Puzzle Notes

Hi friends: 

After a couple tortuous (hopefully not torturous) weeks, Francis Heaney is up with a 3/5 difficulty puzzle called "Celebrity Jeopardy!"

Thanks to all 271 entrants to last week's meta contest for BEQ's puzzle. Jason Vesey and Gun Onen are the randomly-selected winners. (You might have noticed that I didn't announce a deadline, so all submissions until Tuesday morning were accepted). Solution is attached, or you can read a more detailed review at Crossword Fiend as of this morning. Jason and Gun each win a three-month subscription extension and, as promised, a special prize--a couple of AVCX pins featuring BEQ himself! They look like this:

Thanks as well for all your comments about the puzzle, including "I'd love to see 'Weave'" and "I should truck out to Somerville and give BEQ a hug." But the best notes always come from those submitting their first-ever meta solutions; it's a big accomplishment, you should feel proud!

Kameron Austin Collins has a sparkly new themeless next week.

Tx,

Ben and the AVCX crew [avxwords.com, @AVCXWord]