MEOW#174 / PCC#29 "Cover Story"

Answer explanation: there are four cat breeds in the puzzle with the same clue "one that meows"... they are in grid order SIAMESE, PERSIAN, BURMESE, ABYSSINIAN... each of these cats is named after a place with an old name (as hinted by the central entry FORMERLYKNOWNAS)... if we take the new country names for these places we get SIAM --> THAILAND, PERSIA --> IRAN, BURMA --> MYANMAR, ABYSSINIA --> ETHIOPIA... the first letters of the new country names = TIME... the title of the puzzle "Cover Story" hints at Time Magazine covers... Taylor Swift (referenced in 52-Down) appeared on the cover of Time magazine as 2023 Person of the Year with her cat Benjamin Button, making him the answer to the meta

Constructor notes: this puzzle was inspired by @JeffsPuzzles... I was doing one of his crosswords and his clue for SIAMESE was “cat named for a country that no longer exists” and I confidently plopped in PERSIAN with no crosses at all only to find out that I was wrong T_T... I thought hey that's pretty nifty and decided to look up if there were any other cat breeds like that...

That was fun! And I loved the easter eggs at 42A and 52D :-)

Nice "Aha" once I realized that no celebrity had a pet named "Time" ... The Easter eggs helped me get there. =)

Nice and very MEOW! ARTIST and FORMERLYKNOWNAS as had me looking for Prince's cats at first.

That was terrific!

Very cool, Phil. But strangely, some website my search led to identified one of Tay-tay’s other cats, Meredith Grey, as the one on the Time cover. Hence, my initial incorrect answer. Other stuff in the clues and grid, though, were pointing to Benjamin Button, so I should have gone with that cat’s name first. Thanks!

Very clever puzzle. Actually had an Abyssinian for many years, and it was the best cat ever. More like a dog in cat clothing. Thanks for the puzzle (and memories), Phil!

Nice puzzle -- and I love the wide-open grid, which is hard to do with a meta.

I got it entirely be the 20A clue mentioning Benjamins and the 42A being a reference to the movie Benjamin Button and 6A mentioning buttons. I google search on celebrity pets. (That's a THING????)Yield that Taylor Swift (52D) has a cat named BENJAMIN BUTTON so I figured that'd be worthy of a first try WAG and was a bit surprised to get it.

Dead end was googling ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PIEMAN

That was clever! Took me a while to realize that the center long clue “formerly known as” referred to the cat breeds/countries and NOT “Prince”! Guessed his pet’s names first! Lol! Driving to Charleston and had the AHA moment! Then google Celebrity pet on cover of Time magazine! Then realized some of the clues ( like the Brad Pitt movie) were Easter Eggs too! Thanks, Philip!

It was also Brad Pitt's character in 42-A

Fun puzzle and great Easter Eggs -- and I don't usually find those! Thanks, Phil!

Almost immediately got to TIME, no google needed. Then I actually tried TIME, just in case there was some celebrity cat of that name. Then did a fair amount of additional googling various alternatives, and finally gave up. Came back later and noticed the title and thought maybe it was worth googling TIME and cover and cat. Almost didn't bother, because it seemed pretty speculative, but it turned out to work. Of course once I found out the name of the cat the Easter eggs confirmed it. I do like the path to TIME, very clever. Fun stuff, thanks.

Interesting

Google is so smart. Put in "Time magazine cover with a celebrity pet" and voila! Thanks, great puzzle!

I would never have gotten this in a million years without @woozy's help. I fell hard down the Prince rabbit hole and learned about his cat Paisley, his doves Majesty and Divinity, and his ex-partner's dog Max. Then I broadened my horizons and found Saudi Prince Abdullah and his horse Frankel. I got Time Magazine, cover story, celebrity pet, but I don't know how you're supposed to jump from there to Taylor Swift.

Tried MJ’s pet “Bubbles” as a WAG. That was Bad. Then looked up Time mag and there was a Cover Story about Jane Fonda, so plugged in her dog Tulea… that didn’t Work Out. Finally figured the clue for “Karma” was just too much of a hint, et voila! Thanks PC!

Someone named Cate Gardner has a pet raven named Time.

But after I while I looked at Time cover archives. Missed all the Easter eggs until now.

It’s pretty astonishing there are four FKA countries connected to cat breeds. Well done Phil!

Got the TIME answer quickly, but as I’m completely oblivious to all things Taylor Swift (and don’t look at magazines much), I just had to google google google some questions about famous animals on the cover of time (apparently they do a lot of dog photos…). Not until I saw some people posing with their giant dogs around their shoulders (and read why they were doing this) did I realize they were imitating a famous cover photo… of Swift and her fur buddy! (Making 42A and 52D great hints — and, I suspect, several other entries if I knew anything about TS!). Fun puzzle even for a non-fan!

I wasn't sure if the cat names were the themers or whether they were "covering" for something else; also didn't see what to do with them. So I just googled Taylor's pets and there was the ragdoll's name -- totally fit in with all the references in the grid that woozy and others have mentioned. I figured the Story in the title referred to the Fitzgerald short story which I'm more familiar with than the movie. But now that I understand there's a route to TIME, that just adds to the Easter-egg-ness because of time running backwards for the character. Very nice, Phil!

very fun...thanks Phil!

What a fun puzzle! Clues EVERYWHERE and in the end (and you all know you did it) a cover with Taylor and one ADORABLE cat (how MEOWish!). Phillip certainly made this one a "chase the laser" except of course in the end you actually do catch the laser.

Wow!!! What a perfect meta for MEOW! Very cool to fine 4 cat breeds who fit the necessary theme. And yes I tried entering TIME first just in case. But googled my way to Taylor and Benjamin fairly quickly. Thanks Phil!

Ingenious puzzle, too ingenious for me. I got stuck on Prince, wondered how he might be related to the Pieman, and learned that he had two pet birds (with names I cannot now recall). I completely missed everything else in the metanism.

Hah... I was totally off base, I didn't read the pet part, and was just thinking... celebrity/artist, used to be named Cat... Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam. Whoops!

Printed the puzzle when it was first published. Just ran across it in my briefcase. Fun puzzle. Thanks!