The answer to the meta is something as certain as death and taxes (but related more to the latter than the former!)
The seed for this puzzle was the title, which actually came to me one morning as I was waking up. I guess you could call it the detritus of a dream! It took quite a while to work out how that could be made into a meta; it took even longer to make it work. The answer to the meta is something as certain as death and taxes (but related more to the latter than the former!) Answer & explanation: https://xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=149508#p149508
Check out "The MOAT Mini Pack of Marching Bands" here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html. US$5 gets you 7 Marching Bands which, hard enough on their own, now contain metas too. And once again there's a mega-meta!
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Mikey G solved 2023-11-28T06:45:04.534Z
Tom Wilson solved 2023-11-28T06:53:18.714Z
Laura M solved 2023-11-28T08:08:18.956Z
Berto solved 2023-11-28T12:00:23.794Z
BarbaraK solved 2023-11-28T13:23:35.031Z
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Hector solved 2023-11-28T16:33:44.731Z
whimsy solved 2023-11-28T16:53:51.988Z
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Comments
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Laura M 🤓8:58 · 2023-11-28T08:12:28.362Z
Loved it, thanks! Re 37D: [nods knowingly] Ah, is he.
Nice one, Ben! Took a bit, but ultimately found the way. Had to Google RU OK Day to see what that was all about, and it seems like a great idea. Also, loved 4D -- one of my favorite movies. Thanks for the puzzle!
Had to grid check because I had Jason SegAL instead of Segel. I always get that wrong. STEVEN Segal, Jason Segel. (Never heard of LARES - the crossing word - so that didn’t help.. LARAS looked plausible to me. Also got very stuck using ROW for ACROSS (picked out of the 27A cluster, which seemed odd, but the meaning worked so well I stopped looking), and also used RUST for ENCRUST (instead of SOIL), which was dumb because the word was actually RUSTED. So with those gaffs, I had BARKFEER, forever. Obviously I finally worked it out. This was a terrific puzzle! You are becoming quite the pro, Ben! (PS - isn’t it Rooney Mara, not Mara Rooney?)