t been able to get the right people with my recent attempts. But soon, I promise!

Thanks everyone, and enjoy the puzzle.

Chris