by Chris Morse
Answer: GREENWICH MERIDIAN
Problem: Valentine’s Day Town/​President’s Day Town

In this puzzle, there are 21 pairs of images each of which has a green number and an arrow on it pointing to the right. Additionally, there are 9 more solo images at the bottom. The images at the top are in order of that number and the 9 images at the bottom are random. Each of these is a clue to a portion of a phonetic charade (cf. shah raid) that can be made up from 2 or 3 of the images. These charades all make world capitals, and the first parts and last parts of the charades are all parts of the paired images, so you can make a looping chain of all the capitals (by adding in the centers from the single images down below). After the chain is formed, you use the green number and arrow to index into the COUNTRY that follows the one that it is on. When this is done it spells out IT IS GREENWICH MERIDIAN, and the final answer GREENWICH MERIDIAN also makes a loop all away around the globe too.

Here are the image IDs in order as listed in the puzzle:

  • ELLIE (Kemper); BOW [1]
  • KEY; GABBO [1]
  • RINSE; (Aaron) BURR [1]
  • BOULE; LIZ (Lemon) [1]
  • (Rob) LOWE; NUDE [1]
  • REST; BELLE [2]
  • TREES; HOE [2]
  • LYNNE (Thigpen); CHI [3]
  • (Jonathan) TAH; POUR [4]
  • (Louise) ROBEY; TOKE [4]
  • DEW; (J.S.) BACH [4]
  • (Captain) EO; OZ (from Buffy) [4]
  • COUP; CANNES (Film Festival) [5]
  • PAN; (Bill) NYE [5]
  • ARA; HELL [6]
  • KAA; CUB [6]
  • BUN; BOO [6]
  • NEIGH; CAT [7]
  • (Yogi) BERRA; LOU (Gehrig) [8]
  • ROE; RA [9]
  • BAHT; (Mama) CASS [13]

  • KNEE
  • CAR
  • GOAT
  • (Michael) MANN
  • RHONE
  • MOE (Szyslak)
  • SOCK
  • TAUPE
  • SINK

  • BACH (4) + COUP = Baku = Azerbaijan (7) = I
  • CANNES (5) + BERRA = Canberra = Australia (4) = T
  • LOU (8) + SOCK + KAA = Lusaka = Zambia (5) = I
  • CUB (6) + BOULE = Kabul = Afghanistan (8) = S
  • LIZ (1) + BUN = Lisbon = Portugal (6) = G
  • BOO (6) + CAR + REST = Bucharest = Romania (1) = R
  • BELLE (2) + MOE + PAN = Belmopan = Belize (6) = E
  • NYE (5) + ROBEY = Nairobi = Kenya (2) = E
  • TOKE (4) + EO = Tokyo = Japan (5) = N
  • OZ (4) + LOWE = Oslo = Norway (4) = W
  • NUDE (1) + ELLIE = New Delhi = India (4) = I
  • BOW (1) + GOAT + TAH = Bogota = Colombia (1) = C
  • POUR (4) + TAUPE + RINSE = Port-au-Prince = Haiti (1) = H
  • BURR (1) + LYNNE = Berlin = Germany (4) = M
  • CHI (3) + ROE = Cairo = Egypt (1) = E
  • RA (9) + BAHT = Rabat = Morocco (3) = R
  • CASS (13) + TREES = Castries = Saint Lucia (9) = I
  • HOE (2) + KNEE + ARA = Honiara = Solomon Islands (13) = D
  • HELL (6) + SINK + KEY = Helsinki = Finland (2) = I
  • GABBO (1) + RHONE + NEIGH = Gaborone = Botswana (6) = A
  • CAT (7) + MANN + DEW = Kathmandu = NEPAL (1) = N