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Solution

Hey everyone, and welcome to Week 91! Today’s puzzle is more or less a themeless with one exception. Don’t overthink it, and don’t go looking for a hidden message. I posted by mission statement about this puzzle on Twitter.

So, print it out, and enjoy it while you’re watching the Super Bowl.

Some weeks ago, right before the MIT Mystery Hunt which I talked about here, I posted a meta so let’s talk about it.

The answer to this puzzle was an alumnus of MIT who would make a good seventh theme entry to this puzzle, and this puzzle provided six famous people, highlighted in the grid with Stata Center colors.

16A – [*#10 on FC Barcelona] = LIONEL MESSI
22A – [*”Tristesse Etude” composer] = FREDERIC CHOPIN
31A – [*Noted pink shirt and undies wearer] = TOM CRUISE
40A – [*Co-director of “Singin’ in the Rain”] = GENE KELLY
45A – [*Artist of “Langlois Bridge at Arles”] = VINCENT VAN GOGH
58A – [*Jed Bartlet’s actor] = MARTIN SHEEN

With the title of “Tall Order”, I hoped you’d Google the heights of these folks to possibly arrange them in height order. Turns out, these six guys are all 5’7″. So, today’s answer would be an MIT alum with that same height.

There are several lists on the Internet of 5’7″ celebrities, but a much easier method would be to Google “five foot seven inches MIT” or something of the like, and hopefully you’d discover OLIVER SMOOT, a man who as a student, was used to measure a bridge there in Cambridge in units of himself, as a 5’7″ man. A nice history of Mr. Smoot can be found [here].

The instructions were to simply provide an MIT alum who would make a good seventh entry, and so there were a few solvers that found other heights. Paul Krugman and Ray Kurzweil were both found twice by some solvers, and those answers would of course be accepted.

By the way, the clue [Alma mater of this meta’s answer] was found at 57-Across, but probably better notated as 5’7″-Across.

Altogether, 51 readers submitted the right answer. Congrats to those who got it! This week’s randomly selected winner was Regina Cassidy. She will join Jon Delfin, John L. Wilson, Jim Quinlan, Eric Maddy, Andy Keller, David Cole, Roger Barkan, Patricia Miga, Erik Agard, Charles Montpetit, Steve Blais, Mike Ruslander, Matthew Breen, David Stein, Justin Weinbaum, Tyler Hinman, and Kathy Johnescu in a future section of the site. Congrats Regina!

Have a good week everyone!

Chris